Writers, sometimes a solitary and reserved bunch. Writers conferences, not for the faint of heart: appointments to put your manuscript on trial with editors or agents.  Boston, known for academics and intellectuals, not so much for warmth and hospitality.  Put them all together, you might expect a rather intimidating experience.  And yet, the 8th Annual Grub Street Writers Conference, “The Muse and the Marketplace” is somehow fun, convivial, and dare I say, inspirational?  Two days at the Park Plaza in Boston, a new venue this year, choices of workshops on everything from “The Poetry of Prose” to “Creating a Web Presence”; editors and agents out to scout the talent. And lots of presenters, writers themselves, who seem truly dedicated to communicating ideas on craft, as well as perspectives on both the muse and the marketplace.

 Grub Street, the organization, is no literary salon.  It’s named after the street of hack writers in 19trh century London, implying:  dirty, sweaty, “grubby”, at least ink-stained fingertips. At the conference, the divine muse was demoted: to be found less in secluded retreat and more in getting down to work with shirt sleeves rolled up. As keynote speaker, Ann Patchett, put it, “sticking your butt to the chair”.  Inspiration comes from perspiration. The marketplace was likewise kicked around: the odds of publishing so remote, only the few, already successful horses to be backed; hopeless for the rest of us. EXCEPT: the market is ravenous for new, good work, and there are more ways to get there than ever: self-publishing, electronic publishing, creating your own web-presence and finding your own audience.  Much, much to think about.

 Yes, there are aspects of support group - sharing in the struggles and tribulations of writing and trying to get published. Writing is, at times, painful. Actual pain, of sitting for stretches of time, strained eyes, neck, shoulders, wrists, especially when the drive is on.  Pain of work rejected; negative critiques, and the self-recognition of a piece of writing that just doesn’t work.  Pain of hopes dashed, jealously, uncertainty.  It helps to hear others’ struggles, stories, difficulties, unfair treatment, depression, etc. And to speak of our own. Yes, this we have in common. 

 But there is also joy, and Grub Street recognizes this.  The joy of interesting problems to write about and to solve in our writing; the joy of discovery, finding out by writing what we didn’t know we knew or felt; the joy of recognizing the beauty in someone else’s writing, and appreciating the work that went into it, as well as the mysteries of the creative process.  There  is the joy in finding that we have the ability to write what we have to say in the best possible way, if only we believe and work toward it.  Maybe the best part of the Grub Street conference is the meeting together, rubbing of shoulders of serious, often shy and solitary writers from the corners of New England, who can be observed laughing, smiling, nodding heads over something that only writers can truly appreciate.