Western Writers of America conference followup

I just returned from a week in Sacramento at the Western Writers of America annual meeting.  I am a new member and a first time attendee of the conference but in the true fashion of our American West I was treated like an old friend.  This is the same organization where giants of western literature including Louis L'amore, Tony Hillerman and Don Coldsmith welcomed today's luminaries of western writing.

Dusty Richards with 145 books published presided over the group with gracious good humor.  Chris Enss, an authority on women of the west was a whirlwind volunteer and instructed on the finer points of book marketing. Johnny D. Boggs demonstrated the energy it takes to be the editor of the Roundup Magazine in addition to authoring his own novels.  I enjoyed interacting with historians Rod Miller and Will Bagley both of whom publish important non-fiction histories.

It was heartwarming to find publishers who were generous with their time. Anyone who writes a book should appreciate how difficult it is to be a publisher in today's business environment.  I found my conversations with Tiffany Schofield from Five Star Publishing and Gary Goldstein from Kensington Publishing to be enjoyable and illuminating.

This is a fun bunch of folks to be around.  The WWA is a group of authentic, friendly, helpful and fun-loving people who make the serious and solitary business of writing and publishing appear effortless. I suspect  the WWA convention will become an annual pilgrimage.