This Week in Mother Lodes

From the OC Weekly – October 4, 2002

ASJA Writers Conference

As we orbit outside planet Nine-to-Five, we freelance writers get a sweet satisfaction in dictating out our own workday– or rolling over and going back to sleep– and never having to sit in a room full of cubicles doing sweatshop writing under the evil eye of some doughy-necked Mr. Dumbass. On the downside, freelancing is a desolate profession– no kindred souls around to jaw with and no scandalous-skirted interns wiggling past. It's just you and a stone-mute laptop, day after day. It's like space walking, only with no mothership to come home to.

The American Society of Journalists and authors (ASJA) Writers Conference is a place to come home to. The one-day event is an intensive convergence of themed panels– featuring bestselling authors, major newspaper and magazine editors, award-winning freelance writers, and literary agents from the Left Coast– designed to rocket-boost your career. Topics include "Finding Your Niche: Writing for Specialty Markets," "Writing a Book Proposal that Sells," "Attracting a Literary Agent" and "Secrets of Freelance Success." Keynote speaker is bestselling author Joseph Wambaugh, a former LAPD detective who penned The Onion Field and The Choirboys, among other books, and helped change the face of TV realism with his groundbreaking work on the '70s series Police Story.

And if you like the idea of having someone watching you back, check into joining ASJA. The organization provides muscle for the underdog, fighting for the indie writer's rights and humane wages, while offering extensive perks– regular inside-market information, meetings with elusive editors, and an elitist referral service, among other career chestnuts. ASJA is the mothership of writing organizations.

ASJA Writers Conference happens at UC Irvine, Social Science Hall 100, W. Peltason & Pereira, Irvine, (949) 824-6335; www.asja.org/calendar/irvine02.php. Sat., 8:30a.m.- 5 p.m. $150 advance registration; $165 at the door.

–C.J. Bahnsen