posted
This is probably inappropriate because it doesn't have to do with writing. Well, not strictly. But if you would please indulge me I am very curious.
Where do we hail from? As citizens of Hatrack, I mean. I am curious to know how diverse this forum is. And to tie this to the subject, what your local writing market is. Obviously we can all submit a novel to Tor. But on a local basis do you have a writing market?
I am from Salt Lake City UT, and I am ...somewhat unfortunately, stuck at BYU for the time being. I am 20 years old and no, we don't have a large writing market, that is strictly local, other than the newspaper of course.
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I am currently living in Las Cruces, NM. Im originally from New Bedford, MA but spent most of my life just north of Orlando, FL. Im 26 years old, married and currently seeking a degree in finance from New Mexico State University. I am currently and Engineer at White Sands Missile Range but am looking for a career change.
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I see no problem with this topic as long as we tie it into writing.
I'm 20, from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. I'm not sure about the writing market here, but since it is a major city in Australia, I'd believe there would be quite large. I also believe that several of Australia's most successful authors got their big "breakthrough" in Melbourne, so I may be lucky to be here
I don't study and all I've learnt about writing is done outside of school. I've been writing since around August '04.
Leigh, That's cool. I thought I was the youngest person here. Now I don't feel so...overwhelmed, and I have two friends in Melbourne.
trailmix, I respect engineering. My father is an electrical engineer, and I can understand completely why you'd want a career change. But the fact that you muscled through so much math, well, that says something.
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Zero, on a forum you should never feel overwhelmed. Some people who act all mature may be seriously immature in real life, like myself I'll admit it! Anyways, but we're all the same here, writers or if you're on a fansite, you're a fan of said site. On Hatrack we're the same, writers striving to improves ourselves and make the strides to get published, some of our ambitions are beyond merely being published and I don't doubt that any of us could do that. So don't feel overwhelmed, we're all in the same situation.
Posts: 384 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I'll jump in. I'm 37 and living outside Grand Rapids, MI. I've written since I was ten but never considered it more than a hobby until last year. Unfortunately this means that I write in short spurts around other obligations (my four young children). Still I have the goal of publication on an ongoing basis- as the stories keep amassing in my head. I'm not worried about markets in my general area. That's what the post is for. But I am only two hours out of Chicago so that's always good.
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I also am 20 years old. I live in Warrensburg, Missouri, a college town, but I'm not going to college. Instead, I work long hours at the local hospital as a nurse technician. Very long hours. 60+ of em just this week.
Oh well, at least I'll have no trouble paying my bills.
There are several newspapers in the area that I'm interested in writing for. I just don't feel like I'm ready to take that step with my writing yet. There's also a few local magazines, but none that I'd want to write for. There's a writing club out here that self-publishes an annual collection of their stories and poems. I don't know how good the group is, but it meets during the day (bad for me, I work nights.) And the youngest person in the group is twice my age. I'd feel a little intimidated amidst that group, I'm sure. *nervous grin*
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Well, right now I'm forty-five, writing since I was fourteen without selling, but still plugging away at it. One of these days I may be more mature than I am, but it seems in certain aspects I'm still waiting. Some of you younger types seems to have made more progress in this "maturity" thing than me...
Right now domiciled in Cape Coral, Florida...but moved long ago now from Poughkeepsie, New York. Like a lot of people 'round me down here, I'm a transplant.
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I'm 50 years old (been on Hatrack for nearly two years) and live in The Dalles, Oregon. My current WIP has been a fantasy novel, but I'm increasingly getting an itch to write a historical novel set in this area. The Dalles was once one of the most bustling towns on the west coast, the end of the overland Oregon Trail, the location of Fort Dalles and the military during the Indian wars, goldminers hunting gold in central Oregon and Idaho, Chinese railroad workers, mountain men, and was also a central site for Native American fishing at Celilo Falls for over 10,000 years. Kit Carson, Mark Twain and General Grant all passed through the town. There HAS to be a great story in that somewhere. While I have access to archived history documents, the amount of research into writing an accurate historical novel is daunting. But the story in my head began speaking to me thirty years ago and hasn't gone away.
Posts: 2026 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia and have lived here all my life, with the expection of a temporary 2-year move to Baltimore. My father came from Grundy, a little town deep in the Appalachia. My mother's parents came from Saluda, a town not too far from the Chesapeake.
Unfortunately, I am ignorant of writing markets, even locally. I haven't reached the point where I need such awareness.
Addendum. 35. Married. The only thing close to being published was when the local paper printed my response along with several others in regard to an article on outsourcing and globalism.
[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited January 25, 2007).]
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I have been on this earth for almost 32 years. My father is a German immigrant, and he joined the Army to get his green card. He met my mother in immigration, she hailed from Ireland, Ulster to be exact
My father being in the Army we moved around a lot, but was born in Detroit. At 18 while living in Colorado, I joined the Navy. Six years of service, retired in San Diego, but continued to move around, taking sales job after sales job.
Finally last years I got tired of moving around so damn much, I settled in Denver. I love the mountains, ad Colorado is exquisite. Me and my business partner/girlfriend are opening our own coffee shop/bookstore.
Denver has a lovely market, mostly self help and western. Sci Fi has a bit of a growing market here, being the host of the Mile High Con. Three universities in the area feed the need for people to read. And we even have a big time old New York agent that opened an office downtown. Several Newspapers on the front range, but no magazines that I know of.
[This message has been edited by Hookt_Un_Fonix (edited January 25, 2007).]
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I'll be 57 in less than a week and live near Dayton Ohio. The writing market is what you make of it. I've published articles in local newspapers and national magazines (often with "copies" as pay, but it's still being published) and national newsletters. Some of the articles were interviews, some investigative, some educational ("how-to" type things), etc. I haven't published any fiction except fanfiction (years ago, before the Internet, in hard copy. Since the Internet, online). I'm working on a series of fantasy novels aimed at real-life publication, the first of which is actually the fifth novel I've written (others were fanfiction and one was a children's book I wrote years ago that I didn't market to the right kind of publisher. Now that I know more, I may try rewriting it and marketing it again). I also ghost-wrote a memoir for my father, which I'm thinking of either making a novel or a screenplay. And I'm self-taught as a writer - my degree is in music, but I've been a professional sculptor for 11 years, and am now combining scuplting and writing. (And the writing helps the sculpting career - I write great press releases for my art business. )
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28. Married, one child. Currently and temporarily live in Atlanta, Georgia, but dying to return to the sweet promised land of the upper midwest.
As an attorney, I have the privilege of writing for a living. Not fiction--per the ethical rules of the bars of all 50 states and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure--but a lot of it is still crafting narrative. After I get home, run, work the heavy bag, hang out with the wife, and play with the kid, my nightly struggle is to stay awake long enough to apply some of that practice and crank out a few hundred words in my WIP.
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"Hailing" here used in the sense of "transmitting"?
I'm in Provo for the time being. The locality doesn't affect my writing. It does seem to reduce the degree and severity of my interpersonal conflicts with most humans, though. Particularly with cops. Provo cops seem somewhat more tolerant and feel less fear of the unknown, which reduces considerably the degree of nuisance they present.
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Actually, Zero, there's a fairly broad market/community (considering the size of the population) here in Utah. Several publishers, a few locally published magazines, BYU's own spec-fic quarterly (I forget the name). Local book publishers--like Deseret Book and (brain flatulence, I'm not coming up with the other one) are open to more than just church-related material. More and more so. Deseret Book recently expressed interest in expanding their publication arm to include a broader range of genres--all adhering to basic principles of morality, of course.
Shimmer is a fast-growing market for spec-fic that's published out of SLC, though it's not strictly a local publication.
The State, through it's humanities office, holds an annual novel contest for local writers only.
BYU holds its LTUE Conference with loads of great classes for writers.
There's the League of Utah Writers with chapter groups in many counties, Westminster College hosts the Writers@Work workshop, Kathleen is (or has been) on the board of an LDS writer's organization--sorry KDW, the name has slipped my ever-more-slippery mind.
I'm in Ogden, Utah and I'll be *GASP!* 40 in a month. And there shall be wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth! I'm a mom with three home-schooled kids.
And, at 20, Leigh is not the youngest here. Not by far. Remember two things: 1. No one but the angel on your shoulder checked your ID when you registered here. I'd probably need more than my fingers and toes to count the teeny weanies who are lying about their age; 2. Age in a community like this one is not nearly as important as maturity, and anyone who lies about their age to be here shows an extreme lack of either.
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I live in a small Ohio town, population 1031. The largest town in the area is Lima. I belong to a small writers group, which is run by the senior editor of the county newspaper. There are reporters in the group, three writers with published historical novels and a few people like me--unpublished, but hopeful.
I started writing for pleasure in high school and didn't pursue publication until a year or so ago. I've written a series of six fantasy novels plus, but not on purpose. The story started out "just for fun" and has kept on going. I tried getting the first novel published, but no luck. Getting this series published is my dream, but I've backed up for now and am working on short stories. I'm not sure if this is the right way to go, but I have to get my name out there some how.
I'm 37 years old, with two young children. I'm a stay-at-home mom now, but I've had several jobs and two careers before this. I was an elementary school teacher for a while, but found the job more rewarding in theory than in reality. I later took a job in insurance and finance. That was more suited to me. I wrote a couple of manuals for my employer related to annuity laws and technical procedures, so if I can count these, then I've been published twice. LOL.
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I'm 36 and I live in the sub-Baltimoreal zone of Maryland. I don't know that I will ever submit anything to TOR, though their Forge label is a possibility. I sometimes have interesting spec-fic ideas, but Card is pretty much the only spec-fic author I've read much of. I'm more interested in his character works, and I'm afraid I'm leaning toward Christian Chic Lit at the minute. I don't know if there is such a thing as Christian Chic Lit, but I bet it will be huge.
If I'd done better in that screenwriting competition, I might have gone in the feature screenplay direction, but I think for now I'll go back to working a novel.
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41, Phoenix, swamped with too much to do. Can't attend the Arizona Authors meetings because I have conflicts.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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I'm 23, from Scotland, UK. I just got into writing recently and I find this forum very useful. There isn't much of a market for SF/F in Scotland but it's a small country so I expect to look further afield when I finally manage to finish writing something.
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I live in Independence, MO, right outside of Kansas City. I've been here for most of my life. I'm 25 now and I've written a fantasy novel (hopefully will finish it soon and start shopping for a publisher). I've also written a few short stories. Nothing published yet, I've been married for a year and a half, and I have a new baby. So, very busy, but I try to keep my writing going.
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Yow! Isn't that down there in the dangerous-to-breath zone? (Though maybe not, come to think of it. I can remember being in Chicago one time when we heard the wind chill was down around -70. Can that be right?)
Anyway, I'm in Salt Lake City, a grandmother, cat-lover, and not the oldest one here (yay!)
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-70 wind chill is certainly possible in Chicago. I lived west of there, and once with a -75F windchill (temp -25F or so) they even let us out of school. Don't think it's gets much worse than that though.
-35 is rough, C of F. Brrr. I think that's cold enough that you can throw liquid in the air and have it turn to ice crystals before it hits ground.
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Bah...I'm probably going to get banned for this, but Zero, you're not the youngest here...I more likely than not am the youngest.
I'm almost...almost 18 (which is...sadly...the minimum age for this forum, but I've wanted to contribute so much and be able to discuss things with people who can help me along with my hopeful writing career) and I hie from the DFW area of Texas. I have no idea about the local writing market, but the few people I've either told about or shown my stories have loved them and thought that I should continue writing. Which is half the reason I, sadly, lied about my age to get into this forum to discuss things. I'm an avid reader and would love to be able to contribute to the literary world someday.
Please Ms. Woodbury, I know I'm not yet the minimum age for this forum, but please don't ban me. But if you must, I won't feel offended and I'll merely come back when I've turned 18. My apologies for my lying.
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Well, all right, I'll do this too (especially since I haven't posted anything for a few months and there are doubtless people here who've never seen my username before).
I live in North Carolina, and I peddle my knowledge for money (sounds somewhat filthy, doesn't it?). That is, I'm a private tutor. I'm 53, and I don't think I'm the oldest person here--I know there are times when I haven't been, but I don't know for sure if any of those other people are active right now (I haven't been reading any posts for a few months, either). I've been writing off and on (but mostly off) for about 40 years, have finished one novel and am about halfway through the second. I was an OSC Bootcamp attendee in 2001.
I should say that, even though I'm an old geek, I tend to act like an immature, goofy kid, but only off-line, so I don't feel bad about participating on this forum. Here I tend to be reasonable, staid, and perhaps downright boring. Sorry, I can't help it.
Oh, local markets? I don't even think about it. With the internet and mail, everthing seems local to me, aside from local papers and such.
[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited January 29, 2007).]
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I'm still here, Rick, so I still out-age you. I may even out-goofy you.
My WIP, a space fantasy, is ready for market. At least that's what I keep thinking until I start fiddling with it again. And again. And again. I think it's a form of deer-in-the-headlights syndrome.
Cll, I'm near Port Huron, but I've got family out your way. Would you be interested in meeting for coffee?
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Hi, I'm a 28 year old guy from Newcastle, in the North-East of England. I hadn't written anything for about five years but recently decided to get round to writing my own book. (something I've meant to do since I was about 15) This site has been extremely usefull so far.
Posts: 85 | Registered: Jan 2007
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I want to clarify the "18 and over" "rule". It was never intended to restrict access. It was simply intended to make it clear that this forum was for the benefit of adult writers, and therefore members under 18 would only be tolerated as long as we found them reasonably mature and capable of meaningful contribution.
Since KDW has decided to take a somewhat firmer approach with the registration process for a while, she's apparently decided that the "for writers 18 and over" notice isn't necessary.
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I'm 18, male, from Hudson, OH. It's freezing here and we're on the edge of the (lake effect) snow belt. I never thought about writing markets. Not a problem in this day and age? Besides I'd have to write something first.
The way I found this forum, the 'Writers Workshops' button, still says it's for 18 and over:
posted
37 here. Busy mother of three children ages 14, 11 and 8. Hm, divorced..quite happily at that. I live in Pleasant Valley, NY...about five minutes away from Poughkeepsie, NY. I actually grew up in Poughkeepsie; so yeah, I am fairly rooted here I think.
I have always loved writing and reading for as long as I can remember; but I think I was far too busy being immature to really focus on my dreams. I was busy as well, having children..that's always fun! Well, now that I have the desire and am currently working my brain on a regular basis studying to be an Educator, I thought it time to settle down and see how far I can go with my dream of being a published writer.
As for the market..well..there is the Journal as well as some independent groups; but then I am not very far from NYC either. Too bad the tall buildings and city life makes me claustrophobic....
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I'm 35yrs old and for the last ten years have been living in Maine. The wife and I have three children, 10, 7, and 4 (in two months).
I've lived in New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, Florida, New Hampshire, and Maine.
I don't know of any local markets, but I'm not really interested in local markets. I'm writing more for myself, and I'm not worried about trying to publish until I'm happy with what I've got. As a perfectionist, I doubt that will be any time too soon.
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I'm a 48 year old wood worker from Gig Harbor, WA (that's Washington State for those of you east of the Rockies). I make custom furniture one piece at a time for individual clients. My other art is writing. I am struggling with it, I will admit, but hope springs eternal.
I have one wife who somehow remains devoted after more than 25 years, and one very talented daughter who at age 21 has graduated from college and started her own buisiness (and yes, now earns more than I do.) Go figure.
[This message has been edited by thayerds (edited January 28, 2007).]
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I'm being held captive in the hinter lands of mid Michigan. (both families live there and the boss, wife, won't let me leave) I'm 41 father and husband. I am a professional speaker and live out of hotel rooms four days of the week all over the US.
Posts: 106 | Registered: Dec 2006
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Me? Heh I'm from hot sunny Florida. I am 18 and planning to be out at Provo this fall unless the world ends. Seasons, mountains... a winter longer than two weeks in January... oh yeah writing market... thousands(1.5 to be exact)OK so maybe it is the school and local newspapers, but it's still a writing market, sort of...
Posts: 99 | Registered: Jan 2007
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I live in an island in the caribbean , google 'Trinidad and Tobago' . Not sure what my equivilant to your education system level i would be at , but i'm 1 year away from starting a university degree so i guess last years of high school?
Posts: 51 | Registered: May 2006
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Okay time to join the fray and take a break from trial prep.
I'm 37, with two monsters, I mean boys ages 8 and 6. A lawyer when I need to pay bills. Hubby's a lawyer too which means we have some fun war stories. Before you ask, we work in different law firms. We decided a long time ago that working together would end in divorce and/or murder.
I've been living in Northern Virginia for about 15 years now.
ChrisOwens - there are actually people who were born in Richmond? When I went to U of R and the year pre-law school seemed like everyone I met was a northern transplant. It was a proud day when a native told me I was a "damned Yankee" - defined as living in the south for 5 years and refusing to leave.
My folks have a Cabin near Augusta, Maine. So summers are spent "down Maine." I grew up in Dedham, Ma. which has the distinction of having the oldest wood frame house in the U.S.
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>there are actually people who were born in Richmond?
Yep, a handful, but they're there. I do consider myself more 'Mid-Atlanic' than a true 'southerner'. I think the blending northern and southern cultures is very positive--with the expection of rising home prices.
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I'm currently living in Northern California, farther north than Sacramento by a couple hours, and it's a totally different world than the rest of the state, if only because it's quiet. I'll hopefully be out of here in a few months, but until then, I'll enjoy the quiet.
There are a few local writing markets, but none would be interested in what I write. Or I'm not interested in writing what they would publish. <shrug>
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Well, I haven't been a regular participant here in quite some time, so I don't know how valid my contribution to the census is. But let's play anyway.
I'm nineteen, and I joined up here about a year and a half ago. Since that time I haven't disciplined myself enough to actually write and revise and get stuff out. I'm trying.
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I'm 24 and I hail from Kansas City. I've no idea about the market here having just moved here fairly recently. ^_^
Posts: 125 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Anywho, I was born in Baltimore, franc li, at what is now the Seamen/Sailors' hospital (or whatever the heck they renamed it), 21 years ago this past Tuesday.
Yay. I'm legal. Yaaay.
Now I habituate my habits in southeastern Pennsylvania. Yep, Amish country. One becomes acclimated to the smell...eventually.
[Note: edited to include something that involves writing]
Subsequently, most of the local market is consumed by farmers' almanacs, a piece of seemingly Mennonite literature called the 'Fish Wrapper,' and a horrid local newspaper. On the other hand, there is a local who has published children's fiction...can't seem to find the card she gave me, though. Oh well.
Inkwell ----------------- "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited February 09, 2007).]
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Though I haven't posted in ages, I'm still around.
Well, I live in Montevideo, Uruguay. Always have, no idea if I always will. I'm 23-years-old and I for reasons yet unknown to me, I quit writing original fiction and switched back to fan. Yeah, I'm a bad, bad girl.
Nicole
[This message has been edited by Nicole (edited February 09, 2007).]
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I'm a 42 year old geek, does it matter where?
I was born in Southeastern Wisconsin. I attended school in in Southeastern Wisconsin. I met my wife in in Southeastern Wisconsin. I went to college in in Southeastern Wisconsin. I now live and work in in Southeastern Wisconsin. I plan to retire in Alaska.
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I'm a mom with three home-schooled kids.
