D I R E CTOR Offi ci al Ne w sl et te r of Wr i t e r sвЂ™ Co nfe re nce s & C e n t e r s A Pub l ic at ion of th e A ss oci at ed Wri t ing Pro g ra m s VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1 How to Create Effective Conference Advertising by David Sherwin This is the first in a series of articles about how to successfully market your writing conference. Next issue, we will address how to create effective web pages. E very day, we see adsвЂ”in print, on the radio, on television, via billboards, dragged across the sky by airplanes, wrapped around buses, written across blimps, tattoed on someoneвЂ™s armвЂ”and most of us ignore them. There are just too many to acknowledge. But when itвЂ™s our turn to create advertisements, for our writing conferences or festivals, the tables are turned. We have to think of ourselves in the third person: as we walk down the street, bombarded by advertising, what will attract our attention? While advertising costs can be an added expense to an already tenuous budgetвЂ”especially if your budget is so slim that you canвЂ™t hire a graphic designer to create the adsвЂ”the benefits of a well-researched advertising plan, when coupled with a good advertising design, will help you attract more potential attendees for your writing conference. Part 1 of this article will address the benefits and pitfalls of print advertising, and how to find an effective advertising plan, while Part 2 will discuss ways of creating effective print ads. For marketing, writersвЂ™ conferences can simply draw from their immediate surroundings: the local community, the nearby or sponsoring university, the county or state newspaper, and trade maga- zinesвЂ”and many of them will list information about conferences, provide a link to your website, or write an article about your conference. Often, an effective press release and direct mail campaign will help accomplish these goals. But if your aim is to draw your per thousand readers for your ad, and the ad will be visible for three months. Alternatively, American Poetry Review (APR) charges $855 for a full page. At 15,000 readers, you are paying $57 per thousand readers, and your ad is visible for two months. Does this mean that Story Magazine is a better value for your money? Not necessarily. We have to take many different factors into account: the readership you are trying to reach, how active the readership is (i.e., how often they purchase products or services from ads in that magazine), and the actual size of the ad in the magazine. Students and faculty at the Napa Valley Story, since it only prints WriterвЂ™s Conference. See profile on page 2. fiction, would be a good market for a fiction writing attendees from around the world, conference, while APR would be the three best ways are to create better for a poetry-only confereffective direct mail pieces, web ence. If your conference addressed sites, and print advertising in both, then ads in both publications newspapers and magazines. would also work, although there are other magazines that address Part 1: The Advertising Myth similar audiences. But, if you take the size of the Myth #1: Print advertising is too ads into account and the effecexpensive. tiveness of the magazine layout, your impressions may change. Yes, print advertising can be Story keeps its short fiction comexpensive, especially if you want pletely separate of the advertisto place your ad in high-circulaing, which runs in the front and tion magazines or newspapers. back of the magazine. APR scatThe cost of an ad is based on a ters their ads throughout the magazineвЂ™s circulation and fremagazine, making the advertising quency. Story Magazine, for more visible. Also, a full-page ad example, charges $1,085 for a in APR is 9 3/4вЂќ x 13 1/2вЂќвЂ” full-page advertisement. Since extremely large, since APR is in a their circulation is 40,000 copies, tabloid formatвЂ”while StoryвЂ™s full quarterly, you are paying $27.13 page ad is 4 3/4вЂќ x 7 1/2вЂќ, less continued on page 6 Director Profile: The Napa Valley WriterвЂ™s Conference by Liesl Swogger T he Napa Valley WriterвЂ™s Conference takes place for one week during the last week of July or the first week of August each year in St. Helena, California. They enroll 48 fiction writers and 48 poets each year, and have just added creative nonfiction with an emphasis on personal memoir as a genre. According to Mark Wunderlich, one of two managing directors of the conference, their single largest challenge is raising enough funds to keep the conference solvent. The aim is for tuition costs to remain as low as possible in order to keep the conference accessible. Tuition only covers part of the conferenceвЂ™s costs; the rest is supported by donations solicited from individuals and institutions in the Napa Valley as well as funding from the Poets & Writers Readings/ Workshops program for California. The conference has had a close relationship with local businesses, specifically the wineries, since its inception. Robert Mondavi Vineyards has hosted a reading at their winery since the very first conference, and others have hosted readings year after year as well. This situation has huge benefits for both parties: the conference has a generous host and unique venue for their readings, and the wineries have an opportunity to show off their vineyards and wines. Marketing is an important aspect of any successful conference. Napa Valley advertises its conference in Poets & Writers and Poetry Flash and mails its brochure to the AWP mailing list and a mailing list of their own. The emphasis is on the conferenceвЂ™s small size and the opportunity for participants to work closely with nationally recognized writers in one of the countryвЂ™s most beautiful settings. An additional point to emphasize when marketing a writerвЂ™s conference is the faculty. Napa Valley looks for writers who have a strong national reputation and are known as good teachers. While the conference has faculty who return to teach at the conference regularly, such as Brenda Hillman and Jane Hirshfield for poetry and Michael Cunningham and Christopher Tilghman for fiction, they also develop relationships with potential faculty members on a regular basis. Since summer schedules are booked a year or two in advance, early planning is the key to a successful conference. The conference has always relied on the faculty to help shape its structureвЂ”how the workshops should function, who should be asked to teach, what a fair work load for the faculty isвЂ”and the administration tries to be very responsive to the facultyвЂ™s ideas and D I R E CTOR O ff i c ial ne ws l ett e r of Wr i t e r sвЂ™ C on f e ren ce s & C e n t e r s A pub l ic at i on o f t h e A ss o ci at e d Wri t i n g Pro g ra m s The Director, a biannual publication appearing in the spring and fall, is the official newsletter of WritersвЂ™ Conferences & Centers, the national organization serving directors of writersвЂ™ workshops, conferences, festivals, and centers. WC&C is a division of the Associated Writing Programs. The Director is not for commercial distribution or sale. Our address is: WC&C/AWP, Tallwood House, Mail Stop 1E3, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030. Please submit articles to Carol Jane Bangs, The Marrowstone Institute, Box 92, Nordland, WA 98358. Page 2 вЂў The Director concerns and makes changes accordingly. The faculty are in a position to best respond to the needs of the students. They see the writing the students bring to the workshops firsthand, and are able to tell the administration how the workshops might best respond to the needs and aspirations of the participants. The involvement and commitment on the facultyвЂ™s behalf is vital to the success of the conference. The Napa Valley Conference has divided the administrative duties into two parts: daily responsibilities and advance planning. The daily responsibilities fall under the direction of two managing directors. Those responsibilities are subdivided into poetry (Mark Wunderlich) and fiction (Andrea Bewick). Two program directors, Anne Matlack Evans and Jack Leggett, take care of the overall conference planning process. Planning includes everything from recruiting faculty to making arrangements with local residents to offer rooms in their homes to conference participants who cannot afford local hotel prices. Wunderlich stresses early planning and the soliciation of participantвЂ™s suggestions for improvements in their conferences, but most of all, вЂњremember to have fun when the conference takes off!вЂќ WC&C WC&C COUNCIL OFFICERS Carol Jane Bangs , President [email protected] The Marrowstone Institute EX-OFFICIO Michael Pettit Open Road Writing Workshop THE DIRECTOR EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS P UBLICATIONS INTERN David Sherwin Jason Gray Supriya Bhatnagar Liesl Swogger WC&C and AWP in Kansas City by Carol Jane Bangs President, WC&C Council I tвЂ™s not too early to begin making plans to attend the year 2000 Associated Writing Programs annual meeting in Kansas City, March 29вЂ“April 1. In addition to the WC&C annual council meeting, space and time will be set aside for conference and festival administrators to meet around the table for one or more roundtable peer discussions. An informal social gathering Thursday will provide a chance to вЂ�meet and greetвЂ™ colleagues and guests, and the structure of the conference will make it easy to contact possible faculty writers and presenters. From the beginning, WC&C members have identified the annual meeting as one of the most important services provided with membership. Now, in affiliation with AWP, conference and festival administrators will have both WC&CвЂ™s tradition of informal peer interaction and AWPвЂ™s large schedule of informative pan- els, entertaining readings, and active socialization. One of the highlights of recent AWP meetings has been the Bookfair, with representatives from magazines, presses, and workshops sharing their materials at over 100 tables. WC&C members will have a special table on which to display brochures and other information, whether or not they are able to attend the meeting in person. WC&C WC&F BecomesWC&C by David Fenza, Executive Director L ast year was a transitional year for the members of WC&F. WC&F was dissolved as its own nonprofit corporation, and its former members became members of a division of AWP. This division has been renamed WritersвЂ™ Conferences & Centers (WC&C). This year we we will finish integrating the former members and services of WC&F into our association. We will continue to improve our services to you and add to them as well. Among the improvements that excite us the most are the changes we have made in our Web site. We have added a Web conferencing board to our Web site. This will give you access to various discussion groups and our Job List. Visit our site <www.awpwriter.org> and go to вЂњWeb conferencing.вЂќ The user name and password you enter for yourself will remain valid as long as you remain a member. This new, expanded service replaces WC&FвЂ™s list server on Active Windows. As we improve the Web site, the number of frequent visitors and new visitors continues to increase; so please make sure your information on our calender and directory of conferences is up to date. The Web site is an extremely effective promotional tool. We are now in the process of updating the listing of publications that extend advertising discounts to members of WC&C, and we will send you the update in November. We have designated more staff members to our Career Placement Service. If you need a teacher, visiting writer, or lastminute replacement, we can refer you to hundreds of writers. The improvements we are making in our services and our association are all-encompassing. The board and staff are now working on a strategic plan for the next five years of AWPвЂ™s development. If there is something you would like to see our association address, please contact me or Carol Jane Bangs. We encourage you to participate in the governance of our organization. Information on the next elections to the board can be found in the October/ November issue of The WriterвЂ™s Chronicle. WC&C ETHICS STATEMENT WC&C members agree to conduct their programs according to the highest personal and professional standards and to strive at all times to act with responsibility and good faith in their dealings with fellow members, program participants and faculty, and the community at large. The WC&C Council reserves the right to terminate an existing membership or to deny new membership to any organization or individual judged to have failed to act within these parameters. Fall 1999 вЂў Page 3 Director Profile: Sewanee WritersвЂ™ Conference by Jason Gray the rest of WilliamsвЂ™ estate came to fter ten years of operation, the the conference, and among other Sewanee WritersвЂ™ Conference things, the conference was able to has become one of the most support almost twice as many felrenowned of the summer worklowships and scholarships as it had shops. Having over 1,400 requests in previous years. Because of for applications for 105 slots, the WilliamsвЂ™ support, the conference conference draws some of the best does not have to worry about young writers in the country. breaking even with tuition income. Wyatt Prunty, Director of the The conference is also supported Conference and poet (Unarmed monetarily through scholarships and Dangerous: New & Selected offered by Jack Wahl and George Poems, Johns Hopkins), says the and Anne Borchardt. conference is so successful at drawSpace was also tight. There ing applicants because of the вЂњdiswere вЂњother worthy programs hosttinguished character of faculty, ed by SewaneeвЂќ that needed to be guest editors and visitors.вЂќ Some of the 1999 visitors included John Hollander, Horton Foote, Alice McDermott, Alice Quinn (The New Yorker) and Joseph Parisi (Poetry). But word of mouth, said Mr. Prunty, A workshop at SewaneeWritersвЂ™ Workshop is the best way to attract new attendees. worked around, said Mr. Prunty. Direct mail, if you can get a good He вЂњhad to carve out space for the mailing list, and magazine adverconference. You want to have classtising are also a good idea. He also rooms, lecture halls, eating facilisuggested that conferences can ties close together.вЂќ When space draw a larger and better pool of was at a premium, Mr. Prunty applicants with a strong faculty; credits the good nature of the local the faculty and guests were вЂњthe community for opening up its first order of business, the begindoors to the conference. вЂњThe ning and end of everything.вЂќ community loves writers. Locals Mr. Prunty runs the confercome to the events.вЂќ Indeed, writence with the help of a conference ers and Sewanee have always gone administrator who works 3вЃ„4 time hand in hand, as the community during the year, and an approxiserved as home for so many of mate staff of eight during the sumthem, including Allen Tate, Robert mer. In the beginning, money was Penn Warren, Katherine Anne tight, even with an initial grant Porter, and Randall Jarrell. from the Tennessee Williams Mr. Prunty believes this is Estate to establish a fund encourwhat attracts so many writers and aging creative writing. With the keeps them coming back every death of WilliamsвЂ™ sister in 1996, A Page 4 вЂў The Director year, as well as SewaneeвЂ™s idyllic setting on the Cumberland Plateau. The University of the SouthвЂ™s domain of 10,000 acres provides ample opportunity for hiking, softball games, and other escapes for the visiting writer. вЂњIвЂ™ve been telling everyone what a good experience I had at Sewanee,вЂќ says Andrew Sofer, poet and 1999 attendee, вЂњand that I chalk up to the accessibility and skill of the faculty, the supportive atmosphere among the participants, and the hospitality of the staff. I expect to stay in touch with many of the friends I met there.вЂќ There are new challenges and opportunities for the Sewanee WritersвЂ™ Conference. They have recently initiated the Sewanee WritersвЂ™ Series with Overlook Press (distributed by Penguin). вЂњItвЂ™s a very exciting project,вЂќ says Prunty, вЂњbut itвЂ™s very demanding.вЂќ Two titles are out so far: John BricuthвЂ™s Just Let Me Say This About That, and Dan MuellerвЂ™s How Animals Mate, a Barnes & Noble selection. Upcoming titles will include Siam, or, the Woman Who Shot a Man, by Lily Tuck and The Determined Days by Phil Stephens. Also begun recently is the Tennessee Williams Fellowship Program, which works like Yaddo and other residency programs. Young writers are invited to spend a semester at the University of the South and are given a house to live in and a stipend. While they are to teach a workshop one afternoon a week, the bulk of the fellowsвЂ™ time is intended for their own work. Past visitors have been Tony Earley, Ann Patchett, and A. Manette Ansay. Many of the Fellows have been former attendees, scholars, and fellows of the Conference. Sewanee also has a Young WritersвЂ™ Conference that takes (continued on page 10) WC&CScholarship Program WritersвЂ™ Conferences & Centers вЂў 2000 вЂў WritersвЂ™ Conferences & Centers (WC&C) is conducting its annual competition to provide scholarships for emerging writers who wish to attend a writersвЂ™ conference. The scholarships will be applied to fees to attend any of the member conferences of WC&C, an association of outstanding conferences, colonies, and festivals for writers. For a complete directory of WC&C members, please visit WC&CвЂ™s web site <http:// awpwriter.org/wcc>. Or you may purchase a directory for $7 from the Associated Writing Programs. Write to: WC&C Directory, Associated Writing Programs, Tallwood House, MS 1E3, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030. Checks should be made payable to the Associated Writing Programs. The competition is open to all writers who would like to attend a member conference of WC&C. To enter the competition, please follow the guidelines below. Two scholarships of $500 will be awarded. The scholarships are sponsored by AWP. Guidelines for Submissions вЂў Submissions in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry will be considered. Separate submissions in different genres are permitted. вЂў WritersвЂ™ names must not appear on submissions. A separate cover sheet must accompany submissions and include the following: genre and title of submission(s), writerвЂ™s name, address, and telephone number. Previous recipients of WC&C scholarships are not eligible to submit. вЂў All manuscripts must be typed. Prose must be double-spaced. A maximum of 25 pages of prose or 10 pages of poetry will be considered. вЂў Submissions must be postmarked during the months of January or February, 2000. вЂў A $10 reading fee, either a check or money order in U.S. dollars made payable to Associated Writing Programs, must accompany all submissions, except those by finalists from the previous year. вЂў Winners will be notified by April 30. All submissions should include an SASE for notification of results. Manuscripts cannot be returned. вЂў Two winners will receive $500 scholarships to attend a WC&C member program; funds are paid directly to the program selected. (Member conferences reserve the right to determine participants in their programs; winners select a first choice and two alternates.) Winners and finalists also receive a one-year individual membership in WC&C. вЂў Inquiries (with SASE) and submissions should be mailed to WC&C Scholarship Program Post Office Box 386 Amherst, MA 01004 Attn: Michael Pettit WritersвЂ™ Conferences & Centers is a division of Associated Writing Programs, a nonprofit association of writers and writing programs. Fall 1999 вЂў Page 5 News from the Frontline: Prague Summer Seminars by Bill Lavender вЂњI wrote more in those two weeks than I have in the last 2 years put together.вЂќ вЂ”Sarah Heller вЂњYesterday a friend asked me if I could say one thing about Prague, what would it be, and I was, uncharacteris tically, speechless. ThereвЂ™s no one thing about any of it: not the scenery, the history, the people, the prices, the liter ary community, the numerous offerings in classes and lectures, films and read ings, the temptation and tug of week end trips to Krakow, Budapest, the ultimate surprise of it all. I guess the best endorsement for the program is to say that IвЂ™m going back again the sum mer of 2000!вЂќ вЂ”Kathy Hughes T he 1999 Prague Summer Seminars featured workshops in writing led by Arnost Lustig, Stuart Dybek, Stanley Plumly, Carol Muske, Alison Deming, and Richard Katrovas. Miroslav Mandic led the screenwriting seminar, and Miroslav Jindra led the translation workshop. There were readings and workshop visits by guests Gerald Stern, Philip Levine, Angela Ball, Andrei Codrescu, Diane Johnson, Carolyn Kizer, Iva Pekarkova, Ivan Klima, Alan Levy, Patricia Hampl, Tereze Bouckova, Steve Stern, myself, and more. We also had 16 lecturers on Czech literature and culture, plus classes in photography, Jewish studies, and music. We had 110 American, Canadian, Japanese, and Western European students, including the three recipients of the 1999 AWP/Prague Summer Seminars fellowships, and 12 Czech translation students. If it sounds like a lot to squeeze into four short weeks, it is. Readings, each featuring two writers, are held every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with student readings on Friday. Mondays are reserved for the Czech film series. A typical writer's weekday schedule might include a 3 hour workshop in the morning and a photography or (continued on page 10) Advertising (continued from page 1) than half the size. In a larger format, a larger ad is often more strikingвЂ”if it is designed well. Plus, if you are considering placing advertising in any magazine, itвЂ™s usually a good idea to see the results of a reader survey, which are usually included with a publicationвЂ™s rate card. If the readers arenвЂ™t interested in what your conference has to offer, such a magazine might be a poor match for your needs. By balancing all of these factorsвЂ”the per-thousand cost, the actual size of the ad, and the preferences of the readersвЂ”you can budget fairly inexpensive, targeted ads. Myth #2: Print advertising is inef fective. I can never know how many people actually see the ad. Advertising is only ineffective if it is poorly placed or poorly designed. As long as you know the Page 6 вЂў The Director interests of the magazineвЂ™s readership and design your ad with the readers in mind, your ad will generate responses. Advertising can often verge on a science. When hunting for new markets to place ads, you can calculate how your money is spent, and, if your advertisement receives a 0.1% to 0.2% response, you can see how much business you will gain. If someone spends $400 on an ad for a conference that costs $15 to attend, and 40 readers out of 40,000 decide to attend, you can already see that the ad has paid for itself. However, keeping track of these numbers is difficult if you donвЂ™t track who sees the ad. And when youвЂ™re running a conference, itвЂ™s even harder to keep track of those who request information and those who actually choose to attend. If your budget is limited, donвЂ™t lock yourself into advertising contracts with any one magazine. First, make sure that your ad is effective in that publication. The best method for this is to place the ad once, with a special code or number in the response information. For example: if you advertised in APR, in the return address, include вЂњDept: APR.вЂќ If someone calls up for information, ask where they heard about your conference or festival, and at the end of every year, tally up the responses and who actually attended your conference because of the ad. This kind of research is indispenable, as you can discover which markets better suit your needs at a minimum of fiscal risk. Part 2: Designing the Ad Creating an effective advertising program requires research and careful planning; designing your advertising materials requires both pratical details and Г¦sthetics. If you open any newspaper or magazine, you will see three distinct kinds of advertising: вЂў Vanity, empowerment, or вЂњbrandingвЂќ ads, such as car commercials and their ilk, are selling the image of you owning a product. For example: Apple ComputerвЂ™s вЂњThink DifferentвЂќ ad campaign is not selling specific computers, but the image of you owning a computerвЂ”and being as much of a innovator as Albert Einstein, Elvis, etc. вЂў Direct response ads, which allow you to purchase their products directly. These ads include phone numbers or addresses; you write to them and directly purchase the product or service. Traditionally, these kinds of ads are for single, low-priced items and clubs, such as QPB, Columbia House, and the Franklin Mint. вЂў Informative ads, which introduce products or services, and then offer a number or address where you can request further information, such as a videocassette or booklet. These approaches are often used for expensive items, such as exercise equipment or prescription drugs. Since most conferences require applications, a small to medium-sized informative print ad serves as the best way to reach a broader audience. By asking for interested parties to contact you for more information, you can send them a direct mail piece that includes details about the conference along with the application. This also allows you to build a database of prospective applicants, that you can update from month to month and reuse as your budget permits. No matter how you put together your ad, there are certain elements that should always be included. A print ad can be designed by you, at home, with inexpensive software such as Microsoft Word or Publisher, PageMaker, Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, or such high-end programs as QuarkXPress or Adobe Photoshop, if you have access to them in your community or at a local university. If you are working with a graphic designer, you should be sure to address these points in your ad. But, for our purposes here, letвЂ™s begin by developing the most important elements of a successful ad: well-written advertising copy, the artwork accompanying the ad copy, and the arrangement of the artwork and the copy. Shaping the Advertising Copy When writing your ad copy, keep it to the bare minimum. If you try to cram every detail about the conference into your ad, you will both run out of space and risk losing their interestвЂ”and their reason for calling, visiting your webpage, mailing, or e-mailing you for more information. This doesnвЂ™t give you license to sound like Hemingway, though. Instead, consider a simple slogan or description for the conference, a listing of the faculty, scheduled activities (will there be workshops? readings? trips? lectures? food?), and a website, mail address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail address, along with any pertinent deadlines. If there is an image, this can be worked into the copy. For example: вЂњFairfax WritersвЂ™ Conference. July 18вЂ“24, 2001. Fairfax, Virginia. Seven days of intensive workshops in fiction and poetry with accomplished writers, plus readings, trips to Mount Vernon and the Shenendoah Valley, and nights on the town. For aspiring and publishing writers.вЂќ The next part of the copy is your faculty list. If you have space, you can include their most recent books, in case your potential attendees are unfamiliar with a few writers on your faculty. Listings of previous faculty are not as important as current faculty, which should always take precedence. Finding the Right Artwork Many types of photographs or artwork work well with conference advertising: pictures of the conference location, if it is especially striking; photographs of people engaged in workshop (especially if you can include the conference site); pictures of local flora or fauna; any graphical flourishes that the name of your conference suggests; etc. If you are unable to find any artwork, you can often use the letters of the conference name as a graphical element. Pictures of faculty work well, if you have a small faculty and a large ad; otherwise, you should save such graphics for your brochures. Arranging It All on the Page When laying out your ad, make sure that you keep a good balance of white space, text, and image. To keep it simple, make sure that you keep type sizes and styles consistent. For examples of how to put together an ad, see page 8. Most magazines will accept camera-ready copy (a good printout of your ad), but be sure to do it on a laser printer with at least 600 dpi output. Most KinkoвЂ™s and other service bureaus can help you. Otherwise, when the magazines go to shoot your ads, they will come out looking fuzzy. And donвЂ™t forget: always send press releases and announcements about your conference with your advertising. You should take every opportunity to interest an editor at a magazine or newspaper with news about your conferenceвЂ”unlike advertising, itвЂ™s absolutely free. WC&C Fall 1999 вЂў Page 7 Arranging & Designing Your Print Advertisement First, write out all the advertising copy you will use in the ad and separate it into different sections: the initial headline, a short description of the conference, the faculty list, and the mailing address, phone and fax numbers, e-mail, and web page address. Fairfax WritersвЂ™ Conference. July 18вЂ“24, 2001. Fairfax, Virginia. Seven days of intensive workshops in fiction and poetry with accomplished writers, plus readings, trips to Mount Vernon and the Shenendoah Valley, and nights on the town. For aspiring and publishing writers. Faculty: Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Dawn Powell, T.S. Eliot. Writers-in-Residence: Henry James, Harriet Stowe. For more information, contact: Fairfax Writers, 1839 Beale St., Fairfax, VA 22039, call (703) 382-1938, e-mail [email protected], or visit http://fwriters.org. When designing your ad, itвЂ™s a good idea to use the rule of thirds. Take your ad space (the actual dimensions of the ad) and then draw lines at one-thirds and two-thirds of the total width and height (see right). Where the lines intersect are the places within the ad that a readersвЂ™s eye is most likely to fall first. Do not center your pictures or text, as that will create dead space. When integrating your copy, photographs, and headlines, it is often effective to вЂњoverprintвЂќ white lettering on a black box. This technique provides contrast, makes an advertisement more striking, and often allows you to better organize your text, as you can place your featured faculty or address and phone number in a separate, eye-catching area. For newsprint, itвЂ™s generally a bad idea to overprint lettering in sizes smaller than 14 points. Faculty: Virginia Woolf D.H. Lawrence Dawn Powell T.S. Eliot Writers-inResidence: Henry James Harriet Stowe Next, consider including artwork to accompany it. In this case, weвЂ™ve selected a photo by Michael Pettit of a conference teacher critiquing a studentвЂ™s workвЂ” which conveys a serious and scholarly image for our conference. Other possible art could include photos of Old Town Fairfax, a collage of writers and students enjoying themselves, etc. The art can then be вЂњscreenedвЂќ behind text in grayвЂ”a trick which can be accomplished by most graphics programs. Make sure your photographs are at least 300 dots per inch (dpi). If you have a particular design for the name of your conference, you will want to use that for your headline in the advertisement. The fonts should match, although special fonts associated with your conference logo or identity are also fine. This is a good ad for a dreary locationвЂ”on the left-hand bottom corner of a magazine page. But does the arrangement of this ad work well if you have good ad placement? In this arrangement, your eye is more likely to fall on вЂњFairfaxвЂќ first, especially if the ad is placed on the right side of the pageвЂ”an ad placement you should always request, as when you turn the page of a magazine, you immediately notice ads placed on the right-hand side. Without the screened photograph, the headline gains more impact, and the picture, which now accompanies the descriptive copy, gives an idea of what the workshop offers. WC&C Faculty: Virginia Woolf D.H. Lawrence Dawn Powell T.S. Eliot Writers-inResidence: Henry James Harriet Stowe Faculty: Virginia Woolf D.H. Lawrence Dawn Powell T.S. Eliot Fairfax WritersвЂ™ Conference July 18вЂ“24, 2000 вЂў Fairfax, Virginia. Writers-inResidence: Seven days of intensive workshops in fiction and poetry with accomplished writers, plus readings, trips to Mount Vernon and the Shenendoah Valley, and nights on the town. For aspiring and publishing writers. Henry James Harriet Stowe For more information, contact: Fairfax Writers, 1839 Beale St., Fairfax, VA 22039, call (703) 382-1938, e-mail [email protected], or visit http://fwriters.org. Fairfax WritersвЂ™ Conference July 18вЂ“24, 2000 вЂў Fairfax, Virginia Seven days of intensive workshops in fiction and poetry with accomplished writers, plus readings, trips to Mount Vernon and the Shenendoah Valley, and nights on the town. For aspiring and publishing writers. For more information, contact: Fairfax Writers, 1839 Beale St., Fairfax, VA 22039, call (703) 382-1938, e-mail [email protected], or visit http://fwriters.org. Faculty: Virginia Woolf D.H. Lawrence Dawn Powell T.S. Eliot Writers-inResidence: Henry James Harriet Stowe Sewanee WritersвЂ™ Conference (continued from page 4) place a few days before the adult counterpart. Mr. Prunty is very pleased when some of the adult attendees and faculty come to take part in the Young WritersвЂ™ Conference. вЂњI canвЂ™t imagine a better faculty,вЂќ he said. Ho rt o n Foote, Alice McDermott, and other conference faculty come a few days early to join the younger writers on staff, teaching kids who Mr. Prunty finds are very talented. In a year, Sewanee hopes to start a summer theatre program for high school students. There is a wealth of opportunity at Sewanee, all of which contributes to its popularity and its success in encouraging and aiding young and emerging writers. As poet and 1999 Fellow Marilyn Taylor said, вЂњThe Sewanee Conference featured an amazing assemblage of talents, plus an ongoing sense of mutual supportiveness and good cheerвЂ”which is not always the case when writers convene for the purpose of honing their craft. I felt little or none of the competitive edginess some writersвЂ™ gatherings are famous for.вЂќ WC&C Prague Summer Seminars (continued from page 6) Jewish studies class in the afternoon, another 3 hours, followed by dinner and the reading. By Friday, then, everyone is both exhausted by the schedule and inspired by what it contained, and the student readings are a time for us all to relax and have a good time. We did have a good time this year, and not only at the student readings. Some high points: вЂў Pavel SrutвЂ™s bilingual reading, which gave our American ears a taste of the music of Czech poetry. вЂў Gerald Stern and Philip LevineвЂ™s reading: it seemed almost too good to be true to have these two great poets on stage at the same time. вЂў Miroslav MandicвЂ™s screenwriting seminar: every year students tell me over and over what a great teacher Miroslav is. вЂў A photography show on the last day: all the photography students, 40 in all, about half of whom were also writers this year, displayed their work in the classroom building lobby, a wonderful show mounted by photography teachers Harry Mattison and Annette Fournet. вЂў Field trip to Kutna Hora, and a view of some ancient Czech history, including the famous bone chapel, led by the brilliant Charles University historian Vaclav Cilek. We had our share of problems too. The dorm was, as usual, a trial. Several students had complaints at the beginning. But the shared tribulations of this Sovietera structure in the end proved to be just one more source of camaraderie. I think almost everyone went home having made new and dear friends, with a sense of shared experience that will not be soon forgotten. Two Ways AWP Can Help Your Conference: AWP Mailing Lists Hundreds of talented writersвЂ”available for readings at your writersвЂ™ conference at a low cost to you! Targeted lists of creative writing programs, students, teachers, subscribers to The WriterвЂ™s Chronicle and AWP Job List, Award Series entrants, and more. The AWP Reading Series For more information on AWP Mailing Lists or the AWP Reading Series, please call Maryrose Flanigan at (703) 993-4396 or e-mail <[email protected]). Page 10 вЂў The Director