So You Want to be a Freelance Writer? - Update: Cancelled

This post has been updated to announce that the seminar it describes has been cancelled due to the current weather conditions in Vancouver. It will be rescheduled for the new year. I'll keep you posted!

A LOT of people want to be writers, and I always tell them the same thing about it: it's not all it's cracked up to be. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad job. But it's really just a job job. It's also not a very stable, and it's often hard to make decent money. Oh, and people in other industries don't have much respect for it.

Knowing all that, if you're still keen to get into the field, there's a seminar going on this Thursday night that may be helpful. Entitled The Wonderful World of Freelance Writing (Get Employed and Stay Employed), it's being put on by the Western Magazine Awards Foundation (a group I'm involved with and have written about here on BR before).

The host of the event is Kate MacLennan, a senior editor at Fashion Magazine. Trust me, she's great. Kate is one of those people who sort of burns you because she comes across as way too young and cute to be as successful as she is. In addition to her job at Fashion, she's worked for Wish, The Vancouver Sun, Cottage Life, Gardening Life, etc. It's hard not to admire her. Plus, she's down to earth. (If you expect someone straight out of The Devil Wears Prada or Ugly Betty, you'll be disappointed.)

Kate is going to run through all the basics. She'll teach you how to pitch, how to decipher editor's notes, and how to gage how much your writing is really worth. (Sometimes, it won't be much, other times it'll be a lot. It really depends so knowing tricks is helpful.) She can't teach you how to write a great story, but she can definitely teach you how to catch an editor's attention. And if you know how to do that, you're halfway there.

The two hour seminar is $10. Sign up by calling or emailing the WMA at (604) 669-3717 or info[at]westernmagazineawards.com

Here's the when and where:
November 30, 2006
Seminar: Writing for Magazines
Alliance For Arts and Culture
100 - 938 Howe St.
$10, 7 to 9 p.m., doors at 6:45 p.m