Hoping to write the next Great American Novel one day? Finishing a manuscript but lacking in publishing contacts? Or just looking for new ways to placate your family and friends when they ask you about your “career” plans?
Whatever the reason, here’s a cool new opp for writers: The Authors Guild, America’s oldest, largest writers’ organization, is here to swoop in and capture the hearts and minds of lost, young writers like some kind of literary Bernie Sanders with a new membership for aspiring writers such as yourself, and it comes with alcohol! As in, they’re having a launch party at Powerhouse on Friday with free refreshments to celebrate the membership.
The Authors Guild is a network of writers exchanging advice, connections, opportunities and services (for a fee). It was founded in New York City in 1912, and has always been helmed by prolific authors — Pearl S. Buck, Rex Stout, Madeleine L’Engle and Erica Jong, to name a few. The Guild’s former vice president was Theodore Roosevelt.
Name dropping aside, the Emerging Writer’s Membership seems a promising avenue for as-yet unpublished young writers. It’s basically $25 off a regular Guild membership (i.e. $100/year, as opposed to the normal $125), and gets you most of the benefits of the regular membership, ranging from the immediately practical (free domain names and website building, discounts to hotels and literary journals, access to seminars and professional advice) to things that you’ll hopefully never need (media liability insurance) to things that you could probably figure out on your own for free (membership to the Emerging Writers Facebook group).
Plus, your parents will finally get off your back for a little while and you can tell people you belong to a guild, which is very fun.
To launch the new membership, the Guild is holding an “Emerging Writer Happy Hour” this week, because what young writer doesn’t appreciate a happy hour? It’s this Friday, Oct. 7, at 6 pm at the Powerhouse Arena (28 Adams St.). It’s free, with free drinks — ah, do they know the way to a young author’s heart — and features two authors, Kathleen Alcott (Infinite Home) and Katie Kitamura (Gone to the Forest), Megan Lynch of Ecco Press publishing and literary agent Kirby Kim. Plenty of opportunities for hobnobbing between free drinks!
And if you can’t make it to this but you still want some literati intel, check out our guide to indie literary mags in Brooklyn where you can submit your next piece of writing.