One of the things the invite wants to know is, is there something in which I specialise, that I would be willing to share with teenagers, as one of the "group meeting" things?

I could do one one writing. I wonder whose kids I'd be teaching? In looking at their sample past weekends, "On writing" has been handled by a few names.

That's so cool, Deb!

Deb, writing seems like the most obvious thing. But also, you've lectured on Shakespeare. You cook. Oooh! They have sessions for teens and college students. You could teach them how to prepare meals with actual foods and flavors in them. You could call it, "NO RICE IN A TUBE".

There's rice in a tube?

Why?

Ask Sean.

Deb, that is AMAZING. Really, really wonderful. I'm so excited, and SO JEALOUS. I would love to teach a seminar for teenagers at something like this.

I'm chuffed that there is such a thing in existence, and it makes me feel better about world leaders and influential people and such.

Go, team Deb!!!

You know you have to tell us all about it.

Man, all the things you could talk about! I'm so jazzed!

Another "this isn't really how the industry works, is it?" question for AmyLiz or anyone else who knows.

One of the bits of Conventional Wisdom I've seen floating around the internet is that you should never query an editor or agent in August or December, because August is the most popular vacation month, and December is the holidays, plus people have an urge to clear their desk for the New Year. The theory is that more form rejections go out because the editors and agents just don't feel like dealing with the mail.

That's never made sense to me. I can see how you might have to wait longer to get a response if your query arrives right after your target has left for 3 weeks in the Bahamas, but not that it would affect his/her response. I also wouldn't send an email query on Thanksgiving Wednesday or Christmas Eve, just because I think it smacks a bit of "I have no life, and as your client I will pester you at the most inconvenient and inappropriate times." But with regular mail, I figure it'll just go in the pile and get read when it gets read. All this stuff about not querying in August or December, or mailing your query/partial on Tuesday so it'll get there on Thursday or Friday and maybe the editor or agent will take it home over the weekend, just seems like so many silly stories writers tell themselves to give themselves more control over the uncontrollable.

But, of course, I could be wrong.

That is so freakin' cool, deb! That's the kind of thing I would so geek out on.

Susan, I've been told - by two of my editors past and present, and by my agent - that nothing gets done in publishing in August or December. I can vouch for August - NYC publishing keeps "summer hours" and no one seems to be in their office after about three in the afternoon. And in December, holiday hours.

But, like you, I can't see that affecting their responses to a query. I suspect the "don't send at those times" dictum is based on the "no one's around, might as well wait until they are" scenario.

Amy? Your views, ma'am?

Oh, and Susan and other writers who have stuff making any stage or level of the rounds right now, I wanted to share this - as you may know, I have a supernatural thriller, Still Life With Devils, being looked at.

Just received a rejection letter from Random House. And it begins with the sentence "This novel creates the perfect pitch of suspense..."

And yet and yet and bloody yet.

Publishing R weird, yo.

I am going to be tearing my hair out with curiosity about who nominated me for the Renaissance weekend. And then more hair to follow, as I try to figure out who on the advisory board seconded and approved me. And why and how the invitation was sent through my agent.

Gah.

Deb, the fact that it was sent through your agent leads me to believe that you were nominated by someone who read your book.

Someone whose initials are "Big" and "Dog," perhaps....