NYC Pitch and Shop Conference Turns Novel Writers Into Rising Commercial Stars, Including Algonkian Conferences Alum, Ann Wertz Garvin, Author of "ON MAGGIE'S WATCH"

NEW YORK, April 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The NYC Pitch and Shop Conference, a creation of Algonkian Writer Conferences and Web del Sol, has come to be regarded by the New York publishing industry as a unique author incubator for hot new writers in most genres, including women's fiction, mystery/suspense, historical fiction, urban and YA fantasy, and upscale literary fiction -- one of the most recent on the women's fiction roster being Ann Wertz Garvin, author of ON MAGGIE'S WATCH.

Novel writing and publishing, especially in the context of that first novel, has never been harder, and author Ann Wertz Garvin knows this well. But first of all, who was she before she became an author? An earth-wandering soul? A frustrated former nurse? A brilliant performer of the Vagina Monologues? All of the above? Yes. And sooner rather than later, Ann realized her calling as a writer, and also that the painful and funny memories of early novel writing were forever hers:

"I blindly wrote a first draft making all the mistakes new writers make, but God love my friends who never once said, 'How can you have a PhD and not know how to use a comma?'" Inevitably though, she settled down to the drag-it-out business of rewriting, and after attendance at a novel writing conference she discovered that, "My workshop leader at the NYC Pitch and Shop Conference, Michael Neff, believed in me. The careful advice, connections, and publishing savvy I received there made all the difference. Because of that conference, I was introduced to the woman who became my editor at Berkley Penguin, and later to the woman who became my agent."

And the rest is almost history, but the enduring effect, ON MAGGIE'S WATCH, is truly characterized best by an astute Amazon reviewer who remarked:

"The two female characters, Maggie and Julia, have fun and are suburban, Midwestern soccer moms, but they also have a flair for the dramatic. And they have deep souls. Wertz Garvin takes the reader through the women's deepest fears: losing a child, whether in the womb or outside world."  

About Algonkian Writer Conferences and The NYC Pitch and Shop:

Algonkian Writer Conferences begun in 2002, includes the NYC Pitch and Shop Conference, the Algonkian Novel Workshop Camp, the Write to Market Conference and Fisherman's Wharf Writer Conference in San Francisco, CA. The NYC event features editors from major houses such as Random House, Penguin, Henry Holt, and many more. It focuses on the art of the "novel pitch" as an effective means of communicating the story, and as a diagnostic workshop method for exploring the elements of the story itself to determine the quality and marketability of the novel.

Contact Phone:
1-800-250-8290

SOURCE Web del Sol