Besides my work commissioning travel guides and digital content at Lonely Planet, I'm the Bay Area travel and pitch writing instructor for Media Bistro, the freelance writer's resource well worth the $78 (for two years).
Forged in New York City, MB's been expanding out west, with an affliliate office in Los Angeles and courses and events held in LA, SF and Seattle. I've been an MB instructor for the past year, with a growing roster of classes and seminars and incredibly talented, creative students.
Upcoming classes for Spring 2006:
2/27/06: The MB One Night Pitch Workshop: Pitch Clinic with Jay Cooke: Come with some query ideas, leave four hours later with fully structured, salable pitch letters, properly targeted and ready to hook editors.
3/8/06: Writing Travel Guidebooks: An honest, practical assessment of this demanding, exhilarating niche. As a guidebook writer, you parachute in, scout out sights, eateries, lodgings and the bus station, and nail all the details while crafting engaging, inspiring text. It's a growing market - whether 101 hikes in Northern California or an adventurer's guide to traversing Africa, there's a publisher for your guidebook, and a proven path to selling your manuscript. This seminar shows you the way.
3/20/06: Basic Training: Introduction to Travel Writing: This hands-on, interactive, high-energy 8-week course reveals all you'll need to successfully navigate the travel publishing world. Learn how travel editors think (and what they want from writers); road-tested ways to break in; the nuanced styles of travel writing (magazines, newspapers, anthologies, more); the critical role of pitch letters; key components of successful travel writing, and a successful formula for turning your ideas into salable work.
3/29/06: Master the Pitch Letter: You may write the best articles on the planet, but you'll never get a chance to publish them without a strong article proposal. Learn to transform your ideas into strong, salable pitch proposals that will grab editors and land you gigs. A three-hour seminar that's also class one of...
3/29/06: Perfect Pitching: In freelance writing, the query letter is important: it's your writing sample, business plan, and article outline wrapped in one. It's also your single most important marketing tool, whether breaking into targeted markets or looking to re-collaborate with editors. A well-crafted query can be the difference between landing a gig and getting lost in the shuffle. We'll identify components that all successful queries must have, learn some tricks, develop some templates you can adapt for multiple queries and debunk some myths that might be holding you back.
5/15/06: Introduction to Travel Writing: Whether a long weekend in Mendocino or a long walk across Nepal, there's a market out there for your stories, and a proven path for successful travel writers to follow. With a sense of adventure, an open mind, an eye for the offbeat and some basic writing skills, this three-hour seminar will help send you well on your way toward getting your travel pieces published - and having editors chase you down with repeat gigs.
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