Happy I’ll Be an Editor-in-Residence for the Adirondack Center for Writing’s Summer Conference, June 11

I’m pleased that for the second year in a row I’ve been invited to be the professional editor on hand and participating in the summer workshop for writers put on by the Adirondack Center for Writing, in Lake Placid, NY, coming up Saturday, June 11. I really enjoyed the conference last year, when I read and commented on the work of more than a dozen talented nonfiction and fiction writers. The format was an open one that seemed to benefit all the writers: in advance I read submissions from each writer, then on the day of the workshop I spoke in front of the whole group about the work of each writer presented to me. It proved to be a serious but not judgmental forum for all participating writers. If you live and work in upstate NY, and are interested in having me read your work as part of the workshop, you’ll find all the details at this link.

Here is a description of my session:
1:15-2:30pm How to Pitch Your Work with Philip Turner
You will be asked thousands of times, “what is your book about?” and “who is the reader for it?” You need to be able to answer these questions in a compelling way in sentence or two, though it is often hard to do this. Philip will lead a session on ways to answer these questions, and others publishing professionals may ask you. Participants will also be able to pitch their work this session and get feedback on it. This pitch will follow your project from the beginning stages all the way through marketing, so make sure it is a good one.

Also, see screenshot below of ACW’s web page with more information.

Days Getting Longer & Sunsets Lasting Longer

For the first time this year in NYC, the sunset fell after 8pm last night, a kind of celestial milestone on the way to the Summer Solstice June 20th. I pedaled along the Cherry Walk and took a lot of pictures down there along the Hudson River, as the daylight ebbed away, amid a prolonged symphony of color and light. Here’s a thumbnail of those photos just now added to my Flickr album that’s labeled GGB/Sunsets/Hudson. Please visit there for a full sampling of images

Exuberant Kids on NY’s Restored High Bridge

As I wrote on this blog in 2013, New York City’s High Bridge is a pedestrian walkway that “connected the Bronx and Manhattan beginning in 1842, an interboro link across the Harlem River that was built to bring fresh water via the Croton Aqueduct in to Gotham. The span connects 170th Street in the Bronx to 173rd Street in Manhattan. In a deliciously arcane example of NYC geography, [a reporter] points out, that’s ‘West 173rd Street and not East,’ though this is the east side of Manhattan, ‘Because it is technically west of 5th Avenue,’ the east-west midpoint of the island for street-naming purposes.”

When I wrote that in 2013 a full renovation of the span was underway, and a few months ago it reopened to the public. Last fall I pedaled up to High Bridge for my first look at the restoration of the span. Here are some pictures I took that day when I was fortunate to come upon some children playing on the new walkway. 1 Exuberant kids on High Bridge 2 Exuberant kids on High Bridge 3 Exuberant kids on High Bridge 4 Exberant kinds on High Bridge