The SoonerCon Writers Workshop is a two-day intensive session for creators. It is led by a professional clinician from the speculative fiction industry, and designed for new and established writers who are ready to sell their work for publication. Workshop participants benefit from:
SoonerCon Writers Workshop participants must purchase a convention membership for both days of the workshop event, in addition to purchasing their spot in the workshop. Space in the workshop is limited to 12 participants, first-come, first-served. Pre-registration is required. Cost is $50.00 per person + Eventbrite fee.
The workshop will take place on Friday, June 7, and Saturday, June 8, 2019, in a closed conference room at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Norman, OK. The workshop runs four hours each day during the morning to mid-afternoon.
Each participant will submit a manuscript of up to 4,500 words of either a completed short story or partial novel. It is helpful for any partial novel submissions to include a brief novel synopsis (separate from the word count of the submission). Submissions will be due by April 21, 2019.
All manuscripts will be emailed to the SoonerCon Writers Workshop Coordinator, who will send to the workshop clinician. These must be typed with pages numbered. No handwritten manuscripts will be accepted. Acceptable file types for manuscript submissions are .doc, .docx, or .rtf. Authors should include a cover page on the manuscript with their name, address, e-mail address, and telephone number.
All participants will be notified via email by SoonerCon of their acceptance to the workshop, then provided instructions for completing their submission. Participants will need to bring pen and paper, or laptop, for taking notes during the workshop. Videos of the workshop are not permitted.
For questions, please email writersworkshop@soonercon.com.
SoonerCon 28 Writers Workshop Clinician
Toni Weisskopf succeeded Jim Baen as publisher of Baen Books, a leading publisher of sf and fantasy, in 2006. She has worked with such authors as David Weber, David Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, Eric Flint, Wen Spencer, Mercedes Lackey, Larry Correia, Charles E. Gannon, D.J. Butler, and many others. With Josepha Sherman she compiled and annotated the definitive volume of subversive children’s folklore, Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts, published by August House.
Baen is also known for its innovative e-publishing program. Founded in 1999, it has expanded under Weisskopf’s leadership to include not only titles published by Baen, but titles from other publishers, all without DRM. Other new programs under Weisskopf include the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award (co-sponsored by the National Space Society), established in 2007; the Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, awarded at Gen Con and established in 2014; and the Baen Best Military SF & Adventure SF Reader’s Choice Awards, presented at Dragon Con, established in 2015.
She has been a guest speaker at many writers workshops and science-fiction conventions across the country. She is well known for her interactive, audience-participation discussion of Baen Books covers and artwork, on-going and ever-changing since 1991.
Weisskopf is a graduate of Oberlin College with a degree in anthropology. She lives in a hundred-year-old house with her delightful daughter, four dogs, and two cats. Taking care of them, house included, consumes most of her spare time, but she is also interested in space science. She takes part in the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop.