Boston, Massachusetts is a literary hotbed. So says novelist Mameve Medwed as quoted in a May 4 Boston Globe article titled "Novices peek at literary world."
Well, yes. I knew that Massachusetts had bragging rights to some of my favorite authors, past and present. Louisa May Alcott, famously of Concord, once lived on Beacon Hill, for heaven's sakes! I've read in her bio that Lois Lowry -- The Giver, anyone? -- lives, part of the time, on Beacon Hill, too. So of course: Boston is filled with literary greats.
But who knew that Boston was also the home of "Muse and the Marketplace," which the Globe describes as a two-day conference run by the independent writing center Grub Street Inc." I didn't, I'm ashamed to say, even though this was its seventh year in operation.
Me? I'm not only a Boston-based book publicist, but I'm also a rabid Massachusetts-based book reader, and I can guarantee you: the eighth annual "Muse and the Marketplace" will find me in attendance, drinking in the company, and talents, of the Massachusetts-based writers who help make Boston a literary hub.
Is the "Muse and the Marketplace" a book promotion opportunity? Certainly, but it's also a chance to meet new Boston-area authors and get a first-peek at their works -- and I, for one, will never let that opportunity slip by again.
