Góðan og blessaðan daginn!
I am fresh off a whirlwind week of activities at the Iceland Writers Retreat, an annual event founded and organized by our First Lady Eliza Reid, and Erica Jacobs Green. The IWR brings together aspiring (or published) writers and more established writers (ostensibly) who teach workshops. Recently Eliza and Erica have also founded a side event, the Iceland Readers Retreat, at the same time.
I was initially not slated to be involved, but someone who was supposed to teach a workshop on self publishing couldn’t make it for some reason, so I jumped in to help.
The five days of the event were utterly delightful. I was deeply impressed by how well organized (yet seemingly effortless) everything was, and by the joyful atmosphere. Everyone was so kind and supportive and in such good spirits. I very much appreciated that faculty members were not kept segregated from the participants, as is often the case, and how easily everyone mingled. I wound up sitting with lovely people at lunch and dinner, and was amazed at how quickly we were able to fall into deep, meaningful conversations, like we were old friends. So great.
I got to meet and sit in on a workshop taught by the wonderful Jeannette Walls, whose celebrated memoir The Glass Castle was such an inspiration to me when I was trying to formulate a way to tell my own story.
Something else I found incredibly rewarding was how my workshop seemed to resonate with and inspire people. I was literally stopped in the hallways afterwards by participants and faculty alike who told me that they had heard fabulous things—that others had been raving about it. I was humbled and delighted! I am SO glad that I was able to impart some sense of the new era of publishing in which we now live, which is so dynamic and supportive and filled with so many possibilities.
I thought it was fantastic that the IWR decided to include this sort of workshop. No shade to anyone, but some of the questions and discussions at the event seemed like they were set three-or-so decades ago, when gatekeepers (agents and publishers) held all the power and decided who got to pass through the eye of the needle to potential success, and who did not. It’s like some people don’t realize that this has all been dismantled. Indeed, a report published in 2023 revealed that, today, independent authors earn more than traditional authors on average, and their income is growing year-on-year while that of authors with third-party publishers is declining.
At its heart, writing is about the communication of stories and ideas, and today there is a multitude of ways to do that. Those who love to do that through writing now have many options besides the old-school model of a square book with ink on paper. One of those ways is a platform like this one, where writers can be financially supported directly by those who like to read their work. ❤️ And there are others.
Anyway, this shifting paradigm is something I could talk about for days, so forgive me that this Letter from Iceland has turned into me extolling the virtues of independent publishing. Granted, it is tangentially related, since my books about Iceland are independently published—all except one. I am SO GLAD I had a nasty experience with traditional publishing because it urged me on to publish the rest of my books myself, and to embark on an indie publishing journey that has turned out to be so empowering and rewarding.
As a result I am able to make a living doing what I love—both through my books, and this newsletter.
Have you been to the Iceland Writers Retreat? Were you there this year, perhaps? Would love to hear from you in the comments.
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The retreat was phenomenal. I think the mingling that you speak of, the way we could enjoy talking writing and life, outside of the workshops was the best part-- and I LOVED the workshops, but magic happened in those halls, at those lunch tables. I believe it fed me more than the meals we shared. Takk fyrir, Alda.