WEBVTT

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Hello, everyone.

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I am Tricia.

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I am a senior Film
Studies major--

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English minor out
of Holyoke, here.

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And this summer, I worked
at InkWell Management,

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which is a full-service literary
agency in New York City.

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And basically--
like, in a nutshell--

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I should start just by saying,
I want to write romance novels--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--which is not something
that a lot of people

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say-- at least not my
age and not openly.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But through my
experience this summer,

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I can say it with a little bit
more confidence-- no problem--

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which I'm doing now.

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So back in, like, May--

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when was-- I actually--

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March, maybe-- I was
like-- oh, shit, what am I

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going to do this summer?

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And--

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[LAUGHTER]

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Ideally, I wanted to do
something involving publishing.

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Because even though I had
studied film, writing--

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not for the screen, but
prose-- is my true passion.

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And I was worried about what
I could do to actually make

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money, since people often talk
about authors, like-- oh, you

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do that thing where you
kind of just write stuff,

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and maybe unless
you're Stephen King,

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you won't make any
money off of it at all.

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So I thought, OK,
maybe learning more

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about the specifics of
the publishing industry

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would be helpful.

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And that led me to InkWell.

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Literary agencies
are this important

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and sort of overlooked piece in
the whole publishing landscape,

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between author and the
actual publishing houses.

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What they do is--

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in the same way that an
actor will have an agent

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or an athlete will
have an agent,

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authors have agents who
handle their contract work,

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who sort of negotiate with
editors to get them the best

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advances and the best terms
in their contract agreements--

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help edit, market--

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do all sorts of things.

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It's full-service for a
reason, in that agents who

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work at InkWell and
other similar places,

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they work for the
author, but it's really

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a partnership,
where both of them

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are working on the
projects together.

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So in order to find those people
who might be good clients,

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InkWell-- like almost
all other agencies--

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invites queries from
potential authors.

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And that will take me to the two
major parts of my internship--

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it was reading queries
and reading manuscripts.

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So when it comes to queries, I--

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essentially, what a query is is
a small, elevator-style pitch

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of what the book is about,
followed by some information

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about the author and a
short sample of 5-10 pages.

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It has to be from the
beginning of the book--

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so, like, the first
five pages of the novel.

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Is it good?

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Did I like it?

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If I did, if I thought it was
quality writing, if I thought

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that it had the potential
to be a good story,

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I would forward it
on to the agent who

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would be most interested in
pursuing a project like this.

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InkWell is interesting in
that they do both fiction

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and nonfiction work, depending
upon what the agent is

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personally interested in.

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So Kim Witherspoon, for
example-- one of the partners--

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really likes women's fiction.

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So whenever I had something that
seemed intriguing in that area,

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I could send it on to her or one
of the other agents like that--

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a George Lucas-- not
that George Lucas,

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a different George Lucas--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--did lots of thrillers,
which I wasn't really that

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familiar with until I got
started-- well, my supervisor,

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Eliza-- she does a lot
of nonfiction work.

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So I would send it on
to them, and if they

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thought it was interesting,
and they wanted

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to request the full
manuscript, then I

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would often be the person
reading them first.

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I would read the manuscript
and write what's called

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a reader's report, which is a
summary of what happens in it,

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what's the genre, kind of
quick-- who are the characters,

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what happens, what's
the resolution--

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and then a critique that went
on, talking about, you know--

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what were the strengths and
weaknesses of the manuscript,

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were the characters engaging,
was the plot engaging,

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was it doing what
it was supposed

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to do within the terms of the
genre that it said it was?

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And I would give
a recommendation

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on whether I thought we
should pass on the project,

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whether the agent in question
should, maybe, give it

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a second read and see if
they're interested in, maybe,

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calling up the
author and talking

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about possible representation,
or if perhaps, they should pass

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on it, but provide revisions.

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And in that case, a lot
of my critique stuff

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went into the actual emails
that would be sent back

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to the author, saying--

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this is great, but I
think that you need, like,

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a couple more rounds
of edits, which

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was quite exciting, because that
formed the crux of, you know,

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of course, not the actual
clients, themselves,

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but the potential clients.

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And there are so many
people who send out queries.

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Like, it's insane
the amount of queries

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that we got each day--
hundreds of them.

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And I was kind of, like,
a human spam filter.

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[LAUGHTER]

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That was the majority
of what I did,

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although I did get the
privilege of working

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on some current client
manuscripts, which was really

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fun.

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And InkWell was
really wonderful,

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in that they do a lot
of educational work

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for their interns.

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So throughout the summer,
different people in the office

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would talk to me and
the two other interns

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about various aspects of the
publishing industry, which

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is how I know a lot
more about the specifics

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of actually agents--

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not just evaluating
manuscripts, but what

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happens when a book goes
out on submission to editors

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who might be potentially
interested in buying it--

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all sorts of stuff like that.

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And that brings me to,
like, thinking about how

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it related to me, specifically.

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Towards the end
of my internship,

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I was lucky to get some
really great advice from both

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my supervisor and
one of the partners

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at the firm, Michael Carlisle.

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And essentially, they told
me not to be an agent for--

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which was kind of
weird, considering

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I was basically doing the work
that an assistant, or just

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below an assistant would do.

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Because a lot of
the full agents,

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they'd have assistant agents
who would see a lot of the stuff

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that I wrote before sending it
on to, like, Kim Witherspoon,

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or whoever was really the crafts
of the operation of the agency.

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So hearing that,
it kind of jived

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with what I'd been thinking
throughout the summer.

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I spent a lot of
time on the train,

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because I lived on
Long Island, so I

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was riding on the train for
that three hour stretch,

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there and back.

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And I was having no fun with
my manuscript, but thinking--

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you know, I definitely
could make a good agent,

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I could make a good editor--

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I could do something
in publishing.

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But I really just
felt like writing.

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And it was really nice to
hear them be, like-- yeah, you

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should just write and do
a job that's unrelated

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and then not spend
your time doing

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this full-time job--
which is, granted,

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really interesting
and wonderful,

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but not a path, they thought,
would be good for you.

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What would be good
for me, I'm hoping,

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is to get a part-time job.

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This is my last
semester, by the way.

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So this is, like,
an immediate plan--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--part-time job plus writing
a lot plus eventually,

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querying in the same way
that the potential authors

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query InkWell.

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And feeling that
way, like, actually,

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really feeling
positive, saying that I

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want to write genre
fiction was a journey

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throughout the summer.

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I don't know-- it
was kind of like, hm,

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I really like women's fiction.

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Like, romance-- ooh, like,
I like reading it a lot.

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I'm not going to tell you that.

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I'll read it on my iPad so
you don't see the cover.

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But a lot of people in the
office worked with romance.

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And honestly, romance
is one of those genres

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that actually makes money.

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Like, literally,
romance novels subsidize

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those literary fiction novels
that we read in class, here.

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So in terms of actually being
a full-time novelist and being

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able to write as a career, doing
something that I already knew

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that I enjoyed--

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hearing people talk
about it, like-- yeah,

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we should definitely request
that full manuscript,

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because it has
potential, you know, or--

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yeah, like, there are so many
different romance genres,

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and you can write
in multiple ones.

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And most romance writers come
out with several books a year.

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Hearing all of that
spoken in a positive tone,

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sort of outside the
bubble of academia,

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was seriously encouraging
and wonderful.

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And you know, by the end, I'm
standing up here, and literally

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being, like-- yeah, that
contemporary romance, kind

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of sexy, set of Hollywood,
that I'm working on right now,

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like, hopefully, it will be
on bookshelves eventually.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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