Some people call it networking. For me, it's all an excercise in namebuilding. What am I talking about? You know the cliche, “It's not what you know, it's who you know.”
Well believe me, it works. I recognized Bradley Charbonneau right away in the audience and he came with us for a drink at Orbit afterwards. I recognized Bradley because he always comes up to say hello and he turns up everywhere. The North Beach Festival, the Wild Writing Women salons, and Travelers’ Tales events. He is personable, considerate, and at the rate he is going, it won’t be long before he is a Travelers’ Tales contributor. Bradley has let us get to know him in addition to pounding the pavement with turning in story after qualified story and being selected for our Editor’s Choice on
TravelersTales.com He’s even going to join us for BEA. I’m telling you, being at the right place and the right time is half the battle of getting where you want to be.
Ken Vollmer, self published author of The Wanderlust Survival Guide is no dummy either. He comes to the same events and has even volunteered his time to be a TT intern so that he can learn how to market his own book to the travel lit world. Ken will also be meeting us in Los Angeles for BEA and his pr assistant duties will begin when we get back.
Susan and I were also drinking with my friend Sally, Colette O’Connor, Tara Weaver, editor of TT Tuscany (she started asa TT intern), and Michelle Hamilton another TT intern turned contributor (Her Fork in the Road).
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jen. It’s easy to do something you love. I think Tom Sawyer said that work is something you do when you’d rather be doing something else–writing and the writing world isn’t work.
I’ve been busy of late getting websites up for fellow writers (https://www.likomaisland.com/design).
See you soon,
– Bradley