You’ve done a few
handstands, redecorated your entire living space, and still no words have
reached your frontal lobe. Or perhaps you have written your closing sentence
and have no idea what to do next.

The Ladder — a literary conference
presented by Writers & Books, now in its second year — aims to link writers
at all levels with valuable resources. Presented this weekend in downtown
Rochester, the event will showcase authors, editors, and publishers who will
discuss how to navigate the struggles that all writers face.

This year, the day-long boot camp
will feature 55 eminent literary professionals from Rochester and beyond. The
panels are organized into four “publishing ladder” rungs: Write, Edit, Connect,
and Publish. Throughout the day, conference attendees will have the chance to
meet with agents (including one-on-one, three-minute appointments), editors,
authors, and publishers.

The Ladder’s inaugural conference
took place last year. Writers & Books’ former Executive Director Kyle Semmel founded
the conference in an attempt to quell persistent authorial woes and strengthen
Rochester’s literary community. He says he hopes the conference will one day
resemble the Rochester Fringe Festival, but for literature.

Semmel has
since stepped down from leading W&B, but he says stepping away from his
brainchild was a bit more difficult. While W&B was focused on finding his
replacement, Semmel volunteered as a committee member
for The Ladder, alongside author Brian Wood, to help plan and organize this
year’s panels.

“I just wanted to step in to make
sure this would go on for at least another year,” Semmel
says, adding that he is unsure of The Ladder’s future. “I just wanted to see
this continue, that was the main thing.”

The event, which is split into four
75-minute intervals with five simultaneous panels each, allows attendees to
choose from such topics as “Crafting Character,” “Is a Small Press Right for Me?,” and “Meet the Agents.”

“One of the things I wanted to make
sure we did was have a new set of panelists, because they have a new set of
knowledge to share,” Semmel says. “We also wanted to
diversify our panelists and bring in people who have a different experience or
a different voice to give.”

Among this year’s panelists is CaTyra Polland, founder of Rochester
Black Author Expo. After presenting her organization’s materials at the
conference last year, Polland was invited to speak as
part of the “Self-Publishing Forum” panel this time around.

This year, many panels — including
“Cut to the Chase” and “Starting Strong” — seem to focus on securing, catching,
and keeping readers. These days, authors have to compete with easy-to-absorb
stories in a variety of media, so even if you can catch readers’ attention,
it’s a constant battle to keep it.

“You have to hook them fast, or else
they’re going to go onto something else,” Semmel
says. “I think too often that part of writing is ignored, and at the peril of
the writing itself. You want to tell a great story but you have to do it in a
way that, frankly, doesn’t bore the reader.”

And more than one panel summary
characterizes the audience as something elusive, something to be caught and
secured. “Starting Strong,” will discuss our increasingly fast-paced world, and
what that means to writers as they approach the page. “From Hook to Book” is
focused on how to create a nonfiction book proposal to present to agents and
publishers.

Also included in this year’s lineup
of panelists is Alex Sรกnchez, who recently moved back to Rochester. He will participate
in the “Cut to the Chase” panel, which gives tips on trimming the boring bits
out of a manuscript. Sรกnchez is perhaps most famous for his “Rainbow Boys” series, which focuses
on three gay characters and their coming-of-age stories. He is now working with
DC Comics on a graphic novel that reimagines Aqualad
as a queer narrative.

“Each of us has a story,” Sรกnchez
says. “When I’m teaching other writers it helps me to remember that. Often
times it’s those stories that are the scariest to tell, because it means being
vulnerable and sharing who we are. For me, one of my stories was growing up gay
and the struggles that came with that — especially given the time of the 60’s
and 70’s.”

Sรกnchez says he focuses on the
emotionality of a story, and how universal themes — like love, friendship, and
growth — can bring large groups of identities together. Regardless of whether
the character is queer or straight, white or a person of color, male or female,
the reader should fall right in step with them.

Readers are attracted to conflicts,
he says, and gripping ones at that. They want to see characters facing
exhaustive adversity and rising above it. And people who are queer or different
in some way are the underdogs of reality, facing adversity on a daily basis.

With the expertise of Polland, Sรกnchez, and the multitude of other influential,
dynamic panelists, the conference is poised to be a valuable resource for
writers.

“I hope that the attendees and the
panelists as well become more encouraged and informed about the power they have
as an author or writer,” Polland says. “And also
learn that they’re not experiencing their struggles alone; that there are
people who have already gone through this that can help.”

Information about
need-based scholarships can be found at wab.org/classes/adult-scholarships.
Applications are due on Thursday, June 6, by 9 p.m.

This article appears in Jun 5-11, 2019.