I’m already on record as someone who heartily endorses the Authors Guild as any writer’s one stop shopping for professional services. This includes their Resource Library, where they post videos from workshops and events, including as of today this year’s WIT Festival, where a bunch of writers gave forth serially over a weekend on various topics, among others including the US and China, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the Supreme Court. The speakers were universally well informed and articulate. I enjoyed myself immensely and I learned a lot. Here’s a link to one.

Click through here to listen to all of them.

Why, you ask, do I post this on #thiswritinglife Friday? Because a writer never knows from which brow the idea for a plot will spring forth. If you’re paying attention, especially to people smarter and better informed than you’ll ever be, you’ll never run out.

Next week, I’ll be talking about silphium, which I first encountered in a lengthy article on BBC.org, and which inspired the thin end of the wedge of the plot of Isis4, which outline I am writing now.

But first, Isis3.

Chatter Writing Adm. Harry Harris Authors Guild David W. Blight Henry Louis Gates Jr. Linda Greenhouse Nikolas Bowie Simon Winchester WIT Festival