GrubWrites

Announcing: Rebecca Makkai, Victor LaValle, Maggie Shipstead, & Jane Friedman Muse 2023 Keynote Panels

We're thrilled to announce two new keynote panels featuring acclaimed authors Rebecca Makkai, Victor LaValle, Maggie Shipstead, and publishing industry expert Jane Friedman at our upcoming May Muse and the Marketplace Publishing Summit taking place in just a few weeks on May 18-21.

These keynote panels are must-attend events for writers looking for inspiration and guidance on the path to publication and anyone who is curious about the state of book publishing today. For our “Marketplace” Keynote Panel, Jane Friedman will anchor a discussion on "2023 Book Trends and the Near Future of Publishing: What Writers Need to Know." In conversation with Kristen McLean of Circana BookScan and Publishers Weekly senior international and bookselling editor Ed Nawotka, Freidman will discuss what the near future of book publishing holds for writers, including the impact of recent advances in AI like ChatGPT.

Our “Muse” Keynote Panel will feature bestselling and award-winning authors Victor LaValle, Rebecca Makkai, and Maggie Shipstead as they explore how to stay motivated and artistically engaged throughout the writing and publishing process in "Why Do We Do This? Finding the Writerly Purposes that Make Publishing Worth It."

Take a look below to learn more about our upcoming Muse keynote panels, including our recently announced “How We Made This” Keynote Panel featuring #1 New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang and her editorial team as they discuss how they collaborated to bring the book Yellowface into the world.

In the face of all the difficulties authors encounter as we attempt to navigate the world of publishing, why do we continue to labor for years over our stories and the business of launching them into the world?

Join us for an insightful panel featuring bestselling and award-winning authors Victor LaValle (author of Lone Women and The Changeling, soon to be adapted for Apple TV+), Rebecca Makkai (author of I Have Some Questions For You and The Great Believers, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award), and Maggie Shipstead (a New York Times-bestselling author of the Great Circle and You Have a Friend In 10A), as they share their personal stories and reveal what keeps them motivated and engaged despite the challenges of the publishing world. Discover how they find their writerly purpose and what drives them to continue their storytelling journey, and get valuable insights and inspiration for your writing career.

It’s often said that the pandemic has accelerated changes already underway in business, and that’s proven especially true for book publishing. Even though the industry is often considered slow and not as susceptible to technological change (and print books saw their best sales in a decade!), it’s been a transformative few years for the business of books. And more change is coming.

This panel of publishing industry experts will discuss current sales trends in the United States, the rise of BookTok and its importance to the publishing community, how brick-and-mortar bookstores are performing, the many ways that publishers and authors are grappling with and already taking advantage of artificial intelligence (including ChatGPT), the rise of Substack vs. The Twitter Troubles, and much more. They will share what authors hoping to publish a book can do now to give their projects and careers the best possible chance of success.

The critically acclaimed author of Babel and the Poppy War trilogy, R. F. Kuang, enters new literary territory with her next book Yellowface (May 16), “a spellbinding tale of artistic theft that fearlessly wrestles with questions of cultural appropriation and exploitation, racism, diversity, tokenism, ambition, friendship, and the irresistible power of storytelling.”

Kuang will be joined by two members of her HarperCollins editorial team — May Chen and Mireya Chiriboga — whose own experiences as industry professionals informed the plot of the book. Together, they will pull back the curtain on how they collaborated professionally on Yellowface and give you a behind the scenes look at how the writing, publishing, and launch processes work to bring a book into the world.