Super Dan

When I arrived on the blogging scene, there was one name that kept appearing at every turn: Dan Wickett. The man was everywhere, hosting e-panels, interviewing authors, guestblogging , reviewing books, and tirelessly running something called the Emerging Writers Network.

Who was Dan Wickett? I had no idea. Yet everybody who was anybody on the litblog scene seemed to know him. Except me.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long to find out, because Dan found me. Since then, he's invited me over to the EWN to partake in a panel discussion, we’ve exchanged notes on authors, and I've joined his wonderful mailing list—as you all should be! (Here’s a little sample of what was in today’s email: "Emerging Southern Women Writers and Bloggers Discuss ... Labels" —a live panel discussion, introduced by Shannon Ravenel, with writers: Tayari Jones, Quinn Dalton, and LitBloggers extraordinaire Carrie Frye and Gwenda Bond. —See what I mean about the great email!)

But as much as I have seen Dan in action, he was still a mystery to me. Until I finally I sat him down and asked, “Is there anything you don't do?!”

Dan Wickett, in his own words:

One thing I don't do, is blog.

Not at all because I don't think it's a great idea—it has much more to do with the fact that when I started the Emerging Writers Network, I didn't even know there was such technology, let alone such a great group of websites out there.

When I started, right around five years ago now, I was mainly trying to get some people interested in the books of a couple of friends of mine, Alyson Hagy and Elwood Reid, had recently published. I posted reviews at Amazon of the new books they had just released, and then figuring that nobody would ever see those reviews if they weren't already interested in the books, decided to email the reviews I wrote to every name I had in my email addresses book at the time. A stunning 21 friends and family members, including both Alyson and Elwood, who had already read each other's work.

By being a little bold, and egotistic, that number of addresses grew the first year or so, mainly when I
added the email address of an author I was reviewing, if I could find it online somewhere. Over time there was a bit of word of mouth, some people stumbling on the early reviews at Amazon, and the network began to grow. There are now just over 600 individuals who are signed up, receiving the emails that get sent out (to some I'm sure, at an overzealous pace).

The why has certainly changed though since those first couple of years. It has gone from solely wanting to shove my opinions down the throats of others, to (while still doing that!) the inclusion of trying to develop a network. The mission or vision statement at Emerging Writers Network is simple:

"To develop a network consisting of emerging writers, established writers deserving of wider recognition and readers of literary books in order to increase the exposure of such writers to as many potential readers as possible."

This network has become a bit more like a community the past couple of years. It has been fun watching some of the authors blurb each other's work, set up readings for each other in their respective towns, and even get together at events like AWP or Book Expo, etc.

Things have also expanded in the what do I do aspect as well. It's no longer just book reviews. I have
added interviews, as well as E-Panels - the similar interviewing of a group of individuals with similar
jobs or habits. This began with LitBloggers, and has recently moved into Independent Booksellers. The
largest project of the E-Panel move though has been the monthly E-Panel of Literary Journal Editors. The April E-Panel should be out next week and by then, there will have been 33 journals featured; I have the bulk of the year set up so that by December 31, 100 journals will have been included.

There has also been the distribution of David Abrams' journal postings from Iraq. David is an incredible
book reviewer and writer of fiction himself and he's been in Kuwait or Iraq, as a soldier doing public
relations, since January 1. He's been kind enough to share his thoughts and writings with the EWN (these are not to be found at the website, just via the email distributions as they arrive). Another new feature of community this past year has been working with author Kellie Wells as she teaches her creative writing students at Washington University of St. Louis how to read and write book reviews. Every Sunday, a student review is sent out to the network and many give
feedback to the student over the course of that following week.

I have also been invited to do many exciting things this past year or so - guest blog at The Elegant
Variation, as well as write posts for Cupcake, Conversational Reading, and now here; help a great
reading series pick out some writers to schedule; guest judging for the Million Writers Award over at
storySouth; being an editorial advisor for a great literary journal; and try my hand at putting together an anthology (work in progress still). None of this would have come about had I not begun, and continued, to review books.

Of course, I haven't even mentioned the books. While I still buy well over the national average of per
person purchases for this country, the number I obtain that way pales in comparison to those that are offered to me as a book reviewer. It's not why I started this, and it's not why I still do it, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I love this aspect of the EWN.

Most of all, I have a damn good time! The people I associate with, both online and occasionally in
person, are genuinely nice folks. I love reading well done books, and discussing them with people who care about writing and books and the industry in general. It's a great feeling when somebody lets me know they bought, read and really liked a book I reviewed positively. A lot of the new things added listed above have just started in the past six months - it leaves me with a lot of anticipation for what the rest of the year will bring!

Dan Wickett

Comments

[Kyle Minor]

Let us now praise Dan Wickett, a good and generous soul if ever one walked the earth. I eagerly await each new Emerging Writers Network newsletter. In its pages, I've read interviews with Lee K. Abbott, Steve Almond, Tom Bissell, Anthony Doerr, Gary Fisketjon, David Huddle, Brigid Hughes, Mike Magnuson, Lee Martin, Shannon Ravenel, Brady Udall . . . (and this is such a partial, partial list.) You're missing out if you don't send Dan an email right-this-second, and ask to join the EWN. You'll be glad, I promise!

[W. S. Cross]

There are some strange people out there willing to help all for nothing in return. Gerard Jones ("Everybody Who's Anybody in Publishing") come to mind, Dan is another one. It's excruciatingly hard to break through the clutter in publishing, and it's interesting how often the writers are blamed for the books making it into print, as if we'd all choose to write wimpy, precious stories about writers at writers colonies.