A brief announcement for those of you who were planning on seeing me at the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association conference this summer or taking my Seattle-area pitching class prior to it: the Pitch Practicing Palace’s staff has decided that we will not be operating at PNWA this year, and I have already informed the PNWA that I will not be teaching the class for them again. I have, in fact, resigned from the organization after many years’ membership.
Struggling through negotiations to provide these services for conference attendees was taking up far too much of my time, energy, and patience. I believe I can do more good here than by fighting with people who apparently do not understand that pitching is both stressful and a learned skill. I won’t bore everyone recapping the events of April 2 and thereafter, or dealing with the personalities involved. Suffice it to say that my mission here is to be upbeat and supportive of my readers, and I believe I can do a better job of that if I sever all ties to an organization that has made it quite clear that it now wishes it had never asked me to be its Resident Writer for 11 months in 2005-2006.
There’s no accounting for taste, eh?
My deepest apologies to any of you who made plans in the expectation that the PPP would be available or who were looking forward to the class. I shall try to find another venue for the latter, but rest assured, I shall be writing EXTENSIVELY about pitching between now and then.
Enough of all this unpleasantness. Let’s all get back to work.