Write-On Wednesdays: Lucas Mangum Gives Authors a Forum

I am excited to have my writer friend on, Lucas Mangum.

He is the author of “Abhorrent” (Death Head Grin, February, 2011) and “Welcome to Video Babylon (Splatterpunk is Not Dead, forthcoming). Read his blog, The Dark Dimensions, at http://www.lucasmangum.wordpress.com or find him on Facebook or Twitter @LMangumFiction. He lives in Bucks County and holds the bi-monthly Awesome Reading Fest in Doylestown. You can read about his most recent successful event here at the Author Chronicles blog. He is also newly married – congrats Lucas and nice to have you on!

Today Lucas talks about building a writing community.

On Community
by Lucas Mangum

While at the last Awesome Reading Fest, I was asked by one of the attendees why I put these things together, because they are a lot of work – I’ll back up a minute.

For those of you that don’t know what Lucas Mangum’s Awesome Reading Fest is, it is a bi-monthly event that I host in Doylestown where local writers have the opportunity to read their work in a public setting. The event is usually videoed and posted on my YouTube channel. (http://www.youtube.com/user/SubterrestrialKing?feature=mhee) Last Saturday was the third one I’ve put together.

Oddly enough, today at work, my boss asked me the same thing. Why do I do it?  The number one reason is networking. Anyone who takes the field premier-pharmacy.com/product/cialis/ seriously knows how important networking is. Taking the time to get to know people who do what you do can lead to some truly magical relationships and opportunities for growth.

My belief is that as useful as social media is, all the Facebook and Twitter in the world is no replacement for meeting with someone face-to-face. For example, through events like the monthly Writer’s Coffeehouse in Willow Grove I have met some really awesome people. I know I’m not the only one who has. So it’s important, for us as writers, to unite within the community because as Mike Ventrella said in his excellent blog post, it takes talent, hard work and meeting the right people (and impressing them) to be successful.

And we definitely live in the right community for it!

Through some unexplained phenomenon, there are writers of all levels of experience residing in the greater Philadelphia/Bucks County area. Among them there is a lot of talented and tremendously dedicated individuals. I believe that bringing us all together in regular events can inspire great things like contacts, support and constructive criticism.

So while I believe social media is vital to a writer’s existence –actually to anyone who takes their work seriously—I also believe that it’s equally important that we don’t underestimate the power of live person-to-person contact.