12 Comments

I have had several conversations with other bloggers about being more realistic on social media. If your kitchen looks instagram ready 24 hours a day, you aren't using it.

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Hah. Yes, I've heard anecdotally from some people that their behind-the-scenes videos get them more responses than any other.

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Thank you for the shout out. I love that you’re encouraging people to come back to IACP. It’s such a wonderful organization and so many author’s foundation to how they got started.

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Indeed it is! I've met so many people I admire, also. This year you could gp meet anyone who won award and showed up to claim it, including the book of the year.

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As someone who attended IACP for years, it has long felt completely out of sync with the times. In general I think trade fairs are a thing of the past, but in the case of IACP I just don't understand the value anymore. Before we had the internet the membership list - and the connections made - used to be solid gold. That hasn't been true for quite a while. The investment in belonging, membership, and actually traveling to get to the event seems out of proportion to what one can actually get out of it professionally. For instance I get 1000% more out of your newsletters than I would attending the conference.

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Well thank you! But reading this newsletter is not the same as serendipitous meetings with people and all the other things that can only happen in person.

The membership list is a fantastic thing, and it still exists. Due to privacy laws, IACP is not permitted to publish names without members opting in.

You might like the networking opportunities. For example, I met Sola El-Waylly, winner of Cookbook of the Year; Hetty McKinnon, who won for Tenderheart; and countless others. And I got to spend a little time with Paula Forbes, whose newsletter, Stained Press News, I adore.

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Absolutely less polished but real works when I read stuff. And, the opposite? Even more so, over-polished, looking-over-the-shoulder work sucks. I’m not saying any old sloppily put together any old thing works, no, that’s not the point. But realness does speak to one as a reader, and that really matters.

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Absolutely Nicholas. Thanks for saying so.

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I too, was at IACP and really enjoyed meeting you. However, I have a really different sense of why the attendance has fallen - there isn't enough for active food writers. IACP was once much more than "how to write a book proposal" and "how to find an agent." I remember sessions on subjects like the marketing of Native American produced meat or how supermarkets were dealing with the newfound popularity of local foods. In other words - things actual working food writers could use to generate projects.

I've been singing this song for almost ten years now and I hope somebody, somewhere listens. If all IACP will do is have introductory technique classes and give out awards, most of us will only want to go for the party. We food writers need what IACP once offered.

The party was great BTW.

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I get what you’re saying. I don’t know if those classes will be offered, if the agenda stays as only 1 day. You might try The Edible Conference or the Oxford Symposium.

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I am looking forward to attending both of those conferences and will do my best to get to them during the next year. However, sometimes I get stuck in the past and I fondly remember the great events at previous IACP conferences.

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Yeah I totally get that!

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