This year’s AALS ADR Section Works-in-Progress Conference will be taking place two weeks from today at Creighton Law School.  The folks at the Werner Institute have put together a wonderful program that promises to please.  The conference web site is here, the abstracts of the papers to be presented are here (btw – that’s a great line up of speakers), and here is the conference schedule.  One thing that caught my eye in this year’s WIP conference occurs on Saturday when Bernie Mayer discusses the process of writing books.  Here’s a short blurb describing this presentation.

Writing a book for professional audiences is a different process than writing an article for an academic journal. Arriving at a clear concept, developing a proposal, finding an appropriate publisher, developing an effective voice, and planning a process for writing and editing pose specific challenges to a prospective author of a book. In this guided discussion, experienced and prospective authors of book length publications will be encouraged to share their experiences and struggles. In addition, I will discuss how I have approached the book writing process, and specifically what has worked and what not worked for me in these endeavors.  

If you can, you should head to the heartland in a couple of weeks.