Jonathan Franzen, craft workshops, and 400 writers, authors, agents, and editors.  What were your favorite sessions?  What did you think of the Manuscript Mart?  Spill all here.

I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying "Agent Idol" so much.  The agents and editors on the panels were varied, smart, and honest-- though I know that honesty can be painful for some.  I learned quite a bit, especially at how easily and quickly an agent can say "no."  Great session!

I was thrilled with the caliber of writers at Muse. I've signed one (fingers crossed for a sale!) and I'm stalking two other very hot prospects.

Janet, that is so cool!  You know we have our fingers crossed for you, and for our soon-to-be-published Grubbie!  Good luck, and send more good news our way anytime.

I also wanted to mention how great Bret Anthony Johnston's sessions always are.  2008 was his second time at the Muse, and in both years I left his talk feeling inspired, energized, and amazed at his warmth, humor and intelligence.  I'm sure he'll be back next year, so don't miss it!  Hopefully we can also talk him into doing a "Muse Reprise" seminar at Grub (a 3-hour version of the Muse session) sometime in the fall.

I thought Muse and the Marketplace was the best conference I've ever attended at which to meet and interact with agents.  Thanks to Katherine Sands, I realized how much work my query letter needed and have since addressed that.  I was thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to agents in so many venues over two days.

Jonathan Franzen was the weakest part of the conference.  I found him arrogant and hypocritical, with his comments on how difficult it is for a literary writer like him to reach the shallow masses - yet he's thumbed his nose at Oprah Winfrey who wanted to do just that.  He blew a golden opportunity to bring his literary fiction to a wide audience but instead chose to live in his ivory tower and criticize everyone who doesn't live in one.  I wish you had allowed time for us to pin him down on this issue.

I actually thought Franzen was effective, especially when he spoke off the cuff. I wish he'd ditched the essay and done the whole thing extempo, but at least he did the Q & A. He definitely came across as unapologetic and slightly embittered about the Oprah thing, but he also admitted that he was naive, which implies that he wouldn't handle it the same way today as he did at the time. He could've chided McCarthy as a sell-out but in fact lauded him for forging a compromise with Oprah, making it work for him, which means that he doesn't look down on Oprah per se. In fact, my impression was that he doesn't, that he was resentful that he felt that he had to be effusive with gratitude for her and that the street didn't go in both directions. Is he right about this? I'm not sure, but he probably has a point. Anyway, I would rather that he'd talked a bit more about the muse and less about the marketplace; the essay was fine, and his point about how reading literature enabled his family dynamics to suddenly crystallize before his eyes was engaging, as were his remarks about how The Trial shook up his world-view. But, again, not to harp on the point, I would've preferred that the muse portion had been less scripted given that he can clearly work without a script.

I liked Franzen - thought, though, he could have read less and talked more - had to agree with him about "Oprah." The NYT book review doesn't require a medallion for an endorsement, not sure why Oprah should oblige "Oprah authors" to do the same.

Agent Idol was irritating - they didn't get to my manuscript at all because of all the windbagging.

Muse was fantastic. My manuscript didn't get read during Agent Idol either, but I don't share the opinion of the above poster. I sucked it up and tried again at Editor Idol. I found the responses of the participants of both panels to all the works read incredibly helpful. There were several times a crit was made about something in another's page when I said "okey dokey, strike that on page four..."

Franzen was cool, but I'm a self absorbed querying writer. I was more interested in the workshops. They were great. It was my favorite conference.