The 2010 Arabic Music Retreat - Getting in Gear

It's a sure sign of spring when the brochures and posters for the Arabic Music Retreat are ready to go. The brochures just came back from the printer today, and the posters, which came in last week, look great.

This year will undoubtedly be another exceptional week of intense learning, out-of-this-world music-making and fellowship. We are on Facebook too - join us. If you have questions about the Retreat, e-mail me at: kaycam@aol.com.

You can download a PDF of the poster and find registration materials too at  http://www.simonshaheen.com/. 

Query Letters

I'm in the process of querying agents - looking for a literary agent to represent the book. Query letters have to be one page long, in three or four paragraphs at most. One has to summarize one's book in one paragraph, then pitch to the agent about one's background as a writer, one's 'platform'. I've been querying agents for the last six months, following advice to send batches of queries, say a dozen or so at a time, every couple of weeks. My letters improve with each batch. Now I'm wrestling with the platform part of my query. Should I include the fact that I teach Saudi and Gulf women's dance, that I lecture at schools and colleges on Saudi women and Arab music? Should I mention my work at the Arabic Music Retreat, or my `ud playing? I do have publishing credits, which I include. But the other activities...do they help or hurt? Until today I haven't mentioned anything but publishing credits. Today, I sent off a query with more information, so it will be interesting to see if it makes any difference. There's a wonderful FREE book available for downloading from amazon.com. It's called How to Write a Great Query Letter, by Noah Lukeman. Highly recommended.