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In this freewheeling session, a professional actor performs the first page of attendees' unpublished manuscripts for the audience and a panel of three judges.

Judges are agents and editors with years of experience reading unsolicited submissions. When one judge hears a line that would make her stop reading, she raises her hand. The actor keeps reading until a second judge raises his hand. The judges then discuss why they would stop reading, and offer concrete if subjective suggestions to the anonymous author. When no agent raises a hand, the judges discuss what made the excerpt work.

Paricipants bring the first 250 words of their manuscript (fiction or non-fiction only) to the session.

Sponsored by Grub Street.