Dog Days of Summer

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Canis Major, Dog Days of Summer, GLVWG, Writing

From: Astronomy.com

Dawn Sooy, GLVWG Secretary, remarks about the constant heat during the last few weeks.

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            My two dogs and I have just returned from a short walk. I took a deep breath of relief when I entered the house, the air conditioning slowly cooling my body. For some reason, the phrase “Dog Days of Summer” passed through my mind, so I decided to look it up.

Wiki has the following description, “The dog days are the hottest, most uncomfortable part of the Northern summer. The American weather and farming annual, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, explains that the phrase ‘Dog Days’ conjures up the hottest, most sultry days of summer,” I can attest to that definition, and I am sure many of us in this area are struck by the heat when leaving the house.

Another interesting fact is the ancient Greeks associated this time of the year with Sirius, a star in the constellation that today refers to as Canis Major, literally the “greater dog” constellation.

May publications refer to the “Dog Days of Summer”. To mention a few:  Homer in the ‘IIiad,’ John Webster’s 1613 stage play ‘The Duchess of Malfi,’ Charles Dickens in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and Richard Harding Davis ‘in The Bar Sinister.’”

So sit back, enjoy your pool if you are lucky, or grab a popsicle from the freezer. These days won’t last forever and soon we will be shivering in cold weather.

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Dawn grew up in Eastern Pennsylvania and has experienced the four seasons this state has to offer. She received a degree in Computer Science and worked in that field until 2014. Her interests are writing, reading, and fishing.

She is married to her husband, Bob and between them, they have four children. Recently her granddaughter had a baby and now enjoys the name Great Grammy Dawn.

Dawn has published five short stories, the most recent, “Dancing in the Moonlight”, is published in the GLVWG anthology Write Here – Write Now.  This collection is available for purchase through Amazon.com.

You can find Dawn at her Facebook Page, and coming soon, her new WordPress author site.

 

 

Meet Gisele Leck, GLVWG Publicity Chair

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Gisela Leck, GLVWG, GLVWG Publicity, Write Stuff, Writing, Writing Groups

Gisele Leck, GLVWG Publicity Chair, offers ten great reasons to join us at the beginning of our new fiscal year, September 24.

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10 Great Reasons to Come to our Saturday Morning Meetings:

1. It’s only once a month.
2. No rush hour traffic.
3. Hassle-free parking.
4. No need to bring quarters since parking is free.
5. Free coffee.
6. Legitimate excuse not to study, do laundry, mow the lawn, etc.
7. Writers sharing their successes.
8. Writers sharing their failures.
9. Guest speakers who inspire.
10. People who get why you are writing.

September’s speaker is author Chris Redding, who will present a morning session on “How to Make Money Before You Hit it Big”. Hope to see  you there.

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Gisela grew up in Southern Germany before making the United States her permanent home. She studied at the University of Texas at Austin as well as the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis where she earned an M.S.W. Gisela lives in Bethlehem, PA, and teaches sociology at a local college. She loves writing, has contributed to GLVWG’s Anthology, and has finished her first novel. Her interests are many, including reading, acting, hiking, rowing, traveling, going to the movies, and trying out new recipes.

Robert Liparulo, an inspiration for writers at the GLVWG Write Stuff™ Conference

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Bestselling Author, GLVWG, GLVWG "Write Stuff", Robert Liparulo, Writing, Writing Advice, Writing Inspiration

By DT Krippene

 

At the recent GLVWG Write Stuff™ Conference, I had the pleasure of attending Robert Liparulo’s seminars. What made his presentation so rewarding, was how approachable he was. His light-hearted, easy-going style was infectious, with ample inspiration from his journey as an author.

We spent Thursday, April 7, with how to take a story from Mind to Manuscript – The Making of Your Masterpiece. Robert borrowed on his own experience in writing his first novel, “Comes a Horseman”, which took him years to perfect before he felt confident to publish. After hitting the bestseller lists, he knocked out one story after another, no longer questioning his ability to write. He went on to publish a bestselling YA series, Dreamhouse Kings, as well as other thriller novels.

He reminded us that writing is an art, and like any artistic venture, it’s subjective. Robert admits to being a maverick in the industry, in that he rarely does extensive rewrites of his books. He said the author’s voice is how a good story is told, and extensive editing can kill that voice if an author isn’t careful. Same applies for the use of critique groups, and finds them potentially dangerous to a budding author when too many “opinions” muck up the voice. Finding a good critique partner is like gold, valuable yet hard to find. Stories are all about the character, but he was quick to point out that too much detail on the character can suppress a reader’s natural inclination to imagine what the character looks like. He demonstrated this with a review of his book covers, where you never see the character’s face.

Meet Suzanne Kuhn from SuzyQ

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GLVWG, SuzyQ, Write Stuff

 

GLVWG’s Tammy Burke spoke with Suzanne Kuhn, better known from her “SuzyQ4U” site, about joining this year’s Write Stuff Conference.

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 It is thrilling that you are joining us at this year’s GLVWG “Write Stuff” conference and what amazing information you will be bringing!  

Suzy Kuhn: I feel very honored to have been asked to join the conference faculty this year. I’m a Pennsylvania girl, I always love “going home”.

I was hoping you wouldn’t mind giving us a teaser about the “Author Promotion Boot Camp” workshop you will be leading on Friday, April 8.  

Suzy Kuhn: I am the originator of Author Boot Camp, which I began several years ago at a retail event. Because other Author Boot Camps have sprung up, I now call mine “SuzyQ Boot Camp”.

At GLVWG I will be covering the topic of engagement in these three areas: Author Etiquette, Social Media and Retail Relations. Because of my approach, SQBC is great for conferees who are just beginning to think about writing all the way up to NYT best selling authors. We will have plenty of time for Q&A along the way AND I plan to add a bonus segment on Branding.

Meet Shawn Smucker

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Ghost Writing, GLVWG, GLVWG "Write Stuff", Writing, Writing Advice, Writing Conferences, Writing Memoirs

GLVWG’s Mitzi Flye spoke with author, blogger, and co-writer, Shawn Smucker. Shawn will be at the Write Stuff conference to share his wisdom on ghost writing and writing memoirs.

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You decided to “live your dream” of earning a living writing after your construction business failed and you found yourself deeply in debt. If someone came to you with the same dream, what would you say to them?

If someone came to me with the same dream, I would ask them how often they’ve been writing and how they are currently making money as a writer. I had already written two books by the time I left my other business and had multiple leads for additional work – taking a leap like this certainly isn’t something I’d recommend unless you already have a plan and existing streams of freelance income. Of course, you’ll never have it all figured out, so making this kind of a decision always requires a balance between practicality and uncertainty. If your dream is to make a living as a writer, write every day, use your existing contacts to generate writing income, and get creative about how you can capitalize on your particular writing strengths.

Meet 2016 Keynote Robert Liparulo

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Comes a Horseman, Dreamhouse Kings, GLVWG, Keynote, Liparulo

Hi Robert,

We are thrilled to have you join us as our keynote speaker for this year’s Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group “Write Stuff” conference along with teaching “From Mind to Manuscript: The Making of Your Masterpiece” and “Thrillers and Mysteries: How Knowing the Difference Will Help You Write a Great Story” for the pre-conference workshops.

Would you mind giving a teaser of what you’ll be covering during the preconference workshops and your keynote speech?

Robert Liparulo:  First, I’m excited to be a small part of this conference. I’ve never attended, but have run into people who have and have loved it, all the learning and networking—oops, I mean socializing.

My full-day workshop will be a nuts-and-bolts analysis of what it takes to take your story idea from your head to a published book, in the hands of readers. A lot of books and seminars offer a sort of recipe or step-by-step guide to getting published, but really, it doesn’t work that way. If it did, everyone who’d read one of these books or attended one of these seminars would be published. Storytelling in a way that involves the publishing industry is an art—way too subjective for cookie-cutter recipes—and everyone attempting it is unique, with his or her own set of skills and motivations and styles and hang-ups and frustrations and moments of brilliance and . . . you get the idea. My workshop will approach the process of writing and getting published—as well as what comes after—with this practical, real-word writing-as-art (i.e., subjective), writer-as-artist (i.e., unique) perspective. Forget the books, forget step-by-step; here’s what it’s like to really do it, in the heat of the battle, what they don’t tell you. I don’t like lectures—they’re boring and the topics of writing and publishing are way too expansive and complicated for one person standing at a podium to address all the issues meaningful to attendees. So while my workshops will have a semblance of structure, and I’ll have important points to address, I’m counting on the attendees to let me know what’s important to them about a specific subject, to make our time time very interactive and meaningful—conversations rather than presentations.

Meet Catherine E. McLean, Author, Writing Instructor & Workshop Speaker

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GLVWG, Write Stuff, writerscheatsheets

Hi Catherine! It is exciting that you will be with us this year for the conference.

I was wondering if you could give us a little teaser about what you will be covering during your Friday workshops, “Cause and Effect Sequences: Pace & Flow” and “Becoming a Storyteller, not just a Writer.” They both sound intriguing! Your Saturday sessions “View, Verbs, and Vividness—A Different Way to Look at Show-Don’t-Tell” and “Revision is a Process: Simplified” also sound extremely craft-worthy and informative as well. 

Catherine E. McLean:  A little teaser for “Cause and Effect Sequences”? How about— what was meant wasn’t what was written?

Writers are warned not to do anything that takes a reader out of enjoying the story world. Putting the wrong sequence of actions down or leaving out a sequence of actions, reactions, or responses nets a very confused reader who stops reading.

Keep in mind that readers are not mind readers. They only have the words on a page to go by. Should the reader stop to reread, then guess what was meant, and discovers later they guessed incorrectly, well, the reader is miffed. If the writer does this enough times, the reader quits reading, never to buy from that author again.

Meet Alexander Slater, Literary Agent from Trident Media Group

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Alexander Slater, GLVWG, Trident Media Group, Write Stuff

by Tammy Burke

Hi Alex,

We are thrilled to welcome you to this year’s GLVWG’s “Write Stuff” conference which is in its 22nd year. Your expertise both internationally and domestically makes you such a wonderful addition to our conference faculty.

Alexander Slater: Thank you! It’s an honor to be here.

So… Can you tell us what your favorite thing about being an agent is? What is your least favorite thing?

Alexander Slater: My favorite thing about being an agent is being blown away by outstanding fiction that millions of people deserve to read but haven’t yet. I truly can’t think of a least favorite thing.

How would you describe your ideal relationship between an author and yourself? What are your expectations? And what “sparks” you most when working on a project?

Alexander Slater: My ideal relationship would be one with an author who respects my time as much as I respect hers. I look for clients who are hardworking, creative, and willing to fight for their work as much as I am. I want authors who have something to say in a new and amazing away, writers who have faith, and writers who can teach me something I did not expect. What sparks me most is usually a story that insists I keep turning the pages, and language that makes my mind crackle. I am continually surprised by how many writers there are, so I’m looking for a partner who knows why her voice deserves to contribute.