A Talk with Maria V. Snyder

Tags

GLVWG "Write Stuff", Writing Conference, Writing Conferences

Maria V. Snyder is a fantasy and science fiction author best known for her New York Times best-selling Study Series. She’s written five other series, including the Glass Series, the Healer Series. Her books have won numerous awards.

Maria will be the Keynote Speaker at this years Write Stuff Writers Conference. She will also be presenting half-day seminars on Thursday and Friday afternoon, and two one-hour sessions on Saturday. GLVWG member Donna Brennan asked Maria a few questions about the sessions and seminars she will be presenting at the conference.

Donna: One of the sessions you will be teaching will be on serial writing. I noticed that characters in one of your series often show up in another. Is this typical when writing a series?

Maria: That happened with in my Study and Glass series. They are both set in the same world. The Glass books are a spin-off from the Study books. After I wrote the first three Study books, I was burned out with writing about those characters and wanted to start something new. My editor really loved the world I created, and she liked the one minor character, Opal, the glass magician. I was in the middle of telling her why I couldn’t write about Opal when an idea for a story popped into my head! From that one idea, I wrote three Glass books.

That frequently happens with long series of books. Authors will switch to other characters in the same world in order to bring in a fresh perspective. After several books, it becomes harder and harder to find new problems for your characters and for them to continue to change and grow over the course of so many books! Plus, there’s always the danger of going into the “realm of the ridiculous,” also known as “jumping the shark.” 

Donna: When you wrote your first book (which won the 2006 Compton Crook Award for Best First Fantasy Novel), did you plan it as series or did the characters just not want to leave you alone after the book was completed?

Maria: Poison Study was supposed to be a stand-alone fantasy novel. When I finally found a publisher for the book, they wanted a sequel. It was easy to change the ending and write a second book. When I finished that one, I knew there was still another book to complete Yelena’s story.

Donna: Another of your Saturday sessions is about how an independent bookstore works. Why is this kind of information useful to an author, and how can we use that knowledge to help sell our books?

Maria: Independent bookstores can be a wonderful resource to authors. They have loyal customers, and some host book clubs and events. It’s important to know how they operate so when an author has a new book out (or even with their backlist), they can approach a bookstore about getting their books on the shelves and perhaps doing an event at the store. Booksellers appreciate when authors understand how difficult it is to be a small business and are willing to accommodate them. 

Donna: On Thursday your seminar is about creating believable villains. Is there a trick to giving our villains depth? How different is that from giving our heroes depth? 

Maria: It’s not much different than giving your protagonist depth. Villains need goals, motivation, and conflict. But you also need to look at what set them on their path and other factors so your villains are well-rounded characters.

Donna: Your Friday session is about audio books. Is the audio book market different than the print or ebook market?

Maria: Yes, it is much different. Audio book listeners are frequently multi-tasking while listening. The narrator is just as important as the author so finding the prefect narrator is key. It’s also quite a process to produce your own audiobook. I’ll also be discussing the pros and cons of keeping your audio rights or selling them to your publisher.

Donna: If the target audience is different, how does that affect the way we market our books?

Maria: Knowing your target audience is the most important aspect of marketing. You need to know where your readers are in order to reach them. For example, if you’re writing YA, then your readers are on their phones, watching TikTok videos. For middle grade readers, school visits and library programs are important.

Donna: I know you will be giving the keynote address on Saturday, but the conference website doesn’t tell us the topic. Can you give us a hint of what you’ll be talking about?

Maria: The title of my address is “Navigating This So-Called Writer’s Life.” I talk about how expectations and perceptions about a writing career don’t always match up to what actually happens. That there are surprises waiting around every corner, and writers need to be flexible in order to preserver. 

Donna: Thank you very much, Maria, for your time. I look forward to all I can learn from you at the conference.

Maria: You’re welcome! I’m looking forward to the conference. It’s always inspiring and motivating when I spend time with other writers talking shop!

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This year’s Write Stuff Conference runs March 23-25 at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel. Registration is still open! 

Interview with Curtis Smith

Tags

GLVWG "Write Stuff", Writing Conference, Writing Conferences, Writing Craft

Curtis Smith is a presenter at this year’s Write Stuff conference. His conference workshops include The Elements of a Short Story and Writing Flash Fiction. Here is an interview with Curtis by GLVWG member Donna Brennan.

Register for the conference here.

Interview with Maria Snyder

Tags

GLVWG "Write Stuff", Writing, Writing Conference, Writing Conferences, Writing Craft

Maria Snyder is the Keynote speaker at this year’s Write Stuff conference. She’s also doing two half-day workshops at the conference. Here is an interview with Maria by GLVWG member Donna Brennan. Register for the conference here.

Interview with Kathryn Craft

Tags

GLVWG "Write Stuff", Writing Advice, Writing Conference, Writing Craft

Author and developmental editor Kathryn Craft is one of the presenters at the 2023 Write Stuff Conference

Interview by Sara Karnish

Long a leader in the southeastern Pennsylvania writing scene, Kathryn served for more than a decade in a variety of positions on the boards of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group and the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference, and was named the 2020 Guiding Scribe for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Kathryn leads the Your Novel Year small-group mentorship program, has served as adjunct faculty for Drexel University’s low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program, hosts writing retreats for women, and speaks often about writing. She writes a monthly series, “Mad Skills,” at the award-winning blog, Writer Unboxed.

Her debut novel, The Art of Falling, set in the Philadelphia dance world, a harsh microcosm of our society’s celebrity-driven expectations of women’s bodies, is available from Sourcebooks. Her follow up novel, The Far End of Happy, is based on true events surrounding the 1997 suicide standoff that resulted in her husband’s death. Originally meant to be a memoir, she decided to novelize. 

Learn more about Kathryn at kathryncraft.com or writingpartner.com. 

Kathryn will be facilitating a half-day workshop focused on dialogue, “Say That and More”, on Thursday, March 23. I sat down with Kathryn to talk about the importance of dialogue and so much more.

Q: Can you give us a sneak preview of your half-day workshop “Say That and More” at the Write Stuff Conference?

KC: Dialogue, if used well, can be an incredible multi-tasker. It can build characterization, deliver information, enhance conflict, further the plot, reveal the motivations of non-point-of-view characters, expose hidden loyalties and secrets, and more. In fact, if it’s only doing any one of these things, it’s not doing enough! By analyzing powerful excerpts of dialogue from bestselling novels, we’ll figure out what these authors have done so well, and then give each technique a shot with either prompts or characters from our own works in progress. It will be both fun and eye-opening!

Q: Why is strong dialogue so critical to a novel?

KC: We humans communicate with each other primarily through speech. Imagine speed-dating without it! The first “I love you” will change a relationship, for better or worse. A baby’s first word is joyfully celebrated. Asking for what we truly need can be nerve-wracking. Losing our voice before a speech or performance can be a tragic loss of opportunity. One’s dying words can carry a lifetime of meaning. We can feel lost when someone is desperately trying to communicate with us in a language we don’t know. Since such situations are common to all humans, well-written dialogue can gain immediate emotional investment from your reader.

But equally important to dialogue is what isn’t said. If that first “I love you” is met with silence, we know things aren’t going so well. Same if the baby’s first word is “Da-da” and the mom whisks the baby from “Da-da’s” arms to go down for a nap. By tapping into these universal human emotions through a rich tapestry of actions, memories, and setting, we can invite the reader to add up what’s on the page for themselves. After all, they’ve been reading signals during conversations their whole lives.

Q: Authenticity is key to capturing how characters speak, and sometimes this means writing regional dialect. How should a writer handle dialect, colloquialisms, and “folksy expressions” in a novel? 

KC: This has changed a lot over the years as the publishing industry has gotten twitchier. There’s the fear that today’s busy readers will no longer put up with phonetic spelling and dropped syllables, even though doing so brought the series characters of middle grade authors like J.K. Rowling and Brian Jacques to vibrant life. A more recent concern is the fear that trying to write dialect will come off as prejudicial, racist, homophobic, xenophobic—if there’s even a whiff of political incorrectness in the way you’ve presented a character as “other than,”, there’s a possibility you’ll cross a line and lose readers. 

One solution is to evoke the sound of the language without full-out transcription. If a young woman says she could listen to her daddy all night long, his dropped syllables making his stories roll like waves, a periodic transcription of his language won’t cause a problem. If you need to convey the speech of a foreigner with minimal English, study the syntax of his native language (lack of articles in Russian, adjectives following many nouns in French) and mimic it.

Q: You’ve drawn on your personal experiences for your novels The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. What are some tips for writers to capture personal experiences—events, even interesting dialogue—and possibly use them later?

KC: I give a separate workshop on this, which was a direct result of all I learned while obtaining my PhD in self from the School of Hard Knocks. Since our emphasis here is dialogue, I’ll share one pertinent story from The Far End of Happy.

After I’d already filed for divorce from my first husband, and within a month of his suicide, he said to me, “I guess you don’t like me very much.”

This line of dialogue was seared into my memory to the point that I wanted to include it in my novel. But when my editor read that line of dialogue, floating as it was within the fictionalized version of real events, it made less sense. “The scene reads fine without it,” she commented. “Just delete it.” 

That I couldn’t do. To me it had the feel of an important turning point in this couple’s awareness of what was (or wasn’t) happening between them. So instead of deleting, I went back several chapters to better set up this important moment.

My takeaways: 1) while listening to your editor is important, you don’t have to solve problems in the way they suggest, and 2) just because it was spoken in real life doesn’t confer power to a line of dialogue, and setting it up might be a long game.

Q: Dialogue aside for a second—you are a developmental editor through your business, Writing Partner. How do we maintain the tension throughout a novel and keep readers’ interest?

KC: This isn’t just a whole other workshop; I’m writing a craft book on the topic! Just about all fiction craft can be geared toward sustaining the reader’s interest. The most important foundational concept is what I call psychological tension—the relationship an author builds between the protagonist and the reader. A reader is hooked when a protagonist’s deeply desired goal raises a related question in the reader’s mind that she wants answered (“Can this character achieve his goal, given all the obstacles ahead?”). Now you have the reader looking around every corner to see how it’s going for the protagonist. It’s only once this relationship is created that the author can raise, dash, and reward reader expectation, which is the very definition of a satisfying read.

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This year’s Write Stuff Conference runs March 23-25 at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel. Registration is open! www.glvwg.org

The Write Stuff Writers Conference™ Full Schedule

Tags

Book Marketing, Flash Literature Contest, GLVWG Program Speakers, JD Barker, Lehigh Valley Arts Council, Tim Esaias, Writing, Writing Conference, Writing Craft, Writing Workshops

Conference 2019

Conference 2019

30 Great Events over Three Days

March 12, 13, 14, 2020

Register Here

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Thursday March 12

Two Half-Day Seminars 

  Includes Lunch and Writers Cafe

2018 Conference

 Tim Esaias

Morning Session: 9:00 – 12:00

What to Put In & What to Take Out:
How to remove meaningless stuff from your prose,
and put content back in.

 

Develop an action plan for facing the rewrite of your novel, or any piece of prose fiction. We’ll start with all the Horrible Things you need to excise (Tim dishes out a full blast of anti-bobble-headism, along with attacks on saidisms, compulsive modifications, and references to the beheading of Charles I); and then we’ll move on to the important matter of adding significant details, POV signifiers, color characters, theme music and more. Tim will suggest a series of focused “preliminary passes” to make through the manuscript, each addressing a specific issue. There will be exercises; chocolate; and, of course, malt balls.

Afternoon Session: 1:30 – 5:00

Selected Elements of Style

Style makes or breaks your chance of a sale, but what the heck is it? How can you make it your servant? Timons Esaias will shed a modicum of light on the dark mysteries of style. We’ll discuss the key rules, the genre differences, and how to think about the morass of conflicting advice you’ll encounter. Tim promises three specific style tools that should fit in any writer’s kit: the Churchillian Sword, the Vanilla Verb-Pair Demon, and Uranium Enrichment to Weapons-Grade Prose, with exercises for each tool. We’ll discuss the use of Templates, and engage in a Style Analysis exercise covering 7 genres. Bring questions about everything from spelling to musical rhythm. Suitable for all genres. Required text is Strunk & White, because love it or hate it, you should all have it.

 

Writers Cafe: 7:00 – 9:00

Lehigh Room – Facilitated by Bart Palamaro

Get ready for Friday night Page Cuts or Saturday Agent/Editor pitches by bringing your pitch or opening page and we will give you instant feedback!  Or just bring the first page of your manuscript for a critique. 

ALL registered Conference attendees are welcome to attend this Conference version of GLVWGs monthly read and critique meeting. 

It’s a fun time!

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Friday, March 13

  Includes Lunch, Thursday’s Writers Cafe plus all Friday evening activities including

Page Cuts Critique (with $10 fee) , Foundation of a Story, and Reception.

2018 Conference

2018 Conference

 

JD Barker :      1:30 – 5:00 PM

Full Day Writing Development Workshop

Submit your novel in advance to have it critiqued by the number one international best selling author. Obviously not all submissions can be critiqued, but he will ask for volunteers, and choose a number of works at random if no one is willing.

Works in progress in any genre are welcome.

One of the best ways to improve your writing is to have a mentor read and critique your work. Almost as good, and sometimes even better, is to hear the critique of other folks work and compare it to how you responded to the writing.

This is a rare and not-to-be-missed opportunity to improve your craft by having a world renowned successful author share his expertise with you. JD Barker worked as a “Book Doctor” for over twenty years, refining what works, what pulls the reader in, and what impresses the agents. Do not let this opportunity pass you by.

JD will call for volunteers from the audience, and if no one is willing, he will choose a number of works at random from all submissions and focus on those.

He’ll isolate the problem areas and through brainstorming, work with the audience to correct the issues. Things like passive voice, adverbs, bad dialog tags, unnecessary filler words, showing vs. telling, weak start, etc…

Work will be critiqued anonymously, unless you volunteer, in which case everyone will know who you are.

Submit your work (MS WORD or APPLE PAGES ONLY PLEASE) The link to submit your work will be in your registration acknowledgement email.

 

Page Cuts Critique Sessions: 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Advance registration necessary 
sessions fill quickly. 

The Panel Judges

Chris Ochs Reads an Entry

Page Cuts critique sessions are optional ($10.00 session charge) Participants will be assigned to a room headed by a team of publishing professionals who have been asked to provide feedback on your work.  This kind of “cold critique” i.e. where first impressions count, is exactly like someone reading the first page of your novel at a bookseller, whether on line or in a store.  That impression is what determines whether they buy your book.  Don’t pass up this opportunity to get that first page polished so it shines!

Your work will be read aloud by a room moderator and commented upon by our panelists. No names will be used, all works are COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS. Opinions of workshop panelists are theirs alone and do not represent the opinions of GLVWG.

Limited readings. Participants who have been informed of their successful enrollment should bring to their session four copies of the first page of a longer work (fiction, creative nonfiction, or memoir) along with four copies of a 100-word overview of the entire work.

Copies must be formatted. Double-spaced, 12 pt. “Times” font, 1-inch margins, Title & Genre at top of page. No names please. Print to start at the top of the page.

LIMITED SEATING: additional $10.00 charge with any registration

 

Peggy Adamczyk:     7:00 – 8:00 PM

Peg Adamczyk

The Foundation of a Story – 
Laying the Groundwork Before Your First Draft.

 

• Go from Idea to Concept by using Brainstorming Lists, ‘What If’ questions, and Mind Mapping techniques to help develop story ideas into workable concepts
• Techniques for developing and organizing the hidden Theme of story with techniques from Dwight Swain Elements of Plot, Michael Hauge Story Spine or Desire line, and tag/ log lines.
• Creating and getting to know your settings and characters by using the ‘Sphere of Influence’ techniques used in marketing.
• The introduction of modified version of Michael Hauge’s Three Act Structure that will allow both outline writers and descriptive writers to control the flow of their plot without hindering the journey.

 

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Saturday, March 14 Overview

20 workshops, Agent./Editor pitch sessions, marketing consults,
author publicity photos, plus lunch and Keynote address,

Door Prizes. Saturday Registration Includes Thursday Writers Cafe,
all Friday evening activities including Page Cuts Critique ($10 fee), The Foundation of a Story, and Reception.

Carrie Turansky

Harrison Demchick

Jeanette Windle

Michael Ventrella

Tim Esaias

JD Barker

Check-in and Announcements in Lehigh Room: 8:00 – 8:50 AM

 

 

Saturday Afternoon:  4:00 – 6:00 PM

Book Fair, Flash Literature Writing Contest

 

Charles Kiernan Taking Orders

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Flash Literature – 2018 Conference

2018 Book Fair

John Evans

2018 Door Prizes

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Additional opportunity: Author Publicity Photos by Joan Zachary
$40 at Registration – Only 10 Sessions Left!

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Go to the Registration Page and choose Member, Non-Member or Student registration.
Then choose Full Conference Registration or which day(s) you would like to register.
Depending on day(s) chosen, there may be other options, such as Friday evening
Page Cuts Critique or Saturday Agent/Editor pitch session,
Author Publicity Photos and Marketing Consults.

For Hotel Accommodations and Directions see:
Directions and Lodgings

Click to learn more about our Presenters
Agents and Editors and Marketing Consultants.
Then subscribe to the Write Stuff Blog for Agent/Editor Interviews

 

See you there – The GLVWG Conference Committee

 

Registration for The Write Stuff Writers Conference Opens December 8

Tags

Agent Interviews, Book Marketing, Editing, Speculative Fiction, Writing Conference, Writing Craft, Writing Fiction, Writing Workshops

Write Stuff Conference brochure 2019

We want to give you a heads up about GLVWG’s The Write Stuff Writers Conference^TM .  It’s taking place March 21 – 23, 2019 at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel & Conference Center at 300 Gateway Drive, Bethlehem, PA.

We have Ben Wolf presenting on Thursday and Friday. AND he’s the Keynote Speaker on Saturday.

Registration opens Saturday, December 8.

Just in time to give yourself a present – or put on your wish list (hint, hint).

If you’ve attended our conference in the past, you know the value you get for your buck.

If you’ve never been to our conference – prepare for a great experience.

 

Day 1: Thursday, March 21

Ben Wolf

Into the Deep: An Advanced Study of Speculative Fiction

*****

Day 2: Friday, March 22

Ben Wolf

The Three Pillars of Storytelling

Backstory: Your Secret Weapon to Engaging Readers

Writing Flash Fiction that Sells

Janeen Ippolito

Book to Market: Tips to Package, Promote, and Publish Your Book

 

Friday Evening Events

The Pixar Method with Charis Crowe

Page Cuts Critique Sessions ($10 Fee; Advanced registration required)

Followed by reception with snacks and cash bar

*****

Day 3: Saturday, March 23

Ben Wolf

Keynote Luncheon Speech — “Writing Through Adversity”

Presenters (in alphabetical order)

Donna Brennan

Strengthening Your Writing  (2-hour workshop –  Limited to 24 participants)

Getting Started Writing for Magazines

Putting Off Procrastination

Kathryn Craft

Those Critical First Pages

Say That and More: Writing Effective Dialogue (2-hr workshop. Limited to 24 participants)

Charis Crowe

Marketing Execution for Authors

Finding Your Author Voice

YA is Here to Stay (Cedar Crest)

David Fessenden

The Publishing Contract

The Writer/Editor Relationship

The Dreaded Outline: What Your English Teacher Never Told You

Editing Your Own Material (Muhlenberg)

Jon Gibbs

Are Your Characters Right for the Part (Hands-on session.)

The Seven-Sentence Solution (2-hr workshop. Limited to 24)

Janeen Ippolito

Fundamentals of Fiction – Inside Out

How to Write Romantic Subplots

Larry Schardt

Powerful Tools to Enhance Your Writing

Putting a Positive Spin on Rejection (Lafayette)

*****

Keep watching the GLVWG Website and follow the GLVWG Blog for updates, along with our Facebook Page.

The GLVWG Write Stuff Conference™ – Day 2

Tags

Bob Mayer, DT Krippene, Jane Cleland, Writing, Writing Conference, Writing Craft

Day 2 of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group Write Stuff Conference™ on Friday, March 23, will consist of half-day seminars with Bob Mayer and Jane Cleland, followed by the annual “Page Cuts Critique”, and a “Pinterest 101” by Dan Krippene.

7:00 a.m. Check-In table opens.  Pick up registration materials at the check-in table

Jane Cleland

Dan Krippene

 

 

Friday, March 23 Overview —  Two Half-Day Seminars: 

 Includes Lunch, Page Cuts Critique, Pinterest Workshop, and Welcome Reception

 

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Morning Session Syllabus

Bob Mayer – Write It Forward: From Writer to Successful Author

For fiction and non-fiction authors, an over-view workshop that educates writers how to be authors. Based on over a quarter century of experience in traditional, hybrid and indie publishing. Write It Forward is a holistic approach encompassing goals, intent, environment, personality, change, courage, communication and leadership that gives the writer a road map to become a successful author. Many writers become focused on either the writing or the business end; Write It Forward integrates the two, especially in the rapidly changing world of digital publishing.

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Afternoon Session Syllabus

Jane Cleland – Mastering Suspense, Structure & Plot

Jane Cleland’s Agatha-winning book, “Mastering Suspense, Structure & Plot” has been an Amazon bestseller in its category for more than a year.

By integrating these 13 thinking, writing, and revising tips into their writing processes, participants will write tighter, more polished first drafts. They’ll improve their story’s pace, while ratcheting up suspense. These tips serve both as a checklist and as a mandate. The tips relate to tightening a story’s structure, adding complexity to the plot, integrating back story, enhancing character motivation, choosing words for sensual specificity, balancing narrative with action and dialogue, and improving both productivity and professionalism.

**********

 

 

Page Cuts Critique Sessions – Advance registration required

6:30 – 8:30 PM

Page Cuts critique sessions are optional and included in the Friday session. Limited to 36 readings, participants who have been informed of their successful enrollment should bring to their session four copies of the first page of a longer work (fiction, creative nonfiction, or memoir) along with four copies of a 100-word overview of the entire work.

Participants will be assigned to a room headed by a team of publishing professionals who have been asked to provide off-the-cuff feedback. Your work will be read aloud by a room moderator and commented upon by our panelists. No names will be used, all works are COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS. Copies must be formatted. Double-spaced, 12 pt. “Times” font, 1-inch margins, Title & Genre at top of page. No names please. Print to start at the top of the page.

Opinions of workshop panelists are theirs alone and do not represent the opinions of GLVWG.

**********

Pinterest – What is it, and How to use it

7:00 – 8:00 PM

Session will run concurrent to Page Cuts Critique

 

Conceived as a virtual bulletin board, Pinterest has grown beyond its visual thematic platform of recipes, fashion, and kid’s crafts, and unlike other social media posts that quickly disappear in a blink, Pinterest postings have a longevity through re-pins that can go on for months.

For writers and authors, Pinterest is a great place for writer inspiration, and a way to connect to readers and other writers. It’s all about connecting with good pictures and a well thought out blurb. It’s also highly addictive.

The seminar will cover the basics of setup, creating a great writer profile, themed boards, keywords, search functionality, group boards, and tips from a few industry experts in how to utilize this fun platform to enhance your writer brand.

 

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Samuel Clemons in Residence

Welcome Reception

8:30 – 10:00 PM

Join us for hors d’oeuvres, cash bar, and the chance to network with agents, editors, presenters, and other conferees. Dress is business casual.

Reflections on 24 years of GLVWG with Peggy Adamczyk, Founding Member and former President.

Also, an appearance by guest presenter: ‘Samuel Clemens’

 

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Article by DT Krippene – Social Media Chair

An Interview with Ben Sobieck

Tags

Crime Fiction, Wattpad, Weapons in Fiction, Writing, Writing Conference

GLVWG’s resident Mark Twain, Charles Kiernan, spoke with Ben Sobieck, who will conduct three seminars at the GLVWG Write Stuff Conference™, on March 24, 2018, with Weapons in Fiction, Writing inside a Franchise, and Using WATTPAD to Build a Writing Career.

Ben Sobieck describes himself as a thriller writer, which encompasses several traditional genres: mystery, action-adventure, crime fiction, and noir. He has also written many short stories and numerous flash fiction pieces. He is also a big promoter of Wattpad. That might need a little explanation.

**********

Charles Kiernan: Thanks for this interview, Ben. Let’s start with what is Wattpad? Why should our conference attendees avail themselves of this service?

Ben Sobieck: Wattpad is a social reading website and app, which means it’s like a cross between Facebook and Kindle. Writers post short stories and novels on the site, and they don’t charge anything to read them. What’s the benefit of giving something away for free like that? Sixty million devoted readers from all around the world is what. They read, read, read, and they will follow the writers they love to the gates of hell (or heaven, if they’re not reading my work).

What this does is fill in the missing piece that a lot of writers have when building their careers. They need a platform of readers who care deeply about their stories. When they do, it’s a lot easier to pull agents, publishers and other partners into their orbits. For instance, a query letter might site that the story being pitched has 100,000 reads on Wattpad. That shows proof, and that’s powerful.

I’m happy to say that I’ve partnered with publishers, movie studios, TV producers, and more through Wattpad. I won a Watty Award for one of my stories. Not to toot my own horn (which means I’m about to), but the competition for the Watty Awards is the world’s largest online fiction contest. When I entered in 2016, there were 140,000 entries.

How does Wattpad work with that many entries? It’s all about the data. I’ll be going into more on that in my presentation.

Also, I am serving as editor of The Writer’s Guide to Wattpad, which will be out in the summer of 2018, and will be published by Writer’s Digest Books. It’s Wattpad’s official guide, so I must be doing something right. Or very, very wrong. One or the other.

Meet DT “Dan” Krippene

Tags

Pinterest, Social Media, Writing, Writing Conference

A native of Wisconsin and Connecticut, DT ‘Dan’ Krippene is a former Peace Corps Volunteer who deserted aspirations of being a biologist to live the corporate dream and raise a family.  After six homes, a ten-year stint in Singapore and Taiwan, and an imagination that never slept, his muse refused to be hobbled as a mere dream. Now a full time writer, DT writes mostly science and dystopian fiction.

Dan was a featured author in the January 2017 Bethlehem Writer’s Roundtable with a dystopian short story, “Snow Belt Sanctuary“, and contributed to the GLVWG’s 2016 anthology, Write Here, Write Now, with a paranormal MG titled “Locker 33C“. He has just completed a science fiction novel of a near-future earth brought back from the edge of extinction by benevolent otherworldly beings who foster a gender separated society.

He’s been a GLVWG member since 2010, and was quickly shanghaied into revamping the group’s social media platform. He set up the GLVWG WordPress Blog, and coached members how not to embarrass themselves with Facebook posts. Dan will give a presentation at the GLVWG Write Stuff Conference™ at 7:00 PM on Friday, March 23, on the basics of using Pinterest for Writers, just before the bar opens at our annual Meet & Greet.  Dan assures me he won’t go overtime, as he expects to be first in line for a drink.  If you miss the presentation, you’ll find him reliving his High School AV days, lugging projectors and recorders between sessions at the conference, probably spouting words you can’t say to your mother.

Meet Tabitha Lord

Tags

Indie Publishing, Writer Courses, Writing, Writing Conference

 

In her own words, Tabitha Lord is a storyteller.

When I was a little girl, I wrote poetry, horse stories, adventure tales. I daydreamed about far off planets, brave heroines, epic journeys. Then life happened. A good life, full of love, laughter, tears, children, work, play, and real adventure! Time passed, but the stories, they were still there, and one day I began writing them down again.

Tabitha will present two seminars at the GLVWG Write Stuff Conference™, March 23, 2018. In the morning, So You Want To Be an Indie Author, followed in the afternoon with A Marathon, Not a Sprint: Long-Term Marketing Strategies for Indies.

GLVWG’s, Geoffrey Mehl, had a chance to speak with Tabitha about her home life and career.

*****

 She’s a wife, mom, a former educator, and a passionate Boston Red Sox fan. She’s also a full-time award-winning novelist, blogger, and indie publisher.

How Tabitha Lord juggles all the elements of a hectic lifestyle is the topic of one of her four programs at the 2018 Write Stuff Conference in March. She’ll also share her insight into the editing process, indie publishing, and marketing strategies.

Tabitha holds a degree in Classics from the College of the Holy Cross and taught Latin for many years at an independent Waldorf school, where she now serves on the Board of Trustees.

Her debut novel, HORIZON, won the Writer’s Digest grand prize for self-published fiction in 2016, and was named a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and the Indie Excellence Awards. The sequel, INFINITY, was released in June 2017, and her short fiction is published through World Weaver Press, Grimbold Books and Belanger Books.