28 Saturday Jan 2023
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.
23 Monday Jan 2023
By Sara Karnish
A longtime friend of GLVWG, Job Gibbs will be presenting three sessions at the 2023 Write Stuff Conference: “The Three C’s of Conflict: Part 1,” “The Three C’s of Conflict: Part 2,” and “The Funny Pages.” Here is a complete conference schedule.
Writer bio:
Born in England, Jon Gibbs now lives in New Jersey, where he was Author-in-Residence at Georgian Court University from 2012 to 2017.
Jon is the founder of:
His middle grade fantasy, Fur-Face, was nominated for a Crystal Kite Award. Originally published by Echelon Press in 2010, the second edition was released in November 2022. The sequel, Barnum’s Revenge, was published by Echelon Press in 2013. The second edition is due out this year.
Jon’s latest book, Abraham Lincoln Stole My Homework, is due out this year.
When he’s not chasing around after his children, Jon can usually be found hunched over the computer in his basement office. One day he hopes to figure out how to switch it on.
Contact him at admin@jongibbs.org.
Q: One of your sessions is called ‘The Funny Pages.’ What will we learn during this session?
JG: We’ll be looking at how humor comes in many forms, and how we can use it in lots of different ways, whether it’s to lighten the mood after a shocking or stressful scene, or show us a little backstory, or even to make us like a character we aren’t supposed to – Think the Sherriff of Nottingham in Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Q: Humor is difficult to achieve in writing. What are a few key elements to ‘writing funny’?
JG: I think we all have slightly different ideas as to what counts as funny, but when it comes to using it in a book or story, I’d say the most important thing is that whoever’s writing it finds it funny. Also, consistency is important. Humor is part of our personality. If a story character switches between self-deprecating humor and one-liners to snarky jokes and sarcasm without any obvious reason, it can be jarring (at least, it is for me as a reader).
Q: Can you give us a sneak preview of your ‘3 Cs of Conflict’ 2-part sessions?
JG: Using examples from books and movies, we’ll be looking at some of the many ways to insert conflict in a story, and how we can use it to do more than just provide an obstacle for our characters to overcome. We’ll also be looking at examples from attendees’ current works-in-progress to see how we can ramp up the conflict while also helping to move the character/story arc along.
Q: What does conflict add to a piece of fiction?
JG: Conflict certainly isn’t everything, but without it, any story (and most of real life) would be pretty boring. It doesn’t all have to be car chases and brawling; in fact, most conflict is pretty subtle, but if it’s not there, readers soon start flipping ahead a few pages, or worse, simply put the book down.
Q: You write middle-grade fiction. What are some must-haves for writing middle-grade?
JG: Usually, the main character has to be middle-grade age. Adults can help solve the story problem, but they can’t be the driving force behind it. Aside from that, I’d say the must-haves are the same as any other fiction. Characters the reader cares about, good story, etc.
Q: How is writing middle-grade different than writing for adults?
JG: There are some basic differences, most of which are common sense. The official age range for middle-grade readers is between 8 and 12, so there’s an awful lot of scope for the type of story you can tell (as well as in how you tell it). Across the board, though, really bad language, sex, etc., are definite no-nos.
Book-length tends to be a lot shorter – usually between 20K and 50k words. If there is a romantic interest, it’s subtle – think Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger in the first few Harry Potter books.
21 Saturday Jan 2023
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.
This year’s Write Stuff Conference runs March 23-25 at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel. Registration is open! www.glvwg.org
09 Monday Mar 2020
Kelly Jensen, critically acclaimed and award winning Author, will join us at the GLVWG Write Stuff Writers Conference™, “2020 Vision”, on Saturday, March 14, at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel & Conference Center.
Kelly will facilitate 3 sessions:
Grab the Reader in the First Chapter
Outlining is for Everyone
Worldbuilding
** Scroll Down for Details **
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Biography:
If aliens ever do land on Earth, Kelly Jensen will not be prepared, despite having read over a hundred stories of the apocalypse. Still, she will pack her precious books into a box and carry them with her as she strives to survive. It’s what bibliophiles do.
Kelly is the author of twelve novels, including the critically acclaimed Chaos Station series and the award-winning novel, Block and Strike. She has also published eight novellas and too many short stories to count. Some of what she writes is speculative in nature, but mostly it’s just about a guy losing his socks and/or burning dinner. Because life isn’t all conquering aliens and mountain peaks. Sometimes finding a happy ever after is all the adventure we need.
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An Interview with Kelly Jensen
By Conference CoChair—Umber Rana
Q: Do you have a disciplined writing routine? If so, what does it include? Do you have any pre-writing rituals or habits before you sit down?
Kelly: I do have a routine! I write Monday through Friday from 6 am to 9 am. I aim for 2000 words or a chapter every day. After getting my words down, I edit or work on administrative tasks. But words always come first.
I don’t really have any pre-writing rituals except to eat breakfast. I’m pretty focused on breakfast. I think about it the night before and cook something hot most days. It’s my writing fuel!
Q: Share the strangest source of inspiration for your writing that you can remember.
Kelly: One of my favorite books (To See the Sun) was inspired by a Harlequin Historical Romance set in Montana during the 1800s. It wasn’t a book I’d normally pick up on my own, but part of a judging packet for the RWA’s RITA contest. I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would. Marriages of convenience (arranged, mail-order-spouse) have long been one of my favorite romantic tropes, but it’s not one that works well for gay romance. So I decided to try writing one. I set my story on another planet, and as a nod to this unexpectedly good read, gave my planet a wild west sort of theme: a new colony at the far edge of the galaxy, populated by former miners and terraformers who’d like a companion to share their new lives with. It was a fun book to write, and an idea that might never have occurred to me without that great little historical!
Q: What advice can you give beginning authors in establishing their brand and media presence?
Kelly: Be your most authentic self. I agonized for years over my social media presence and my author brand, only to realize that my blog, my IG feed, and my Twitter and Facebook posts all said the same thing: I was a science fiction nerd who played too many video games, bought too many books, and liked to go hiking. For me, the best part was that I tend to write characters with the same hobbies as mine. So it all fit. I aim to be upbeat and personable without getting too personal.
Q: How do you find the stories and lives that become the subject of your books? How do you research?
Kelly: My stories nearly always start with a single character. I want to write a certain sort of person in a certain situation, and my plot (including the other main character(s)) flows from there. For example, my current WIP is about two men who have recently become empty nesters (like me!). I obviously got this idea while packing my daughter up for college and wondering what I was going to do with all my spare time. And thinking about how much I’d miss her.
For my novel Block and Strike, I wanted to share the experience of how studying a martial art helped me find my voice and become a more assertive person.
The Chaos Station series explores the effects of war on former soldiers, their families, and society.
But each of these books started with a single character. Oliver for my current WIP, who is now home alone wondering who he’ll share breakfast with (told you breakfast was important). In Block and Strike, Max learns to embrace his differences and to rise above the bullying he’s endured all his life. In the Chaos Station series, Felix finally figures out how to leave the war behind, and how to embrace the love of the man he never forgot.
Q: If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Kelly: Slow down and take a break. You won’t forget how to write if you take a few weeks or even a few months off. Remember to recharge between books. And, most importantly, remember your process but don’t be a slave to it. Use what works, discard what doesn’t.
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Saturday, March 14, 2020
Grab the Reader in the First Chapter
First impressions last. Hook your reader with a compelling first chapter by learning how to introduce your characters, setting, and plot without giving away every secret in the book. We’ll discuss how to include just enough backstory (not too much), and how to tease your readers into turning to the next page.
Outlining is for Everyone
Don’t let the idea of an outline hold you back. Planning what you need to write every day doesn’t necessarily mean a long list of detail. What it can mean is writing faster and to the point with just a few minutes of planning ahead–before you start the book or a few minutes before you start writing!
Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding isn’t just for fantasy and science fiction. Readers want to know where they are, when they are, and how your story relates to the world it’s set in. Learn how to represent the familiar and create the unfamiliar in a way that won’t overwhelm your story or your characters. This workshop will include an exercise that may be shared with the class.
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You can find all of Kelly’s books on Amazon
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Learn more about Kelly on her website: kellyjensenwrites.com
Follow her blog: kmkjensen.wordpress.com
And her social media links:
Facebook: /kellyjensenwrites
Twitter: @kmkjensen
Instagram: @kellyjensenwrites
26 Wednesday Feb 2020
Tags
Jeanette Windle, Writing, Writing Articles, Writing Conferences, Writing Craft, Writing Non-Ficion, Writing Workshops
Jeanette Windle
Award-winning author and journalist, Jeanette Windle, will be at the GLVWG Write Stuff Writers Conference™, “2020 Vision”, on Saturday, March 14, at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel & Conference Center.
Jeanette will hold three craft sessions:
Using the Six Senses Purposefully
A Story to Tell – Your Own or Another’s
The A to Z of Writing a Sellable Article
** Scroll Down for Details **
Biography:
As daughter of missionary parents, award-winning author and journalist, Jeanette Windle grew up in the rural villages, jungles, and mountains of Colombia, now guerrilla hot zones. Her detailed research and writing is so realistic that it has prompted government agencies to question her to determine if she has received classified information. Currently based in Lancaster, PA, Jeanette has lived in six countries and traveled in more than thirty on five continents. Those experiences have birthed 16 international intrigue titles, including bestselling Tyndale House Publishers release Veiled Freedom, a 2010 ECPA Christian Book Award and Christy Award finalist, sequel Freedom’s Stand, a 2012 ECPA Christian Book Award and Carol Award finalist, and Congo Dawn, 2013 Golden Scroll Novel of the Year, the political/suspense best seller “CrossFire” and the Parker Twins juvenile mystery series.
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Saturday March 14, 2020
Using the Six Senses Purposefully
Bring Your Storytelling Alive! Fiction or non-fiction, effective telling of the story is what transports your reader into the world you want to share. And this is done most effectively through the six senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, and that all-important sixth sense of the writer–emotion. Bring pen, paper and creativity because this will be a hands-on exercise.
A Story to Tell – Your Own or Another’s
Non-fiction biography is the bread-and-butter of freelance writing. Whether writing your own memoir or someone else’s life story, this workshop will walk you through the practicalities of breaking down, organizing, and weaving into story form a compelling life narrative. Not writing a full book? Principles apply as well to the personal experience short story/article.
The A to Z of Writing a Sellable Article
Where to find material or choose a topic? What makes an attention-grabbing lead and headline? What to include and how to organize? A great conclusion or just petering out? Taught by a twenty-year-veteran missions journalist and editor, this workshop lays out in practical steps how to turn out consistently exciting, tightly written articles, no matter your theme or subject matter.
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INTERNATIONAL INTRIGUE WITH INSPIRATIONAL IMPACT!!
“Jeanette Windle is a top-notch storyteller”—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“You can’t finish a Windle novel without being deeply moved and better informed about the world around you.”—ROMANTIC TIMES
Jeanette Windle is profiled on Goodreads, and her books are available on Amazon.
You can find Jeanette Windle on her website: http://jeanettewindle.com/
And you can follow her on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeanette.windle,
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeanettewindle
15 Saturday Feb 2020
Tags
Creative Logic in Writing, Harrison Demchick, Story First Draft, Writer Courses, Writing, Writing Conferences, Writing Craft, Writing Workshops
Harrison Demchick, Author, Editor, Filmmaker, and Musician, will join us at the GLVWG Write Stuff Writers Conference™, “2020 Vision”, on Saturday, March 14, at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel & Conference Center.
Harrison will facilitate 3 sessions.
Bad Math: How the Right and Left Brains Work Together
It’s the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine
The Blueprint, or Building the Perfect Draft
Biography:
Raised on a steady diet of magical realism, literary fiction, science-fiction, and Spider-Man comics, Harrison Demchick spent most of his formative years inside his own head, working out strange thoughts and ideas that would eventually make their way into stories, screenplays, and songs.
He went to Oberlin College to attain one of modern day’s most notoriously useless degrees, a BA in English with a creative writing concentration, but then actually used it, working for over a decade as a developmental editor of fiction and memoir. Harrison is also an optioned screenwriter, winner of the 2011 Baltimore Screenwriters Competition, and an inaugural fellow of the Johns Hopkins University/Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund. His first film, Ape Canyon, is currently in production.
The Listeners, his first novel, was published by Bancroft Press in 2012. Otherguy, his debut EP, launched in 2018. He currently lives in Washington, D.C. with his girlfriend and their two cats with a combined seven legs. He’s working on a series of short stories, a couple screenplays, a pair of musicals, a concept album, and whatever else keeps him distracted from the dark void that will one day consume us all.
** Click “Continue Reading” for Interview and Course Syllabus **
08 Saturday Feb 2020
Tags
Editor, Legal Advice for Authors, Michael Ventrella, Pennwriters, Writing, Writing Advice, Writing Conferences, Writing Craft, Writing Workshops
Author Michael Ventrella, will be at the GLVWG Write Stuff Writers Conference™, “2020 Vision”, on Saturday, March 14, at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel & Conference Center.
He will offer three sessions.
How the Law Really Works
The Biggest Mistakes Made by New Authors
What Editors Look For
** Click “Continue Reading” for Interview and Course Details **
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Biography:
Outside of writing, Mike worked primarily as a public defender; however, he also was a lobbyist for the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action (and later served as the Massachusetts chapter President for a year), taught political science courses at Bunker Hill Community College, and was a campaign manager for a state representative. Mike also wrote songs and performed in two prominent bands, Agent 99 and Big House, which played the major clubs in the Boston area and received airplay on local college radio.
Mike also started a magazine about animated films called Animato in the mid 80s which grew to be quite prominent. He was quoted in many publications as an animation expert, including Entertainment Weekly and in the book THE DREAM TEAM: THE RISE AND FALL OF DREAMWORKS by Daniel M. Kimmel.
In 1997, Mike and his wife, Heidi, moved to the beautiful Poconos, where Mike now works as an attorney. Heidi is a Niche award-winning artist whose work can be seen in galleries around the country and in Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museums all over the world, as well as on ABC TV’s To Tell the Truth. They love the pitter patter of little feet (they have five cats: McGonigal, Mrs. Premise, Mrs. Conclusion, Doctor Who and River Song).
Mike is a regular fixture at science fiction conventions on the east coast, where he appears on panels to discuss fiction, animation, and gaming. However, to many people, he’s known primarily as the Guy Who Predicted The Hodor Plot Twist.
01 Saturday Feb 2020
Posted in Program Speakers, Write Stuff Writers Conference™
Tags
Timon Esaias, Writing, Writing Conferences, Writing Craft, Writing Fiction, Writing Poetry, Writing Workshops
Tim Esaias
Timons “Tim” Esaias, adjunct professor at Seton Hill University for the Masters level program in writing popular fiction, will open the GLVWG Write Stuff Writers Conference™, “2020 Vision”, on Thursday, March 12, at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel & Conference Center.
He will conduct a two half-day sessions on Thursday, March 12:
What to Put In & What to Take Out:
How to remove meaningless stuff from your prose, and put content back in.
Selected Elements of Style
Key rules, the genre differences, and how to think about the morass of conflicting advice
Then on Saturday, March 14, Tim will facilitate four sessions:
Getting Conflict on the Page
Don’t Be a Bobble Head
Those First Few Lines
Writing Poetry for Genre Markets
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Biography:
Timons Esaias lives in Pittsburgh, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, with his wife who is a physician. He writes satire, speculative fiction, poetry, and the occasional essay. His work has appeared in over a dozen different countries, and fifteen languages. He has been a finalist for the British Science Fiction Award (1998) and the Rhysling Award (5 nominations, Third Place 1997), and he won the Asimov’s Readers’ Award for Poetry (2005). He is a member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange; a Member Demeritus of the Worldwrights; and a certified Rogue in Lair #1 of the Rascals, Rogues & Rapscallions.
** Click “Continue Reading” for Tim Esaias Interview and course syllabus **
25 Saturday Jan 2020
Tags
Crossing Genres, Indie to Traditional, international bestselling author, JD Barker, Writing, Writing Conferences, Writing Craft, Writing Development, Writing Thrillers, Writing Workshops
JD Barker, international bestselling author, will be the headliner and Keynote Speaker at the GLVWG Write Stuff Writers Conference™, “2020 Vision”, on March 13 -14 at the Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel & Conference Center.
Friday, March 13, JD will facilitate a Full Day Writing Development Workshop.
On Saturday, he will give sessions with From Indie to Traditional; Every Dirty Little Secret You Need to Know, and Crossing Genres – and Why You Should Do It!
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Biography:
J.D.Barker (Jonathan Dylan Barker) is an international bestselling American author whose work has been broadly described as suspense thrillers, often incorporating elements of horror, crime, mystery, science fiction, and the supernatural.
J.D. Barker has successfully crossed over from horror, to paranormal, to thriller, and back again, snatching readers from multiple genres and expanding his audience like a literary Pied Piper. Learn how to avoid the genre box and tell the story you want to tell to the largest possible group.
As a child I was always told the dark could not hurt me, that the shadows creeping in the corners of my room were nothing more than just that, shadows. The sounds nothing more than the settling of our old home, creaking as it found comfort in the earth only to move again when it became restless, if ever so slightly. I would never sleep without closing the closet door, oh no; the door had to be shut tight. The darkness lurking inside needed to be held at bay, the whispers silenced. Rest would only come after I checked under the bed at least twice and quickly wrapped myself in the safety of the sheets (which no monster could penetrate), pulling them tight over my head.
I would never go down to the basement.
Never.
Learn more about JD Barker at jdbarker.com
And in case you hadn’t noticed, JD will be speaking on Friday the 13th.
** Click “Continue Reading” for JD Barker Interview and course syllabus **
15 Wednesday Jan 2020
Tags
Book Marketing, Flash Literature Contest, GLVWG Program Speakers, JD Barker, Lehigh Valley Arts Council, Tim Esaias, Writing, Writing Conference, Writing Craft, Writing Workshops
30 Great Events over Three Days
March 12, 13, 14, 2020
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Thursday March 12
Two Half-Day Seminars
Includes Lunch and Writers Cafe
2018 Conference
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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
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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
Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group 