Upcoming events and classes

There are many worthwhile upcoming events and classes for writers and for members of Redwood Writers. Please mark these on your calendar. These are listed in order of their occurrence.

Speakeasy: A Quarterly Literary Saloon

@ Aqus Cafe, Petaluma CA.

Gather for a drink, a bite & a feast of words with hosts
Susan Bono & Ransom Stephens.

Spring Edition: April 7, 2010 7-9 p.m. @ Aqus Café, 2^nd and H Petaluma

Admission: $5 (sliding scale) to benefit The Phoenix Theatre After School Tutoring Program

Featuring
Gwynn O'Gara, Sonoma County Poet Laureate
Patricia Volonakis Davis, author of Harlot's Sauce & founder of Harlots' Sauce Radio
Dan Coshnear, author of Jobs and Other Preoccupations, editor of 95% Naked
Ransom Stephens, introduces his new novel The God Patent, starring Petaluma
Susan Bono, editor-in-chief of Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative

ATTN: WRITERS! Bring a short piece of writing and enter the drawing for the 2 open mic slots (7 min. each)!

Mark your calendar now for the Summer edition, July 22, 2010!

About the writers:

Gwynn O’Gara is the author of Snake Woman Poems, Fixer-Upper and Winter at Green Haven. She has taught with California Poets in the Schools for twenty years, and was recently selected as Sonoma County Poet Laureate for 2010-2011. Her poems appear in the current issues of Calyx. Beatitude Golden Anniversary issue, Sage Woman, and What the World Hears, the CPITS 2009 Anthology.

Patricia V. Davis is the author of Harlot's Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss, and Greece, which was called "delicious" by Marin Independent Journal, and a "compulsively readable, cross-cultural memoir that is both hilarious and heartbreaking”, by Wendy Nelson Tokunaga, author of Love in Translation and Midori by Moonlight.

Daniel Coshnear - dan@coshnear.org - works nights at a sixty day shelter for the homeless in Santa Rosa. He teaches fiction writing at a variety of SF bay area university extension programs. He is author of Jobs & Other Preoccupations (Helicon Nine 2001). Recent publications are in Juked and The Third Coast and in the anthology, 95% Naked: Fictions and Nonfictions, which he edited.

Wine country writing teacher, freelance editor, and publisher, Susan Bono has become a literary icon the old fashioned way: by writing, sharing her work and opening channels for others to share theirs. Susan is the gentle mistress of personal essay; bask in her affection for the written word at www.tiny-lights.com.

Ransom Stephens is a professor of particle physics turned writer and speaker. His new novel, The God Patent (www.TheGodPatent.com), is set right here in Petaluma; the SF Chronicle called it “…a narrative that sings of the heart and the scientific method as two parts of the same song.”

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Message from Redwood Writer member Tom Mariani:

Our recent Newsletter gave a great plug for the Redwood Writers' participation in the National Endowment for the Arts annual BIG READ.

We will meet at the Glaser Center 547 Mendocino Ave. Sign-in starts at 6 pm The program will begin at 6:30. A parking lot is directly behind the center.

Bring a non-member friend and be prepared to discuss your favorite parts of Mark Twain's THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER. We will also have an opportunity to make some adventures of our own. Try your luck at a game of marbles or a bow-and-arrow contest. Pirating, Robin Hooding and cave exploration will also be included. I will also need a volunteer with an armspan of six feet, if you can "fathom" what that is about.

Snacks are pot luck. As gracious as the manager of The Glaser Center, David Templeton, was to allow us to use their boardroom for our meeting, he would not allow me to bring in firewood for a campfire. Therefore, Starbucks will provide hot coffee.

Admission is free, but bring some cash. For a dollar a ticket, or ten for half a sawbuck, you'll be in a drawing for a blank Mark Twain journal so you can start to write about your own adventures.

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SPRING CREATIVE WRITING
A SEA OF PROMPTS
with Stefanie Freele

Spring is coming and oh what a wonderful time for new fresh writing! In a relaxed and supportive atmosphere students will create new prose and poetry based on prompts, exercises, assignments and suggestions.

Requirements: Beginners and experienced writers welcome. Participants should be prepared to be creative and occasionally silly.

Stefanie Freele is the author of the short story collection, Feeding Strays, published by Lost Horse Press (2009). She is also the 2010-2011 Healdsburg Literary Laureate. Her recent and forthcoming work can be found in Glimmer Train, American Literary Review, and The Pedestal Magazine. Stefanie has an MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts and is the Fiction Editor for the Los Angeles Review.

3 Weeks: 10-12am Fridays – April 9, 16, 23 - $50 Plaza Arts Center – Healdsburg

Contact: Stefanie@stefaniefreele.com or 707-889-0473

"Exercises teach you how to hear the outside world as a sea of prompts, a sea of exercises for potential stories." Pamela Painter

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This message is from Juanita J. Martin:

Hello RW members:
This message is to inform those members that come to the Barking Dog, that the program will be next Sat, April 10th at 5:30 pm.
This month I will feature Gwynn O'Gara, Sonoma County Poet laureate 2010-2011. There will be a booksigning, an open mike session, and light refreshments. This is honor of National Poetry Month.

Next month in May on the 1st, the readers from 95% Naked anthology will read. There will a flyer at the next general meeting.
Some of those readers include our own President (LInda), Harry Reid, Elaine Maikovska, and others.

Please come and support your fellow writers.

Juanita J. Martin, Host of UniverSoul Open Mike Series
RW Historian

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This comes from Jordan Rosenfeld, a longtime friend of Redwood Writers.


Revise for Publication April 16 to May 14, 2010. $159 regular. $129 early registration discount before April 10, 2010.
You can register at the following link:
www.jordanrosenfeld.net/events-classes.html .

20 FOR $20.
Looking for an editor, but not sure you want to commit to a full manuscript up front? Try my 20 pages for $20 sample edit!

www.jordanrosenfeld.net/editing.html.

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What: Authors' Luncheon

Where: Cloverdale Senior Center

When: Saturday, April 17

1-3 p.m.

Why: Our own Mary Lynn Archibald will be one of the honored authors participating.

There will be a book signing after.

311 N. Main St. Cloverdale

894-4826

You can reserve table for 4-6 people, or reserve individually.

http://www.cloverdaleseniorcenter.com/?p=466

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Classes with Patricia Volonakis Davis

A Writer's 'Platform' and Blog: What? Why?
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 1:00 - 3:00 pm and Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 1:00- 3:00pm Redwood High School, Larkspur, CA

In this seminar for both aspiring and experienced writers (and other professionals looking to gain customers through social networking) we will discuss exactly what a 'platform' is, what a 'blog' is, and why blogs are so valuable to anyone who is either seeking to gain or widen their audience.

Participants will learn WHERE the best spots to blog are, WHEN a writer should blog, and most importantly, HOW each individual writer's blog should vary in topic, length, frequency, etc. Participants will leave this workshop with a working online blog in place, and concrete knowledge of how, in as little as two hours per week, we can build our readership to help our sales.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010
12 noon – 1 pm
In Honor of April ~ Poetry Month
Albert Flynn DeSilver, First Poet Laureate of Marin
“Creativity & the Art of Leadership”
Center for Student Leadership, Bertolini Student Center, Rm 4643

Leaders create reality. They are the master artists of their lives. With
the clarity of their intention and attention they create lives of
harmony, beauty, and abundance for themselves and for their community.
What is true creativity, and how do we tap into that powerful stream?
How do we become such leaders of inspiration and invention? First, by
simply deciding to.

And also by committing to a new vision for our selves and for humanity
at large. By being willing to believe in and actively participate
within, a new paradigm of empowered responsibility and infinite possibility.

Albert Flynn DeSilver
http://www.theowlpress.com/afd_photos.html
http://www.redroom.com/video/marin-poetry-chair

He is an internationally published poet, writer, artist, teacher, and
entrepreneur. He is the current Poet Laureate of Marin County California
and the CEO of Visiting Angels, Santa Rosa, a Homecare agency that
provides caregiving services to Seniors throughout the North Bay.

Contact: Sahara Chaldean, Student Center Coordinator, Student Affairs
schaldean@santarosa.edu (707)527-4460

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Lynn Henriksen and Kate Farrell will be offering a

Wisdom Has a Voice Workshop: Daughters Remember Mothers

Close to Mother's Day, this memoir workshop is an opportunity to honor and record a special memory about mother.

And we have exciting news about our upcoming Wisdom anthology and a call for submissions!

April 24th, Saturday, at the Sitting Room in Cotati

3-hour workshop is from 9:00am - Noon

Limited to 12 participants (women only)

Cost: $35

To sign up, you can visit our website, http://www.wisdomhasavoice.com/workshops/

Or

Email: Lynn@wisdomhasavoice.com

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We won't make you do sit-ups at the next Self-Publishing Boot Camp Workshop: Ten Steps to Self-Publishing Success on May 1st! SBW members get a $15 discount for this all-day workshop with Lisa Alpine and Carla King.

Held at the historic Mechanics' Institute in the San Francisco Financial District.

Saturday, May 1

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0VQJYHeSG79NROkyDR4XGQ8zJx5Ocuu1NN4_appC55-FuZQpWp6QDAJUTJA2Gh6Q40H4QcWn-8_dkcHkILsc4A64QDCsAxVxpZNecZOpAPr9aSUNeRHDuCNZFW0ZSQxZdMvAVHZoVU7c/s1600/Self+publishing+bootcamp2+2010.jpg9:30 - 4:30 pm

$155 (CWC members $140)
The fee includes the 87-page Self-Publishing Boot Camp Workbook (a $29.95 value)

To register, go to http://www.selfpubbootcamp.com/pages/workshops/ and use this discount code: SBWWS

Dave LaRoche of the South Bay branch gave this testimonial:

We, at SBW, have benefited from a workshop very similar to that being produced here and I heartily endorse this duo, their interest and knowledge related to book publishing in its many current forms. Their presentation is crammed packed with the current publishing opportunities, advanced in an organized way, entertaining, and well worth the fee.

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Another friend of Redwood Writers is Becca Lawton.

Becca's Environmental Poetry Series
One Wednesday and Three Thursdays in May: Th May 6, Weds May 12, Th May 20, and Th May 27, 4 to 6 p.m. $100 + $20 donation until closed. Sign up by email: becca@beccalawton.com. Partial scholarships available! by contacting J.J. Wilson, boxcar@sonic.net.

Becca's Publication Action Plans.
Becca is working with writers on developing their own Publication Action Plans! She offers personalized guidance in writing a schema for fleshing out your work and getting it into print. Flat fee: conference and feedback on work samples included. For more detail, email becca@beccalawton.com.

Upcoming Contests

Here are a few upcoming contests, in order of their deadlines with the closest one being mentioned first:

Flash Fiction, Memoir and Creative Nonfiction Contest by Writer Advice

We were alerted to this contest by B. Lynn Goodwin who spoke at the last Redwood Writers Conference.

WriterAdvice seeks flash fiction, memoir, and creative non-fiction that mesmerizes the reader in 750 words or less. DEADLINE: April 15, 2010. Entry fee: $10 per submission. First prize: $150. Former prizewinners are the judges. Complete guidelines, mailing address, and prizes at www.writeradvice.com.

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Poetry Chapbook and Poetry Book Contest by Heartsounds Press:

Redwood Writers member Liz Pinto alerted us to that her online Pulse Literary Journal is accepting fiction submissions and has two poetry contests. This is more than just submitting one or two poems. If you have a collection of poems worthy of publication, you might garner publication as a chapbook or a book.

Larry Kramer Memorial Chapbook Contest

Send 16-24 pages of poetry.

Deadline (postmark date) April 15th, 2010.

William Dunbar Book-length Poetry Contest:

Send 48-54 pages of poetry, single-spaced, one poem per page.

Deadline (postmark date) May 1st, 2010.

Please note that the deadlines listed here are correct. Their website has conflicting deadline dates, and should be corrected soon. I verified the deadlines with Liz Pinto and the ones listed here are correct. I did not want to wait any longer to post this information.

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Redwood Writers 2010 Short Story Contest

Redwood Writers Short Story Contest begins immediately and is open to all residents living in Sonoma, Marin, Napa, Solano, Lake, and Mendocino Counties and all CWC members statewide. Submissions must be unpublished works and postmarked by May 15th. No more than two submissions per author allowed.

The cost is $10 per entry (or $8 for CWC members). Winners will be announced at the Redwood Writers' general meeting on August 8th. In addition to receiving cash prizes, the first place winner will be considered for publication in the popular Redwood Writers Anthology. Winning writers will also have their stories published in a special edition Redwood Writers newsletter.

Entries will be judged on clarity, originality, and cohesion by well know writers and judges Dan Coshnear and Stefanie Freele, Healdsburg Literary Laureate of 2010 - 2011.

Entry guidelines are found on the Redwood Writers web site.

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$2,000 Awaits Winners of Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition

Entries are now being accepted for the 2010 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, created to enthusiastically support the efforts and talent of emerging writers of short fiction whose voices have yet to be heard.

Writers will compete for a $1,000 first-place prize, $500 second-place prize, and $500 third-place prize in this internationally-acclaimed competition. Several honorable mentions are also awarded each year. As an added prize, beginning in 2009, The Saturday Evening Post will publish our first-place winner. Payment by The Saturday Evening Post for publication of the winning story will be in addition to our $1000 first-place prize.

Stories in all genres of fiction are welcome. Maximum length is 3,000 words, and writers retain all rights to their work. The final deadline is May 15, 2010; winners will be announced at the end of July.

For complete guidelines, please visit www.shortstorycompetition.com, e-mail shortstorykw@gmail.com, or send an SASE to the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, P.O. Box 993, Key West, FL 33041.

Workshops with Ransom Stephens

Here are two upcoming workshops given by Redwood Writers member Ransom Stephens.

Tools of the writer and how to use them

To write stories that grab readers - whether fiction or memoir - you have to understand your tools: point of view and characterization, dialog and description, showing and telling, metaphor and simile, pacing and voice, backstory and flashback, repetition and opposition. We examine every tool and see where, why and how they can be put to work constructing great stories. Bring your story idea or manuscript and let's get to work!

Instructor: Ransom Stephens, Ph.D.

• Saturday, March 20, 10a-4pm, Sebastopol: Sebastopol Center for the Arts.

Sign up with this form. $50 Non Member / $45 Member of Sebastopol Center for the Arts + $7 materials fee.

How to Give a Great Reading

You've just been invited to read at a literary event. Don't panic! Ransom Stephens has produced hundreds of readings and wants to prepare you. Choose the right piece for each venue and time allotted and discover your strengths as a storyteller so that you can enjoy this opportunity to develop your audience.

Instructor: Ransom Stephens, Ph.D.

• Saturday, April 3, 1p-4pm, Sebastopol: Sebastopol Center for the Arts.

Sign up with this form. $30 Non Member / $25 Member of the Sebastopol Center for the Arts.

Memoir Workshop for Capitol City Young Writers

Here is another upcoming event that features two California Writers Club members and was organized by friend of Redwood Writers, Verna Dreisbach.

On Saturday, March 13th, aspiring young writers and avid readers, from grades 6 thru 12, will mingle with peers, published authors and book industry professionals featuring several guest speakers, followed by a writing workshop. This event will highlight the art of memoir. Guest authors include Patricia V. Davis and Linda Joy Myers.

MEET THE AUTHOR

PATRICIA V. DAVIS -

Harlot's Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss, and Greece, is an award winning finalist in the 'Multi-Cultural, Nonfiction' Category of the National Best Book Awards 2008, sponsored by USABookNews.

Patricia’s essays, opinion articles and celebrity interviews have appeared in various newspapers and magazines nationally and internationally. She is the author of published poems on women's issues, including,“If This Woman is Being Operated Recklessly” which appeared alongside Laurence Ferlinghetti's work in New Press magazine. Patricia is also the editor-in-chief of Harlots' Sauce Radio, non-partisan e-magazine and podcast at www.harlotssauce.com.

CAREER EXPLORATION LINDA JOY MYERS, PHD -

is a practicing therapist of thirty years in Berkeley, California. She has taught writing as a healing courses to her clients and has trained therapists in this method. She is President and Founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers and author of The Power of Memoir: Writing Your Healing Story.

WRITING WORKSHOP Led by, PATRICIA V. DAVIS

One of the tougher genres to write, memoir combines the truth of non-fiction with the craft of fiction. Not an autobiography, the memoir needs to be carefully considered and constructed. As a painter chooses his scenery, so must a memoirist choose their stories. From traditional to experimental, narrative to fragmented, a memoir has no single form, no specific guideline or method - memoir demands the writer create art. Discover the many forms of this genre, how to avoid the most common mistakes and where to begin. If you have a work in progress, please bring the first page to workshop.

Saturday, March 13, 2010 9am - Noon

Sacramento State University

Forest Suite, 2nd Floor

Student Union

Park in Structure II

For more information about the Capitol City Young Writers organization, please visit their website.

Upcoming writing classes by Jordan Rosenfeld and Becca Lawton

March 1-28. Fiction's Magic Ingredient (Part One)

Taught by Jordan E. Rosenfeld March 1 through 28, 2010 Full price: $149. $109 early registration discount if you register before February 15, 2010. The muse doesn't go on vacation, so why should you? Stimulate your writing with a fun, self-paced online class that will revolutionize your writing with Jordan Rosenfeld, author of the writing guide Make a Scene and, with Rebecca Lawton, Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life. In this class you'll learn the "magic" ingredient to create powerful, page-turning fiction and instantly take your writing to a whole new level. Each week you'll receive a lesson and two assignments that can be applied to a work-in- progress or as stand alone exercises. You'll receive weekly feedback from Jordan and have the opportunity to interact with classmates. Activate and enliven your writing Create a stylized, "sexy" experience of "real time" Build a powerful, layered "tapestry" on every page Design an easy to follow "map" for your plot Demonstrate unforgettable characters MORE Mini-Workshops will return in April, including: Image Building Method Writing Part Two will be back in May Visit Jordan's website for more information.

REGISTER HERE

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May 2010 Environmental Poetry Series

$90 + $10 donation to Sitting Room if paid in full by March 1; thereafter $100 + $20 donation until closed. Sign up Writing about nature, our experiences in the outdoors, and the environmental big picture is something that many of us aspire to and is something we do with devotion, passion, and attention to detail. In this series we'll share close readings of some acclaimed environmental poets (Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, Leslie Marmon Silko, and others), and we'll compose poetry of our own on natural themes. Please come prepared to read and discuss, write from prompts, and explore leads and inspirations we brainstorm ourselves. Our goal will be to support each other in creating publishable work; we'll all leave the final class with at least three leads for getting poems created in session into print. Rebecca Lawton, author and natural scientist, won the Ellen Meloy Award for Desert Writers and other awards and has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes in prose and poetry. Her memoir, Reading Water: Lessons from the River, was a San Francisco Chronicle Bay Area Bestseller in 2008. She has taught with California Poets in the Schools, Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, Redwood Writers Club, Petaluma Writers Forum, and Write Free (with Jordan E. Rosenfeld).

Becca's website

Upcoming Screenwriting Workshop

The Redwood branch of the California Writers Club will host a

Screenwriting Workshop

Saturday, March 27, 2010

10:00 am to 11:30 am

Petaluma Novak Center (the Senior Center )

211 Novak Drive

Petaluma, CA 94954

(707) 778-4399

On-site registration and check-in for those pre-registered begins at 9:45 am sharp. Cost for the workshop is as follows:

CWC Member Price: $10 Non-member Price: $15

The workshop will be facilitated by Charlotte Cook, President of KOMENAR Publishing, and Hollywood screenwriter Jon James Miller.

The workshop is entitled, Adapting Sideways--The Not-So-Straight-Forward Transition from Screenwriter to Novelist. The process of adapting a screenplay into a novel presents unique storytelling issues. Charlotte Cook and Jon James Miller have been working for a year to adapt one of his award-winning screenplays into a novel. The effort has produced a number of insights, strategies, and techniques for making the transformation. Though aimed at screenwriters, this facilitator pairing has plenty of advice for novelists who want to create novels that could be optioned for the screen. This has become a hot topic because the ‘spec market’ for screenplays has all but disappeared with conventional wisdom in Hollywood that “screenwriters should find a market for their material as a novel first.”

Please visit our website to download a copy of the registration form, fill it out, and mail it in to our P.O. Box with your check or money order, payable to 'Redwood Writers.'

About Charlotte Cook:

Charlotte Cook is president and story editor of KOMENAR Publishing as well as a popular presenter at writers’ conferences and events, and a successful teacher and workshop facilitator. www.fictionwriteideas.com

About Jon James Miller:

Jon James Miller earned a Bachelor of Science in Cinematography and worked for several years in cable documentaries for A&E, Lifetime and The History Channel while writing original feature length screenplays in LA. www.jonjamesmiller.com

Redwood Writers, P.O. Box 4687, Santa Rosa, CA 95402

Upcoming Events by Redwood Writers members

Here are two upcoming literary events that feature members of Redwood Writers.

Radio broadcast:

Linda Loveland Reid and Mary Lynn Archibald were interviewed by Rosemary Manchester. That show will be aired on "A Novel Idea," at 7 PM on Feb. 10th, on KRCB Radio. 91 FM. Redwood Writers featured prominently in their conversation. You can listen on air, on line, or wait for a podcast to be posted!

The next event is online and will be ongoing, and our member Mark Sloan calls for participation of our members as well as asking to help spread the word.





Here is Mark's message:

Birth Day: A Pediatrician Explores the Science, the History, and the Wonder of Childbirth. It should be a lively, unscripted (not to say chaotic), interactive event - just the tonic for that midwinter "H1N1-writer's-block flu"...

Where: LibraryThing.com

When: February 8-21 (Two whole weeks! Surely you can drop by at some point...)

What to Bring: Your questions, comments, birth stories, new parent anecdotes/traumas, grandparental pearls of wisdom...basically, anything that comes to mind. (Snacks are okay, too. They're kind of hard to share, though.)

How to sign in:

If you're not already a LibraryThing member:

1) Go to http://www.LibraryThing.com

2) Click on "Join Now" (there's no obligation in joining, though it's a great site)

3) Enter a new member name and password

4) Click "Join Now" again

5) Scroll down the right hand side of the page to "Author Chats"

6) Click on "chat here" by my name and fire away...

Hope to see you there!

Take care,
Mark Sloan

PS: Birth Day continues to get great reviews, both in press and from readers. You can read more at http://www.marksloanmd.com.
PPS: Please pass this invitation along to anyone you know with an interest in birth and babies!

Literary Agent Amy Rennert at Writers Forum

Writers Forum proudly presents Amy Rennert

Thursday, February 18, 2010 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Petaluma Community Center, 320 No. McDowell Blvd. Petaluma

$15 at the door

The Amy Rennert Agency specializes in books that matter. Amy has spent more than 20 years in the publishing business, pursuing her passion for the written word. The agency represents a select group of quality fiction and nonfiction writers--many of them award-winners--and dozens of agency books have been New York Times and national bestsellers.

Amy Rennert is the former editor in chief of two national magazines and she is on the faculty of the Stanford Publishing Course.

A unique opportunity to chat with a literary agent. Bring your question on a 3 x 5 card. Cards will also be available at the event for you to use.

For more information: www.thewritespot.us

Marlene - mcullen@comcast.net

Upcoming events by Patricia V. Davis

On February 12-14, the San Francisco Writers Conference will be held at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in SF, and I will be speaking on Sunday, February 14, at 11-11:45 p.m. in a session titled, Bestseller! What You Need to Know for a Knock-Out Writing Career.

Lots of important information will be covered in this session, including working with retail booksellers, getting attendance at your events, how to blog to raise book sales, bad agents vs. good agents, behind the scenes facts about the industry that you must keep up with in order to make decisions about your career, and more.

Then in April, I will be teaching two separate courses for Marin Adult Education (www.marinlearn.com) They are:

I. Descriptive Writing That Your Readers Can ‘Taste’, ‘Smell’, ‘Feel’, and ‘Hear’ “Cerulean blue water and halcyon days”. “Eyes that sparkle like stars.” Yuck. No one can a picture a location or a character through these clichéd, meaningless phrases. A good writer helps readers truly visualize the setting and the characters they are describing. But portraying the place where our action happens, and depicting people in our story, all without falling into the “been here-done-that-and-it’s-all-so-boring”, is one of the most challenging components of writing. In this workshop, participants will read samples of descriptive writing that overcome the formulaic, and discuss what it is about them that creates a mind image for the reader. Then, with some simple but effective writing exercises, the class will leave armed with new techniques for crafting vivid word visuals of their own. Time and Place: April 6 and April 8, Tuesday and Thursday evening from 7-9 p.m. at Sir Francis drake High School (in classroom 308) Cost: $45.00 II. A Platform and a Blog: What, Why, Where, When, and How? New writers who are looking to publish their first work are told that they need a 'platform', and that an easy way to build one is to create a 'blog'. In this seminar for both aspiring and experienced writers we will discuss what exactly a ‘platform’ is, what a ‘blog’ is and why blogs are so valuable to writers who are seeking to either gain and/or widen their audience. You will learn where the best spots to blog are, when a writer should blog, and most importantly, HOW each individual writer’s blog should vary, meaning what the topics, lengths, frequency, etc., should be. Participants will leave this workshop with a working online blog in place, and concrete knowledge of how, in as little as two hours per week, we can build our platform and readership to help our book sales. Place and Time: April 20 and 22, Tuesday and Thursday 1 p.m.- 3 p.m. at Redwood High School Cost: $45 Hope to see some Redwood Writers at these events! Warm regards, Patricia

Patricia V. Davis
Editor-in-chief, HS Radio e-magazine
"Writing the Sauce of Life"

podcast: www.harlotssauce.com
website: www.patriciaVdavis.com