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.

An Interview with Susan Bono by Tricia McWhorter

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down to lunch with gifted editor, publisher and writer Susan Bono. Everyone I talked to in my pre-interview information-gathering phase told me that Susan is extremely talented, funny and delightful. They were absolutely correct.

In addition to running an editing and coaching business for writers, Susan is the intrepid publisher of Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative, a literary magazine currently in its fifteenth year of publication. Tiny Lights appears twice a year in hard copy and has an on-line presence as well. [1]

Susan started out teaching high school, but when her children were born, she left teaching in order to stay home with them. When they reached the ages of nine and seven she returned to college at Sonoma State and took classes in the personal essay from Gerry Haslam, whom she credits with helping her find her way into editing and publishing.

Susan told me that her work as an editor combines her love of teaching and writing. It felt like a way to blend the two, since the collaboration between editor and writer is much like the dynamic between student and teacher, where one is coaxing the very best from the other. Publishing seemed a good way to combine all these interests, since having an audience for the work is something all writers need. Susan said that her life works best when she maintains a balance between editing, publishing and writing.

I asked Susan what tips she could give aspiring writers. Here are a few of her favorites:

1. Jump on every opportunity you have to get your name out there by being published. Don't worry if the publication is large or small. The important thing is to build credibility. (I'll give a plug here: check out Tiny Lights if you write personal essay. You may want to respond to one of the prompts listed on Searchlights and Signal Flares Tiny Lights on-line writers' exchange at http://www.tiny-lights.com/searchlights.php .)

2. If you have a blog or website, be sure to note that at the bottom of all of your correspondence and submissions; otherwise you're wasting an opportunity to get your name in front of people.

3. Be organized. If you want to make money as a writer you also have to think of it as a business. Keep track of your submissions: who, what, where and when you send things out. Calendar upcoming submission and contest deadlines and think ahead so you'll be ready to send in your work. [2]

4. Let publishers know if you are sending out simultaneous submissions. If you hear one of your pieces is being published, let the other publishers know so they don't waste time reviewing your work. Susan said that she has been in the position of having chosen a story as the winner of a Tiny Lights writing contest only to discover that the piece had already been published elsewhere with the stipulation that it not be republished. The writer had wasted her time as well as her judges' time.

5. Publishers are busy. If you submit something and don't hear back, don't assume it was because they hated your work. It's possible the publisher loved what you wrote but was too busy to respond immediately. They may have gotten distracted and your story might have become buried under the mountains of paper on their desk or lost in their inbox. There could be lots of reasons why you haven't heard anything. It is okay, and smart, to politely follow up.

6. The most important thing of all? Just write.

Susan Bono can be reached at www.tiny-lights.com. You can also follow her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Petaluma-CA/Tiny-Lights-A-Journal-of-Personal-Narrative/125809459485.

Editor's Notes:

[1] Go to Susan Bono's website at www.tiny-lights.com to find out about contests and submission guidelines.

[2] This point was underscored by our October 4^th guest speaker, Stephanie Freele. She suggested the minimum items to track regarding submissions on a spreadsheet are as follows:

Title Market Date Date Date Redone Comments

Sent Rejected/Accepted

[3] Editing is the act of re-visioning --- a way of looking at your written work in a new way. The editor's job is to help you shape your work into its final form and to make you look fabulous. The editor is on your side, trying to make you look the best you can be. Writers and editors are collaborators. Be sure to come on out and say hi to Susan on October 24^th at the Redwood Writers 2009 Conference.

More conference details: www.redwoodwriters.org/conference.html.

[4] Be sure to find out more about Tricia on her blog Thought Threads at http://www.triciamcwhorter.com.

Redwood Writers Memoir Contest

Redwood Writers and “The Memoir Group” host the

Fall Writing Contest

Memoir and Personal Narrative

1^st Prize $100

2^nd Prize $50

3^rd Prize $25

3 Honorable Mentions $5

Winners will be announced on Sunday, January 10^th

Guidelines:

*Entries must be postmarked October 4^th through November 15^{th *}RW Memoir Contest, P.O. Box 4687, Santa Rosa, CA 95402

Payment must be received with entry:

Members $10/Non-members $12

*Entries must be 1,800 words or less, 12 pt Serif type, double spaced on one side only.

*Entries must be accompanied by a cover sheet that states name, address, e-mail address, telephone, word count and title of entry.

*Title must be included on each page of entry, but

DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR NAME ON THE PIECE.

*Multiple entries will be accepted in separate envelopes with separate payments.

*Fiction and poetry will not be accepted.

^{Judges Panel includes: Patricia Volonakis Davis, Award-winning finalist in the National Best Books Awards 2008 for Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss and Greece; Mary Lynn Archibald, award winning author of Accidental Cowgirl, Six Cows, No Horses and No Clue; and Ana Manwaring, Memoir and Fiction Instructor, Napa Valley College.}

For information: programs@redwoodwriters.org

Two Literary Events for Saturday, August 8th

Kate Farrell will be involved in two literary events on Saturday, August 8th.

In the morning she will be in Cotati with Lynn Henricksen and in the afternoon she will be in Sonoma with Linda Reid.



_____Morning_________________________________________________________________________________
Wisdom Has a Voice: Daughters Remember Mothers
2-hour Workshop to Remember Mothers in Memoir

Does thinking of your mother make you wince or win you over?
Saturday, August 8, 2009
9:30-11:30 AM * The Sitting Room, 170 East Cotati Ave., Cotati
Cost $20.00 * Limited to 12 participants and space is filling up fast!

* Gather your thoughts about mother into memories and memoir into truth
* Discover the hidden legacies of daughter-mother wisdom
* Leave with a keepsake memoir of your mother

Please RSVP to the presenters or arrive at 9:00 am.

Email: lynn@telltalesouls.com
catharine.farrell@comcast.net


Kate Farrell, www.girlinthemirror.info Santa Rosa

Lynn Henriksen, www.telltalesouls.com Tiburon



This Sitting Room Workshop is dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth "Betty" McKegney, a longtime Tiburon librarian and town volunteer, whose last name graces a vast field in the town, died June 12 in Petaluma. She was 99.


__Aftenoon________________________________________________________________

Longtime former Sonoma resident Monica McKey will return to Sonoma on Saturday, Aug. 8, to provide a musical warm-up for a Meet & Greet literary gathering at Readers’ Books, featuring authors Linda Reid and Kate Farrell.

Accompanied by local guitarist Dan Goldfus, McKey will perform jazz standards on the bookstore’s back patio starting at 12:30. Wine and refreshments will be served.

Then at 1:30, patrons will have the opportunity to meet the authors and learn about their recently published works.

Reid, a Healdsburg native and lifelong resident of Sonoma County, won first place in the Redwood Writers Club 2008 writing contest with one of her short stories (visitwww.lindalovelandreid.com). Touch of Magenta, her first novel, is the intriguing and suspenseful story of two women from two different times, with settings ranging from the California Gold Country and San Francisco’s Chinatown to Singapore, Italy, and England.

A founder of a family insurance business in Santa Rosa, Reid is also a figurative oil painter and theatrical director. She has directed several plays in Sonoma, including My Left Breast, which featured McKey.

A storyteller and published author of educational books, Kate Farrell is a San Francisco high school librarian residing in Sonoma County. Her novel Girl in the Mirror takes readers on a young woman’s journey of self-discovery, an odyssey that the author magically interweaves with the ancient story of Psyche and Eros (visit www.girlinthemirror.info).

The featured works of both Reid and Farrell address a woman’s struggle to find her own identity and her place in the world.

For more information, call Readers’ Books at (707) 939-1779.