Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Right Here! Three Summer Workshops for Writers

Fredericksburg Writers Conference Workshop

Dr. Eva Pohler has a day job as a professor of writing and English at the University of Texas in San Antonio, but she is also a wildly successful indie writer.  She didn't find this success by accident, but after a steep learning curve in generating publicity and readership for her Gatekeeper series of young adult novels.

The Fredericksburg Writers Conference has heard presentations by Dr. Pohler twice in our year plus of existence, and it was clear that her strategies take much longer than an hour to lay out.  Because we found such value in her advice for self published writers, we have set up a workshop:

Saturday, June 28th, 2014.  (location to be announced)
8:30 AM: Register/Coffee and Pastries/Introductions
 Creating Brand Awareness
 Using Social Media
 Soliciting Reviews
 Make Amazon Work for You
 Form Alliances/Box Lunch
 Format Your Book to Sell
1:30 PM:  Go home and get to work!
 
The fee is $60 including lunch. 

Texas Tech University Summer Workshops:
 
Reaching People Through Their Own Stories is set for 9 a.m.- 5 p.m., July 9 and 10. The workshop will provide attendees with a wealth of material—fiction, poetry, nonfiction, memoir—that is about a community both student and teacher actually live in, the issues and concerns that students see, talk, and wonder about.

How to Get Your Manuscript Published is set for 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., July 23 and 24. The workshop will provide attendees with the knowledge of how to write an author biography, query letter to an agent or publishing house and where to market your writing.
The presenter will be the delightful Christine Granados, author of six books, who was recently inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.  These two-day sessions are $275 each and will earn CE credits.  Contact Christine Granados, christine.granados@ttu.edu or (830) 990-2717 for more info.

 

Friday, April 11, 2014

Story Ideas

Where do you get your story ideas from?  Here is one way:  the news.  You can't make this kind of stuff up.  What if the group of chimpanzees had gotten out of the zoo and into Kansas City?  A gang of chimps on the loose with a leader and the ability to climb; I can picture them at the counter of a diner eating eggs and hash browns.
 
What's your idea?

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Bragging Rights

Members of the Fredericksburg Writers Conference have published:

Barbara Elmore  Breathing Room    1994
                           Crookwood    2000
                           Saviors of the Bugle   2003
                           Current project:  historical novel

Victoria Rust     The Feel of Silk   2010
                          The Unanticipated Heir   2010
                          Searching   2011

Kent Rylander   Behavior of Texas Birds 2002 U.T. Press

Barbara Lloyd   The Colours of Thailand   1997
                          The Colours of India    1989            
                          Reflections of Spain    1992
                          China: Travels Between the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers  2007

Mara Fox          I Shocked the Sheriff   2005
                          Letting Loose!   2007
                          Letting Go!    2009  
                          Shades of Desire   2014

Robert C Deming   Enchanted Rock Red  2010
                                Enchanted Rock Blue(s)  2012
                                Awol 21   2013
                              
Sally Clark   Where's My Hug?  2015 CandyCane Press