Southern Tier Authors of Romance is pleased to announce the 2010 line-up of On-line Workshops. The first in this year's series starts in February (see below). Registration is open the month previous, with a deadline of the first day of class.
The Southern Tier Authors of Romance (STAR) a chapter of RWAC2AE is thrilled to be able to offer the following series of On-line Workshops from highly-respected, successful authors willing to share their time and skills with other writers. Workshops last four (4) weeks, consist of a mix of lectures, exercises and discussions, and are conducted via a private Yahoo Groups listserv. The cost of participating in a STAR On-Line Workshop is $20 for RWA members, and $25 for non-members.
All writers are welcome. If you know how to send e-mail, then you've mastered all of the technical skills you need to participate in our work shops. You will be automatically enrolled in the workshop's listserv just before the class begins. All of the messages posted by the instructor and other students will be delivered directly to your inbox, although you may also view them from the Yahoo website.
To register for any of the classes listed below, please complete the form that follows and include a check or Money Order in US Dollars, made out to STAR On-Line Workshop, and mail the check and form to: Carol A. Henry, STAR On-line Workshop Coordinator, 90 Dry Brook Road, Willseyville, NY 13864. Alternatively, if you have a PayPal account, you can pay by going to www.PayPal.com. Select the "send money" button, then enter the amount due, and STAR's email address for payment: starpay@gmail.com. Then send your registration information to Carol at: carolhenry@frontiernet.net
Plotting can be a big challenge, even for a seasoned writer. This class introduces the Plotting Wheel, a step-by-step method that can help everyone from beginners to published authors develop their ideas into novel form. No matter what method of plotting a writer uses, there are certain elements that need to go into any well told story. This interactive workshop goes through the various elements and turns them into the spokes of "The Plotting Wheel." Learn how to use those spokes to move your story along into a well-developed plot. The plotting wheel can help the writer make certain they're headed in the right direction with their plot and that the story is moving forward through meaningful action, building tension, and good pacing. The plotting wheel can help get a story off to a good beginning, help prop up a sagging middle, and provide help to insure there is a satisfying climax and concludsion.
Sue Viders is the author of more than 20 books, numerous articles and columns for both artists and writers. Her writing book, Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes, is used in many college and university writing courses. Her latest product for writers is Deal a Story, an interactive card game consisting of 101 cards and six sections and is based on her Heroes and Heroines book.
Becky Martinez is an award-winning former broadcast journalist and published romance novelist. Her latest romantic suspense novel, Deadly Messages, will be published by The Wild Rose Press in February 2010. Her first romance novel was an Aspen Gold finalist. She has had several short stories published, including The Problem in 2008 by The Wild Rose Press, and she contgributed a short story to The Trouble with Romance, an anthology that was a 2007 New Mexico Book Award Finalist.
Both Sue and Becky were co-authors of the writing book 10 Steps to Creating Memorable Characters. This workbook for writers is gaining use as a practical tool for beginning writers who want to develo their characters as they build their plot.
Want to practice your pitch for an upcoming pitch session to an agent or editor? Need help refining your pitch to include in a query letter? Well, practice makes perfect! Kerri offers up the secrets to nailing your pitch, how to score a home run with editors, and how not to stop short of getting the results you want.
Kerri Nelson has pitched more than thirty different books in every imaginable
genre over the last five years. From Erotic to YA, to multiple agents and editors,
Kerri has had a tremendous success rate for follow-up requests for both partial and
full manuscripts. She has sold eight of those books to four different publishers in
just one year after perfecting her pitch process! At age 16, she became a columns for
her local newspaper as the high school correspondent for the weekly "Panther Tales"
column. She won the Outstanding Young Journalist of the Year Award for her efforts.
www.kerrinelson.com;
www.kerribookwriter.blogspot.com
Muse Therapy is all about injecting life into tired and/or stressed out muses. D.D. will give writers fun and fabulous tools to analyze their muses, rein in their creative divas, and up their page counts. Discover what makes muses tick, what ticks them off, and what makes them dance like nobody's watching. We'll name your muses and host a very special meet-and-greet just for them, then dig deep into their psyches by examining 'muse disorders' such as your Inner Sybil, Writing Bi-Polar, What do you mean I'm neurotic?, Rorschach for writers, and stimulants - when coffee, chocolate, and martinis aren't enough.
D.D.Scott's romantic comedies are all about sexy, sassy, smart, career-driven women and the men who complete them. They're a bit chick-lit with a gone-country twist. Her series "Bootscootin' Blahnicks" (think Sex and the City meets Urban Cowboy) is under consideration by several NY publishers. D.D. writes stories with big hearts and a bunch of sass. Once a small town newspaper crime reporter and now a Harpercollins Publish Returns Center Executive Assistant, she's learned great fiction comes from the street as well as which jacket covers meet early deaths. www.DDScott.com
Overwhelmed by the number of writing contests out there? Unsure whether to enter? Unclear about why you should enter? This workshop is geared for unpublished writers seeking feedback and/or a chance to final in the hundreds of writing contests offered through RWA chapters.
Contests offer opportunities for feedback from published authors, agents and editors. But contests cost money and valuable writing time. This interactive lecture format will include handouts, examples and open Q&A to help writers understand what they can expect to gain from entering a contest. We'll provide an overview of the contest process, sources for researching contests, help writers identify their motives for entering a contest, and even give tips on preparing your contest entry.
2008 Golden Heart finalist Amy Atwell has experienced every aspect of writing contests. Having entered over 60 contests over the past ten years, her manuscripts have won the Winter Rose, Great Expectations, Beacon, Golden Gateway, Heart of Outreach contests and Award of Excellence. She has over 25 contest finals to her credit, including The Maggie, The Sheila, and The Daphne du Maurier contensts. Amy's also judged numerous contests including Romance Through The Ages, Great Expectations, The Golden Pen, The Barclay Sterling, More Than Magic, and she coordinated the 2009 Golden Pen Contest. In addition to her writing, Amy runs the WritingGIAM communit of loops to help "PRO equivalent and up" writers achieve their writing goals.
A former theater professional, Amy's had two plays commissioned and produced. During her tenure as education director at Georgia Shakespear Festival, Amy taught workshops to middle and high school students and developed and led a state accredited program for English teachers teaching Shakespeare's plays in the classroom. Amy holds an MA in Speech Communication and has worked as a writer/editor for Lincoln Center for the Performing ARts, the National Park Service, and Virginia Tech. www.amyatwell.com
It takes a special talent to get from "Once upon a time" to "They lived happily ever after". And when you're trying to do it in less than 30,000 words while juggling everything from character arc to the romance plot to the suspense plot and if it includes erotica, those hot love scenes ... it can be a difficult road to navigate.
Nina Pierce, award-winning author of six novellas, will share some tricks she's learned to help tell a complete romance story in thirty thousan words or less. Topics will include plot points, character development and point of view, time tables and cutting out unnecessary words and scenes. Instructor will provide exampmles from her novellas and offer students opportunities to share writing samples to help clarify concepts of lessons. www.ninapierce.com
Nina Pierce began writing as a lark when her health forced her retirement from a twenty-year teaching career. As someone who always loved hot stories and happy endings, she sat down to write her first romance in 2005. Her part-time love of words blossomed into a full-time writing career, and she hasn't looked back. Now her characters wake her in the night, clamoring to have their stories told.
A native of Maine, Nina resides in what she affectionately calls "the great white North" with her soulmate of thirty-three years, their three grown children and a menagerie of pets. Her passion for bringing out the sensuality of her characters continues to drive her to find new and exciting stories.
| Name | ____________________________ | ____________________________ |
| Telephone | ____________________________ | RWA Member: Yes___ No___ | RWA number:_______________ |
| Date | Title | Presenter | Register |
| February | The Plotting Wheel | Becky Martinez & Sue Viders | |
| March | Pitch Perfect | Kerri Nelson | |
| June | Muse Therapy | D.D.Scott | |
| August | Prose and Contests | Amy Atwell | |
| September | Writing Novellas | Nina Pierce |
DATE:____________ Total Amount:_________
To register for any or all of the above classes, please complete the form above, include a check or Money Order in US Dollars, made out to STAR On-Line Workshop, and mail the check and form to: Carol A. Henry, STAR Workshop Coordinator, 90 Dry Brook Road, Willseyville, NY 13864.
Alternatively, if you have a PayPal account, you can pay by going to www.PayPal.com. Select the "send money" button, then enter the amount due, and STAR's email address for payment: starpay@gmail.com. Then send your registration information to Carol at: carolhenry@frontiernet.net).
Carol A. Henry, On-line Workshop Coordinator, STAR-NY
Destination: Romance -- Amazon Connection, May 2009, The Wild Rose Press
carolhenry@frontiernet.net;
Carol's website