Showing posts with label workshop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label workshop. Show all posts

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Foothills Writers' Guild Workshop and owls?

This weekend was the annual Foothills Writers' Guild workshop. Keynote speaker Friday night was Richard Speight and Saturday lunch was Edie Melson. Guest speakers included Pam Zollman (Children's author), Jill Jones (Therapist who uses poetry in her therapy), Christopher Branch (musician), and Jane Freidman was supposed to be there but apparently there was a problem with her flight on Thursday so she didn't get to make it this time (she's pretty awesome as she speaks about ways to market and network on the internet). So what do owls have to do with the Foothills Writers' Guild workshop?

We have owls on our property and I've heard them many times "hoot-hoot-hooting" but I've never seen them. The kids have made claims of seeing them before. When I was putting my stuff in my car Saturday morning to head to Anderson University (the place where we hold our conference every year), I heard several owls. Didn't really think about it until I was near the end of the driveway and one flew over my car. I looked to my passenger seat to get my camera and take a picture but had forgotten my camera. I turned my car around and came back to get it. By time I came outside, the owl had flown to a different tree. I saw him and snapped the following picture of him: . Glory be. My first owl. After I snapped a second picture of him, he flew to another tree and lo and behold, a second owl flew up to the same area he was. They hoot-hoot-hooted at each for like 2 seconds and then they squawked like crazy birds. The second one flew away from the first one but in the same tree, just a couple of branches over.

Then the first one took off and flew to a tree closer to my driveway; the second one followed and I tried snapping a picture of the two of them on the same branch in that tree but I wasn't steady enough. While tryng to snap the two together, I heard another one to the side and glanced over and sure enough, a third one had flown into a tree but he was hidden; I didn't get to see him.

So my excursion to participate in the Foothills Writers' Guild workshop this past weekend was well worth getting up earlier than I'm used to as I got to finally see the owls on our property.

The workshops was awesome too. I sat in Richard's, Edie's and Pam's classes and then during Pam's second workshop, I wrangled my adopted daughter who is a student at AU to help me practice my workshop presentation I'll be doing at the homeschool conferences. She brought her boyfriend so I got to do it for an audience of 1 plus her since she had already done part of my presentation before (she's played the game before). After we had our refreshment break, they called some more friends in (four young ladies), and so I did my workshop presentation again for them. I found out that I was incorrect in my "Road Trip" game as there are possibly many more routes than the eight I had originally figured. Now I need to go through the game again and come up with all the possible ways to make it across the United States without entering any state more than once. Thanks to Jess and Vincent and all the young ladies at AU for helping me out.

So now you have it - Foothills Writers' Guild workshop and owls! - E :)

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Free workshop this weekend - Editors and authors working together

I'm one of the contributors to the workshop - so if you are interested in working with editors for different things - stop on over and see us - E :)

T.E.L.L. Open Workshop Discussion.We are pleased to invite all writers and editors to participate in theupcoming discusssion on our yahoo grouphttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/literature-league.EDITING: EDITORS AND WRITERS WORKING TOGETHER.The discussion takes place on Sat 9th and Sun 10th June, from 10am - 10pmEST (3pm - 3am UK) each day. You can pop in and out anytime during thediscussion and take part in any of the threads/topics that have started,or pose a question to us our our guests.During the discussion we will explore:Copy Editing,Self Editing,Proofreading,Acquisitions Editing,Magazine and Newspaper Editing,Editor and Writer Etiquette,and more.We aim to provide writers with valuable information that could help themform better working relationships with the editors they work with in thefuture.To assist in this we have the pleasure of the company of the followinghighly experienced guests during the the 2 days:Brenna Lyons, who is multi-published in indie/e; at the height of her timewith one publisher, she had more than 4 dozen titles out and selling.She's the current president of EPIC, and has worked with many editorsduring her time as a writer. Brenna will be available on and offthroughout the discussion.Elizabeth Burton, who is currently Executive Editor for ZumayaPublications LLC, and has been an editor for almost 20 years. She is alsoan author of three published novels with a fourth, The Everdark Gate, dueout this fall, she has written three erotic romance novellas for eXtasyBooks and was a finalist in the Writers of the Future contest forspeculative fiction. Elizabeth will be available throughout the first dayand up till 1pm EST on Sunday.Jolie du Pre, who is a writer of lesbian erotica and lesbian eroticromance. Her stories have appeared on numerous websites, in e-book and inprint in Best Lesbian Erotica 2007 and more. Jolie is also the editor ofIridescence: Sensuous Shades of Lesbian Erotica, published by AlysonBooks. She is the founder of GLBT Promo, a promotional group for GLBTerotica and erotic romance. She is the moderator for the Erotic AuthorsAssociation's blog and she is also a weekly contributor to The BlushingLadies Journal. Jolie will be available from 1pm EST on Sunday.Elysabeth Eldering, who has an article on editing and self publishing toher credit. She is also the editor of the paranormal mystery storyline forthe Magazine of Unbelievable Stories published by Quill-Pen Press. To hercredit, she has also been asked to edit novels for the same publisher inthe upcoming year. She has edited four novels and is in the process ofstarting her own editing service. Elysabeth also does book reviews forArmchair Interviews, Curled Up With a Good Book, and New Mystery Readersezine. In 2007, Elysabeth volunteered to judge mid length storiessubmitted for the Derringers Awards. She will be available from 1pm EST onSat.Between them, our four guests are very experienced in all aspects ofediting, and also in working with editors. Why not join us this weekendand either share your own experience and hints/tips, or find out how tobetter your working relationships with a writer or editor?Our yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/literature-league will hostthis discussion. Simply go to the group and join in order to participate.If you don't currently have a yahoo ID, follow the instructions at thispoint to get one. You can follow/participate through your email inbox, orfrom the group directly via the 'Messages' link on the left column of thegroup page (this is the quickest and easiest method).Some discussion rules:1) Stay on topic at all times. Diverse if you are trying to make a validpoint, but do not stray off into non-topic discussions.2) NO SPAM, and NO SOLICITING! There will be no warnings to anyone onthis. Do it once, and you're off the discussion and banned from the group.See you all on Saturday!Jim Brown

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Self-Promotion workshop today

I should have posted this earlier but it was posted on the Echelon Authors page and I mentioned it at writing group Thursday evening but didn't even think about it until this morning when I was checking my Yahoo groups to see where new messages have been added.

I'm funny about posting message from email so I usually do all my replies directly in the forum groups but this morning apparently there was a glip in my posting - my first post went to the owner of the group when it was a direct reply to someone else's post.

If you are an author, this workshop seems to be a great idea - (although the forum says it is an erotic group of sorts, this particular workshop is geared towards all authors and publishers - it isn't just pertaining to erotic material being published) - so if you are looking for some new ideas to promote yourself and your books - join the forum and the discussion and see what you can get out of it (again the link is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/literature-league/)

See you all in the postings - E :)

Thursday, April 12, 2007

free online workshops link correction

I received an email from a member on another group who said the links weren't working correctly so here is the main page link - hope it works - see you all there - E :)
http://www.freewebs.com/themuseonlinewritersconference/

Free online workshop - only passing on the information

Lea Schizas from Muse it Up and the Magazine of Unbelievable Stories posted this on our editor's forum and said I could post to other forums and on my blog - Christina and Cheryl are editors also for the MUS. I'm not sure if I will be a presenter or not - but we will see - hope to see you all there - E :)

Our workshops are slowly coming in and placed in the WORKSHOP webpage. Take a look at what we have so far and many more to come. CherylWright, and Christina Barber will be Presenters in this year'sconference once again.
http://www.freewebs.com/themuseonlinewritersconference/2007workshops.htm

Hop on over to our PRESENTERS webpages and take a look also at ourline up for 2007:
http://www.freewebs.com/themuseonlinewritersconference/presenters.htm

This is a FREE conference to take place October 8 - 14, 2007. Sevendays of FREE workshops, FREE handouts, FREE chats and all week longquestion and answer periods with our Presenters, plus prizes to be wonevery day and a FREE eBook of all the Presenters and their offerings. Deadline for registration is August 1st, 2007 but don't wait untilthen because you may forget and there will be no acceptions past thisdate.Register for FREE now at:
http://www.freewebs.com/themuseonlinewritersconference/registration.htm

Last year we had close to 1300 attend from all over the world and wehad a blast. Many attendees also had an opportunity to meet some ofthe publishers and get contracts. So hurry now while it's fresh onyour mind and register. Tell your writing friends and readers all about us.

Lea Schizas