Workshops starting soon!
San Diego Romance Writers present …
Building Characters One Layer At A Time
Instructor: HelenKay Dimon
Dates: October 17-30
Price $20 RWASD $25 others
http://www.rwasd.com/training/index.html
Characters are the center of your story. They drive your plot and keep readers coming back. Whether you are writing about a Scottish Laird, a small-town sheriff or a centuries-old vampire, your characters need to be complex, believable and compelling. In this class you will learn how to build characters, layer by layer, until they are unforgettable.
Bestselling and award-winning author HelenKay Dimon is a former trial attorney who now writes romance and romantic suspense full time. Since selling her first book in 2005, she has sold thirty novels and novellas to numerous publishers, including Kensington, Harlequin, Berkley, Carina and Samhain. Her books have been showcased in Cosmo, E! Online, the Chicago Tribune and other venues. She teaches writing workshops throughout the U.S. and is a writing instructor at MiraCosta College and UC San Diego extension. You can visit her at her website: www.helenkaydimon.com.
Heart of Dixie Online Workshop: Send Your Muse Back to School
Instructor: Beth Henderson
Date: November 1-22, 2011
Cost: $20
Feel like your once very-creative muse has crawled into a hamster wheel? You know, nothing but the same old sort of storyline keeps coming to mind and while that can be comforting to some, to many writers it’s like an itch they can’t scratch. We need diversity, we need challenges! We need to do something different occasionally or something silly, or even something downright weird. You know, retrain your muse or at least give them a refresher course!
Among the core courses your muse will be exposed to in this workshop are the Blind Librarian, the Berserker Muse, the Chinese Menu, 52 Pick Up, Go Fish and…well, other different, silly, and most definitely weird ways to jump start your imagination.
Twice a week for 4 weeks you’ll be given a Challenge (so much nicer sounding than an Assignment) to dream up something totally out of your comfort zone using a variety of…shall we say “things”…to write a short story, say 1000 words or more (that’s around 4 pages or…well, more). You need only write one a week although there will be two challenges and you can do them both. Or, in lieu of a short story, it could be the start of a first chapter. Your choice…but you’ll need to do it with the elements I suggest…or someone else in the workshop suggests or assigns to you.
If your muse doesn’t get jolted out of his/her complacency, it won’t be for lack of trying. You might even get the glimmer of a new idea to pursue…chase…hunt down…until you have a totally new style of story…well, at least for you. And possibly a new market as well.
Students will be urged to post what they write and comment on each other’s work. Q&A and feedback from the instructor is a seven-day-a-week promise.
Beth Daniels currently writes as Beth Henderson and J.B. Dane, though she answered to Lisa Dane and Beth Cruise in the past as well. She has worked with editors at Berkley, Zebra, Leisure, Harlequin/Silhouette, and Simon and Schuster’s Aladdin Paperbacks, done e-books for a now defunct company (not her fault, she says), and began her writing life with hardcover books slated for library use with a publisher that got out of the romance business (again, not her fault). More recently she’s had a number of articles about writing picked up by e-zines, saw a short story published in a mystery and suspense magazine that turned up its toes the next year (really, really not her fault), and has a story in the MOTHER GOOSE IS DEAD anthology slated for publication by Dragon Moon Press in 2010.
For over a dozen years Beth taught college level composition, both in the classroom and online, and a credit course on Novel Writing. Five of her former Novel class students are now published.
Twenty-six of Beth’s manuscripts have appeared in print or e-book format. These have been historical romantic adventures (6), romantic comedies (10), romantic-suspense (3), and young adult romantic comedy (7). Her titles have appeared in 12 different languages in over 20 countries. At the moment she is working on various manuscripts and attempting a collaboration with another RWA member on a contemporary/fantasy/romantic adventure. She also ventured into self-publishing to keep her out-of-print backlist in print, but previous e-books in print, and in frustration, to move beyond a manuscript she’d been reworking for editors for a decade with no bites, released a previously unpublished historical romantic adventure set in the American West.
She is a member of Romance Writers of America, and an active member and volunteer with the Kiss of Death Online romantic suspense chapter
Website: RomanceAndMystery.com
And the contest:
2012 Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence
The Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, sponsored by RWA chapter Southern Magic, was conceived in honor of multi-RITA Winner Gayle Wilson to award excellence in published romance fiction. The contest is judged by avid readers of romance, booksellers, and/or librarians. The winners of each category are awarded a bookmark engraved with the author’s name and the book’s title. Winners will also be included in a full-page RWR advertisement.
Eligibility: Entries must be received by January 15, 2012. Novels and novellas must have a copyright of first printing date of 2011, no matter the format. Books are eligible to enter as long as they are published by a non-vanity, non-subsidy publisher. No self-published. Entries may be entered in electronic format only if they have not been released in print format.
For the purposes of this contest, Southern Magic uses the definition of “non-vanity, non-subsidy” as defined by Romance Writers of America: “Subsidy” or “Vanity” publishing means the production of books in which the author participates in the costs of production or distribution in any manner, including assessment of fees or other costs for editing and/or distribution. This definition includes publishing programs that withhold or seek full or partial payment or reimbursement of publication or distribution costs before paying royalties, including payment of paper, printing, binding, production, sales or marketing costs; publishing programs whose authors exclusively promote and/or sell their own books; and publishers whose business model and methods of publishing are primarily directed toward sales to the author, his/her relatives and associates.” If you have any questions about eligibility, please contact the contest coordinator.
Entry fee: $30 first book; $25 subsequent books.
Author must provide three copies of the entered book, which will not be returned. OPTIONAL: If you’d like to avoid the cost of shipping your books to our contest, we have an arrangement with Author, Author! Books. You can order your in-print books at a deep-discounted price with no shipping costs for entry into our contest. To learn more, contact Laura Hayden at authorauthor. Please note that Author, Author! is in no way a part of Southern Magic and your use of their services is solely optional.
Finalists will be notified in March 2012. All finalists receive a certificate. Winners receive an engraved bookmark and inclusion in a full-page RWR ad. Authors may enter more than one novel; however, the same novel may not be entered in multiple categories. If a category does not receive at least 5 entries, the category will be canceled, and the entrants’ books and entry fees will be returned.
Categories for entry (we define “series” as numbered monthly-released category romance):
Contemporary Single Title
Contemporary Series
Romantic Suspense Single Title
Romantic Suspense Series
Inspirational Single Title
Inspirational Series
Paranormal/Fantasy/ Futuristic/Time Travel
Historical
Young Adult
Novella (20,000 – 40,000 Words)
Judging: All entries are judged by avid readers of romance, booksellers, and/or librarians. The top two scores are added to form the final score. The lowest score is dropped. Ties are broken using the dropped low score. After the dropped low score is used, if there is still a tie for first place, authors will be asked to send two additional copies of the book to break the tie. Failure of the author to supply these copies in a timely manner will result in forfeiture of the win.
Books are given to the judges as a “thank you” for judging. They are not returned. Scores and finalist placement are not revealed. Score sheets are not returned. The decision of the judges is final.
For more details and entry form, please see the contest website at http://southernmagic.org/gaylewilsoncontest.html.
Questions? E-mail me at GWContest
