Classes | | WIWCWIWC

HONE YOUR CRAFT/SHARPEN YOUR SKILLS
CLASSES/WORKSHOPS

SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 2012, 2:00-3:00

ROY STEVENSON, Marketing and selling your freelance articles to magazines and newspapers: Surviving and thriving as a freelance writer in today’s publishing flux. This workshop will cover the marketing of freelance articles for magazines, newspapers, E-zines, and In-flights. Roy will outline a seven step process which has evolved during his five-year freelance writing career, helping him successfully bank HUNDREDS of bylines in record time. He will show aspiring freelance writers how to quickly advance up the steep learning curve in order to increase the chance of getting published. His lively discussion will help you create an action plan for each freelance story, including ideas for squeezing the most out of each article. You’ll also understand four valuable lessons he’s learned, lessons that will save you much time and disappointment.

WAYNE UDE, What Can You Do With First Person? First person narrators are neither the most reliable nor the most common. As Ursula K. LeGuin notes in Steering the Craft, before the 18th century most stories were told in third person. We’ll explore special problems in first person including two of the greatest: reliability and time.

MARC TYLER NOBLEMAN, Nonfiction is Non-Boring. The cliché “Truth is stranger than fiction” is not the whole truth. Truth can also be more exciting, scarier, funnier, or sadder than fiction. Just because a story really happened—even if it really happened to YOU—does not make it easier to convert to a written story. This presentation reveals many of the tips and tricks I’ve developed (or discovered) in writing more than 60 nonfiction books. A nonfiction writer is a detective, reporter, and psychologist all at once. How could that not be fun?

JANNA CAWRSE ESAREY, Boiling Down Your Book: One paragraph to pitch to agents or share with friends. “So, what’s your book about?” It’s the simplest question, but so tough to answer, especially without feeling cliché or confusing. But boiling down your book will not only help you answer friends’ well-meaning questions, it will clarify your project in your own mind—and it just might sell your book! In this hands-on workshop we’ll learn how to convey the essence of your book in one simple paragraph, which we will write, deliver, and get feedback on in class. For those pitching at the conference, we’ll also discuss the elevator pitch, the extended pitch, and pitching etiquette. For those not pitching, you’ll at least be ready for your next well-meaning friend.

SUSAN WINGATE, Start Building Your Author Platform in Today’s eWorld. Take steps in your writing career, methods to build a platform that can launch you into publication. Susan will move from the development of pitches to social networking such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace in order for you to get noticed in today’s e-Climate.

**CRAIG ENGLISH, From Print to Performance: How to Do a Fantastic Reading. Whether you are a published author or a beginning scribe, this class will teach you to do a great public reading of your own work. A reading is supposed to generate new fans, but it sometimes has the opposite effect. Overcoming nerves, shyness or a lack of basic skills requires personal coaching. I can help a writer who had never uttered a word in front of an audience by working with their breath and posture. I will invite the experienced performer to play with nuances of rhythm, character and silence. Drawing on thirty years of professional acting and coaching experience, I reveal simple keys to relaxing, bringing an author’s words to life, and keeping an audience enthralled.

** THIS CLASS IS AN HOUR AND A HALF AND THUS WILL RUN FROM 2:00 TO 3:30.

SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 2012, 3:15-4:15

ANNE OSTERLUND, Settings that Pop! Open your scene. Put your character in place. And bring the setting alive! Come learn why every setting is different based on the character’s mood. Tackle the challenges of using fantastical or exotic places that you’ve never been. And practice writing your own settings that pop!

FRANCES WOOD, Writing Local and Family History: If you don’t who will? Is a batch of old family letters calling to you? Do you want the story of your special place or family history recorded for future generations? Writing projects don’t have to be momentous works appealing to millions. Writing local and family history can be valuable as well as satisfying. The key is finding the story within the history and writing to themes that speak to broader issues. Author Frances Wood started with a cardboard carton of old family letters and photos and ended with Down to Camp: A History of Summer Folk on Whidbey Island, a delightful 120-page book, full of family history, story and photos.

CANDACE DEMPSEY, How To Write About Real People. Is a real-life story haunting you? Need to get real people to talk? Discover how to pull stories from the headlines, find the people you need to interview, get them to open up, and create exciting nonfiction stories or books. I’ll share my learnings from writing MURDER IN ITALY (Penguin/Berkley Books), the true story of Amanda Knox. The rules also apply to memoir. You’ll learn how to:
*quickly “sketch” real people *choose your viewpoint characters *decide if/when you should be part of the narrative *protect your sources and their privacy *avoid lawsuits.

ERNIE WITHAM, Did You See That? Finding Humor in Everyday Situations. Humor is everywhere but most people walk right by it. This workshop will concentrate on helping writers see, think and write funnier. Heading to the mall, or the car dealership or even the doctor’s office knowing you will somehow find a laugh or two, makes life more fun.

ELENA HARTWELL, Write Dialogue Like a Playwright. Discover your characters’ unique voices and breathe life and authenticity into your work, making your fiction stand out from the rest of the slush pile. This interactive workshop delves into the importance of dialogue as the heart of fiction. Appropriate for writers of all levels, feel free to bring your current projects for reference (though not required).

GEORGE SHANNON, Stories Inside Stories: Children’s Books That Use Other Stories as Metaphor. Everyone remembers stories and refers to stories and so do your characters. We’ll explore ways you can enrich characterization through the story or folktale that character holds dear.

SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 2012, 8:00-9:00, Marketing and Publishing Panel featuring Renda Douglas, Bob Dunn, Andrea Hurst, Elizabeth Lyon, Marc Tyler Nobleman, Katharine Sands & Andrea Welch.

SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 2012, 9:30-11:00

BOB DUNN, Do I Really Need an Author Blog if I’m on Facebook or Twitter? Social networking sites are useful for talking about your work and engaging readers and potential readers. But if you make Facebook and Twitter your main author platform, you are giving up some control over your marketing message. You need a home base, a hub—a blog. Learn how to use a blog as a social media hub, improve your content and make your site more user-friendly.

SUSAN WINGATE, Get on Board the Starship of Publishing. The rapidly changing look of publishing in today’s new technology age will require authors to learn a whole new set of skills. With the advent of the electronic book reader, such as Kindle and the Nook, authors will not only need to understand these new formats but also learn a new language set, become more creative in their approach to writing (and reading) as well as learn some computer-eze.

ERNIE WITHAM, The Craft of Humor Writing. Making Funny Funnier. Writing is rewriting. This is especially true for humor. This workshop is designed to help students turn a smile into a chuckle, a chuckle into a laugh, and a laugh into a guffaw, which makes your funny stories funnier and more saleable.

DAVID HANDSCHUH, ROY STEVENSON, JOHN GOTTBERG ANDERSON & MICHELLE SCHUSTERMAN (FOOD & TRAVEL WRITERS), Love Food – Will Travel: Writing for the Wanderlust and Culinary Markets. Travel and food writing sounds glamorous and exciting…but is it for you? Meet four published experts and find out if you have what it takes to make it as a food and travel writer. Hear their successes and failures. Explore the idea of making extra money writing about interesting experiences, places and people you encounter, even if they are in your own neighborhood.

WAYNE UDE, What Can’t You Do With Third Person? Beginning long before humans began to write stories, most have been told in third person. We’ll explore five levels of third person narration: limited, shifting, neutral omniscience, editorial omniscience, and the newly revived third indirect. Does third person really create a greater distance from characters but make giving information easier than in first person? Not necessarily. Exercises will allow participants to experiment with various kinds of third-person and omniscient narrators.

ANNE OSTERLUND, Sweat the Small Stuff. Focus on the small things that make the difference between a good manuscript and a polished one: transitions, word choice, pacing, descriptions, and making an impression with minor characters. Participants will write.
ELENA HARTWELL, Play, Write, Action. An interactive playwriting workshop for fiction writers. Create characters, action, and dialogue on the spot, demystifying the dramatic arts and experiencing a new way into your fiction. Appropriate for writers of any level.

SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 2012, 11:15-12:30

CANDACE DEMPSEY, Five Best Ways to Promote Your Blog.
What does Oklahoma rancher/food writer Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman) have in common with preppy political commentator Andrew Sullivan (The Daily Dish)? They write world-famous blogs that they’ve spun off into books. You’ll discover their secrets, plus how I got my seattlepi.com blog featured on Anderson Cooper360 and Newsweek.com and turned it into MURDER IN ITALY (Penguin/Berkley Books), the true story of Amanda Knox. We’ll talk about everything from social networking and getting Google ratings to landing TV and radio appearances. I’ve appeared on MSNBC, CNN, the BBC and many other TV and radio shows. You’ll leave class with a personalized promotion plan.

CRAIG ENGLISH, Inviting the Demons in for Tea: Passionate Curiosity and How to Keep Writing. Several years ago, I was attending a writer’s conference, taking part in a panel about What’s Keeping You From Finishing That Novel. My fellow panelists—much decorated, well published authors—were swapping war stories about the things they will do to avoid writing. It was amusing, and the audience was enjoying it, but I’m watching their faces and I’m thinking: This isn’t it. This isn’t What’s Keeping You From Finishing That Novel. So I said: “You know, I’d like to talk about what kept me from finishing projects for years. I have demons. Personal demons.” In this workshop, Craig examines the demons that both hinder and mentor our writing.

MARC TYLER NOBELMAN, Books and Cartoons, Persistence and Rejection. This diverse presentation reveals the “behind-the-scenes” of a professional freelance writer (more than 70 books for children) and cartoonist (for more than 100 magazines and two Scholastic books). With humor and honesty, the presentation includes a look back at incidents in Marc’s childhood that influenced his career, his experience writing humor for Nickelodeon, live cartoon sketches (the class votes on what they want him to draw), empowering stories (famous and personal) of overcoming rejection, a reading of his rejection letters (his frustration becomes your amusement), inspirational tales of persistence paying off, a cartoon game with a popular twist, and a few surprises. Throughout Marc will share fun, accessible tips on making writing stronger. Powerful, practical advice for anyone who wants to write—or pursue a passion of any kind.

BOB DUNN, How to Finally Get that Author Blog You’ve Always Wanted. Your author blog is your stage, the place where you get to shine a light on your work. It’s one of the best platforms to build your brand, deliver your marketing message and grow a community of loyal readers. Learn about what a blog can do, get the basics of creating a WordPress blog and walk away with tips for developing appealing content.

GEORGE SHANNON, Telling Your Story Through Diaries and Letters. Stories are told or revealed in many ways including one’s letters and diary. What does your protagonist write to friends? What does your lead character hide in his diary? Your novel could be waiting there.

SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 2012, 2:00-3:30

FRANCES WOOD, Nature Writing begins with Nature. Want to jump-start or refine your nature writing skills? Using the backdrop of beautiful Whidbey Island, we will focus on improving powers of observation and creating colorful and sensuous descriptions of nature. We will also explore effective techniques for keeping a nature journal and taking field notes. Whether your genre is fiction, non-fiction, scientific writing or personal journaling, this course will help you connect more closely to nature and use it to enrich your writing.

ERNIE WITHAM, Humor on Vacation. The Fun and Funny Aspects of Travel. Planes, trains and rental automobiles. Every vacation, weekend outing, family function, dining, exploring and recreational experience is fodder for humor. Learn how to bring back stories that your friends — and publishers — will enjoy over and over.

ANNE OSTERLUND, Create Your Own Character. Free yourself! And go back to the basics: character motive, obstacles, strengths and flaws. Come prepared to cut, paste, color and create your own character in this hands-on workshop!

CRAIG ENGLISH, Critiquing and Writing Groups: The Agony and the Ecstasy. Drawing on twelve years of experience with the Commoners Writing Group (published novels, nonfiction books, prize winning short stories, and essays), Craig will delve into the formulation, emotional stance, and rules of order required for a successful writers group. The class will also practice the incisive and loving art of giving and receiving criticism.

JANNA CAWRSE ESAREY, How to Make a Book Trailer without Breaking the Bank. A book trailer is a short, snappy video used to sell a book. It’s visual. It’s vibrant. And it might just go viral. But commissioning a book trailer can be expensive. This workshop will explore creative ways to make your book trailer yourself, using basic software, photos, words, and other low-tech stuff you cobble together. We’ll discuss copyright issues, other ways to use video (say, if you don’t have a book yet), and how to disseminate your video far and wide. Whether you’re into self publishing or traditional publishing, this workshop will help you think about alternative ways to promote your writing career.