What's Happening? This is happening.

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor for the Writer’s Digest Writing Community. He offers good info for poets who follow him on Twitter or Facebook and who read his blog. http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides

Here is a link you poets might enjoy: https://twitter.com/robertleebrewer/status/839112134126669829

Robert was a guest at Writers Circle around the Table a few years ago, and I have followed him online since then. He is a very nice man, a father and husband, and gives many tips and ideas for poetry on his blog. He generously helps budding poets, and is accessible by email. You will gain good ideas from him. He travels to talk to writing groups, large and small. 

I met him at the Blue Ridge Writers' Conference in Blue Ridge, GA where my friend, Carol Crawford, invited him to speak. And speaking of a wonderful writing event, the Blue Ridge Writers' Conference will be April 7 and 8 in Blue Ridge GA. It is one of the best small conferences I have ever attended. 

http://www.blueridgewritersconference.com/

Mark your calendar now for this important day in May.

Writers, poets, playwrights and anyone who wants to publish fiction, nonfiction, or poetry will receive advice, tips and motivation at A Day for Writers, a one day conference in Sylva, NC on Saturday, May 6. You will find information about this conference at www.netwestwriters.blogspot.com  

This gathering is sponsored by the Jackson County Public Library and the NC Writers' Network-West. We will meet at the library in the old courthouse, a lovely place. 

Do You have to be High Tech to Build a Brand?

What a great time I had at the Blue Ridge Writers' Conference in Blue Ridge Georgia. Carol Crawford and her staff including Caroline Mann make it seem effortless to host over 80 people all day long and move them from room to room as needed, keep all the presenters moving toward their posts, and feed them lunch.

Glenda B. and Carol Crawford   

Although I was deliberately late, needing to pace myself for energy, and because I had suffered from the overload of fragrance at the reception on Friday night, the day was quite long for me. 

Eager writers filled almost every seat in the room for my 11:00 a.m. session waiting to learn something that would help them to become published writers. Even now, at my age and with my experience, I am still honored and pleased when others look to me for expertise. I was there to help all the wanna-be writers and those who considered themselves writers already, but needed a boost to get their name out there, to be known to the readers they want to reach. 

I have been going to this conference for seventeen years. Never missed one. I know who attends this event in the beautiful little tourist town in the North Georgia mountains. I have walked in their shoes and know what they want to know. I know that most of them are not into high tech marketing. 

I asked how many had a website and then how many had a blog. As I expected, a few hands shot into the air. Many of the folks in the room were over fifty. I relaxed and felt right at home. These were my people. 

We talked about building relationships with readers, building a name as a writer at home in our own community and I told them the many ways I had done that before finding the Internet in 2007. 

In another room a professional writer with a movie contract and ten novels to her name explained her method of building her career - Facebook and Twitter mostly - it seemed. I suggested to my group that they set up a free blog and "dip their toe into the water of the web." I did this because I know that most of them are scared to death of jumping into cyberspace in the way many do today to promote yourself and your work.

I like blogs because the writer has the opportunity to show her writing ability, show her readers who she is, what she likes, and what she expects and wants people to think about her. My theory is that a writer must first think about her readers and give them some reason to choose her words over others, to buy her book if she has one. I have favorite authors who blog and I like to know them through these weekly posts. I had some author's blogs I followed and enjoyed until those authors decided to go to FB and Twitter and leave their blogs. Now I don't follow them.

It is just not the same on FB or Twitter. If one is a famous author, he has a staff that plops up promotion material for him or he tells where he will appear next week. But an author, like our own Vicki Lane, author of The Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian Mysteries from Bantam Dell keeps her readers with her every step as she writes and publishes her next book. We read her blog and we know the ups and downs she faces just as we do. We learn to care about her as a regular person as well as the author of the series. We worried about her when she had a car accident recently.

This quote from Seth Godin says what I think about depending on Twitter to build your writing platform.
How many eyeballs are passing by is a useless measure. All that matters is,
"how many people want to hear from you tomorrow?"

I had planned to go on with more information on building a brand, but our 45 minutes flew by once the audience became interactive with the discussion of blogging. I will be most interested to see if anyone there will set up a blog and I hope, if they do, they will let me know. 

We have Carol Crawford to help us with our memoir, essay, short story

Carol Crawford, writer and poet, mother and wife,
Director of the Blue Ridge Writers Conference, will teach at Writers Circle on July 9, 2:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.

I hope all of you within driving distance of Writers Circle in Hayesville, NC will take the opportunity to be with us when Carol Crawford teaches a class for prose writers, fiction and non-fiction, that will help us prepare our manuscript for submitting to a journal or anthology, and that will give our work the best chance to be selected for publication.

Big Picture Revision

Never mind the commas – there are often bigger things to think about when you finish a first draft and begin the work of revision.  
In this workshop we will take a piece you have written and look at it with fresh eyes, finding its natural trajectory and structure.  We will clarify what’s confusing and emphasize what’s strong, so that you can write the story you want to write. 
"Please bring a short (1000 word) essay, story or excerpt for us to work on during the class."

 Carol's essays, fiction and poetry have been published in the Concho River Review, the Chattahoochee Review, the Southern Humanities Review, the Journal of Appalachian Studies, and others.  She is director of FLAG Adult Education and volunteer coordinator for the annual Blue Ridge Writers' Conference.  Carol is a graduate of Baylor University, and a native of Texas, but she lives in the north Georgia mountains now.

This is our first time to have Carol teach at Writers Circle, but I hope it won't be the last. While we seem to have a large number of poets as instructors, we want to also hold classes for non-poets or those, like me, who write both poetry and prose.

Register by calling 828-389-4441 to reserve your place, or mail your check for $30.00 to Writers Circle 581 Chatuge Lane, Hayesville, NC 28904

Blue Ridge Writers Conference Reception Friday Night

Tonight I met some new authors in our area. I was in Blue Ridge Georgia for the 16th annual Blue Ridge Writers Conference directed by my dear friend, Carol Crawford. 

The reception at the Arts Center on Friday evening was fun and filled with good food, good wine and artists of all kinds. I could spend hours just looking at the visual arts on the walls, on the tables and everywhere.

But this weekend is about literary art. Vicki Lane, popular fiction writer, is the Keynote speaker. C. Hope Clark, author of Lowcountry Bribe, is back to speak on writing mystery novels. My friend, Scott Owens, highly popular poet, editor and teacher, is back also to speak at two sessions on Saturday. 

This conference draws people from Atlanta and the surrounding area as well as local writers from north Georgia and Western NC.

I met a delightful author who began as a freelancer and wrote articles for magazines for years before she wrote her novel she is promoting at this time. I hope she will teach a class at Writers Circle one day. We've never had anyone teach a class on freelance writing. I'd love to take the class myself.

SEE WHAT SUNNY LEARNED THIS WEEK

Sunny at the dog park

The pup is Sunny who has developed into a very bad barker. She also lunges at other dogs and people as they pass her on the trail at the park. But, just this week, Sunny went to school with a good teacher and now, I hear, she is being such a good girl. She has learned a command that stops her barking and her household is much quieter and calmer. Sunny is a rescue from Logan's Run Rescue in Murphy, NC. They do great work for our furry friends at Logan's Run. So, if you have some extra funds to donate to help find homes for good dogs like Sunny, please visit the website of Logan's Run. 

Blue Ridge Writers Conference in Blue Ridge Georgia

MARK THIS DATE ON YOUR CALENDAR RIGHT NOW!
You don't want to miss the Blue Ridge Writers Conference in its fourteenth year.

The Blue Ridge Writers’ Conference is back for its 14th year, featuring literary agent Sally McMillan as keynote and speakers Robert Brewer, editor of Writers’ Market, Scott Owens, editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review, Jennifer Jabaley, 2010 Georgia Author of the Year in the YA category, and Hope Clark, editor of Funds for Writers website.

April 1 and 2, 2011. Please note a location change – this year the conference will be at the Blue Ridge Mountains Arts Association in downtown Blue Ridge, Georgia. For more information call 706-632-2144.

For anyone who hasn't attended this conference in the past, April 1 is the Friday night event, and Saturday, April 2, is the all day conference with workshops, etc. If you want to learn about publishing, this conference should be on your list of events for 2011.