Happy New Year writer friends,
Hope all of you are beginning your year with goals in your writing career. Even if you make five and only fulfill two, that's two more than you ended 2008 with.

Studying your craft is one of the best ways to improve your sales. Here's a reminder about the Free Conference the Northwest Arkansas Writers Workshop will hold this spring, where you can learn more about the business of writing.

I hope you’ve already marked your calendars for our group’s free conference. Here’s the schedule and complete information. Download it and make sure to register if you’re coming. We’d hate you to have to sit on the floor.

NORTHWEST ARKANSAS WRITERS WORKSHOP FREE CONFERENCE
March 14, 2009 at Ozarks Electric, 3641 W. Wedington Drive, Exit # 64, off I - 540. This is also highway 16/Wedington Road west. Go ½ mile West, building is on the left. Sign - In 8:30 a.m.
We ask that you pre - register so we can be prepared. Email Velda at vebrotherton@gmail.com or Dusty at dustyrichards@cox.net

Scheduled Workshops:
9:00 a.m. Storyteller Molly Lemmons will demonstrate how to turn family memories into entertaining and informative stories.
10:00 a.m. A PowerPoint presentation. A critique panel of workshop members will demonstrate how the group critiques the work of novice writers.
10:45 a.m. Break
11:00 a.m. Instruction on manuscript formatting from published authors in short story, fiction and nonfiction genres.
11:30 a.m. Pam Thompson will present the Top Ten Grammar Errors and how to clean them from your manuscript.
NOON Lunch Break. $6.00 will buy your lunch on the premises. It will consist of meat and cheese platters for sandwiches, chips, cookies and a cold drink. During lunch break published authors will read from and discuss their work. Plan on remaining in the building.
1:00 p.m. Velda Brotherton will speak on the literary, the mainstream and the genre in today’s market.
2:15 to 2:30 p.m. Break
2:30 to 3:45 p.m. Dusty Richards will speak on Writing 101. The basics of writing a good book.
Published authors are invited to bring their books to sell during the conference. We’ll have plenty of tables.

Don't forget to enter our anthology

NEW THIS YEAR ANTHOLOGY INVITATION

All members of the Northwest Arkansas Writers Workshop and anyone attending the March 14, 2009 one - day seminar sponsored by the NWAWW are invited to submit a short story for consideration for an anthology of short stories.

· Unpublished short stories only, up to 3,000 words, no essays or poetry.

· Standard manuscript format, Times New Roman, 12 point font. No fee. Mail one copy to Dusty Richards, P.O. Box 6460, Springdale, AR 72766. No SASE required.

Manuscripts will be destroyed after contest. First North American Rights. Rights revert back to author thirty days after publication.

· Include a cover letter with name, address, telephone number and email address upper left, Title and length upper right, and a fifty word bio halfway down the page.

· All genres, except erotica. No gratuitous foul language, violence, or gore.

· By submitting to this contest, you are giving permission for your work to be edited and to publish your work in this anthology. No other contract will be required. There will be no payment to authors for work published. Prior to publication, authors will be able to order copies at a discounted price of 40% – 50%.

· Deadline for entries: Postmarked no later than March 21, 2009. Chosen authors will be notified thirty days after submissions close.

· Publication date: March, 2010. Available at the March 2010 NAWW seminar.


About our speakers:
Molly Lemmons is a vivacious speaker who draws the crowd into her world. She will illustrate how she wrote her book of memories, then everyone will join in with examples of their own memories as she gives story prompts. This promises to be a worthwhile hour.

A panel of experienced critique group members will illustrate how the group helps writers who attend the weekly workshop.

We see writers having trouble with manuscript formatting, so there will be a panel to illustrate the proper formatting of all sorts of manuscripts by authors published in those fields.

Pam Thompson writes and edits for a living. She is an expert grammarian who can spot a misplaced adverb, adjective or verb a mile off.

Velda Brotherton is the cochair of the writer's workshop and is a multi - published writer in short and long fiction and non fiction.

Dusty Richards is the chairman of the writer's workshop and is well published in the western genre. He will share his popular writing tips.

The group sponsors this free workshop to pay forward all the help we've been given over the years, and we hope you can make it.

I've been very busy since returning from San Antonio where I picked up an award in the creative non - fiction category. My book, Fly With The Mourning Dove was a finalist.

I also pitched some book ideas and came home with two contracts and a third in negotiations. So that means nose to the grindstone (oops, a cliche, but my nose is sore) in order to finish the first two books. All contracts are with small publishers, and I can't stress enough the importance of checking out the many small publishers who may have the right spot for your book. Not only are they great to work with, they are out there marketing and promoting their books.

The two books, neither of which have a title yet, are respectively about the lost communities of the Boston Mountains with Old American Publishing and recipes and stories from the Boston Mountains with GoldMinds Publishing. The two will mesh very well, though they are with different publishers. I'm already exploring promotional ideas for the two as a pair.

The third book is in the wings and I won't say much about it until the contract is signed, but I'm very excited about it as well.

I'm available during the coming year for workshops, so if your group is looking for someone to do some teaching or speaking, I'm experienced in the fields. I'm also thinking about holding a retreat here in our lovely Boston Mountains of Arkansas, if enough people show an interest in taking part, but more about that next time.

Here's a great site where you can get loads of tips from a highly published author http://carolynhowardjohnson.redenginepress.com

Bye for now, and happy writing.

Velda



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