Doris Booth

1. THE TEN BIGGEST EDITORIAL MISTAKES AND HOW TO AVOID THEM: Publishing professional Doris Booth provides an intensive seminar on the ten biggest mistakes writers make - and how to avoid them. This well-known industry insider gives the writer truthful, practical answers and hands-on examples for keeping his or her writing career solidly on track—insights and tips even professional authors may have never heard. The session will show how to:

1. Create a powerful opening hook.
2. Pick the right time frame and setting for your genre.
3. Develop strong, vivid characters, and not one of them unnecessary.
4. Create vivid secondary story people - a needed ingredient.
5. Create moving dialogue.
6. Learn about the story arc - beginning, middle and end.
7. Pace your story to maximize the energy.
8. Develop a unique voice.
9. Understand points of view.
10. Polish the format.

2. Anatomy of a Bestselling Book: What are the elements of a good story? What do editors and agents look for when they make the decision to buy? And why do some books catapult to the bestseller lists while others sink into obscurity. Agent and editor Doris Booth dissects three current bestsellers, stripping them down to bare essentials - hook, theme, characters, storyline, pacing, conflict, suspense and more - to reveal the secrets of why they sold to a major publisher.

3. Where Does Your Manuscript Fit? Analyzing the Marketplace for a Competitive Edge: Here are the tools you need to face today's tough publishing market. See why you can no longer go with the flow and win. Learn how to develop a new writing and selling strategy that's more productive for the current marketplace and how to analyze the market for determining the best fit for your own manuscript. Get a checklist of what editors really want, and learn how to test the marketing validity of your manuscript with eight vital questions. Take a look at the influences on what gets published today - and how they affect you, including the truth about how books make the bestseller list (actual sales don't always count), and the pressures of the chain stores affect what publishers buy. See how the global marketplace, technology, and politics all play a part in whether you make a sale!

Doris Booth is the manager of Authorlink Literary Group, a division of Authorlink.com. The agency represents true crime, romance, thrillers, mysteries, women's fiction, and a wide range of nonfiction. Among recent sales have been hardcover rights to Barnes & Noble Publishing for The Only Living Witness and Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer, by New York Times best-selling authors Stephen G. Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth. The agency is actively seeking women's fiction, young adult fiction, and a variety of nonfiction projects. As the CEO of Authorlink.com, Doris has facilitated the sale of 87 fiction and nonfiction properties within the past five years, including a recent six-figure deal to HarperCollins. She has overseen direct sales to Simon & Schuster, John Wiley & Sons, McGraw-Hill, Barnes & Noble Publishing and others. In her dual role as Authorlink CEO and as manager of the Literary Group, Doris has close ties with a broad range of editors and publishers, primarily in New York. Authorlink.com is the news, information, and marketing site for editors, agents and writers, attracting nearly one million visitors per year. Ms. Booth serves as the site's editor-in-chief.

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Kate Gale

The Care and Feeding of Publishers

Session I: Poetry
Session II: Prose

This workshop presents an overview of publishing today. We will begin with literary magazines, move on to ezines and then discuss independent publishing, mid-size publishing and large publishing companies. We will also discuss briefly careers in related fields such as literary arts funding and literary arts festivals and conferences. The lecture/discussion format for this class engages the students in understanding the changing world of publishing and how each person as a writer/literary citizen might fit themselves into it. We discuss agents, contracts and reviews, and literary contests and awards. We cover the economic forces that censor writing and the creative forces that cause great work to continue. We discuss fund raising and development and their relationship to publishing and the differences between non-profit publishing and for profit. Kate gives ample time for Q and A after each topic of discussion.

Required Reading:
Instructor will bring handouts

Recommended Reading:
Current issue of Poets and Writers

Kate Gale received her Ph.D. in American Literature from Claremont Graduate University. She is the managing editor of Red Hen Press, editor of the Los Angeles Review and president of PEN USA. She has five books of poetry, a novel and a bilingual children's book. Kate won first place in the 1998 Allen Ginsberg Award for poetry. She and composer Don Davis co-authored the libretto Rio De Sangre, which was recently presented at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Visit www.redhen.org

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Brent Hartinger

WHY EVERY WRITER SHOULD ALSO BE A PLAYWRIGHT: Writing for the theater teaches two important lessons: the value of dramatic structure, and the importance of knowing one's audience. Join novelist and playwright Brent Hartinger as he discusses the ways that the two mediums can, and should, inform each other.

HOW FAR IS TOO FAR? THE LIMITS OF TEEN LIT: Books aimed at teen readers continue to tackle controversial subjects. But how far is too far? Join Geography Club author Brent Hartinger as he explores the thorny subject of teen subject matter.

BOOKS DON'T SUCK!: The conventional wisdom is that children and teenagers hate to read. In the first part of this session, Geography Club author Brent Hartinger exposes some of the myths about the reading habits of the younger generations, but also presents some sure-fire strategies for getting the attention of even the most reluctant of young readers. The session will end with a wide-ranging Q&A session.

Brent Hartinger has sold nine novels - seven to HarperCollins and two to Tor Books. The first four books to be published are Geography Club, a novel about a secret high school gay-straight alliance; The Last Chance Texaco, a mystery about a girl in a "last chance" group home; The Order of the Poison Oak, the sequel to Geography Club; and Grand & Humble, a psychological thriller about the intersecting lives of two kids, one popular and one a geek (coming in January 2006!). His second great love is the theatre. His plays have been performed at dozens of theaters across the country. And he was recently asked to adapt Geography Club into a stage play, which premiered (very successfully!) in Seattle in April 2004. Learn more about Brent Hartinger at http://www.brenthartinger.com.

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Andrea Hurst

The Agony, Ecstasy, & Reality of Getting Published

• Part I. The Agony - Making it to the Finish Line:
  • Dealing with Writer's Block
  • Editing, Finishing, & Polishing Your Manuscript
  • Pitching Your Work-Query Letters and Book Proposals
  • Selling Yourself & Your Book
  • Facing Rejection
  • The Endless Waiting Game
• Part II. The Ecstasy - Getting an Offer!:
  • I Found an Agent - Now What?
  • I Found a Publisher - Now what?
  • What if More Than One Agent/Publisher Wants My Book (Auction)
  • Multiple Book Deals
  • Big Advances
  • Covers, Galleys, and Advance Copies
  • Seeing Your Book in Print and in Bookstores
• Part III. The Reality - Writer's Wake-Up Call:
  • Beat the Odds -How to go from Agony to Ecstasy in the Pub Biz
  • 85% Nonfiction is Sold, 15% Fiction Sold
  • How Long Does Everything Take-From Payments to Release Date
  • Proper Etiquette-From Query Letters to Dealing with Offers
  • Marketing… I Have to Sell my Own Book?
  • Staying Motivated and Playing the Game in a Professional Manner

Andrea Hurst & Associates offers representation in the areas of nonfiction and fiction. The agency represents both nationally acclaimed authors and emerging new voices. Currently we are seeking motivated authors with unique ideas in the following genres: Nonfiction including personal growth, self-help, health and beauty, parenting, business, cookbooks, spirituality, women's issues, and gift books. Experienced fiction authors may submit in the following areas: commercial and mainstream fiction, literary and women's fiction. Andrea works with both major and regional publishing houses, and her client list includes several authors from the Pacific Northwest.

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Jane Kurtz

1. The boat of words will carry us home: Award-winning author Jane Kurtz grew up as an American overseas - an interesting life but one that left her wondering where she would ever feel at home. For many years, she refused to talk about her experiences and often felt invisible. In learning to write children's books, she not only satisfied her lifelong passion but also found a voice - and a community who would listen. Illustrating the power of "write about what you know about," she will show how her twenty-three published books have allowed her to tell pieces of her story and find her voice.

2. Caution: writers at play: Jane Kurtz's first published work was poetry in literary journals, Although she heard many editors describe rhyme as the "kiss of death" for a submitted story, she found success using poetric elements in her books, including rhythm, imagery, alliteration, and other ways of playing with words. In 1997, she wrote the story of surviving a flood by using a series of non-rhyming poems to create River Friendly, River Wild, a book that won the Golden Kite award from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators for excellence in picture book text. Since then, six of her books have incorporated rhyme. She will talk about developing a poet's ear - and eyes - as the key to strong writing.

3. But what if every story has already been told?: Is it possible to come up with a plot unlike any other story ever written down? Many literary experts argue that most if not all published stories are only variations on a handful of plots. What is it, then, that makes a story fresh and compelling? Jane Kurtz thinks the answer lies in the details - and she will illustrate three ways that writers glean vivid details to make their stories come alive.

Since 1994, Jane Kurtz has published 22 books: early readers, nonfiction books, professional books for teachers, picture books, and novels that draw on her own childhood memories of growing up in Ethiopia, on living through the Red River flood of 1997, on her great grandmother's adventures traveling the Oregon Trail, and on the minor crises of her children's lives--from a friendship gone sour to the grouchiness of a rainy day. Her work has been highly honored, including the Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Learn more about Jane Kurtz at www.janekurtz.com

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Richard Jesse Watson

HATCHING THE PICTURE BOOK

Day one: CHICKEN OR EGG?
Introduction to Visual Storytelling. Exploring the essential marriage of text and art.

Scratching at the roots of the picture book: unearthing an ancient tradition of magical bulbs; stories and images from cave, tomb, the sacred, the nursery

By tweaking a familiar folk tale we will boil down words and hatch some thumbnail pictures for a visual story sequence.

Day two: FINDING THE GOLDEN EGG
What makes an enduring picture book? A look at visual storytellers who struck that golden balance.

Students will isolate a scene from their visual story sequence and develop a concept sketch for a picture book spread or cover image.

Day three: SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT
Illuminating the written word. Finding the right style of art to compliment our text.

Play with a variety of media to create a picture in our visual story that incorporates type, graphic design and illustration

Richard Jesse Watson's illustrations have won the Golden Kite Award for illustration from SCBWI, as well as the Parents' Choice Gold Award for illustration. Connoisseur has called children's book his art "breathtaking", New York Times, "Enchanting and inspiring...", LA Times Magazine said the award winning artist "echoes the realism of Durer." Learn more about Richard Jesse Watson at www.richardjessewatson.com

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