Where Authors Get Successful
Genres
Every genre has its stated and unstated rules whether it is a Mystery, Romance, Western, Sci-Fi, or Techno-thriller. Learn the mastery of the rules and marketing to people who want to read what you write in this ongoing series of guest experts.
Intensive critique classes online in fiction and memoir
Dec 26th
Claiming and Polishing the Power of Our Stories: Intensive critique classes online in fiction and memoir. (10 weeks)
This is an advanced writers’ workshop open both to writers who have studied with me, or those who have not but are invited to participate after sending a 3-page sample of your work in fiction or memoir, and a paragraph describing the project you are working on, or aim to develop. The workshop focuses on your work-in-progress and the questions you pose about craft, which will be addressed specifically in relationship to your work. This intensive critique class will respond to each individual’s needs as they continue to develop and revise their work toward the completion of a memoir, novel, collection of short stories, or collection of memoiristic essays. Many of the fiction writers in the class may have an autobiographical connection to their work; this connection may be direct, or may be subtle, internal, roundabout, and not absolutely necessary or identifiable. This course means hard work, following your own strong impulses and directions, and receiving and giving helpful, extensive feedback. Participants in the group who have studied with me previously have shown themselves to be insightful and constructive in their responses, and I aim in my feedback to you to illuminate in large and in detailed ways the deeper subject matter, language and structure of your project. The course will begin in late January or early February, to be determined.
Fee: 325$ payable in full before the start of class. Please aachtenberg@gmail.com or 651-214-9248 before January 2, or after January 18. Remember, if you have not studied with me before, please email, within the body of your email and NOT as an attachment, a paragraph or one page project description, and a 3-page writing sample from your project.
***If you are looking for another kind of online workshop with regular lectures posted each week, I will continue to teach with writers.com — see http://www.writers.com/achtenberg.html#story for Claiming Our Stories… Parts One and Two.
Debbie Herald – Writing & Publishing Erotic Romance Novels
Dec 5th
| On December 5th, 2009 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman interviewed author and editor Debbie Herald on writing for the erotic romance marketplace. Debbie Herald is an author and Editor currently working for Lyrical Press. Her two most recent books are Perfect Game and Sweet Dreams, available from BookStrand paperback and on Amazon Kindle formats under the pseudonymn Jordana Ryan. Among questions which Debbie answered for us were
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| Debbie has enjoyed the written word since she was a child and takes a specific liking to Contemporary and Historical romance. Debbie enjoys working with authors to polish their work and see it through to publication. When not writing or editing she can often be found cooking, with her friends, or with her young child doing any number of things. |  |
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Donna Kakonge – How to Turn Your Writing Career into Journalism
Nov 7th
On November 5th, 2009 Tyler R. Tichelaar and Victor R. Volkman spoke with Toronto-based educator and print, radio, and TV journalist Donna Kakonge about how any writer can successfully refocus their work into the freelance journalism marketplace. She believes that you CAN break into the journalism business without having to have a specialist bachelor’s degree in the subject. Donna has been involved in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and Radio Canada International (RCI) on and off for 15 years at the local, national and international levels of both television and radio. She has also worked for the Discovery Channel and Discovery Channel International, Vision TV, the BBC and various publications around the world. Key talking points of tonight’s talk were:
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| Donna Kakonge started writing seriously at the age of seven. Her grade two teacher, Mrs. Chen, had the whole class keep a journal. She wrote a story about dinosaurs that Mrs. Chen deemed “outstanding.” Ever since then, she has been hooked.She went to journalism school at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada where she graduated with the Marjorie Nichols Award for being the student with the most promise of becoming an exceptional journalist. She has also been nominated for a Gemini Award (the Canadian version of the Emmy) for work done with the Discovery Channel and has been part of a W Network project “Tell it Like it Is” that won a Hugo Award.Her education continued with a master of arts in media studies and communications from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Her thesis was on the politics of black hair. She has written 31 books, one of them called What Happened to the Afro? that gives a different side to Chris Rock’s docu mentary Good Hair. She has also edited Being Healthy: Selected Works from the Internet and has a book called How to Write Creative Non-fiction is published by Lulu. You can find her books on Amazon.com and other fin e-tailers.She can speak both French and English, a bit of Italian and Spanish. She has received a Quebecor Documentary Fellowship from DOC Toronto. She currently teaches at Seneca College and Centennial College in Toronto. Her subject areas are writing and broadcast. |
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Kate Harper – Getting Into the Greeting Card Market
Oct 17th
On October 15th, 2009 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with greeting card and gift industry maven Kate Harper. Kate Harper started her line of humorous greeting card from a hobby of making greeting cards for friends as gifts. Over the next 15 years, Kate’s turned her hobby into a business, manufacturing and shipping cards to over 2,000 stores, including Barnes & Noble, Whole Foods Markets and the Papyrus chain. She informed us on key areas of getting started as a writer or self-publisher of greeting cards, including:
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| Two years ago, she transitioned out of manufacturing and into licensing, where she now designs cards for Recycled Paper Greetings (a subsidiary of American Greetings Corporation) and gift items for seven other companies. |  |
| Listen to the PodCast! |
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