Category Archives: Genres - Page 5
| 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
What makes a good erotic romance?
What is the difference between erotic romance and pornography?
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If a writer uses naughty words does that automatically make it erotic romance?
If you write erotic romance can you branch out to difference sub genres with success?
What makes erotic romance so highly successful in epublishing?
Is there a standard for how much sex should go into an erotic romance?
As an editor what do you like to see in a sex scene?
What pushes the boundaries if anything in erotic romance?
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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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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:
- How can I educate myself to start a career in journalism?
- What important trade associations can help me on my journey?
- Besides book writing, what other kinds of journalism are out there now today?
- Should I establish some sort of business identity?
- Can I make money just form my blogs?
- What about rejection, how do you deal with it?
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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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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:
- Card terends: research, seasonal cards, occasional cards, and publishers
- What subject areas and categories to focus on, how to stay organized
- Test marketing your cards and card verse.
- Seven most common mistake card writers will make
- Why competition in the card business is vastly over-estimated
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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. |
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On October 1st, 2009 Tyler R. Tichelaar and Victor R. Volkman spoke with Paul Muckley, senior editor for non-fiction at Barbour Publishing, a Christian book publisher. He helped answer some key questions that face authors entering the Christian book market, including
- What exactly is a “Christian audience”? How narrow—or broad—is that category?
- What really is a “Christian book”? What does a “Christian book” include, or exclude?
- How does Christian fiction differ from secular fiction? What is included or excluded from a specifically “Christian” novel?
- How does one’s Christian faith “come through” in a manuscript? What should—and shouldn’t—be done in assembling a manuscript?
- How can an author know whether his or her idea fits a particular Christian publisher’s niche?
- What does a publisher want to see in a book proposal? What helps—or hurts—a prospective author’s submission?
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| Paul Muckley works at Barbour Publishing overseeing projects ranging from Bible reference to children’s activity books, daily devotionals to Bible crosswords and word searches. He’s been with Barbour since 1998. Paul and his wife, Laurie, have adopted three children, and like to serve as unofficial ambassadors for adoption. |
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