It's Time For Another Beach House Writing Salon!
Please join us on Saturday, April 30, 2016, for Beach House Writing Salon III, an intimate and intensive day of writing tips and advice for aspiring authors from three established authors with multiple books, both fiction and non-fiction, under their belts and a three-time Pulitzer-winning editor. Steve Jackson, Susan Carol McCarthy, Caitlin Rother and Susan White will conduct workshops, one-on-one critiques, and a panel discussion. We will finish the day with a cocktail party, featuring scintillating literary conversation, live music, adult beverages, and a beautiful view.
Here are the workshop sessions:
Great Characters Make Great Stories
(not the other way around): Are great characters built
block-by-block like houses? Or do they arrive on the scene so fully formed that
an agent/editor/reader has no choice but to fall in love with them and follow
them anywhere? Award-winning historical novelist Susan Carol McCarthy reveals
her process for creating fascinating characters for fiction and nonfiction,
whose very human desires, needs, and motivations breathe life into story and elicit
interest in your reader. She’ll discuss the use of markers, to whittle down
unnecessary description, as well as five other types of “characterization” to
show, without telling, each character’s unique personality, disposition,
temperament, eccentricities, and, most importantly, voice.
Building A Better Book: The Nuts and
Bolts Of Powerful Writing and Narrative Structure: Steve Jackson will present an
overview of how to build a book from the ground up from formulating and
focusing the idea, creating the blueprint, setting scene, developing
characters, and putting these concepts into action. He also will discuss his
very own “wave technique” of building towards the climatic moment and
resolution of your book that will hook readers at the beginning and keep them
reading to the end. Even writers who have completed a manuscript will learn
techniques to improve, revise and refine their work. Caitlin
Rother will follow up with her system for identifying the “key
moments” of a story, deciding which will be threads, themes or subplots, then
building scenes, chapters and story arc for the full book.
The Art of Interviewing and Tricks to Uncover Hidden Research Gems: Steve Jackson will discuss his techniques for getting the most out of interviewing subjects for any book, non-fiction or fiction. He’ll review the importance of preparation, the nuances of interview technique (did you know that the seating arrangement can make all the difference?), the differences between soft and hard questions (and when to employ either), and how to get the answers needed to make your work a cut above other writers. Caitlin Rother will talk about other enterprising research techniques, including how and where to identify original sources materials, how to obtain and then cull through them to find those nuggets that keep the reader turning pages.
How to Edit Yourself Like a Pro: In an era
when some authors get little or no editing from their publishers, or choose to
go the self-publishing route, it pays to become your own best editor. Susan
White will describe how to smooth pitches and polish manuscripts to
make readers eager to see what’s coming next. She and Caitlin Rother will
do a short exercise to demonstrate how up-front editing and/or brainstorming
ideas with a trusted colleague can help shape a story. Then Susan will discuss
three tricks that the best editors use to make copy sing and reach that
important end game: how to think like a reader, how to listen for the rhythm of
words and how to hack away at the deadwood that can dull the greatest plot.
It’s a new way of thinking—and it’s fun!
Faculty Bios:
Steve Jackson is
a New York Times bestselling author of true crime, crime
fiction, history and biography. During a more than two-decade career as a
newspaper journalist, he won numerous national and regional awards for writing,
explanatory journalism and investigative journalism, and was particularly known
for his interviewing technique and narrative style. His writing mentor was Jon
Franklin, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author of Writing For
Story, which is the basis for Steve’s Building A Better Book discussion
with his own personal additions. He has written two dozen books, including a
long-running thriller series under the name Robert K. Tanenbaum, as well as
true crime bestsellers MONSTER, NO STONE UNTURNED and BOGEYMAN. He is also
co-owner of indie publishing company WildBlue Press.
http://wildbluepress.com
http://wildbluepress.com
Susan Carol McCarthy is the
award-winning author of three works of literary fiction, LAY THAT TRUMPET IN
OUR HANDS, TRUE FIRES, and A PLACE WE KNEW WELL (Random House, October 2015)
plus the non-fiction BOOMERS 101: THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION. Her books
have been widely selected by libraries and universities for their One Book, One
Community and Freshman Year Read programs, and incorporated into school
curriculums in 29 states and six countries. Although each of her novels was
inspired by true historical events—a series of shocking race crimes,
notoriously corrupt small-town politics, a week of military-imposed
terror—McCarthy is best known for creating muscle-and-blood characters for whom
the larger political becomes intensely personal, and for her original blend of
“fact, memory, imagination, and truth with admirable grace.” (The Washington
New York Times bestselling
author and investigative journalist Caitlin Rother has written
or co-authored 10 books, drawing from decades of newspaper experience covering
topics ranging from criminal justice, suicide, addiction, mental illness and
murder to corruption, incompetence, and waste at City Hall and in
Congress. Caitlin, whose books range from narrative non-fiction crime to
memoir and crime fiction, has done more than 100 TV and radio appearances. Her latest book, THEN
NO ONE CAN HAVE HER, and her Kindle shorts, A Complicated Woman and The
Fugitive With One Shoe, were published in 2015 and 2016. She
is currently writing another short, Overkill, and a political crime
book, HONEST SERVICES?: CORRUPTION, DISORDER AND CRIMINAL
INJUSTICE. Caitlin also works as a book doctor,
writing-research-promotions coach and consultant, and teaches narrative
non-fiction at UCSD Extension and San Diego Writers, Ink.
As the editor of three Pulitzer
Prize-winning news projects, Susan White is a master
craftsperson of narrative nonfiction. After working at the Lexington
Herald-Leader as an education reporter and television critic, Susan
rose through the ranks of the The San Diego Union-Tribune, from
reporter to writing coach, U.S.-Mexico border editor and then enterprise
editor. Combining her fictional storytelling and investigative journalism
skills to help reporters tell complex stories through narrative, she helped
edit her first Pulitzer winning series at the U-T in 2006. She became the first
assigning editor at the nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica in
2008, where she edited her second winner in 2010. She then became executive
editor ofInsideClimate News, where her third project won in 2013. Today
she is working with a group of prominent journalists to launch InquireFirst,
an investigative reporting non-profit whose goal is to expand the boundaries of
traditional journalism.
http://inn.org/author/ty71432153385-2-2/
--The salon will be at a house in Cardiff by the Sea.
--Check-in and one-on-one critiques begin at 9 a.m., workshops at 9:30, 1-hour lunch break at 12:30, followed by more workshops, panel discussion at 4:45 p.m., and party from 5:30 to 7 p.m. (Attendees will have an hour for lunch on their own; bag lunch recommended.)
--Free parking is available in the surrounding residential neighborhood.
Cost:
--Sign up until March 30 for just $165, until April 28 for $180, and $200 for late registration and walk-ins. This price includes entry to workshops, panel discussion, beach party (we will supply hors d’oeuvres, but attendees need to BYOB whatever alcohol they want to drink) and book signing.
--For an extra bonus, we are offering one-on-one critiques: a 15-minute session, with your author of choice, to discuss 10 typed double-spaced pages, submitted by April 23, for $50; or to get feedback on a verbal book idea pitch for $40. Critique appointments will be made with specific authors on a first-come, first-served basis.
Incentive sign-up bonus: The first five attendees to sign up for the salon AND a critique will receive a set of free books from the authors.
To sign up: Please contact Caitlin Rother, crother@flash.net to sign up, arrange a payment, or ask about registration and critiques. Attendance will be limited. Payment must be received to reserve a seat.
