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Online Workshop Descriptions
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January 2010
Title: THE BASICS OF WRITING THE ROMANCE NOVEL
Instructor: Terry Irene Blain
Date: January 5 - 28, 2010
Classroom: Foothills
 DESCRIPTION: This class will cover the basics of writing the romance novel for the student is interested in starting a novel or who has started a novel. The class consists of eight lessons which will introduce the writer to the tools needed to become a successful novelist.
Lesson 1: Character, Conflict and Motivation: How to construct your character, the conflict that will drive you story and the motivations of your character. Suggestions of films to watch in preparation for Lesson 3
Lesson 2: Plot: A look at several methods of plotting, their strengths and weakness
Lesson 3: Plot and Character in Action: Taking the information from the first two lessons and see how the ideas of character, conflict, motivation and plot are portrayed in the films suggested in Lesson 2.
Lesson 4: Think Guide©: Questions you need to think about and ask yourself before you start your own story. Or, if you’ve already started, how to check to see if you’re on the right path.
Lesson 5: Point of View: What it is and how it’s used.
Lesson 6: Hooks: How to open you story, the key to getting an agent or editors attention. Chapter hooks, how to keep them reading.
Lesson 7: Dialog and Show Don’t Tell: Some important tools of the trade
Lesson 8: Synopsis, ms. formatting, word count, query and submissions. Tools you’ll need to sell you ms.
BIO: Terry Irene Blain was lucky enough to grow in a large Midwestern family with a rich oral tradition. As a child she heard stories of ancestor's adventures with Indians, wild life and weather so naturally she gravitated to the study of history. She holds a BA and MA in History as well as a BA in European Studies and had taught history at the college level.
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Title: MUSE THERAPY
Instructor: D.D. Scott
Date: January 5 - 28, 2010
Classroom: Prairie
 DESCRIPTION:
Could you use a romance writer's go-to-gal for muse disorders? If so, stop looking 'cause you found her. I'm D. D. Scott, an agented, romantic comedy writer and a muse therapist in the making.
Muse Therapy - D. D. Scott style - is all about injecting life into tired and/or stressed out muses. I'll give writers fun and fabulous tools to analyze their muses' funks, rein in their creative divas and up their page counts.
Discover what makes your muses tick. What ticks them off. And what makes them dance like nobody's watching.
We'll name your muses and host a very special meet-and-greet just for them, then dig deep into their psyches by examining "muse disorders" such as:
• Unleashing Your Inner Sybil
• Writing Bi-Polar: I Suck vs. I'm a Genius
• What Do You Mean I'm Neurotic? No, I'm Not. Well, Not Exactly. But Okay...There Are Times When. Like You Need To Know That. Anyway, I Was Thinking, My Jeep Is Red
• Rorschach For Writers: I See Dead Lines
• Stimulants: When Coffee, Chocolate, and Martinis Aren't Enough
Once we recognize, acknowledge and accept your muses' afflictions, we'll find terrific tricks and "trips" to treat our word witches.
So if your muse is in need of a tune-up, grab a comfy couch or chair and put up your feet. You're in the right session. We’ll be “in therapy” together for four weeks. I'll provide fabulous hand-outs and super-cool tchotchkes for all participants. You’ll have a terrific time conquering your creative divas and taking back the crown of your personal Muse-ville kingdom.
BIO: D. D. Scott’s romantic comedies are all about sexy, sassy, smart, career-driven women and the men who complete them. They're a bit chick lit with a gone-country twist. She’s agented, and her series BOOTSCOOTIN' BLAHNIKS - think Sex and The City meets Urban Cowboy - is under consideration by several NY publishers.
She writes stories with big hearts and a bunch of sass. Once a small town newspaper crime reporter and now a HarperCollins Publishing Returns Center Executive Assistant, she's learned great fiction comes from the street as well as which jacket covers meet early deaths.
She's a member of Indiana RWA as well as RWA's Chick Lit Writers of the World Chapter and ScriptScene RWA. She's been featured in both Indiana RWA's and ScriptScene's chapter newsletters and been a guest blogger on Romance Writers on the Journey. She is linked to on Romancing the Blog and also has an active blog of her own on her website at DDScott.com.
Currently, she's driving her darling hubby nuts waiting to hear whether or not she'll be providing Muse Therapy for the 2010 RT BookLovers' Convention in Columbus OH and for RWR in an article-based Muse Therapy series.
For updates on her books, her sexy, sassy, smart neurotic writer’s life blog, and for a schedule of future muse therapy sessions, visit her website DDScott.com. While there, sign-up for her mailing list for chances to win fabulous tchotchkes.
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February 2010
Title: The Secrets of Selling to Woman's World Magazine
Instructor: Kate Willoughby
Date: February 1 - 26, 2010
Classroom: Mile High
 DESCRIPTION:
Publishing shorter fiction while waiting for The Call can be a tremendous boost to a writer's soul and pocketbook, and Woman’s World magazine pays $800 for each 800 word romance story.
Kate Willoughby’s popular class, “The Secrets of Selling to Woman’s World Magazine,” is appropriate for all skill levels, whether you’re a rank beginner or polished professional. In it, you’ll learn everything you need to know in order to write and submit romance stories to Woman’s World including:
• current guidelines
• generating story ideas
• tricks for writing extremely short
• story structure
• choosing titles, character names
• tone
• POV
• formatting
• cover letters
• tracking submissions
• contracts, rights
• plot trends (2005 – present)
Come discover how to tap this lucrative, but hard to crack, market and in a couple of months you too might be cashing a check for $800 for but five pages of fiction.
BIO: Kate Willoughby’s Woman’s World expertise comes from four years of analysis, writing, and submission to the magazine. In that time, she’s sold to them seven times at a success rate of about 25%. At least two former students have also sold. In addition to her seven Woman’s World stories, she has published eight novels and novellas, print and electronic, with Ellora’s Cave and Liquid Silver Books.
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Title: ORGANIZE YOUR WRITING LIFE
Instructor: Adele San Miguel
Date: February 1 - 26, 2010
Classroom: Flatirons
 DESCRIPTION:
You are gifted with words but stifled by the limitations of your calendar and clock. Running your business and your family leave little time for the seeds of creativity to take root, to blossom, and to flourish. Deadlines loom large and you are writing to the exclusion of all else, living an unbalanced life. This is the class for you.
Everything is possible once you figure out the details. This course will help you design a blueprint to achieve your writing goals. You will learn how to find space for them in your schedule and establish an organizational system that works uniquely for you. You will arrange the details of your life around your priorities.
BIO: San Miguel is a certified Life Coach, fiction and freelance writer, and entrepreneur. She has an MBA, and is a graduate of an intensive course on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, three children, and a Sheepdog named Lulu.
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March 2010
Title: A NOBLE’S LIFE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES
Instructor: Eliza Knight
Date: March 1 - 26, 2010
Classroom: Foothills
 DESCRIPTION:
Life in medieval times was so much different than the way we live today. When readers sit down with their favorite medieval historical romance, they are taken away to another time and place.
For most readers, this is where they learn about medieval times, and it is the duty of the author to be as authentic as possible. That being said, you don’t want your book to be a history lecture either, but to just flavor it enough.
This workshop will teach you how people, particularly nobles, lived in medieval times, in order for you to be truer to the era you write about. This is an open discussion workshop, questions and comments are welcome and encouraged. Lessons are accompanied by pictures, videos when possible, links and articles.
BIO: Eliza Knight is the author of multiple steamy Regency and erotic Highlander time travel romance novellas published by The Wild Rose Press. She is a freelance copy editor, Newsletter Editor for Hearts Through History Romance Writers, and President of the Celtic Hearts Romance Writers signature chapter of the RWA. She also volunteers her time as moderator of a critique group and contest coordinator. Eliza is the author of the award-winning blog, History Undressed and has published numerous articles in various newsletters. She presents workshops on history, researching techniques and writing craft, to writing groups online. For more information on Eliza, please visit her website at, lizaknight.com or historyundressed.blogspot.com.
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Title: Walking Off The Page: How to Bring Characters to Life
Instructor: Kelle Z. Riley
Date: March 1 - 26, 2010
Classroom: Prairie
 DESCRIPTION:
Walking Off The Page: How to Bring Characters to Life
Strong characters make lasting impressions. From princesses to policemen memorable, believable characters are the key to making readers (and editors) come back for more.
Learn techniques to create multidimensional characters that come to life for you and your reader.
Syllabus:
• Introduction
• Tools vs. Rules
• Getting to know your characters
• Crafting realistic characters
• POV and Deep POV techniques
• Dialogue
• Showing with Sensory Detail
• Emotional Honesty
• Random Final Thoughts
Comments from past class attendees:
Four things I especially liked:
1) Your reading assignments. Those short "lectures" are terrific! Lively & instructive. We've heard most of these things before--but your fresh approach really helped me to see the material in a new light.
2) Your hands-on comments were great. I loved it when you gave tips and then added material to our writing to show us exactly what you had in mind. That was incredibly valuable and it's something most instructors don't do.
3) You have a wonderful positive presence (often tough to accomplish over email I know).
4) The workload was very comfortable. Meaningful but not too much to fit into a busy life.
BIO:
Dr. Kelle Z. Riley is a multiple contest finalist—including the Golden Heart.
She doesn’t feel she’s done her characters justice until the character can talk—and yes, argue—with her.
Her successful series of writing workshops, including the month-long on-line Characterization workshop, have inspired attendees since she began speaking in 2001.
Her debut novel DANGEROUS AFFAIRS (Echelon Press, April 2006) was based on her experience as a black-belt instructor teaching self defense at a woman’s shelter.
By day Riley is a Ph.D. scientist and a patent holder who frequently speaks at international conferences and seminars about science topics.
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April 2010
Title: May the Force Be With You (Adding Realistic Law Enforcement & Legal System Elements Into Your Novel)
Instructor: Kerri Nelson
Date: April 5 - 30, 2010
Classroom: Mile High
 DESCRIPTION: Who doesn't love a hot cop hero? Want to make his cop talk and attitude sound authentic? What about evidence collection or a courtroom scene? Need a little legal know how to make your book more exciting or suspenseful?
Learn "cop talk", criminal evidence procedures, anatomy of a lawsuit, and more!
Kerri Nelson a multi-published author in romantic suspense has a degree in Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement. Kerri has over 15 years experience in both the public and private legal field. Including an internship with the FBI, a state prosecutor, and a Juvenile Court Judge.. In addition, Kerri worked for the U.S. Marine Corps and in the private sector, Kerri has worked with both major corporations and private law firms.
Kerri will use her experience and education in the legal field to show you how to sound like an expert when you add the legal system or law enforcement characters into your own novel.
BIO: Kerri Nelson has always been passionate about reading books but when she wrote her first poem in the second grade, she discovered her love of writing. At the age of sixteen, she became a columnist for her local newspaper as the high school correspondent for the weekly "Panther Tales" column. She won the Outstanding Young Journalist of the Year Award for her efforts.
After an education and career in the legal field, Kerri began to pen romantic suspense novels with a legal or law enforcement theme. She is a true southern belle and comes complete with her dashing southern gentleman husband and two little belles-in-training. When she’s not reading or writing, you’ll find her baking homemade goodies for her family, feeding her addiction to blogging online or designing custom made book trailers. Kerri is an active member of Romance Writers of America as well as numerous Chapters including Southern Magic, Futuristic Fantasy & Paranormal, Hearts Through History, and Celtic Hearts Romance Writers.
Visit Kerri’s website at: www.kerrinelson.com
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Title: Changing Genres
Instructor: Beth Daniels aka Beth Henderson aka J.B. Dane
Date: April 5 - 30, 2010
Classroom: Flatirons
 DESCRIPTION: The publishing world is in constant transition with different aspects in novels changing, sometimes over a decade, sometimes – it seems – nearly overnight. Will you be ready? Or are you already thinking of jumping from your current “ship”, swinging with the finesse of Captain Jack Sparrow onto the publishing vessel riding the waves to starboard or port?
There are a number of reasons why writers decide to try something different. Some do it because the bottom has fallen out of what they were writing, some because they are excited about a rising trend. Whatever your reason for considering making the leap there are decisions to be made. And that is what this workshop is all about.
Just because editors are no longer buying what you have been writing doesn’t mean you need to junk your style entirely. There are elements that travel well between genres, even if the genres stay within the romance marketplace or leap into an entirely different marketplace. Determining what can or should be kept and what needs to be altered, enhanced, dumped, or learned goes beyond simply decided to take the leap.
This workshop runs four weeks and sets challenges twice a week. These challenges (or homework, if you will) address things like the marketplace, evaluating the elements required, making note of how many of them are already part of the writer’s style, deciding what needs to be learned/adapted/changed, and even confessing – or realizing – the reason a writer is considering leaping into a new field. In other words, “what’s it going to take and can I follow though?”
I started out as a romantic-suspense writer, segued into being a romantic comedy author (of both adult and young adult books), fell into writing corrupted fairytale short stories, and have been world building to launch into the fantasy market, so I’ve been jumping genres throughout my twenty year career as a novelist. Sometimes what these changes were made unconsciously and not as thoroughly as time and more thought about the process now demands. But they’ve kept me in contracts, not to mention extremely versatile.
All that is required of attendees is a vague idea of where they’d like to go, where they’d like to be as their writing career evolves. Both unpublished and published authors welcomed.
BIO: Beth Daniels currently writes as Beth Henderson and J.B. Dane, though she answered to Lisa Dane and Beth Cruise in the past as well. She has worked with editors at Berkley, Zebra, Leisure, Harlequin/Silhouette, and Simon and Schuster's Aladdin Paperbacks, done e-books for a now defunct company (not her fault, she says), and began her writing life with hardcover books slated for library use with a publisher that got out of the romance business (again, not her fault). More recently she’s had a number of articles about writing picked up by e-zines, saw a short story published in a mystery and suspense magazine that turned up its toes the next year (really, really not her fault), and has a story in the MOTHER GOOSE IS DEAD anthology slated for publication by Dragon Moon Press sometimes in 2010.
For over a dozen years Beth taught college level composition, both in the classroom and online, and a credit course on Novel Writing. Five of her former Novel class students are now published.
Twenty-six of Beth’s manuscripts have appeared in print or e-book format. These have been historical romantic adventures (6), romantic comedies (10), romantic-suspense (3), and young adult romantic comedy (7). Her titles have appeared in 12 different languages in over 20 countries. At the moment she is working on various manuscripts and attempting a collaboration with another RWA member on a contemporary/fantasy/romantic adventure. She also ventured into self-publishing to keep her out-of-print backlist in print, but previous e-books in print, and in frustration, to move beyond a manuscript she’d been reworking for editors for a decade with no bites, released a previously unpublished historical romantic adventure set in the American West.
She is currently/or has been a member of/or about to renew membership in Romance Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Novelist Inc., and Historical Novelist Society.
Website: RomanceAndMystery.com
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May 2010
Title: Microsoft Word for Writers
Instructor: Catherine Chant
Date: May 3 - 28, 2010
Classroom: Foothills
 DESCRIPTION: This online workshop focuses on teaching you the aspects of the Word program that are most useful for fiction writers, and the subjects presented will help you streamline your on-screen tasks so you can think more about your story and less about what the computer is doing (or not doing). Included in this workshop will be lectures on proper manuscript formatting, creating headers/footers, working with page numbers, creating a pre-formatted manuscript template that can be used on all your new book projects, customizing the toolbars, understanding and customizing the Auto-Correct feature, using the Work menu, formatting the query letter, creating a template for the query, printing envelopes, printing labels for SASEs, and backing up your computer files.
NOTE: This workshop is designed for BOTH Macintosh and PC users, and has been written for versions of Word from '97 to 2008.
BIO: Catherine Chant is an award-winning writer from New England. She is a PRO member of the Romance Writers of America (RWA), and a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). A graduate of Boston College, she worked for fifteen years at her alma mater as a computing & communications consultant and now provides freelance web editing and design services to other writers and clients such as BC's Lynch School of Education. Her short fiction and non-fiction work has appeared in RWA newsletters, CharacterS, SchoolArts, MetroKids, Twilight Times and Apollos Lyre. Her young adult time travel romance WISHING YOU WERE HERE was a finalist in the 2008 Golden Heart® awards. She is currently working a new young adult novel.
Title: Power of the Senses: Enhancing Author’s Voice, Characterization, & Conflict
Instructor: Bill Haggart
Date: May 3 - 28, 2010
Classroom: Prairie
DESCRIPTION: Robert Penn Warren said, “The secret subject of any story is what we learn, or fail to learn, over time.” Each of us have our own unique way of learning, and part of that style involves which senses we favor in experiencing the world—even how we write and how we love. Everyone prefers one sense over the other four: Kinesthetic, Tactual, Auditory, and Visual. Those preferences shape a writer’s voice, brand, writing processes as well as the characters they create. How their novel's conflict and romance develops depends on how their characters learn. A writer can be trapped by their own sensory preferences or they can use it to create unique characters and believable conflict.
In this interactive workshop, participants will:
1. Identify their own sensory preferences with a short profile, discovering how sensory preferences affect their behavior. This includes their own writing processes.
2. Explore how sensory preferences influence a writer’s voice and Brand. As romance writer Virginia Kendra observes: “This is part of author voice. Our choices of significant, specific details awaken our readers to what it is we see” —or hear, feel or do. Our choices depend in part on our preferences. We will examine the writing of well-know authors to illustrate this aspect of the author's voice, as well as developing your unique brand.
3. Examine how sensory preferences can help a writer decide how to use the senses, actually deepening a character's POV. Julia Ross observed, “Even when a scene is deeply emotional and full of sensory input, it’s often more powerful to limit the character’s awareness to just one or two senses at a time.” Sensory Preferences reveals these sense choices naturally, enhancing characterization. Participants will practice creating distinctive characters and deep POVs with learning styles.
4. Learn how to differentiate Author Voice from the characters' POV. This includes all aspects of their novel, from first meet, attraction and learning to love, conflict, sexual desire and satisfaction, as well as how conflict is resolved.
5. Explore how sensory preferences can enhance believable conflict. Any conflict begins with the senses. Examples will demonstrate what readers know intuitively—the simplest things count. Including learning preferences can make conflicts between characters far more real and dynamic.
Throughout the course, activities will be provided for writers to practice with the methods offered, including feedback from the instruction.
BIO:
Bill has been an educator for over thirty years. He has been a teacher, an educational trainer, consultant and executive with a national training company. He is now heads up his own consulting business, Insights & Innovations.
He has presented to over 180,000 educators nationwide and worked with over 400 schools and organizations. He is the creator of the Kaleidoscope Profiles, a popular learning styles inventory. He is also the author of several educational books and articles.
He has been a member of RWA since 1998, as well as a terrific local group, the Sacramento Valley Rose. He has won and placed in nearly a dozen contests such as 'The Molly' and 'Suzannah' and"The Merritt" with both his contemporary, time-travel and Regency novels.
A member of the Beau Monde since 2000, Bill presented at their conference in New York in 2002 and 2006. This workshop, “The Power of the Senses; Enhancing Author's Voice, Characterization, and Conflict.” has been well-received by several writing groups, including The Sacramento Valley Rose.
A history major, he particularly loves the Napoleonic war period and the Regency. He began reading historical romances decades ago, and finally decided to write them, after being encouraged by Joy, his partner and heroine for the last thirty-eight years. She is also a fantastic teacher.
Bill has two terrific sons, Sean and Cory: Sean is an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, CA. The Mars Rovers have parts created by him. Cory is a marketing and public relations consultant in Ottawa, Canada. He critiques all of his father’s manuscripts. They both are models for my heroes. The real homeowners, an Australian Shepard mix named Nikki and a feline, Kitty, also are inspirations for characters in his books.
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June 2010
Title: Short Story, Big Impact: Taking the Short Story Road to Success
Instructor: Anna Hackett
Date: May 31 – June 25, 2010 **This Class ONLY begins end of May
Classroom: Mile High
 DESCRIPTION: Short stories pack a big punch! They can provide a path into the publishing world, a way to build writing credits or advance your career as part of an anthology. Not to mention that in today’s busy lifestyle, readers are looking for convenient reads of the perfect length. So what’s the difference between flash fiction, short stories, novelettes and novellas, and why write one? How can writing a short story help with crafting full length books? Anna Hackett provides writers with the skills they need to write a short story: from structure to pacing, characters to conflict. The course includes interviews with bestselling authors, insights from Deep Editing expert, Margie Lawson on how to revise short stories, and fun exercises to practice your new skills. By the conclusion of SHORT STORY, BIG IMPACT you'll have all the tools you need to write a compelling story to take you down the short story road to success.
Topics include:
• Short, shorter, shortest: types of short stories
• Theme: resonating with readers
• Painting your characters quickly
• Structure for short stories of all different lengths
• Guidelines for specific genres: from Fantasy to Suspense to Romance
• Finding conflict and emotion fast
• Making every word count
• Margie Lawson’s lecture: Deep Editing for Short Stories
• How short stories can help craft a full length novel
• Interviews with bestselling authors
BIO: Anna Hackett is a mining engineer by day and a writer by night. She delights in combining action, adventure and a healthy dose of romance in her paranormal stories. An experienced trainer and presenter, Anna loves sharing the writing craft tips and tricks she’s learned as a writer. Anna currently writes short stories for Silhouette Nocturne Bites. Her latest release, Taken by the South Wind, is the second story in the Bites-only series, The WindKeepers.
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Title: Pitch Perfect
Instructor: Kerri Nelson
Date: June 1 – 24, 2010
Classroom: Flatirons
DESCRIPTION: Want to practice your pitch for an upcoming pitch session to an agent or editor? Need help refining your pitch to include in a query letter? Well, practice makes perfect!
Sign on for this handy two week pitch practice workshop, taught by multi-published romantic suspense author, Kerri Nelson.
Over the past five years, Kerri has pitched more than thirty different books in every imaginable genre (from erotica to young adult) to multiple agents and editors with a tremendous success rate for follow-up requests for both partial and full manuscripts. She has sold eight of those books in just one year after perfecting her pitch process!
In this intensive two week refresher course, Kerri offers up the secrets to nailing your pitch, how to score a home run with editors, and how not to stop short of getting the results you want!
Start the New Year off right with the book contract you’ve been waiting for!
BIO: Kerri Nelson has always been passionate about reading books but when she wrote her first poem in the second grade, she discovered her love of writing. At the age of sixteen, she became a columnist for her local newspaper as the high school correspondent for the weekly "Panther Tales" column. She won the Outstanding Young Journalist of the Year Award for her efforts.
After an education and career in the legal field, Kerri began to pen romantic suspense novels with a legal or law enforcement theme. She currently lives in the sunny south with her romance inspiring husband and her adorable children. When she’s not reading or writing, you’ll find her baking homemade goodies for her family. Kerri is an active member of Romance Writers of America, Southern Magic Romance Writers, Hearts Through History Romance Writers, Celtic Hearts Romance Writers, and Futuristic Fantasy & Paranormal Romance Writers.
In addition, Kerri has been contracted to publish eight books with four different publishers in multiple genres. She continues to pitch both live and online to agents and editors on a monthly basis and has received requests for nearly one hundred percent of her pitches! Check out her website at: www.kerrinelson.com
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August 2010
Title: Show Up Naked: Writing the Male POV
Instructors: Chris Redding
Date: August 2 - 27, 2010
Classroom: Mile High
 DESCRIPTION:
This class is a fun, but informative trip through a man’s mind. Scary thought, I know, but when you finish this course you will know more about that man in your life and, more importantly, you’ll write believable male characters.
The lessons will include:
• Male Emotions, yes they have them
• Stages men go through
• Bad boys, why we love them and how they got to be that way.
• Insight into why men can be so sweet one minute, and then the next say the most boneheaded things.
BIO:
Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, one dog and three rabbits. When she is not writing she works part time in the Emergency Medical Services Department of her local hospital. Her latest, release, Incendiary, will be out this Spring.
Title: Take Your Book from Good to Sold: Ten Lessons Learned
Instructors: Shirley Jump
Date: August 2 – 27, 2010
Classroom: Flatirons
 DESCRIPTION:
For first-time authors, the biggest hurdle to selling is learning how to craft a book that is better than good. Good wins contests. Good gets requests for partials. Good sometimes gets a revision request. But learning how to take “good” and turn it into “sellable” is the key to success. New writers may not see those small elements that make a big difference in a book’s salability. In this workshop, New York Times bestselling romantic comedy author Shirley Jump will share the ten lessons she learned that helped her take a book that had won the Tampa Area Romance Authors First Impressions contest and make it into one that was bought by Silhouette, plus how she turned formerly rejected books into single title sales. The workshop will include discussion of the revision process and the various elements authors need to look for before considering their book ready for an editor’s eyes. Today’s editors don’t have time to sit down with a fledgling writer and teach her how to take her novel to that next level. This workshop will fill in that final gap for the writer who is just ten lessons away from a sale.
BIO:
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shirley Jump spends her days writing women’s fiction and romantic comedies (Vegas Pregnancy Surprise, July 2010) to feed her shoe addiction and avoid cleaning the toilets. As AJ Whitten, she also writes horror young adult novels for Houghton Mifflin’s Graphia imprint with her daughter (The Well, September 2009). She cleverly finds writing time by feeding her kids junk food, allowing them to dress in the clothes they find on the floor and encouraging the dogs to double as vacuum cleaners. Visit her website or read recipes and life adventures at her blog.
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September 2010
Title: Show vs. Tell: An Interactive Workshop
Instructors: Shannon Donnelly
Date: September 6 – October 1, 2010
Classroom: Foothills
 DESCRIPTION:
"Show, don't Tell" is a cliché that has almost lost its meaning. But both showing and telling are valuable tools for any writer--writers need both narrative passages as well as dramatic scenes, so each has its own place within any writer's skill set. In this workshop, we'll use writing examples to figure out the truth hidden in this tired phrase. And how "show, don't tell" really means "show more with dramatic scenes, and tell only when you need to move the story along".
The "telling" part of the workshop includes tips, tricks, and techniques to help improve narrative in your fiction, and identify when it's time to "tell" your story to the reader to compress information, smooth transitions, or otherwise better establish settings and scenes for the reader.
The "showing" part blends a set of exercises to strengthen an understanding of what makes a scene come to life by using more vivid descriptions to reveal characters--their thoughts and emotions--by showing them in action.
Topics we'll cover:
1) Definitions -- what is showing, what is telling
2) Telling: Use of the Narrative Voice
3) Breaking it down part 1: Showing to Pull a Reader into Your Scenes
4) Breaking it down part 2: Better Narrative (so a reader doesn't skip this)
5) Going Deeper in Viewpoint to Better Show a Character's Inner World
6) Transitions & Word Count--Where Telling Really Helps
7) Showing and Telling--Mixing it up Again: These are not Absolutes
8) Write to Your Strengths: When to Show, When to Tell
BIO:
Shannon Donnelly's writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the "Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer" contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA's Golden Heart, the Laurel Wreath, the Winter Rose, the Bookseller's Best, and multiple finalists in the Holt Medallion, the Colorado ACE, the Golden Quill, and others. Her work has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: "simply superb"..."wonderfully uplifting"....and "beautifully written."
In addition to her Regency romances, she has published in several anthologies, in young adult horror, and is the author of several computer games. Currently, she is a member of several chapters of RWA, and is a past-president of the Beau Monde, Regency Chapter of RWA. She has spoken at several conferences, including RWA's national conference, and regularly gives workshops online. Her abiding passions include--besides writing--her dogs, reading, gardening, painting, belly dancing, and the ever present horses in her life. She can be found online at sd-writer.com, myspace.com/randomfreshink and twitter.com/randomfreshink.
Title: Mastering POV
Instructors: Diane O’Connell
Date: September 6 – October 1, 2010
Classroom: Prairie
 DESCRIPTION:
What’s the secret every successful author knows and most new authors don’t? It’s point of view (POV). In this workshop, Diane will show how truly understanding and mastering point of view can fix an ailing manuscript and turn a decent but lackluster novel into a page-turner. You’ll learn:
• The biggest mistakes authors make with POV — and how to avoid them
• How to use POV to liven up description, dialogue, and action
• The advantages — and drawbacks — of different POV choices
• How to choose your POV characters
• How to use POV to increase suspense and tension
Once you really know how to use this technique, you’ll never write the same way again.
BIO:
Diane O’Connell has been a New York publishing professional for 25 years and has worked as an editor at some of the top publishing houses, including Random House. Since forming Diane O’Connell Literary Services, she has helped dozens of writers become published authors — including a first-time novelist who got a $500,000 two-book contract from Bantam after working with her. Diane is also the author of five books, including the groundbreaking, critically acclaimed Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths, which was the subject of a 20/20 report by John Stossel. Her mission is to help authors develop their talent and improve their skills so they can achieve their dreams of publication.
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October 2010
Title: Prose & Contests: Everything You Wanted to Know About Writing Contests But Were Afraid to Ask
Instructor: Amy Atwell
Date: October 4 - 29, 2010
Classroom: Mile High
DESCRIPTION: Overwhelmed by the number of writing contests out there? Unsure whether to enter? Unclear about why you should enter? This class is geared for unpublished writers seeking feedback and/or a chance to final in the hundreds of writing contests offered through RWA® chapters.
Contests offer opportunities for feedback from published authors, agents and editors. But contests cost money and valuable writing time. This interactive lecture format will include handouts, examples and open Q&A to help writers understand what they can expect to gain from entering a contest. The class will provide an overview of the contest process, sources for researching contests, help writers identify their motives for entering a contest, and even give tips on preparing your contest entry.
This class is focused on beginning writers as well as writers of all levels with little contest experience.
Class Objectives:
To give students an overview of RWA® chapter contests
To help students identify their motives for entering a contest
To help students prepare their contest entry by offering basic editorial lessons
To offer a forum for students to ask questions about their own work and situation
BIO: 2008 Golden Heart® finalist Amy Atwell has experienced every aspect of writing contests. Having entered over 60 contests over the past ten years, her manuscripts have won the Winter Rose, Great Expectations, Beacon, Golden Gateway, Heart of Outreach contests and Award of Excellence. She has over 25 contest finals to her credit, including The Maggie, The Sheila and The Daphne du Maurier contests. Amy's also judged numerous contests including Romance Through The Ages, Great Expectations, The Golden Pen, The Barclay Sterling, More Than Magic, and she coordinated the 2009 Golden Pen Contest. In addition to her writing, Amy runs the WritingGIAM community of loops to help "PRO equivalent and up" writers achieve their writing goals.
Read more about Amy at her website: www.amyatwell.com.
Title: The Secrets of Selling to Woman's World Magazine
Instructor: Kate Willoughby
Date: October 4 - 29, 2010
Classroom: Flatirons
DESCRIPTION:
Publishing shorter fiction while waiting for The Call can be a tremendous boost to a writer's soul and pocketbook, and Woman’s World magazine pays $800 for each 800 word romance story.
Kate Willoughby’s popular class, “The Secrets of Selling to Woman’s World Magazine,” is appropriate for all skill levels, whether you’re a rank beginner or polished professional. In it, you’ll learn everything you need to know in order to write and submit romance stories to Woman’s World including:
• current guidelines
• generating story ideas
• tricks for writing extremely short
• story structure
• choosing titles, character names
• tone
• POV
• formatting
• cover letters
• tracking submissions
• contracts, rights
• plot trends (2005 – present)
Come discover how to tap this lucrative, but hard to crack, market and in a couple of months you too might be cashing a check for $800 for but five pages of fiction.
BIO: Kate Willoughby’s Woman’s World expertise comes from four years of analysis, writing, and submission to the magazine. In that time, she’s sold to them seven times at a success rate of about 25%. At least two former students have also sold. In addition to her seven Woman’s World stories, she has published eight novels and novellas, print and electronic, with Ellora’s Cave and Liquid Silver Books.
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November 2010
Title: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Grammar & Style But Didn’t Think It Really Mattered
Instructors: Annie Oortman & Darlene Buchholz
Date: November 1 - 30, 2010 (Nov. 25-28 Thanksgiving break)
Classroom: Foothills
 DESCRIPTION: Grammar-crammer… who cares about how verb tenses; dangled, misplaced, and squinted modifiers; and that dreaded passive voice? You should!
Most people would rather have a paper cut on the inside of their lip than learn better grammar. But good writing requires good grammar. Without it, you can’t really be sure your reader will understand the information you’re trying to convey, the story you’re trying to tell, and the mental picture you’re trying to paint.
The Grammar Divas (an English teacher and a professional copywriter, both budding novelists) do something most “grammar-for-better-writing” books, courses, and websites don’t do—focus on grammar for fiction writing.
First, we’ll go over the basics to ensure you haven’t forgotten everything from school. Then, we’ll move onto issues that affect sentence structure and paragraph development. Next, we’ll review the finer points of punctuation and style as well as common grammar errors. Then, we’ll show you how to enhance your writing’s curb appeal to make the most of your writing’s appearance, readability, and impact. After that, we’ll demonstrate how cutting the fat from your writing is the quickest and surest way to improve your writing. Finally, we’ll solve some crimes against sentence, sharing the grammatical forensics you can use to uncover evidence of poor writing and troubleshoot problem sentences.
Bio: Grammar wasn't Annie Oortman's first love (actually, it was a cute boy in her second-grade class named Henry Talley) or even her second (avoiding barn work). However, after getting an A for content but an F for readability on a third-grade book report, she learned having great ideas was one thing, communicating them well on paper another. Annie became a disciple of the church of Proper Grammar and card-carrying member of The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (www.spogg.org). Nowadays, she diagrams sentences for fun (yes, for fun), corrects her children when they say "I did good on the test" (I did well.), and argues with fellow grammar devotees on the acceptability of ending a sentence with a preposition (don't do it).
BTW, Annie is hoping to see her name on the cover of a fiction novel soon... very soon. (And, if you’re wondering, Henry Talley never even noticed Annie as he had a mad crush on blonde-haired, blue-eyed Libby Boxler.)
 Darlene Buchholz fell in love in the first grade with a boy named Neil. He shared his crackers and milk at recess after someone took her snack and never got caught. She’s loved romance and intrigue ever since. By the third grade, she discovered Nancy Drew mysteries and developed a great passion for perky heroines who drove convertibles (proof they were in charge of their own lives). She wrote her own one-hundred-page mysteries, giving the heroine a much better hero than wimpy Ned Nickerson, who seemed more fashion accessory than hero. What woman wouldn’t prefer a cowboy or a cop named…well, Neil, of course?
Darlene never thought of grammar as a challenge. It was, instead, a tool to help her express the ideas she felt passionate about. She served as a peer mentor in junior high and high school. Becoming a high school English teacher was a natural for Darlene. She loved sharing ideas expressed in great literature and exposition.
Now, family raised, Darlene has decided to write stories again. She writes romantic suspense, and sometimes her heroines drive trucks rather than convertibles. Her heroes are still cowboys and cops. She hopes to publish soon.
Title: The Synopsis Queen Tells All
Instructors: Kara Lennox
Date: November 1 - 26, 2010
Classroom: Prairie
 DESCRIPTION:
Does the thought of writing a synopsis give you hives? Would you rather have a root canal? Multi-published author Kara Lennox, who has sold many books on synopsis alone, will show you how to not only make the process (almost) painless, but to use the synopsis as a writing tool to make sure your book is as strong as it can be.
Kara will illustrate how to break down the synopsis-writing process into a foolproof formula that will have maximum impact for minimum words. Also discussed will be how to infuse the synopsis narrative with a lively style so that it's entertaining rather than dry as dust and gives the reader a taste of the author's voice.
An actual selling synopsis with the parts labeled is included as a hand-out.
BIO: Kara Lennox (a.k.a. Karen Leabo) has written more than 50 contemporary novels of romance and romantic suspense for Harlequin/Silhouette and Bantam Loveswept. Most of these have been sold on proposal or synopsis alone. Her books frequently appear on romance bestseller lists and have finaled in several romance industry contests including the National Readers' Choice Awards, the Holt Medallion competition, and the RITA. Her Harlequin American Romance PLAIN JANE'S PLAN won a Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice award. An incurable plotter, she has always enjoyed sitting down to write the synopsis and would love to show other writers how to find pleasure and satisfaction in synopsis-writing.
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