Events and Meetings
January 2-29, 2021
New Beginnings and Left Turn with Kathryn Jayne
$30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Tips and tricks for handling plot twists you never saw coming, finding a way out of a corner you’ve written yourself into, breathing life into an old manuscript, or getting started on a new project.
About the Instructor: Kathryn Jane takes readers to places they’d like to live and introduces them to characters they learn to love, by writing page-turning, Women’s Fiction, and Romantic Suspense, as well as Heartwarming Short Stories about feral cats.
Fulfilling her passion for education Kathryn presents a broad spectrum of workshops for both aspiring and accomplished writers.
In her spare time (she says laughing), Kat loves painting tiny rocks and spreading kindness and joy to family, friends, and strangers alike.
Register for this workshop.
February 1-26, 2021
Writer’s Wellness, A Writer's Path to Health and Creativity with Joy E. Held
$30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Good self-care is the new multi-vitamin! Writers should still take a multi-vitamin, and Writer Wellness is a complimentary plan to help you stay on target for writing and life. WW is a lifestyle technique for anyone who loves to create with activities to stimulate creativity and health by encouraging regular journal writing, exercise, relaxation, good nutrition, and creative play. Regardless of style, genre, or writing goals, Writer Wellness is the perfect writer's companion.
The workshop will offer three activities per key area (journaling, fitness, relaxation, nutrition, and creative play) for participants to try then respond to discussion prompts posted in the course. This interactive workshop will present ideas any writer can put into practice, tweak, and maintain throughout a writing career with the goal of better health and expanded creativity for many years. Discover the Writer Wellness Warrior in you and be well, write well.
About the Instructor: JOY E. HELD, A.A.S., B.A., M.F.A. is an author, freelance editor, educator, Yoga Alliance Registered yoga and meditation teacher, college English professor, certified Journal to the Self facilitator, and workshop presenter with over 500 articles published in trade magazines, newspapers, and literary journals. Her historical romance novel Message to Love was published in 2010 by The Wild Rose Press. Her nonfiction book Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity will be released from Headline Books, Inc. in spring 2020. Joy is a member of Romance Writers of America, Hearts Through History Romance Writers, Northeast Ohio RWA, and the Author's Guild. She holds degrees in education, journalism, and an M.F.A. in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University.
http://www.joyeheld.com
Register for this workshop.
March 1-31, 2021
Quilting 101/Plotting with Suzanne Johnson
$30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Do storyboards, sticky notes, spreadsheets and index cards give you hives? Does your manuscript wander in circles – yet you’re afraid a detailed outline will suck the heart and soul out of your writing?
All you need is a simple word-processing program to stitch together the perfect quilt of a plot to keep your novel on track and moving in the right direction – while still giving your muse room to play. We’ll use a step-by-step technique to plot a novel from start to finish and give you a huge head-start on your first draft (and the dreaded synopsis).
This will be a working course! Bring your best idea (the one that’s been bubbling in your brain for six months) or a manuscript that’s wandering in the desert, and we’ll shape it up and get it moving. We’ll also be deconstructing one of my own novels as part of this class as well as using examples from a variety of books in different genres.
About the Instructor: Suzanne Johnson was happily ensconced in New Orleans as a university magazine editor and veteran copyeditor when Hurricane Katrina sent her adopted hometown underwater. She took her Katrina experiences, added wizards and magic (and the sexy undead pirate Jean Lafitte), and began what has become the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series published by Tor Books. Writing under the name Susannah Sandlin, she also writes award-winning paranormal romance, including the popular Penton Legacy series for Montlake Romance, and romantic suspense and thrillers, including two series, The Collectors and Wilds of the Bayou, also for Montlake. She was the founding copyeditor for Entangled Publishing, leaving when her own writing career needed more TLC. Suzanne grew up in Alabama halfway between the Bear Bryant Museum and Elvis’s birthplace and lived in New Orleans for fifteen years, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of college football and fried gator on a stick. She currently lives in Auburn, Alabama, where she is a full-time author and does copyediting work for other authors both as a freelancer and on Reedsy.com
Register for this workshop.