HCRW Events and Meetings
OCTOBER 1-25, 2019
Workshop: Horses – What do you do when a horse shows up in your story?
Instructor: Kathryn Jane
October 1-25
Cost: $35
Description:
What do you do when a horse shows up in your story? Do you panic? Hit the brakes? Inform her she can’t have a horse? Not if you take this course filled with basic horsemanship, in-depth equine knowledge, critical terminology and a bonus list of don’ts to save you from looking like a rooky and making readers toss your book at a wall.
Presenter KATHRYN JANE has extensive experience riding in the show ring, on the racetrack, over jumps, cross-country chasing cattle, training horses and assisting veterinarians.
Instructor Bio:
Author of page-turning, Romantic Suspense, Women’s Fiction, and Short Stories about feral cats, Kathryn Jane takes readers to places they’d like to live and introduces them to characters they will end up loving.
Fulfilling her passion for education Kathryn presents workshops for both aspiring and accomplished writers and covers a broad spectrum of subjects. In her spare time (she says laughing), Kat loves spreading kindness and joy to family, friends, and strangers alike.
2020 Online Class Schedule
January 6-31, 2020
Workshop Title: Bringing Pirates to Life
Instructor: Cindy Vallar
January 6-31
Price: $30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Workshop description:
Peter Blood in Captain Blood, Long John Silver in Treasure Island, and Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean conjure up images of buried treasure, black schooners, wooden legs, eye patches, vibrant parrots, walking the plank, and swashbuckling swordsmen. Are these accurate portrayals of pirates? Some are, some aren’t.
This workshop explores the differences between the reality and mythology of Caribbean piracy during the mid-seventeenth through the early eighteenth centuries, and how writers can create believable characters that fit within historical parameters. We look at why individuals became pirates, who’s who on a pirate ship, the rules governing pirates, individuals who interacted with or encountered pirates, and other aspects of maritime life an author needs to know to write a pirate tale. Cindy enhances the workshop with writing assignments, a timeline, and resource bibliographies. At the end of the workshop, Cindy offers to provide a free edit of a chapter from participants’ manuscripts involving pirates.
About the instructor:
A retired librarian, Cindy Vallar began researching pirates in college while working on The Rebel and the Spy, a historical novel involving Jean Laffite and the Battle of New Orleans. She is the Editor of Pirates and Privateers, a monthly column on the history of maritime piracy that is now in its eighteenth year. She also reviews piratical and maritime fiction and non-fiction books, and maintains an annotated list of the best piracy and maritime sites on the web. For fourteen years, she wrote “The Red Pencil,” an editing column profiling authors and comparing pieces from their published novels with early drafts of those works, for Historical Novels Review. She is also a freelance editor and historical novelist. She belongs to the Historical Novel Society, Historical Writers of America, the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors, the Laffite Society, the Louisiana Historical Society, and the National Maritime Historical Society. She invites you to visit her award-winning web site, Thistles & Pirates (http://www.cindyvallar.com/), to learn more.
February 3-27, 2020
Workshop Title:PTSD For Fiction Writers
Instructor: Kathryn Jane
February 3-27
Price: $30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Workshop description:
Get your facts straight before you write about PTSD. The tools needed to respectfully portray characters dealing with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. This is a broad layman’s overview – who, where, what, when, why, and how – of PTSD’s effects on individuals, families, acquaintances, interpersonal relationships, careers and other situations.
Presenter KATHRYRN JANE’S extensive academic research of PTSD was done as a mature student, and the information she will provide is based on research papers, research interviews, and personal experience.
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.
March 2-27, 2020
Workshop Title: Quilting 101/Plotting
Instructor:Suzanne Johnson
March 2-27
Price: $30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Workshop description:
Quilting 10, Patchworking the Perfect Plot through Relationship Arcs With Suzanne Johnson/Susannah Sandlin
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
April 1-30, 2020
Workshop Title: Witches, Kelpies, and Fairies, Oh My!
Instructor: Cindy Vallar
April 1-30
Price: $30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Workshop description:
My first introduction to the Otherworld, as Highlanders call it, came when I joined the Brownies. My Girl Scout handbook included a tale that explained who brownies were. Little did I realize that many years later, I would immerse myself in this strange world in order to better understand my Scottish characters. I invite you to step into the unknown as we explore the supernatural world of Scotland. Highlanders and Lowlanders, as well as Islanders, believed the creatures and forces of the Otherworld were real, and sometimes more menacing than one’s neighbors. In this workshop you’ll learn about the differences between Highland and Lowland witches; second sight and seers; water creatures; portents of death; the world of fairies and elves; other supernatural beings; and ghosts.
Lessons are enhanced with a resource bibliography and excerpts from my novel, The Scottish Thistle, where I incorporated the Otherworld into this tale of the Rising of 1745. Aside from discussions on whether you believe and which elements of the Otherworld you would weave into your Scottish stories, assignments help to flesh out your stories and characters. At the end of the workshop, I offer a free edit of a chapter from your manuscript.
About the instructor:
A retired librarian, Cindy Vallar began researching pirates in college while working on The Rebel and the Spy, a historical novel involving Jean Laffite and the Battle of New Orleans. She is the Editor of Pirates and Privateers, a monthly column on the history of maritime piracy that is now in its eighteenth year. She also reviews piratical and maritime fiction and non-fiction books, and maintains an annotated list of the best piracy and maritime sites on the web. For fourteen years, she wrote “The Red Pencil,” an editing column profiling authors and comparing pieces from their published novels with early drafts of those works, for Historical Novels Review. She is also a freelance editor and historical novelist. She belongs to the Historical Novel Society, Historical Writers of America, the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors, the Laffite Society, the Louisiana Historical Society, and the National Maritime Historical Society. She invites you to visit her award-winning web site, Thistles & Pirates (http://www.cindyvallar.com/), to learn more.
May 4-30, 2020
Workshop Title: Emergency Preparedness
Instructor: Kathryn Jane
May 4-30
Price: $30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Workshop description:
EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS- Skills for your characters, and for your own life. There’s nothing quite as sexy as a woman who knows what to do next. Don’t let an unexpected emergency stop you or your heroine in your tracks. Information and practical exercises will help you be prepared, even if your emergency is between the pages of the book you’re writing. Presenter KATHRYN JANE, is a certified Public Safety Communicator, trained in Emergency Preparedness, as well as Police, Fire, Ambulance, and Airport dispatch. Contact Kathryn for more information
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.
June 1-29, 2020
Workshop Title: Unconventional Characters
Instructor: Suzanne Johnson
June 1-29
Price: $30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Workshop description:
UNCONVENTIONAL CHARACTERS: Mayberry, Fluffy, and Aunt Mildred’s Hat - This three-week workshop will get deep and dirty into ways to turn elements of your story into “characters” to enrich your novels and reveal things about your heroes and heroines. Your book’s settings, your characters’ pet(s), inanimate objects of importance, even important memories—all can be enhanced to play a role in your character development, plot advancement, and story richness. Along the way, we’ll also look at continuity, pacing, and visual tricks to help us keep track of our unconventional characters to make sure they’re not being overused. Roll up your sleeves and get ready to become worldbuilders, architects, fashion designers, and timekeepers!
Lessons will include: Why setting and description are important; the difference between them; examples of good and not-so-good; the functions setting and description should be playing in your novels. Worldbuilding: Fantasy-based. Worldbuilding: Reality-based. When to Show and When to Tell.
House Hunters and Character Building. Fashion Sense, Trash Talk, and Character Building. The Description Toolkit, Part 1: Mapmaking 101. The Description Toolkit, Part 2: Writing Tools. Putting it All Together: The Plot Map. Putting It All Together: Setting as Character
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
August 5-30, 2020
Workshop Title: Blast off Beginnings
Instructor: Angela Knight
August 5-30
Price: $30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Workshop description:
Blastoff Beginnings: Writing Opening Chapters That Take Readers along for the Ride In this month-long online class, New York Times best-selling author Angela Knight discusses how to write a beginning that will have readers clicking the BUY button.
Knight examines the elements that engage the reader’s curiosity and make her care about your characters. She will explain how to design and execute a fantastic story that will land you on your readers’ auto-buy lists.
Lessons in this month-long online class will be posted on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, students may email scenes to Angela for a critique and suggestions. This won’t be shared with the class.
- Introduction — why the first chapter matters
- 10 First Chapter Tips
- Building your book’s conflict launchpad
- Internal conflict without navel-gazing
- Romantic conflict for smart characters
- External conflict without wimps
- Make me care
- Brainstorming the perfect scene to introduce your hero or heroine
- First lines and first pages
- The heroic couple’s first scene together
- The villain’s first scene
- Plotting your course
About the instructor:
Angela Knight is the New York Times bestselling author of books for Berkley, Red Sage, Changeling Press, and Loose Id. Her first book was written in pencil and illustrated in crayon; she was nine years old at the time. A few years later, she read The Wolf and the Dove and fell in love with romance. Besides her fiction work, Angela's publishing career includes a stint as a comic book writer and ten years as a newspaper reporter. Several of her stories won South Carolina Press Association awards under her real name.
September 2-27, 2020
Workshop Title: Writing Romantic Scifi, Fantasy and Horror
Instructor: Rebekah R. Ganiere
September 2-27
Price: $30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Workshop description:
Love is Universal - Even for Monsters!
Have you ever wanted to write in the Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, or Horror genre but you just aren’t sure how to meld romance and the other elements necessary to satisfy the readers of those speculative genres? Have you ever wanted to know what is hot, what is overdone and where to begin? Ever agonized over figuring out what genre you are really writing in? Are these genres dead or are they still heating up? What happens if a werewolf marries a vampire? What if your heroine is a cyborg? How can anyone love a serial killer?
Paranormal, Sci-fi, Horror, Gothic and Fantasy readers are rabid fans, but they have serious expectations. From Tolkien to Herbert to Shelley these fans have been programmed to see their genres in certain ways and they expect nothing less.
Syllabus
In this class, you will learn how to create love and romance in any world setting.
- Learn what readers are looking for in speculative genres
- How to balance horror or technology with love scenes and romance.
- Find out the tropes necessary to write Gothic Horror, Horror, Sci-fi, Paranormal, and Fantasy.
- Learn what to avoid, what works and what is overdone.
- Learn where and when and how to market.
- Learn what you need to look for in a cover.
- And more!
About the instructor:
Rebekah is an Award Winning Bestselling Author and Screenwriter. Her debut novel Dead Awakenings, hit the bestseller list on release day. She has won several awards in both writing and screenwriting. Books in her popular fairytale retelling series Fairelle have won many awards including the Golden Palm and was a finalist for Rone Award as well as won Best Fantasy Series of 2014 from the Paranormal Romance Guild. Her trilogy The Society was released by Kensington and her new series Wolf River released in 2016. Rebekah is a prolific author releasing upwards of five books a year and is currently working on six different series. Rebekah’s screenplay No More Goodbyes has finalled in the Screencraft Family Film contest, Cinequest, and was awarded Best Screenplay by the New Hope Film Festival and Family in Film Festival.
Rebekah is the former President of the Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Chapter of RWA as well as a member of several local and online chapters. In her spare time when she isn’t writing you can find her teaching on SavvyAuthors.com or at RWA. Rebekah is also known for her elaborate cosplays with her family and has been a guest speaker and panelist at San Diego Comic Con, Wondercon, Salt Lake Comic Con, Long Beach Comic Con, Comikaze, Fyrecon and several other Comic Cons on the west coast as well as LTUE, Romantic Times Convention, RWA, InD’Scribe, Genre LA and Authors After Dark and Book Lovers Con.
October 7-25, 2020
Workshop Title: How to Write a Successful Holiday Romance
Instructor: Rebekah R. Ganiere
October 7-25
Price: $30 ($25 for HCRW members)
Workshop description:
What is the hype with Holiday Romances? Have you ever wondered why so many people write them Holiday Romances? Or why there are so many people that read them? This year alone Hallmark will come out with over One hundred and twenty new Holiday Romance Movies!
So what does it take to write a Holiday Romance? When do you publish it? When do Publishers even send out calls for them? Come find the answers. Join the thousands of writers who are publishing Holiday Romance short stories, novellas and novels to move their careers forward. Learn what you need to incorporate into your story. How to write a sci-fi, fantasy or paranormal holiday story and more.
Come learn what it takes to write in one of the hottest selling sub-genre of Romance!
About the instructor:
Rebekah is an Award Winning Bestselling Author and Screenwriter. Her debut novel Dead Awakenings, hit the bestseller list on release day. She has won several awards in both writing and screenwriting. Books in her popular fairytale retelling series Fairelle have won many awards including the Golden Palm and was a finalist for Rone Award as well as won Best Fantasy Series of 2014 from the Paranormal Romance Guild. Her trilogy The Society was released by Kensington and her new series Wolf River released in 2016. Rebekah is a prolific author releasing upwards of five books a year and is currently working on six different series. Rebekah’s screenplay No More Goodbyes has finalled in the Screencraft Family Film contest, Cinequest, and was awarded Best Screenplay by the New Hope Film Festival and Family in Film Festival.
Rebekah is the former President of the Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Chapter of RWA as well as a member of several local and online chapters. In her spare time when she isn’t writing you can find her teaching on SavvyAuthors.com or at RWA. Rebekah is also known for her elaborate cosplays with her family and has been a guest speaker and panelist at San Diego Comic Con, Wondercon, Salt Lake Comic Con, Long Beach Comic Con, Comikaze, Fyrecon and several other Comic Cons on the west coast as well as LTUE, Romantic Times Convention, RWA, InD’Scribe, Genre LA and Authors After Dark and Book Lovers Con.