Resources

Food Is All

At the 2023 Nebula Conference, some of us started thinking about food. We settled on chocolate chip cookies as an essential nutrient delivery system for writers. Here is an easy recipe that makes a modest batch of cookies suitable for one writer and one supportive significant other. (Oh, “chocolate dots” is what my husband’s family calls chocolate chips.)

Conneaut Lake Chocolate Dots

Love that Book? Do Tell!

We all have our to-be-read stacks, but do we pay enough attention to our to-be-reviewed list? My newest workshop offering is designed to help readers (and my fellow writers) get out there and post reader reviews of the books they love. (If you’re a librarian, book club leader, or writers club member and would like me to do this workshop for your group, contact me! It works both in-person and in the virtual environment.)

The purpose of a reader review is to share what you’ve discovered about a book … in a short-and-sweet consumer response … to help other readers decide on whether a book suits their personal preferences. Reader reviews work best if they are generally positive (no one likes a meanie), provide a few specifics, and avoid spoilers. The workshop is hands-on: I give a short presentation, then we work together on doing a few reviews right then and there. In between we banter about our favs, I answer questions, and I’m there to troubleshoot if anyone has difficulties. If you can’t make it to a live workshop, feel free to download this old version of the presentation!

Start Writing Reviews Today

Tools for Manuscript Preparation

I offer a workshop (and have run it at two WorldCons, BayCon, and Octocon) to help newer writers get comfortable with the submission process. Steven Radecki developed the original presentation and I’ve since revised it to fit various audiences. (The link takes you to the Octocon 2022 edition.) We’re open to presenting this workshop for your group, for personalized advice and guidance! Contact us!

To supplement that, I’ve created a series of easy-to-use templates, for long and short fiction. I’ll work on some frameworks for other elements as we go along.

Protecting Your Intellectual Property

I have a new workshop that will debut at BayCon 2024. In the past few years, I’ve learned that too many authors are woefully out to lunch when it comes to understanding publishing agreements. Your writing is your intellectual property, as valuable to you as Microsoft’s Windows software, Amazon’s secret algorithm, and even OpenAI’s highway robbery system. The workshop introduces the basic concepts and features of publishing agreements, addresses why they matter, even for (perhaps especially for) so-called “second tier” writers, and includes a point-by-point walkthrough of the features to look for (and look out for) when you receive a contract.

Special Workshops Call For Special Editions

For those determined writers who’ve attended some of my workshops this year, here are copies of the slides I promised to share with you. If your particular event’s special slides have already been taken down, just email me and ask for a fresh copy–make sure to tell me which workshop you attended, so I can find the right pdf file! I realize the slides are only part of the discussion, but these should help you recall what we talked about.