ASPECTS OF GOOD WRITING
Wed., Feb. 25, 10 AM–3:30PM
LBJ National Historical Park in Johnson City
Registration forms online at www.jclibrarysite.org
Call 830.868.4469; email Maggie Goodman at johnsoncitylibrary@verizon.net
$40 registration includes lunch
10 am–12 noon Roundtable discussion with panel
12–1:30 Lunch and networking
1:30–3:30 Workshop with author of choice
Directions: Coming in on Hwy 281, turn west onto Hwy 290. In about a half a mile look for a dirt road driveway on the left. The exact address is 502 W. Main St (same as 290), between Ave. N and Ave. O. We will have balloons and a gentleman directing you to the right spot. The main thing is it is a dirt road on the left just past where the old log fence starts.
PANEL AUTHORS
As writer-in-residence at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Diane Bertrand teaches creative writing and English composition. Her collection Dawn Flower (Pecan Grove, 2014) was a finalist in the poetry category for the 2014 Texas Writers League book awards, and her new children's picture book, Cecilia and Miguel are Best Friends, was named to SpeakingLatino.com’s Best 20 Latino Children's Books for 2014. She also writes memoir and short essays, and is a frequent speaker at local schools and libraries, where she encourages families to turn off their electronic distractions and pick up a good book instead.
Afternoon Topic: Give Your Writing STAR Power Writing poetry, literature for children, or short memoirs challenges the writer to examine each word, line, and sentence for meaning and significance. Writing exercises will generate new ideas, develop current works-in-progress, and inspire participants to take another look at rejected manuscripts.
Owen Egerton is the author of How Best to Avoid Dying, Everyone Says That at the End of the World, and The Book of Harold, the Illegitimate Son of God, which was optioned by Warner Bros. television. He’s written for Salon and The Huffington Post. He is one of the talents behind the award-winning Master Pancake Theater at the Alamo Drafthouse Theatre and the host of the reading series One Page Salon. Egerton has written screenplays for Fox, Warner Brothers, and Disney studios.
Afternoon Topic: Burning Words How do you set your writing on fire, how do you feed the flames until the pages blister? From the blank page to the final revision, we'll discuss how to bring risk into your writing, how to find the red-hot core of your piece, and how to set your stories ablaze. Diving into techniques and inspiring examples, we’ll aim to go deeper into plot, character, and theme.
Stephen Harrigan is the author of nine books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Gates of the Alamo, which became a New York Times bestseller. Harrigan lives in Austin, where he is a faculty fellow at UT’s James A. Michener Center for Writers and a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly. He is the recipient of the Texas Book Festival’s Texas Writers Award, the Lon Tinkle Award for lifetime achievement from the Texas Institute of Letters, and was recently inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame.
Afternoon Topic: Crisis Management for Writers Tackling Stumbling Blocks (in Fiction and Nonfiction) and Identifying Creative Solutions. This promises to be a lively and informative discussion about the pitfalls writers commonly (or not so commonly) encounter while working on a project.
