Saturday, September 6
10:00 a.m. to noon

Patricia Moosbrugger

WORKING WITH A LITERARY AGENT

We all know that more and more publishers say they won't look at unrepresented books, they have to come through a literary agent. Just what does a literary agent do and what can an author expect from the relationship? From the initial agency agreement to the selling process and beyond, Patricia Moosbrugger will explain what it means to work with an agent and what authors can expect from the relationship.

Patricia Moosbrugger is a literary agent who relocated to Albuquerque a year and half ago after 18 years in the New York publishing world. She represents fiction and narrative nonfiction with several national bestsellers. She will discuss the role of the agent and what authors can expect from working with an agent in today's market.

Saturday, September 6
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
$20 for members
$30 for non members
No registration. Pay at the door.

Carolee Dean

SWW Workshop
Unforgettable Characters: Why We Love the People We Love

Examine the interrelatedness between character and plot. Go beyond physical descriptions and personality quirks to explore the deep inner psyche of your hero. Use dialogue and action in place of laborious description. Learn to become an observer of human nature. Find out what makes an enduring character, one your reader will remember for a lifetime.

Carolee Dean holds a Master’s Degree in Communicative Disorders from the University of New Mexico and currently works as a speech-language pathologist in the Albuquerque Public Schools. Her first novel, Comfort, published by Houghton Mifflin, was named the Best Young Adult Novel of 2002 by the Texas Institute of Letters and was nominated as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. She teaches creative writing for young people at the Sandia Preparatory School Summer Program, has taught Scientific Writing for Teens through the Dream Catcher Science Program sponsored by Sandia Labs and is a frequent guest speaker at schools, workshops and conferences.

Tuesday, September 16
7 to 9 p.m.

Sheila Key and Peggy Spencer, MD

Toys in the Attic & Other Diversions
Or
How a Couple of ‘Accidental Coauthors’ Got Out of Their Box and Let the Muses In

Establishing a plan for the article or book you’re writing is never a bad idea, of course, but — have you noticed? Sometimes the project seems to have ideas of its own. Hark! Could that be the prancing and pawing of Muses in the attic? Authors Sheila Key and Peggy Spencer, MD, will discuss the wild, wonderful (and, at times, worrisome) Magic that intruded early and often during the writing of their book, 50 Ways to Leave Your 40s: Living It Up in Life’s Second Half, and how these (take your pick) divine interventions and/or chaotic upheavals resulted in a much better book. Listen! If these two women — a couple of opposites who didn’t even meet until halfway through “50/40’s” development — could manage to go with the flow, then so can you. Sheila and Peggy will share some ideas for knocking a few holes into that writer’s box of yours – so your Muses can breathe!

Sheila Key is a “Best of Show” award-winning writer (San Diego Press Club, 1991) and graphic designer who has freelanced for publications ranging from corporate business journals to New Age magazines to anthologies of poetry and art. Sheila also worked in radio for ten years, including stints as a rock DJ at commercial stations in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Most of Sheila’s broadcast work has been in the noncommercial realm, however, including jobs at NPR affiliates and community radio stations in North Dakota (her native stomping ground), Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tucson, and San Diego. Sheila settled in Albuquerque in 1994, when her husband, Richard Towne, was appointed general manager of public radio station KUNM 89.9 FM. The two live with their two children in Albuquerque’s North Valley, where Sheila micro-gardens and produces home-canned pickles and jams.

Peggy Spencer has a B.A. degree from the University of California Santa Cruz and an MD from the University of Arizona. She completed a residency at the University of New Mexico, is board certified in Family Medicine, and is currently employed at UNM as staff physician at the Student Health Center and adjunct faculty at the School of Medicine. Winner of the SouthWest Writers 2006 Best Essay award, she writes a column for the New Mexico Daily Lobo newspaper answering reader-submitted health questions, and contributes articles to UNM Parent Matters and UNM Today. Peg is married with two children and lives in Albuquerque. She celebrates her 50th birthday this year.

Notably, it was SouthWest Writers’ 2003 writing contest that got Sheila started on developing the book proposal for 50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR 40s. She won 2nd place in SWW’s nonfiction-book category that year and—alas!—3rd place with it the next, but by then the proposal was ready to pitch, and New World Library signed on almost immediately. Thanks, SouthWest Writers!!!

Saturday, October 4
10:00 a.m. to noon

Sherri Burr

Live your Life in Search of Material

Sherri will discuss how to recognize when experiences are generating stories with value, those that others will want to read and purchase. Living broadly requires reading books and newspapers, surfing the Internet, checking out museums, watching films, interacting with friends and relatives, attending workshops, and meeting new people. At the same time, writers must be alert to the stories in their experiences, be it from a bad date, visiting a cemetery, taking in a relative for a year, or changing jobs. One key is does the experience make you feel like you're watching a movie. Another is whether you would find an experience funny if it were happening to someone else. Sometimes, the seemingly tragic yields the best comedy. I will illustrate with how I learned to embrace failure and eventually was able to turn experiences into columns, books, poetry and plays.

Sherri Burr joined the University of New Mexico School of Law faculty in 1988 after having received degrees from Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School. She received tenure and promotion to full professor in 1994. An internationally renowned lecturer, Burr has spoken at universities in Barbados, Canada, Chile, France, Greece, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and South Africa. Burr has written eleven books, numerous scholarly articles, and hundreds of newspaper articles for the general public. She is the recipient of over a dozen awards for her writing, speeches and television show ARTS TALK, which she produces and hosts.

Saturday, October 4
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
$20 for members
$30 for non members
No registration. Pay at the door.

Lynn C. Miller, Ph.D

SWW Workshop
Generative writing Workshop

For writers of all levels, this workshop allows participants to begin new projects. Writing in a community creates a powerful synergy and allows many writers to explore new territory. Through specific exercises, the group will explore various ways of generating new work. This is a place to try out new forms and approaches, not a critique session for already-produced work. In addition to drawing upon my work and research into the performance of autobiography, we will use techniques developed by the Amherst Writers and Artists method which emphasizes positive feedback and honors each writer's privacy and process. In discussion, all work is treated as fiction, releasing each writer’s creative process and keeping the class focus on the writing rather than the writer.

Lynn C. Miller is author of the novels The Fool’s Journey (2002) and Death of a Department Chair (2006) and co-editor of Voices Made Flesh: Performing Women’s Autobiography (2003). Over the past two decades, she has served as a guest artist at dozens of universities, art museums, and festivals, touring performances of Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, and Katherine Anne Porter and conducting writing/performance workshops. In fall of 2007 she left the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a professor in women’s studies and theatre, to found WriteSpace International in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she coaches individuals and groups in writing and developing creative approaches to thinking and life change.

Tuesday, October 21
7 to 9 p.m.

Chris Eboch

Finding Your Book

An editor asks what your story is about. Here's your chance to make a good impression. But if you’re still rambling five minutes later, you failed. Writers often need the dreaded one-sentence synopsis -- but how can you possibly sum up your work in one little sentence? When we try, too often the result is a clumsy, run-on sentence that sounds unnatural and won't sell your work. In this workshop, we'll discuss the key to a great one-sentence synopsis -- finding your story’s hook. Then practice turning your hook into a one-sentence synopsis and get feedback to help you refine the results.

Chris Eboch is the New Mexico Regional Advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. As such, she has coordinated five conferences and attended many others. She has published over 100 articles for children and adults, including “How to Succeed at a Conference” in Writer’s Digest.

Chris is the author of The Well of Sacrifice (Clarion Books), a middle grade historical adventure set in ninth century Guatemala. Kirkus Reviews called The Well of Sacrifice, “[An] engrossing first novel….[with] a brave, likable and determined heroine.”

Chris’s latest books are dramatic and inspirational biographies, Jesse Owens: Young Record Breaker and Milton Hershey: Young Chocolatier, both with Simon & Schuster's Childhood of Famous Americans series.

See her website at www.chriseboch.com.

Saturday, December 6
10:00 a.m. to noon

Lisa Lenard-Cook

Seven Things I've Learned About Writing
(which comes out to approximately one every eight years)

Novelist/writing coach Lisa Lenard-Cook takes a humorous look at the most important things she's learned about writing so far.

Lisa is the author of The Mind of Your Story, a book about fiction writing published by Writers' Digest Books in April 2008.

Dissonance, Lisa Lenard-Cook's first novel, won the Jim Sagel Prize for the Novel while in manuscript. After its publication by the University of New Mexico Press in 2003, it was selected as a book of the year by such diverse libraries as the Tucson-Pima County Public Library and the Cincinnati Public Library. In 2004, the book was both a NPR Performance Today Summer Reading Choice and the countywide reading selection for Durango-La Plata Reads, and in 2005 it was short-listed for the PEN Southwest Book Award. Lisa's second novel, Coyote Morning, was published by UNM Press in 2004, was selected a Southwest Book of the Year, and was recently short-listed for the New Mexico Press Women's Zia Award.

Saturday, December 6
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
$20 for members
$30 for non members
No registration. Pay at the door.

Sherri Burr

SWW Workshop
Minding Finances for Writers
Copyrights, Contracts, Trademarks and other Financial Matters

Learn when and how to register copyrights and trademarks with the appropriate government organization. Workshop participants will learn to evaluate contract clauses that are beneficial and practice negotiation techniques to change the problematic clauses in article and book contracts. Further, the workshop will teach participants methods of tracking income and expenses for tax purposes. This workshop will combine lecture with small group work so that writers will emerged energized and more williing and able to manage their finances.

Sherri Burr joined the University of New Mexico School of Law faculty in 1988 after having received degrees from Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School. She received tenure and promotion to full professor in 1994. An internationally renowned lecturer, Burr has spoken at universities in Barbados, Canada, Chile, France, Greece, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and South Africa. Burr has written eleven books, numerous scholarly articles, and hundreds of newspaper articles for the general public. She is the recipient of over a dozen awards for her writing, speeches and television show ARTS TALK, which she produces and hosts.