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WIWA NEWSLETTER
Issue No. 009 June 2002 -- July 2002
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Isle of Words, a WIWA anthology is now accepting submissions. See Contests and Market Requests for details.
CONTENTS
Message From the Editor
Letters to the Editor
On the Island
Off the Island
Island of Paradise for Writers
-- by Jules Older
Cheers
The Stigma Associated with Authors
-- by Andy Morales
Recent Releases
Your Life on Paper
-- by Dan Millman
Contests and Market Requests
A Sense of Competence
-- by Ann E. Gerike
The Continuing Saga of a Dairyman's Guide to Self-Publishing
-- by Murray Anderson
VW Tapes Correction
Cyber Surfing
Quotes
Problems Reading the Newsletter?
To Contact Us
To Unsubscribe
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MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR
After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
-- Jean Cocteau, after reading Kafka's diary.
I like reading memoirs, in particular personal stories of indomitable spirit. Occasionally, these stories are written by celebrities, but usually the best are written by ordinary people who through extraordinary circumstances live exceptional lives.
One of my favorites is Beryl Markham's West with the Wind. Through her pen, I experience adventures and friendships otherwise inaccessible: growing up among the Murani children of East Africa, training and breeding race horses, and flying supplies and passengers to remote corners of Sudan, Tanganyika, Kenya and Rhodesia. Ernest Hemingway liked Markham's book so much that he wrote, "As it is, she has written so well . . . that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers."
Another favorite is Jung Chang's compelling Wild Swans, a memoir of life during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. The book spans three generations of women: Chang's grandmother, a Chinese warlord's concubine; Chang's mother, an ardent Maoist who is later denounced; and Chang herself who endures re-education and later immigrates to England. In the safety of my own environment, I'm reminded through Wild Swans that secrecy often means oppression, and that the freedoms and opportunities of the western world are not shared worldwide.
Good things come in threes, so I'll mention Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys, the inspirational story of high school boys growing up in Coalwood, a mining town in West Virginia, who dream of sending a rocket to the moon. The boys begin with little more knowledge than how to set off a cherry bomb, but ultimately build a rocket that soars five miles, an achievement which earns them the gold medal at the 1960 National Science Fair. Hickam later designed Space Lab and trained astronauts for NASA. His best-selling true story reads like a page-turning novel and shows us that determination can turn fantasy into reality.
If you've ever thought about writing a memoir, be sure to read Dan Millman's article, Your Life on Paper, in this issue of the WIWA Newsletter. He reminds us that telling your story can be a gift to your family and future generations.
May goodwill prevail,
Candace
To read past issues of the newsletter online, go to: http://www.whidbey.com/writers/newsletter
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
From Down Under
Just a quick note to tell you (from Melbourne Australia) what a pleasure it was to receive the WIWA News. Seems I now have two addresses (one on San Juan Island, the other here) so your news is spread widely. Thanks.
--Robert Cope
Keeps on Writing
Thanks for the great newsletter. I really enjoyed reading it and reminiscing about another great Whidbey Island conference. I bought the tape of Marvin Bell's presentation and I listened to it on Monday following the conference while driving to work. It brought me right back to Whidbey and that wonderful weekend.
Thanks for including my success story with A Cup of Comfort for Friends. The book is out now so I actually have it in my hands! It's more exciting than I even imagined. And I have more good news. I submitted a second essay for inclusion in A Cup of Comfort for Women and I'm happy to report that it's been accepted! Publication is set for fall of 2002. It's been very satisfying and inspiring to be published and see that I can find a place for my work. So, I'll just keep writing. I've realized, as Marvin Bell said, that I'm one of those people who's helpless not to write. Best regards,
--Donna Marganella
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ON THE ISLAND
Choose from Three Writing Groups
Now you can choose from three WIWA-sponsored writing groups: an evening group, a north-end daytime group, and a south-end daytime group. Drop-ins are welcome.
Monthly Writers' Group
The monthly WIWA Writers' Group meets the first Wednesday of every month from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Freeland Library, 5495 Harbor Avenue. Toni Grove, treasurer for WIWA is the new facilitator for the group. You can contact her at: toniandgordy@pioneernet.net. Anyone interested in writing is invited to attend. It is a place to discuss writing techniques or problems you may be having with your work. Informal brainstorming and support for fellow writers are encouraged. If you feel like sharing something you have written, please bring it with you to the meeting and read it aloud.
North-enders' Writers' Group
A new group for north-enders will meet the second and fourth Wednesday of the month, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Great Times Espresso in Coupeville (on water side of Front Street). The next meetings are scheduled for June 12 and June 26. For more information, contact Dot Read at: thereads@whidbey.com or call (360) 331-2038.
South-enders' Writers' Group
A new daytime group for south-enders will meet the first and third Wednesday of the month, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Trinity Lutheran Church (lower campus along the highway) in Freeland (Hwy 525 and Woodard). The first meeting is June 5 with subsequent meetings scheduled for June 19 and July 3. For more information, contact Dot Read at: thereads@whidbey.com or call (360) 331-2038.
Adult Summer Reading Program
This summer, the Freeland Library will offer several adult programs. All programs are on Thursday evenings and begin at 7 p.m. at the library, 5495 Harbor Ave., Freeland. For more information, call Joanne Harmon, branch manager, at (360) 331-7323, or email her at jharmon@sno-isle.org.
June 13 -- M'Liss Rae Hawley, author of several books about quilting, will talk about her life, quilting, and how she got into publishing. She will bring 25 of her quilts with her. M'Liss's husband Mike, Island County Sheriff and mystery writer, will join the presentation if his schedule permits.
June 27 -- Novelist Larry Karp, Writing to Find the Story, Rewriting to Shape the Story. Larry will discuss the way his stories develop from first idea to finished manuscript. This presentation will interest both readers and writers. In addition to talking about his writing, Larry will show and discuss a few of the antique music boxes he collects and repairs.
August 1 -- Susan Zwinger will read from her latest book, The Last Wild Edge: One Woman's Journey from the Arctic Circle to the Olympic Rain Forest, and present slides of her journey.
Poetry Workshop
The Critiquing and Revising Poetry Workshop, sponsored by WIWA, has been rescheduled for June 15, from 2:00 until 5:00 p.m. at the Freeland Library in the conference room. Joni Takanikos and Barton Cole will take participants through a critiquing process and help them learn to revise their own work. Participants should bring poetry they have written to the class. The cost is $10.00 or $5.00 for Whidbey Island Writers' Association members. Participants may join WIWA at the workshop. Dues and fees help support special events such as workshops and writing groups sponsored by WIWA. Anyone interested in taking the workshop should contact Dorothy Read to reserve a spot. You may call her at (360) 331-2038 or email her at thereads@whidbey.com.
The First Red Mark -- Editing Classes
When you pick up an author's work to critique or edit (your own or another's), you enter a collaborative process that is separate from and yet dependent upon the author's creative process and intent. This July, author/editor Marian Blue will lead three editing workshops that explore the role of the editor, including how it changes according to genre, what the editor's responsibilities are (as a professional and as a supporter of writers' talents), and what basic skills are needed.
The workshops are scheduled for:
July 6: How to edit/critique Fiction
July 20: How to edit/critique Essay
July 27: How to edit/critique Poetry
from 12:30 to 5:00 in Room 3 of South Whidbey Center, Skagit Valley College, Kens Korner, Clinton. The cost for one lecture is $40, for two -- $75, and for three --$100. To register, send your check to Blue & Ude Writers Services, Box 145, Clinton, WA 98236. For more information, call (360) 341-1630.
As part of each workshop, you will discuss tradition and craft of each genre, including how an editor's role may change. In addition you will discuss previously-edited work and do some hands-on editing. In order to ensure that each person will receive individual attention, class size will be limited, so please register early.
These workshops are co-sponsored by Whidbey Writer's Association and Skagit Valley College. Marian Blue, partner of Blue & Ude Writers' Services, has worked with many authors on individual stories, poems, and books that have been published. In addition, her editorial experience includes that of Associate Editor of Writer's Digest (leading online and correspondence courses), and editor for One World Journeys online expeditions (www.oneworldjourneys.com); she has also worked as fiction and poetry editor for literary publications and as a newspaper editorial page editor. She has published extensively in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
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OFF THE ISLAND
Port Townsend Workshop
Peninsula Chapter #84 Romance Writers of America presents: Into the Wilderness, a writing workshop, June 8, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The workshop will be held at the Manresa Castle in Port Townsend Washington. Sara Donati, author of Into the Wilderness and Dawn on a Distant Shore, is the featured speaker. A buffet luncheon will be served, followed by a discussion panel about novel writing and publishing. Panel members include: suspense author Susan Sloan, Guilt by Association; Island County Sheriff and mystery writer Michael Hawley, Double Bluff; romance and women's fiction author Susan Wiggs, Passing Through Paradise; romantic comedy, inspirational and nonfiction author Sheila Rabe, A Prince of a Guy. The price is $45 for RWA members and $55 for nonmembers. For registration, email Kate Breslin at: katydid57@earthlink.net or call (360) 373-7004.
Columbia City's Take A Poem into Your Heart Poetry Series
Take Another Look Books is sponsoring a series of poetry readings and open mikes every other Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. The book store is located at 5023 Rainier Avenue South Seattle, WA 98118. For more information, call (206) 721-1022. Chris Jarmick is the host. Speakers are scheduled for:
June 6 -- John Kulm, The 5 Stages of Quitting Farming; Da'mar (formerly Gregory Johnson, professional football player Seahawks and others) My Life; and Christopher J. Jarmick, The Glass Cocoon (a mystery suspense novel co-written with Serena F Holder).
June 20-- Poets Marjorie Rommel, Fredda Jaffe, and Dana Elken.
July 18 -- Family Night. Bring your children ages 9 and older for an evening of poetry.
PNWA Writers Conference
The Pacific Northwest Writers Association's annual summer conference will be July 11 through July 14. For more information, see: http://www.c-2.com/pnwa/htdocs/events/confer/con2002.htm
Centrum's Conference
Centrum's annual Port Townsend Writers' Conference will be July 11 through July 21. For more information, see: http://www.centrum.org/workshops/writers.html
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ISLAND OF PARADISE FOR WRITERS
by Jules Older
The following commentary recently aired on Vermont Public Radio.
ANNOUNCER: Commentator Jules Older found an island paradise for writers. And once he got there, he found something that excited him even more.
Let me take you to an island.
It's a beautiful, wooded island near Seattle, where the jagged peaks of the Olympic range form one horizon and the snowy summits of the Cascades form another. It's an island where the mussels are plump and the beaches are made for solitary sunset walks.
But what sets this island apart from others in Puget Sound isn't the views or the seafood or the sand. It's writing.
Whidbey Island, Washington is a place where the Chamber of Commerce hangs out a sign that says, Writers Welcome. It's a place where the Lutheran Church hangs out a sign that says, God loves writers. It's a place where the local sheriff -- sharply creased trousers, brown twill jacket, pistol on his hip -- is also the author of a crime novel.
Whidbey Island is a place where everyone from primary school kids to Boeing engineers enters a writer's contest of some description, where high-schoolers meet retired lawyers at poetry slams, and where once a year, in early March, half the island turns into a major writer's conference.
This year I spoke at the Whidbey Island Writer's Conference. I was there along with other kids' writers, editors, poets, agents, romance writers, self-publishing gurus, crime writers (including the local sheriff) and 250 participants from Indiana to Alaska.
From the early-morning talk on how to get published to the late-night poetry slam, from author school visits to consultations with agents, I was knocked out by the massive commitment to writing from islanders and visitors alike.
But what really blew me away was the growing realization that all this -- the conference, the contests, the concentration on writing in the schools -- was the work of one woman. In addition to creating the annual conference and the island-wide culture of writing, this woman is a writer herself and the mother of six kids.
I've long been a believer in the power of one, and Celeste Mergens, of Whidbey Island, Washington, upholds my belief. She is living proof that one person can have a huge effect on the world in which she lives.
This was the fourth year of the conference, and by now there are scores of volunteers organizing plane schedules, organizing accommodations, organizing school visits, organizing other volunteers. They all work hard, they're all in love with writing, and they all credit Celeste with transforming their lives.
Celeste isn't the only one who can change lives. Whether you go to Whidbey Island or not, whether you're a writer or not, whether you've ever organized anything bigger than a trip to the general store or not, hang on to the idea that one person can change the world.
And that person could be y-o-u.
This is Jules Older in Albany, Vermont, the Soul of the Kingdom.
ANNOUNCER: Jules Older's latest kids' book is ICE CREAM. Along with COW and TELLING TIME, it's published by Charlesbridge.
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CHEERS
Your good news cheers us on! Please share your successes with us. email the editor at: candace@whidbey.com.
Brian Ames, WIWC participant, has three new pieces on the Web: An Inheritance of Machines, in Whet Magazine, www.whetmag.com; The Small Things in Life in Sweet Family Moses, http://www.sweetfancymoses.com/ames_small.htm; and The Bones of Elks in Weber Studies, http://weberstudies.weber.edu/archive/Vol.%2019.2/Ames.htm.Two of his pieces, Hughie and Moira Stand in Freezing Air and The Midday Moon, were published in the inaugural print editions of The Jerky Fair and Sweet Fancy Moses.
WIWA Web master Linda Jedlicka's first short story, Murder Most Fowl, was recently published in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine. To read her story, see the Feb-Mar-Apr issue (Vol V, Issue XXV). You can order the magazine through Futures' Web site: http://www.futuresforstorylovers.com. The Whidbey Island Freeland Library also subscribes to Futures, so the story is available there as well.
Storyteller Jill Johnson's essay, Three Women in Bronze--Three Sisters in Vietnam, was published April 28 in the Seattle Times. Jill recently won fourth place in the WIWA Celebrate Writing Contest, essay division.
Popular WIWC instructor Eva Shaw's latest book, Shovel It: Nature's Health Plan, is featured in the June issue of the Costco Connection, page 55.
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THE STIGMA ASSOCIATED WITH AUTHORS
by Andy Morales
How authors are perceived in the media is directly related to what the media demands in an interview source. Producers and editors want stories that relate to their audience base. The media wants interesting information in bite-size form, and unfortunately this demand is not regularly associated with authors. Authors are stereotypically deemed as boring book pushers who merely want to use the media outlet to sell more books. This reputation may be due to the ineffectiveness of authors to diversify their products.
An author is considered an expert by the media. As an expert, an author should be able to field queries that directly or indirectly relate to his subject matter. This expert status may pose problems for authors who feel that their expertise is limited to what is written in their books. For some media outlets this is satisfactory, but for national media the author must be able to provide an expert opinion for a variety of related material. For example, if an author writes a novel about the trials and tribulations of growing up as a single child in an urban environment, that author must be able to confidently field questions that deal with peripheral, related subject matter. Whether or not the novel deals with self-esteem issues, attention deficit disorders or how urban youngsters communicate differently than rural youngsters; the author must be willing and confident enough to answer questions on those types of issues. Remember, the media considers authors to be experts.
So how can you, an author, prepare to become an expert? The answer requires a process of preparation and practice. It is a process since it takes time and effort, the same time and effort it took to write your book. Preparation involves diversifying your product, finding audiences that your book relates to and formatting your message to best communicate your book’s message. Practice is merely the act of the author’s preparation. In time, the process becomes easier and more effective and helps to decrease the stigma associated with authors in the media.
Andy Morales is a senior publicist with Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists (www.bookpros.com).
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RECENT RELEASES
Ice Cream: Including Great Moments in Ice Cream History
by Jules Older, Illustrator Lyn Severance
February 2002 from Charlesbridge Publishing
Childrens', ISBN: 0881061115
A fun chronicle of the history of ice cream. For grades three through six. Jules, an instructor at WIWC 2002, has arranged for 7.5% of the book's earnings to go to Doctors Without Borders.
Umbra
by Christine Bianchi
June 2002
Infinity Publishing, Literary Fiction, ISBN 0-7414-1083-4, $14.95
http://www.buybooksontheweb.com/description.asp?ISBN=0-7414-1083-4
Rachel Ellwood wants to create her own path. To do it, she navigates through the violent clash of parents, her friend’s murder, and the man she was fated to marry. To overcome these barriers she must listen…to herself."
Christine dedicated her first novel to her family and the Whidbey Island Writer's Conference.
Global Information Warfare: How Businesses, Governments, and Others Achieve Global Objectives and Attain a Competitive Advantage
By Dr. Gerald L. Kovacich, et al
June 2002,
CRC Press; ISBN: 0849311144; $49.95
http://www.shockwavewriters.com/
Like no other book before it, this one illustrates the relationships and interdependencies of business and national objectives, of companies and countries, and of the dependence of all of them on advances in technology. This book sheds light on the "Achilles heel" that these dependencies on advanced computing and information technologies create. It underscores how warfare in the computer age can strike devastatingly in an instant from across the globe. Jerry is a WIWA member.
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YOUR LIFE ON PAPER
by Dan Millman
What if you were cleaning out the attic and came across a journal written by a great-grandparent? What might it feel like to turn the fragile, aged pages and uncover secrets of your lineage that might otherwise have been lost forever? What would it be worth to reclaim a piece of living history -- to read the story of someone whose choices, courage, labors and life helped make your life possible?
Maybe your great-grandparents never left a journal because they didn't know how to write (at least in English). Or maybe they didn't believe their lives were important enough to share. But you can write, and your story is worth telling.
A sage once said, "God invented men and women because God loves stories." You don't just have a story; you are a story, and one worth sharing. Writing it down will take you on a journey through your own history to discover meanings you might have missed the first time around. Writing down your life lets you live it over again with the wisdom of your years.
Writers learn by writing what they know. And what better way to begin than by putting your life on paper? Share your unique impressions, your disappointments and dreams. Call forth the bitter and the sweet. Write for catharsis, enjoyment, insight. Recall, relearn, reawaken! Whether you write a few pages or hundreds -- whether or not your memoir ever gets published, or garners royalties or rave reviews -- someone down the trail of years will love you for it.
So write for yourself and for loved ones you will never meet -- for those you might wish to embrace, to encourage, to enlighten. Write so that they will know that you lived, and how you lived. Both your life and theirs will be the richer for it.
This gift to future generations starts with a single memory. Each memory will call forth another. The task may seem daunting, but one page, one memory a day, means 365 pages at year's end. Your story can start with a sentence or with a single word: "Me. My life. This is how it happened . . ."
Dan Millman is author of "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" (a novel based on autobiographical material) and ten other books read by millions of readers in twenty-two languages worldwide. Also an international speaker, his work has influenced people from all walks of life.For further information: www.peacefulwarrior.com
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CONTESTS AND MARKET REQUESTS
Whidbey Island Writers' Association Anthology
Isle of Words, an anthology celebrating the diversity within excellent writing, seeks poetry, fiction, and essays (3,000 words max.). We want a box of chocolates; surprise us with the center and make the outside addictive. Simultaneous and previously published material okay. All genres are welcome. Submit online text pasted into the body of email (no attachments) to writers@whidbey.com. Subject line: Isle of Words. Published through Triple Tree Press to celebrate five years of diversity in writing within the Whidbey Island Writers' Conference. Deadline August 30, 2002; notification in September 2002. Payment: one copy. For additional information, visit www.whidbey.com/writers.
Oregon Writers Colony Annual Short Fiction and Nonfiction Contest
Oregon Writers Colony is calling for submissions to its annual writing competition. Send your short stories of no more than 3,000 words, and/or your creative nonfiction of under 1,500 words. Cash prizes of $200, $100, and $50 will be awarded to the top three finishers in each division. Multiple entries are welcome. Writers should submit original, previously unpublished entries.
Sally Petersen, the nonfiction judge, is a long time OWC Board member and author of The Real American Dream. Larry Brooks, author of Darkness Bound and Pressure Points, and a popular OWC workshop leader, will judge the fiction entries.
Submissions will be accepted until August 15, 2002. Send four copies of your entry with no identifying marks on the manuscript. In an enclosed envelope, include $10 per entry for OWC members, and $15 for nonmembers, along with your name, address, email, and the name of your entry. For confirmation of receipt, enclose an SASP. Send to: Oregon Writers Colony, PO Box 1829, Lake Oswego, OR 97035. Inquiries: Nancy Boutin (503) 636-4759. email: nsbout@aol.com. For more information, see: http://www.oregonwriterscolony.org/contest.htm
Triple Tree Publishing Contest and Request for Submissions
Triple Tree Publishing is now accepting both regular submissions and Emerging Writer Contest submissions for MOTA 2003: Courage. Submission guidelines are on the Web site: http://www.tripletreepub.com or available for an SASE to: Triple Tree Publishing, PO Box 5684, Eugene, OR, 97405.
A Cup of Comfort Seeks Submissions
Adams Media Corporation is producing a series of Cup of Comfort Books. Guidelines for submissions are available online at http://www.cupofcomfort.com/share.htm
ByLine Sponsors Contests
Check out ByLine's Web site http://www.bylinemag.com/contests.asp for the many contests it is sponsoring between April and December 2002.
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A SENSE OF COMPETENCE
by Ann E. Gerike
Like many closeted writers who over the years have stored their half-finished or almost-finished efforts in musty filing cabinets, I write reasonably well. I can write a well-crafted sentence; I can tell an interesting story. But there is much more to writing than that, as we all know.
I've been thinking recently about a sense of competence. I miss it. Having spent the previous thirteen years of my life working as a clinical psychologist in Minneapolis, I've returned to serious creative writing this past year for the first time since my college days in the mid-fifties (that's the 1950s, for those of you too young to remember them). I belong to an excellent writing group, have been taking classes with Marian Blue and Wayne Ude, and am learning a great deal, including how much I don't know about the craft of writing creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.
I suspect many of you know what I mean. You've been working at something other than writing long enough to be comfortable with your knowledge and skills, and to be recognized for them by your cohorts and often by your community. You may or may not have been paid for your work. And now you have entered a writing group or class where you are to some extent a novice, where your work will be dragged from the safety of your file drawers or the bowels of your computer into the light of day. (I am tempted to say "harsh light," but in my experience most writers' groups are perhaps too kind.)
Our unexposed writing, like our young children, is something toward which most of us feel both tender and protective. We've geared ourselves up for that particular aspect of a class or group. But I suspect many of us are not prepared for, or perhaps are not even aware of the discomfort caused by our loss of a sense of competence.
Probably we all are adventurers, and in our adult lives we've learned many new things (or broadened our knowledge of old ones) either within a job or profession or outside of it. But most likely we learned them in environments that felt safer: in competence-graded classes; in workshops where we could determine our level of participation; in private, by reading and studying; through an apprenticeship. Seldom has our emotional investment been as great as it is with our writing.
Feeling incompetent is something we just have to go through to get to competence. I didn't start my training as a therapist until I was in my late forties, and I can still remember the point, several years along, when I suddenly realized I felt genuinely comfortable in my work. Not that I believed myself a world-class expert, or thought I had nothing left to learn, but I had a basic level of comfort with my skills and so was able to relax and be a better therapist.
I enjoy feeling competent, as I suspect most of us do, and I enjoy seeing competence in action. In my writing group, an especially perceptive comment or suggestion, especially about my own work, makes me want to stand up and cheer. In class, I take a kind of aesthetic pleasure from hearing Marian or Wayne zero in on what a piece of writing needs to make it better (as they do with regularity). It's easy to lose heart in writing groups and classes, no matter how good and no matter how kind. I did lose heart back in the fifties when I took a writing class at Cornell University where I was a graduate student in English. Life intervened in a variety of ways as well, but I regret that I allowed it to do so. For all of us, with the possible exception of a genius or two, improving our writing involves exposing it to others. After all, for many and probably most of us, the eventual goal is publication, the ultimate exposure, when no time will be scheduled for us to respond to our critics.
So if you're a closeted writer, I say, join a writing group or a writing class, or both. If you're in one, don't drop out; or if you do, look for something that suits you better. Be prepared to feel not only uncomfortable but incompetent, at least at times. There is, of course, the flip side; people will have good things to say about your writing. But as with job evaluations, the suggestions for change always ring louder than the praise.
In the long run, learning something new is one of the great excitements of being alive. I'm 68 years old, and I'm looking forward to being in my nineties, if I'm lucky enough to live that long, because I know from my reading and conversations that the experience of old age can be a new and interesting country. And by then--and I hope well before then--I will also be feeling comfortable, competent, and relaxed as a writer.
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THE CONTINUING SAGA OF A DAIRYMAN'S GUIDE TO SELF-PUBLISHING
By Murray Anderson
This is the sixth of a series of articles Murray Anderson has written about his experiences self-publishing his novel Breederman.
I have had more readings at Kiwanis meetings in LaConner, Burlington and Lynden. Book sales in stores have increased. No doubt, we could easily increase mail order sales by sending fliers as inserts in farm magazines, but the expense means we would just break even.
Two copies of Breederman are available through the Sno-Isle Library system but the waiting list is so long that the books have not yet hit the shelves.
We are now in a marketing lull, which we had planned, so that we could visit our daughter in Colorado. We will pick up our efforts in October to coincide with the Christmas market. There is a minor psychological let down when orders drop off that makes one wonder what it will be like when this is all over. A person can become addicted to the praise and somewhat celebrity status. So I guess I will have to just relax and enjoy it.
For information about purchasing Breederman, call toll free: 1-866-309-8588. For book reviews, see: http://www.heraldnet.com/Stories/02/4/19/15361673.cfm and http://www.snohomishcd.org/Newsletters/2002_spring_Nex.pdf
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VW TAPES CORRECTION
VW Tapes has tapes available of WIWC 2002 classroom sessions. The after-conference price is $12 per tape, not $10 as reported in the last newsletter. We regret this error and hope it has not caused difficulties for you. In addition, VW Tapes recently changed its email address. You can contact them at: mike@vwtapes.com..
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CYBER SURFING
Have you encountered some helpful Internet sites? Send us the address and your brief review.
Can't find the right word for your poem or song? Try the Rhyme Zone at: http://www.rhymezone.com/
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QUOTES
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. -- Oscar Wilde
My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water. -- Mark Twain
Publishers are in business to make money, and if your books do well they don't care if you are male, female,or an elephant
-- Margaret Atwood
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PROBLEMS READING THE NEWSLETTER ?
If you have trouble reading the WIWA Newsletter because of gobbledygook, or unwanted characters, please contact the editor at: candace@whidbey.com. She will put you on a list to receive the newsletter in plain, instead of stylized, format, which may alleviate the problem. You may also read prior issues online at: http://www.whidbey.com/writers/newsletter
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TO CONTACT US OR SUBMIT AN ARTICLE
We are interested in hearing from you. Perhaps you've been to a recent book fair, heard a favorite author speak, learned some valuable tips from a writing class. Perhaps you're a professional willing to share your expertise. If you would like to submit an article; tell us about your good news for the Cheers or Recent Releases columns; send us your favorite quotes, markets, contests and cyber sites; or contact us about the newsletter for any reason, please email the editor at: candace@whidbey.com
To contact the Whidbey Island Writers' Association, email : writers@whidbey.com
The WIWA Web site is: http://www.whidbey.com/writers
Whidbey Island Writers' Conference:
Feb. 28-- March 2, 2003
The Spirit of Writing
http://www.whidbey.com/writers/conference
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