2011 Summer Conference: August 4-7, 2011

Hyatt Regency - Downtown Bellevue, WA

(full details and registration at www.pnwa.org)

Sign-up NOW and receive our early registration discount!

• Due to the record breaking response to the Early Bird registration fee this year, and although we've exceeded 200 registrants, we are extending the Early Bird fee to our PNWA members until May 1st.  
• Early sign up means a better chance scheduling a meeting with your top agent and editor choices. 

Sign up today at www.pnwa.org.  Registration is quick and easy online, and we also have a mail-in option.  We hope to see you in August!

April Member Meeting

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Speaker: Nathan Everett
Topic: Writing Was the Easy Part: The mechanics of self-publishing
Meeting: 7pm (board meeting starts at 6pm)

Chinook Middle School
2001 98th Ave NE
Bellevue, WA 98004

If you are getting ready to become an independent publisher, you are about to launch a new career that has a steep learning curve. This presentation will cover all you need to know to produce a book that looks like a commercially published bestseller. (Becoming a bestseller will have to wait for another session!) Attendees will receive a planning worksheet and schedule, cost estimator, and important resource links for everything from editing to design to production for both print and e-books. If you are thinking about self-publishing, you won't want to miss this.

Nathan Everett has been involved in the publishing industry for over 30 years as a writer, designer, and publisher. He is managing editor of Long Tale Press. He began publishing magazines and trade journals in the early 80s and was among the first "desktop publishers" in the country, training graphic artists and production technicians on the new computerized technology. He has six patents in the field of page layout and typography and worked on the original OeBF ePUB specification. He is author of four published books, Publication Design from Corporate Publishing (1988), For Blood or Money from Long Tale Press, Feeding the Board (fund-raiser cookbook for Studio East), and the recently self-published Steven George & The Dragon.

PNWA members, please bring your membership card.

PNWA member Barbara Plum has signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press for her romantic suspense novel, Presumed Guilty.

PNWA member John Purdy's new novel, Riding Shotgun into the Promised Land, was released March 1st by River Canyon Press. "Riding Shotgun is powered by quirky characters whose actions reveal the odd twists and turns of the American character in the latter 20^th century, and today." It follows a returning war veteran as he tries to reintegrate into family and friends, but instead finds himself on a journey over the blue highways that trace the course of the Oregon Trail. In the hundred and fifty years since tens of thousands traveled the route looking for a new start, the land and people have changed, and the folks he encounters-from genetic engineers to militia members, Native Americans to New Age gurus-mark that change, but also reveal a core good will hidden in unexpected places.

PNWA member Mary Travers has self-published a literary fiction novel entitled Litany.  Litany is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble in both e-book and paperback; and at Smashwords in various e-versions. 

Wandering in the cultural upheaval of 1968 in Chicago, a wise-cracking street girl  (Zak) meets an itinerant, brilliant and slightly mad old gardener, Rose, through Sophie, a middle-aged librarian who lives by the rules- conservative even in her one major break, when she fell in love with a woman.  The real and potential losses in all their lives have made them edgy. Sparks begin to fly, fanned by clashing aesthetics, defenses, and denial into a conflagration of misunderstanding that births an awkward, tentative and pragmatic partnership.  Society, money and their perceived needs threaten the tentative alliance. With the help of neighbor Stan, Zak's old protector Suzee, and the misfits at St. Martin's soup kitchen, they must decide which of the few bad choices each has is truly damaging and which might be vaguely beneficial

PNWA member Darlene Cox announces the release of her third novel, Pearl: A Life Too Short; A Death Too Long.  When Pearl Sutton's brutally beaten body is discovered a few miles north of Faircloth, Virginia, the investigation of her death will open a Pandora's box of small town secrets-some of which have lain dormant for over 20 years. It will also prompt questions: Who was Pearl? What motivated her bizarre behavior? Was she the town "whore," or merely a "misunderstood" young woman? What was the secret behind the strange May-December marriage between her and Gus Sutton? Who would kill Pearl: Her husband, Gus? Her current lover? Or was Pearl just in the wrong place at the wrong time? The discovery of the charred remains of a young woman, and the homicidal assault of another, will reveal more secrets and prompt even more questions: Who was the young woman living in the old abandoned house that had become her funeral pyre? Who would brutally rape and assault another young woman, leaving her in a catatonic state? Were all the incidents related? Or were they the random acts of a madman concealing a hidden rage? Sheriff Atherton and his deputies will have their hands full trying to solve the puzzle until mistakes and missteps of the killer provide the answers.

CONTESTS/SUBMISSIONS:

Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize

CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women is pleased to announce the Tenth Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize judged by award-winning poet Sidney Wade.  The contest runs from March 1 to May 31, 2011.  First prize is $300 and publication in the journal.  Complete guidelines are available online at http://www.calyxpress.org/Cranstonprize.html

Call for Entries: Aesthetica Creative Works Competition 

The 2011 Aesthetica Creative Works Competition is now open for entries! Aesthetica Magazine is inviting all artists, photographers, writers and poets to submit their work into the Creative Works Competition. Now in its fourth year, the competition is dedicated to celebrating and championing creative talent across the disciplines and welcomes entries from poets and writers working in short fiction!

• The Competition has three categories, Artwork & Photography, Poetry and Fiction. 
• Winners and finalists are published in the Aesthetica Creative Works Annual.
• Winners of each category receive £500 prize money (apx. $800) plus other prizes.
• Entry to the Creative Works Competition is £10 (apx. $16).
• The entry fee allows the submission of 2 images, 2 poems or 2 short stories. 
• The deadline for submissions is the 31^st August 2011.
• More guidelines on how to submit can be found online at http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/submission_guide.htm

Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators Conference

SCBWI Western Washington is pleased to announce the 20^th Annual Writing and Illustrating for Children Conference, taking place Saturday, April 16 and Sunday, April 17, 2011, at the Marriott Redmond Town Center in Redmond, WA, featuring a great lineup of speakers, editors, and agents.  For further details, visit http://scbwi-washington.org/20/annual-conference.html

Field's End Writers' Conference

Date: Saturday, April 16

Location: Kiana Lodge

Learn more: www.fieldsend.org

Most writers write to connect with readers. Computers and the Internet are not only altering this connection, but also how authors research, draft, and revise. Explore these changes at The Field's End Writers' Conference on Saturday, April 16th. 

Writing Short Stories from First Sentence to Publication

8 Wednesdays, April 13^th - June 1^st

6:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

This is an intensive eight-session writing class. Each student is expected to write approximately 2,000 - 7,000 words a week and produce a portfolio of 2 - 5 short stories. During the first four weeks, students plot short stories and write them to completion. The second half of the class is devoted to editing and revising one story from the student's portfolio. Students will learn to edit their own work and to receive and give constructive criticism. At the end of class students submit their polished stories to literary or genre markets. In addition to preparing for submission to traditional markets, we'll go through the process of self-publishing. Class will compile and produce a book of short stories as a final project. Class fee of $205 includes these production costs.

This class is taught in Bellevue at Bellevue College's new North Campus.

Questions?  Contact Lois@LoisBrandt.com.

Register at the Bellevue College Continuing Education Website: 

http://www.campusce.net/BC/course/course.aspx?C=12608&pc=17&mc=81&sc

Scribblers' Retreat Writers' Conference

St. Simon's Island, Georgia

May 12-14

Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for adventure, suspense, mystery and history.  Our May Conference is sure to tantalize and inspire you on your own writing journey. If you have been wondering about how to make your writing a true success story, you will really get a lot out of this conference. We are proud to present a very interesting mix of inspiring experts from a variety of backgrounds and geographies. From "thriller" novelists to writers of enchanting poetry and award-winning juvenile fiction writers, this conference has it all!

http://www.scribblersretreatwritersconference.org/

Author-Editor Clinic 2011 call for manuscripts 

Will 2011 be the year to get your novel, memoir, or nonfiction manuscript in shape? The Seattle-based Author-Editor Clinic has been helping authors revise and polish their books-in-progress since 2004. One reasonable rate for a complete read and thorough editorial critique. Currently seeking literary and popular fiction for the Spring 2011 Clinic session, beginning May 6 (manuscript submissions due April 20). See our website at www.authoreditorclinic.com or contact administrator Kyra Freestar for further details (info@authoreditorclinic.com, 206-300-2601). 

"I would recommend Barbara Sjoholm's editing clinic to any writer at any stage in his or her career. I was very pleased with the insightful, thorough critiques I received on a how-to writing text and an adventure novel. The quality of the development editing was high and the price was very low-a great combination." -Nick O'Connell, writer for Outside, Gourmet, The New York Times; author of On Sacred Ground: The Spirit of Place in Pacific Northwest Literature