Foundational Practices
in Historical Fiction

Free Monthly meeting, 1-hour Zoom presentation
(includes Q&A) 

Saturday, January 16, 2021

1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

with

Dorothea Hubble Bonneau

Award-winning novelist, memoirist , playwright, optioned screenwriter

Inspired by a quest for justice, Dorothea’s work is informed by her love of family, nature, and the dramatic arts.  Her new book —  Once in a Blood Moon — celebrates the intelligence, courage, culture and character of African Americans, First Nation Peoples, and indentured servants who created the backbone for the United States of America.

Please join us to learn how to create show-not-tell characters and true-to-life shared worlds. Listener take-aways will allow you to:

• Graph your story worlds and create character profiles using Geert Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions.
• Determine whether a character’s decisions are more influenced by internal or external motivation.
• Implement non-verbal communication patterns to reveal status and standing of your characters.

 Dorothea Hubble Bonneau fell in love with theatre when she was six years old and had her first acting opportunity. When she was nine years old, she adapted Little Women, which was produced in her backyard. Since then, 24 of her plays have been produced in a variety of venues. Her To Destroy You Is No Loss was published by Dramatic Publishing in 1992. Bonneau’s other writing credits include Seekers from Zantaparon, a novel published by Northwest Publishing Company; two screenplays, optioned by Sub Rosa Productions; a prize-winning radio play; magazine articles; and a weekly column in The Davis Enterprise. Her workshop presentations include: University of the Pacific Writer’s Conference, Historical Writers of America, Other Words Conference in Tampa, Florida, and University of California Extension. Bonneau lives in Davis, California, with her husband and her cat. See: www.dorotheabonneau.com

To join the meeting, click on:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87888027649?pwd=c3Q2M3pOTHV2WXc0STBLU2w2d0JkQT09

 

 

CALIFORNIA WRITERS CLUB, SACRAMENTO

 Holiday Celebration! 

Saturday, December 12, 2020

1:00-2:30 p.m.   

• Free

• Festive and fun

• All members are invited

• In the comfort of your own home

• No-host bar: BYOB and holiday snacks

 

To celebrate the winter season and the upcoming holidays, all members of the California Writers Club Sacramento Branch are invited to join in good cheer and share something that you have written that is appropriate for the season or the new year.

If you would like to read, please RSVP to Host John Patterson at 2johnpatterson@gmail.com (and read the note from John in the newsletter’s Announcements).  Please keep your reading time to approximately 5 minutes.

 Click here to join Zoom session.

Passcode 949194

Simple Strategies to Build An Audience
and Sell More Books

Free Monthly meeting, 1-hour Zoom presentation
(includes Q&A) 

Saturday, November 21, 2020

1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

with

Stephanie Chandler

Author and Publisher

Whether you already have one, two, or twenty books to your credit, or you’re working on your first book; this session will introduce you to powerful strategies that will put your author career on the right track for success! This presentation is loaded with real-world examples for fiction and nonfiction authors alike.

Before self-publishing her first book, Stephanie Chandler decided to build an audience online. The success of that effort led to signing several traditional book deals, corporate sponsorships, major media coverage, product sales, and a variety of other opportunities. In this content-rich presentation, she shares proven strategies that you can use to develop a marketing plan to reach your goals.

You will learn how to:

• Identify and attract your ideal audience
• Leverage content marketing tactics to boost website traffic and convert visitors into book buyers
• Generate publicity opportunities online
• Build your mailing list with one powerful strategy
• Save time and simplify your social media activity with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. (really!)
• Leverage pre-sales and beta readers to launch your next book

Stephanie Chandler is the author of several books including The Nonfiction Book Publishing Plan and The Nonfiction Book Marketing Plan. She is CEO of NonfictionAuthorsAssociation.com, a vibrant educational community for experienced and aspiring writers, and NonfictionWritersConference.com, an annual event conducted entirely online. A frequent speaker at business events and on the radio, she has been featured in Entrepreneur, BusinessWeek, and Wired magazine.

To join the meeting, click on:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88655316399?
Passcode: 830204

Micro-Fiction

Free Monthly meeting, 1-hour Zoom presentation
(includes Q&A) 

Saturday, October 17, 2020

1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

with

Grant Faulkner

Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)
Co-founder of 100 Word Story

In flash fiction, the whole is a part and the part is a whole. The form forces the writer to question each word, to reckon with Flaubert’s mot juste, and move a story by hints and implications. Flash stories are built through gaps as much as the connective tissue of words, so what’s left out of a story is often more important than what’s included. A single sentence can serve the function that a paragraph or even a chapter might in a longer work.

You can expect to:

• learn how a different type of creativity emerges within a hard compositional limit
• come prepared to write short pieces 
• explore the expansiveness of succinctness.

Grant Faulkner is the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the co-founder of 100 Word Story and the Flash Fiction Collective. He has published a collection of 100-word stories, Fissures, and another short story collection, All the Comfort Sin Can Provide, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in 2021. He’s published several books on writing, including Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo, and he is also the co-host of the podcast Write-minded. Follow him on Twitter at @grantfaulkner.  You can find his full bio at http://grantfaulkner.com/bio/

To join the meeting, click on:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81070218962?

Passcode: 252455

Writing Flash Stories about Living History

Free Monthly meeting, 1-hour Zoom presentation
(includes Q&A) 

Saturday, September 19, 2020

1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

with

Kakwasi Somadhi

Author, Writing Coach

Participants will:

• learn / review what flash fiction is
• learn 6 general characteristics of flash fiction
• learn to spot experienced or observed flash points
• learn to fictionalize a “true moment in time”
• learn to resolve a flash story without a final “end”
• learn publishing outlets for flash stories
  
  

  Kakwasi, author of Coming Forth by Day, a Novel, teaches writing at Cosumnes River College.  She’s on the Our Life Stories Writing Conference committee, and board of Black Women Write, a Sacramento literary organization. Her story, Sun Tzu in the Hood, appeared in the July 2020 edition of Flash Fiction Magazine.

To join the meeting, click on:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89821799312?
Passcode: 754309