First Friday — Andrew Benzie — Book Designer

Cover Design and Other Secrets of a Great Self-Published Book

Friday, May 5, 2017, 9:00 a.m. – 11 a.m.

with

Andrew Benzie

Publisher, Designer, Marketer, Andrew Benzie Books

A popular go-to publisher for writers with questions on publishing their own books, Bay Area native Andrew Benzie is returning is Sacramento to answer more questions about publishing!

A presenter full of ideas and solutions, Andrew promises to tell us the important elements of a good published book. His resume includes more than 25 years of experience in the design industry. He has worked for both corporate art departments and for himself as a freelance designer for Andrew Benzie Creative Design (ABCD). In 2010 he established his own publishing company, Andrew Benzie Books to help authors design, publish, and market their books in both softcover and eBook formats.

The California Writers Club–Sacramento Branch Networking Meeting is held the first Friday of every month at the International House of Pancakes (IHOP), 2216 Sunrise Blvd., Rancho Cordova (just north of Highway 50) starting at 9 AM. Meetings are free. Attendees pay for their own breakfast. Get map.

Questions? Ask via our Contact page.

Intensive 6-Hour Training with the Book Architect to Perfect Your First & Final Draft

Sunday, May 7, 2017
9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Learn From Stuart Horwitz

From first to final draft:
Improving your fiction, memoir,
and creative non-fiction

Some narratives feel as if they are coming together with an emotional payoff while others do not.

What makes the noticeable difference?

It starts with the underlying architecture of the book.

That’s why we are pleased to feature Stuart Horwitz, the Book Architect, in an extended presentation Sunday, May 7, in the Sacramento area. Join us for a six-hour training to help you look differently at your writing. As mentor to writers both who outline and who write by the seat-of-the-pants,
Stuart will cover:

Key ingredients of a scene and how they and a “series” can move your story forward
How to separate your work into scenes and use this disassembly to diagnose what’s going wrong with your manuscript
What “plotting” means, and why there isn’t one narrative arc but several
How to make sure your book has one “theme”

He will address that the age-old battle between the outliners and the seat-of-the-pantsers – those who meticulously script vs. those who plot solely by feel.

Stuart Horwitz is a ghostwriter, editor, and founder of Book Architecture, whose clients have reached fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists and have appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Today, and the Tonight Show, The concept came out of 15 years helping writers go from first to final draft with a complex narrative. Writers have become authors, transforming a messy manuscript into a polished book and signing with top literary agencies, landing book deals at coveted publishing houses.

Since 2013, Stuart has toured North America addressing writers’ struggles. His folio of appearances includes the Writer’s Digest Conference in NYC, Tucson Festival of Books, San Francisco Writers Conference, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference and San Miguel Writers Conference.
Stuart holds degrees in literary aesthetics from New York University and East Asian studies from Harvard University.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Writers and Others with Book Ideas
Authors
Publishers
Editors

LOCATION

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova, CA 95670
Hwy 50 at Hazel Ave. exit

SEMINAR FEE

$55 CWC Member
$65 Non-Member
Includes morning coffee, snacks plus lunch.

REGISTRATION

Please Mail Your Registration in by May 3, 2017!

To reserve your seat, please mail your name and your check to the club post office box: CWC, PO Box 581746, Elk Grove, CA 95758

California Writers Club, Sacramento Branch—one of 22 branches of the California Writers Club—serves the greater Sacramento region and welcomes all writers and related professions. We offer monthly Luncheon Meetings, Writers Network Meetings and Open Mic For Writers along with special events during the year.

FLYER

Click the link below to download the PDF of program flyer.

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First Friday — Dr. Marlena Uhrik, Author

10 Decisions You’ll Have to Make When Publishing and Marketing Your Work

Friday, April 7, 2017, 9:00 a.m. – 11 a.m.

Dr. Marlena Uhrik’s most unique book, In Grandpa’s Hands, was written, sketched, and designed to honor her father for the important role he played in her family. This exquisite and unusual book won the Mom’s Choice Award. Marlena has also published Guidebook for Family Day Care Providers (McGraw Hill), used as a textbook in community colleges. Another book, My Family Matters to Me became an Amazon Best Seller. Marlena Uhrik

Based on Marlena’s experience publishing and marketing her books, she will share decisions she now knows are important to think about when publishing and marketing a book. A prominent children’s advocate, Marlena has received national and international recognition for the work she has done improving the lives of children and families. She is a recipient of the United States Presidential Award for Service.

Questions? Ask via our Contact page.

Luncheon — Victoria Zackheim

Bring Your Life . . . to Life! Make Your Memoir Sing

Saturday April 15, 2017 11:00 AM-1:00 PM

Featuring Victoria Zackheim, memoirist, novelist, editor, playwright, and UCLA Extension personal essay instructor

Victoria Zackheim will explore the key points that make your memoir sing! We’ll begin with the arc, continuity, showing and not telling…and so much more…and then we’ll explore the introductory paragraph, that all-important, compelling element that grabs your reader and drives them into the story.

Zackheim - Topaz Victoria is the author of the novel The Bone Weaver and editor of six anthologies: He Said What?, The Other Woman, For Keeps, The Face in the Mirror, Exit Laughing, and FAITH. Her play, The Other Woman, based on her first anthology, was featured across the United States in 2015, with simultaneous readings at more than twenty theater venues. Her play Entangled, an adaptation of the memoir Entangled: A Chronicle of Late Love, was in development at Z Space in San Francisco. Victoria’s first screenplay, MAIDSTONE, is now with director Peter Werner. Her screenplay ROZZY is based on Caroline Leavitt’s novel Meeting Rozzy Halfway. Victoria is story developer and writer of Where Birds Never Sang: The Story of Ravensbruck and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camps, aired nationwide by PBS. She teaches Personal Essay in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, is an instructor at writers’ conferences in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Europe, and teaches workshops, often with mystery writer Anne Perry and novelist/memoirist Barbara Abercrombie. Victoria is a 2010 San Francisco Library Laureate.

Luncheon Information

Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
The meeting fee includes lunch and beverage
Cattlemens Restaurant, 12409 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova, CA

The restaurant is located just east of Hazel Ave. at the northeast end of the Nimbus Winery complex along Highway 50. Cattlemens offers CWC a spacious meeting room with free WiFi, quality AV equipment, free off street parking and excellent food.

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