California Writers Club, Sacramento Branch

Dedicated to Educating Writers of all Levels

Monthly Meeting, May 20 – Beginning Again: Putting Fun Back Into Writing

Saturday, May 20 2023

 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.

Arden-Dimick Library
891 Watt Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95864

Free Meeting – Open to the Public

Zoom link

Come see your fellow writers! Hear what everyone’s working on! Find new friends who share your genre!

 

Kirsten Casey
Kirsten Casey

with

Kirsten Casey

Author 

Beginning Again: Putting Fun Back Into Writing.

Nevada County Poet Laureate, Kirsten Casey, wants you to enjoy the process of writing, even if you feel undisciplined and blocked. Her approach to writing will entertain you and inspire you. Remember why you started to write and come to renew that sense of inspiration.

I will boost your creativity, through a glimpse into the ways I find inspiration, and I will provide prompts to renew your curiosity and love for writing.

You will learn where to look for inspiration when you don’t feel inspired.

  • the internet is your friend, the internet is your enemy.
  • accountability in writing, what does that mean to you?
  • fun prompts that are useful in any genre of writing.
  • encouragement without judgment, learning to accept your own approach.

Kirsten Casey is the current Nevada County poet laureate, and an active California Poet in the Schools. As laureate, she is writing poems celebrating local historical places, people, and events. She is also holding community workshops to promote poetry and to make the process of its creation more accessible. Her second book of poetry (with the working title Instantaneous Obsolescence) explores historical and literary characters struggling with social media. Kirsten Casey.

 

Luncheon, June 16 – Pep Talk for Writers

Develop Your Creative Mojo and Write, Write, Write!

Grant Faulkner
Executive Director, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)
Author, Pep Talk for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo

11 AM–1:00 PM

10:15 Discuss & Share: Book Covers that Draw Readers.
Bring a cover you think is either fabulous or that needs improvement
Facilitated by Pretty Road Press Publisher Ted Witt

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

 First 50 people who don’t have Grant’s book will get a free copy!

So many things conspire to keep you from achieving your goals as a writer. Self-doubt, lack of discipline, time management, writer’s block, creative solitude, fear of rejection…the list goes on and on.

But just because you’ve been struggling with one or more of these challenges doesn’t mean you have to abandon your creative goals and give up your dreams.

Grant Faulkner, executive director of National Novel Writing Month and author of Pep Talk for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo, will show you ways to banish your inner editor, dive into your work with creative abandon, write boldly on the page and develop your self-confidence.

Among Grant’s articles: “The Writer as Seducer,” Writer’s Digest 2/18; “Imagination Under Pressure,” Poets & Writers 1-2/18;  “How to Beat Writer’s Block,” IngramSpark 11/9/17; “Why You ARE the Creative Type,” Goodreads 11/1/17; “How a Month of NaNoWriMo Can Lead to a Lifetime of Better Writing,” Writer’s Digest 11-12/16; “Naked (On the Page) and Afraid,” Writer’s Digest 7-8/15; and “Writing Flash Fiction: Telling a Story with What’s Left Out,” Writer’s Digest 5-6/15.

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

  • Set an audacious goal and a deadline.
  • Track your daily progress.
  • Connect with others in a creative community.
  • Write what you love, not what you should.
  • Find and nourish your muse.
  • Use writing games and challenges to overcome writer’s block.
  • Deal with feedback and rejection.
  • Achieve writing mastery.

 

 

 

Luncheon Information

  • Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
  • Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
  • The meeting fee includes speaker,  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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Luncheon, May 19 – Marketing and Monetizing Your Writing Specialty

Marketing Your Writing Specialty: Tips for Making Money

from Your Writing/Photography in Any Genre

 

Lee Foster, Writer & Photographer

11 AM–1:00 PM

10:15 Early Bird Session, Great Starts:
Bring a first sentence or paragraph to discuss and share.  

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

 

It is good to create, it is better to create and publish, and it is best to create, publish, and monetize.
This “truth” is followed by Lee Foster, who will share 11+ tips for writers and guests on May 19.

By studying the steps that Lee has taken, attendees can better plan their futures, whether their genre is memoir, historical novels, fantasy, or nonfiction.

Lee has published travel writing/photography in every major U.S. travel magazine/newspaper. He advocates a strong website and Social Media presence. Lee has 18 books (listed on his Amazon Author Page), 13 of which are “traditionally published.” Two of Lee’s books sell as ebooks in China via Lee’s USA Amazon Author Page. Lee has converted some of his books to audiobooks.

In order to be artistically and financially sustainable, authors and “content creators” need to understand the revolutions occurring and position themselves as beneficially as possible.

Attendee Takeaways
– how to create excellent and artistic content;
– how connect with an audience; and
– how to earn income.

 

 

Luncheon 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Early Bird special 10:15

 

 

Luncheon Information

  • Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
  • Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
  • The meeting fee includes speaker,  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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Luncheon, Apr 21 – Using Photographs in Your Memoir

Focusing Your Memoir or Family History

Through Photographs

presented by

Jacqueline Doyle

Author and Essayist

 Saturday, April 21

11 AM–1:00 PM

(10:15 Early-Bird Session – Celebrate National Poetry Month)

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

 

Photographs are often all that remains after a loved one has died. They remind us of those we’ve known well and have lost, introduce us to distant relatives who are no longer here to tell their stories, or conjure ancestors we never knew.

Whether you include the actual photographs or not, spending time on written description and written exploration of what you see in family photographs can significantly deepen your memoir or history project. Photographs can be used not only to illustrate your personal or family story but also to:

*  develop your reflections on those close to you

*  explore the lives of those you don’t know, or the early lives of those you do

*  document the past

*  evoke an historical era

*  focus description

*  deepen characterization

*  inspire imagined recreations of the past

*  inspire imagined interventions in the past

We’ll talk about why and how you can use photographs in your memoir or family history, and look at examples from Dorothy Alison, Paul Auster, Sharon Olds, Judith Kitchen, and others.

Bring a photo of a relative in a previous generation (preferably one or two people, or one or two that you can single out in a group photo) for a short writing exercise

Attendee takeaways:

  1. some written description,
  2. avenues for imaginative speculation, and
  3. ideas on how to use what you’ve written.

Jacqueline Doyle is a prolific author who has published memoir essays in The Gettysburg Review, Under the Gum Tree, Full Grown People, NOR: New Ohio Review, Southern Humanities Review, Under the Sun, and many other literary journals. Her work has earned four Pushcart Prize nominations and numerous awards, including Notable Essay citations in Best American Essays 2013, Best American Essays 2015, and Best American Essays 2017. She is a professor at California State University East Bay.

Luncheon 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Early Bird special 10:15

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Luncheon Information

  • Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
  • Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
  • The meeting fee includes speaker,  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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Luncheon, Mar 17 – Why Write at All?

Why Write at All?

The Story, the Essay, and the Poem: the Quest for Examples and Answers

featuring

Steven Nightingale

Novelist, Poet, Essayist, Short Stories, Historian

 Saturday, March 17

11 AM–1:00 PM

(10:45 Early-Bird Session TBA)

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

 Come hear Bay Area’s Steven Nightingale, one of the most talked-about motivational presenters on writing, share lucid and graceful language from many sources and centuries.

Takeaways:

—beautiful sentences to hold in mind

—the most enlivening & surprising way to practice

—ancient tricks of the trade

Steven Nightingale is the author of ten books: two novels, six books of sonnets, a long essay on the city of Granada, Spain, and a book of short fiction. His interests include the medieval art of Spain and Italy, the wild country of the American West and the Caribbean, cooking for his wife and daughter, astronomy, venture capital, and Emily Dickinson, whom he loves. Chief among his pleasures is teaching by invitation in schools and universities in Nevada and California.

He is a graduate of Stanford University, and divides his time between Palo Alto, California, his beloved home state of Nevada, and the beautiful Albayzin, a barrio in Granada, Spain.

 

 

Luncheon 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Early Bird special 10:45 – TBA

 

Luncheon Information

  • Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
  • Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
  • The meeting fee includes speaker,  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.


View Larger Map