When: June 24-26

Where: The Hallmark Inn & Resort in Cannon Beach

What: This year’s theme is Truth, Risk & Lies

Who: Our keynote speaker is award-winning author Cheryl Stayed

Why: It’s a great way for writers at all stages of their careers to hone their craft, network with fellow writers, and meet published authors and  industry professionals with years of experience in their subject matter.

Expect: An emphasis on quality, not quantity; an intimate and welcoming conference so you’ll feel as if you belong; up-to-the-minute information on the publishing industry including how to land a book deal through a backdoor approach and what editors look for in submissions and queries; how to research publishers and agents; and then once you land a book deal, how to publicize your work.  

Clincher: True value. The cost of registration ($245) includes workshops, three keynote addresses, two meals and Friday night reception, Out Loud—a chance to read your work to an audience, a bonfire on the beach, all in a beautiful setting on the Oregon coast overlooking Haystack Rock. Single day rates are also available. And did we mention it’s fun?

Instructors: Bill Johnson, writing guru. Jessica Morrell, author and editor, Randall Platt, prolific, award-winning author, Cheryl Stayed, author extraordinaire,  Deborah Reed, hardworking author of two upcoming novels, Adam O’Connor Rodriguez, Senior Editor at Hawthorne Books, & Emily Whitman, author and wise goddess.  

 Summer in Words was founded by Jessica Morrell, developmental editor and author of five books for writers including Between the Lines and Thanks, But This Isn’t for Us, with 20 years experience helping writers succeed.

For more information contact Jessica at  jessicapage(at)spiritone (dot)com

Schedule and instructor interviews and bios are at http://summerinwords.wordpress.com

“Our imagination flies; we are its shadow on the earth.”

~ Vladimir Nabokov

Programming Note:

I’m going to be the guest on Barbara DeMarco Barrett Writers on Writing show this Wednesday at 9 AM (May 25) Pacfic Time. Writers on Writing is a weekly radio program produced and hosted by author Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, with co-host Marrie Stone. Each Wednesday at 9am Pacific, writers, poets and literary agents join her and/or Marrie. The show is broadcast from the studios of KUCI-FM; on your radio in Orange County, CA, at 88.9 and simulcast worldwide at www.kuci.org.

I’ll be yakking for an hour, so please listen in or you can download the podcast here

   My The Writing Life newsletter is being emailed this week. If you are not on my mailing list, please contact me and let me know what part of the world you’re writing from. Here’s an excerpt:

Emotional Resonance

One of many mysteries about the human species is how the arrangement of letters –mere black squiggles on a page, then form into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into stories — can spark emotional reactions in readers. It doesn’t seem logical on the face of things. When we read fiction we realize the whole shebang is a confection, spun from the writer’s imagination. So why waste our sympathy, our concern, not to mention our leisure hours? When we read memoirs we know the writer has survived and when we read nonfiction accounts, these too have happened in the past.

            Yet we find ourselves caught up in the story world, but mostly in the lives on the page, worrying and caring, often nervous or even haunted by a story. You might even forget that the fictional characters don’t really exist, because the writer has constructed intricate and finely wrought storylines about fascinating people caught in troubling circumstances. Although a novel or short story is about fictional events and made-up people — people whom we nonetheless come to pity, to root for, to grow weary of, to expect more from, to want better for, to celebrate, to mourn.

For those of you planning to attend Summer in Words,

don’t forget that the deadline to receive the super-fabulous discounted price is May 24th. So call the also super-fabulous Hallmark Inn at 1-888-448-449