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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20150503T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20150503T153000
DTSTAMP:20260515T095603
CREATED:20150408T072010Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20170926T185520Z
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SUMMARY:You Can't Get There From Here: How I Became an Author
DESCRIPTION:by Bonnie Ogle\nNathan Whitaker\, best-selling co-author with Tony Dungy and Tim Tebow\, regaled Writers Alliance members at the general meeting on Sunday\, May 3. Taking a selfie with the audience behind him\, Whitaker revealed his self-deprecating sense of humor and launched into “my favorite topic\, myself\,” and how he became “an accidental author.” \nWhitaker’s first tip to writers of memoir is to “get the subject talking\,” building a much greater word count than needed. Frequently\, accomplished subjects have developed a “two-minute story” for interviews and are often reluctant to talk about their accomplishments. Interviewing people close to the subject helps. Tim Tebow’s dad learned a lot about his son when he found a stack of trophies stuffed under Tim’s locker. \nThe first line of a book is key\, Whitaker said. Tony Dungy’s book\, Quiet Strength begins with his firing. Readers will be immediately engaged because many have been there. “Recognize that it will not be compelling if you don’t talk about the dark times\,” Whitaker said. Who wouldn’t prefer to talk about a Superbowl win than the time he was fired? It is important for the writer to have empathy for his subject who bares himself. \nNathan Whitaker is a principal in Whitaker Partners LLC and represents college and professional coaches and administrators. He is involved in ministry and is available for speaking engagements. You can learn more at http://nathanwhitaker.com \n 
URL:https://writersalliance.org/event/you-cant-get-there-from-here-how-i-became-an-author/
LOCATION:FL
CATEGORIES:Speaker
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20150426T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20150426T153000
DTSTAMP:20260515T095603
CREATED:20150408T065347Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20170926T190651Z
UID:438-1430058600-1430062200@writersalliance.org
SUMMARY:Targeting Your Pitch
DESCRIPTION:by Felicia Lee\nPattie Glenn\, published author\, screenplay writer and broker/manager spoke on “Targeting Your Pitch” at WAG’s Speakers Series meeting on April 26\, 2015. She is a prolific author of books and screenplays in a range of genres. She’s also a talented singer (a soloist with the Gainesville Big Band) and realtor and founder of the GreenSmart team at Keller Williams Realty. \nAfter her lively and informative talk on how to perfect your pitch to agents and publishers\, she answered a few more questions: \nQ: What first inspired you to write? \nA: My grandmother was my biggest inspiration – she instilled in me a love of storytelling. Most importantly\, she told me I could be whatever I wanted to be; that’s a really important thing for a child to hear. She taught me how to tell stories – she’d have me read aloud on a reel-to-reel tape. \nI’m not going to say what year that was (I was four) but I still have that tape! I always enjoyed writing poetry in school\, but I didn’t really start writing creatively until around 2003. \nQ: What’s the secret ingredient to a great pitch? If there’s one thing you’d like everyone here to take away today\, what would it be? \nA: Definitely preparation. I prepare – I’m a narrative speaker by nature\, so it’s hard for me to be concise. So I edit and edit and edit! I’m good at editing\, but it’s not easy for me to do\, so I put a lot of work into it. \nQ: You’ve got a lot on your plate with a full-time career as a realtor\, your singing\, your writing – and promoting your writing must also take a lot of time. How do you make time for everything? \nA: Well\, I have to tell you\, I’m really out of balance at times – real estate is that crazy. I rely a lot on prayer and meditation. I’d love my writing to be more of a full-time job – but still\, I don’t want to do just one thing. \nBackground:\nPattie Glenn\, published author\, screenplay writer and broker/manager combines her creative and analytical talents to serve today’s entertainment markets\, and seeks to empower audiences through stories for the heart and soul in her screenplays\, novels\, short stories\, transmedia storytelling\, and instructional materials for a variety of media. Glenn graduated Valedictorian from Full Sail University’s 2013 Creative Writing for Entertainment Bachelor’s of Fine Arts program. \nVisit her website at Pondhawk Productions.
URL:https://writersalliance.org/event/targeting-your-pitch/
LOCATION:FL
CATEGORIES:Retreat,Speaker
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20150301T023000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20150301T153000
DTSTAMP:20260515T095603
CREATED:20150502T062429Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20150502T062429Z
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SUMMARY:A Land Remembered
DESCRIPTION:by Wendy Thornton\nA large crowd of writers and environmentally concerned attendees heard speaker Rick Smith talk about his father\, Patrick Smith\, and the many historical books he wrote about Florida. The most famous is A Land Remembered\, but it was his fist Florida book\, Forever Island\, which garnered a Pulitzer nomination. Angel City\, about the plight of migrant workers\, resulted in demands for reform for these oppressed employees. He passed away in January 2014. \nRick and his wife are from Cambria\, California. Using videos of his father’s actual presentations over the years\, Rick Smith created a multimedia program with “Florida sounds.” \nSome of the stories told by Rick Smith originated from his father and some were actually presented by Patrick Smith through accompanying videos\, a unique method of lecturing. According to Patrick Smith\, “All good writing comes from a sense of place.” \nWhen Forever Island was published\, the Soviet Writers’ Union invited him to the Soviet Union. Smith also told about how a hippie somehow helped him break his writer’s block\, arriving in his office with a story of a pond drying up and fish flopping around in the mud. A cottonmouth came began carrying fish one-by-one to another\, deeper pond setting them free. Smith was sure that the hippie had actually seen this\, and the tale inspired him to begin telling his environmental astute stories. \nFor Angel City\, Smith went to a Goodwill store\, bought an old outfit\, and passed himself off as a migrant worker. He said he almost quit that research because of the pure physical torture of such a life. “No one can imagine what life is like for a migrant worker unless they live it.” The book led to editorials demanding that this tragic abuse of workers end. As a result\, laws were passed to protect migrant workers. \nSmith said that his father’s most famous book\, A Land Remembered\, required more than two years of research. Smith researched the Battle of Olustee\, the birth of the cattle and citrus industry\, the great freeze of 1895\, the land boom in Miami in 1920s\,  the 1926 hurricane\, and the 1928 hurricane that drowned more than 2000 people in Okeechobee in 2 hours. What he wanted to know was\, how did this affect people\, how did they survive\, why did they come to Florida in the first place? “What were their hopes\, their dreams\, … the sort of thing you cannot find in a history book.” \nHis book was so realistic he says people often called and thanked him for writing about their families. But what he wrote was a composite of all the families he had learned about. Over the years\, many schools have used the book\, now considered a classic of Florida literature. Patrick Smith was definitely ahead of his time.  As one of his characters said\, “Progress ain’t reversible.” \nRick Smith refers to his style of presentation as “visual storytelling.”  From the enthusiasm of the crowd gathered at the WAG special event\, it appears this style was a tremendous hit. \nIn his presentation\, Smith defined where the term Florida cracker originated. It came from the cracking sound of whips used by Florida cowboys when they herded cattle. It was also used as a method of communication — crackers could let other cowboys know where they were or whether there was danger by the number of cracks. (If you do it just right\, the tip of the whip exceeds the speed of sound.) \nWAG’s own Art Crummer opened with some Florida folk songs. And thank you to our  program coordinator\, Carol Ray Skipper\, for setting up this great presentation. Also\, a thank you to the Unitarian Universalist church for the use of their beautiful facility.
URL:https://writersalliance.org/event/a-land-remembered/
LOCATION:Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville\, 4225 NW 34th Street\, Gainesville\, FL\, 32615\, United States
CATEGORIES:Retreat,Speaker
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20150208T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20150208T153000
DTSTAMP:20260515T095603
CREATED:20150502T020036Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20150502T020036Z
UID:2152-1423405800-1423409400@writersalliance.org
SUMMARY:The Virtues of Brevity
DESCRIPTION:by Noel Neff\nRon Cunningham said he has given serious consideration to changing his business card to include the words “Trained Observer of the Human Condition.” \n“That may be actually the best definition of a writer I can give you today\,” he said\, followed by a wry grin. \nCunningham\, former editorial page editor of The Gainesville Sun\, served up 45 minutes of gems and wisdom on Feb. 8\, 2015 during the Writers Alliance of Gainesville’s monthly meeting at the Millhopper Branch Library. His self-titled talk was called\, ironically\, “Life\, the Universe and Everything in 500 Words or Less: On the Virtue of Brevity.” \n“The dirty little secret of our business is that writing short is harder than writing long\,” he said. “There’s an old saying in the newspaper business that goes\, ‘I didn’t have time to write short!’” \nCunningham reflected on a newspaper career that began in the 1970s\, as editor of the Independent Florida Alligator in the years immediately after the University of Florida campus newspaper became independent. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel hired Cunningham directly out of journalism school\, but he soon returned to Gainesville to cover politics for the Sun. Now retired\, he still contributes a Sunday column focusing on environmental issues and serves as the Sun’s theater critic. He also is executive director of the nonprofit Bike Florida\, which promotes responsible cycling and bicycle tourism in the state. \nFor all the writing Cunningham has done\, however\, he said he doesn’t have the discipline or interest to write anything long form. \n“I really have no desire to write a book\,” he said matter-of-factly. “You could hold a gun to my head and I couldn’t write a book.” \nThat doesn’t mean Cunningham doesn’t appreciate a good read. In fact\, he is a voracious reader. \n“If you want to write well\, you have to read well\,” he said. “Reading ought to be as essential to your life as eating and drinking and\, indeed\, breathing.” \nCunningham was turned on to reading at age 16 when he discovered Webb Miller’s I Found No Peace: A Journey Through the Age of Extremes in an attic while working a summer job at a New England inn. \n“From the time I learned to read\, I wanted to write\,” Miller wrote at the very start of his book. \n“And I thought\, ‘Me\, too\,’” Cunningham said. “And from that summer\, I never wanted to be anything but a newspaper man.” \nCunningham offered  tips for effective writing: \n\nBrevity is indeed a virtue\, “especially in this social media/tweeting era when attention spans seem to be growing shorter by the very hour.”Keep the tone conversational by avoiding the language of lawyers\, academics\, engineers or\, “even worse\, land-use planners.”\nGrab your readers’ attention by making the first paragraph interesting\, intriguing and provocative.\nBe careful using irony\, satire and sarcasm because “some people will take you literally.”\nDon’t get personal. “If you can’t sway your audience on the basis of reasoning and the facts\, you shouldn’t do it.”\nDon’t be afraid to be in love with the sound of your own words.Write about things that are relevant to your life and that you are passionate about.\n\nFor his final tip\, Cunningham quoted “Alice in Wonderland’s” Red Queen—“Start at the beginning. Go through to the end. And stop!” \nLooking back at a half-century of writing\, Cunningham mused: “I still have this recurring nightmare that one day somebody is going to walk up to me while I’m typing away\, put his hand on my shoulder and say\, ‘How long did you think you could get away with this?’”
URL:https://writersalliance.org/event/the-virtues-of-brevity/
LOCATION:FL
CATEGORIES:Speaker
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20150111T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20150111T153000
DTSTAMP:20260515T095603
CREATED:20150408T095639Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20150408T095639Z
UID:462-1420986600-1420990200@writersalliance.org
SUMMARY:Dragonflies\, Manatees and Snakes\, Lots of Snakes - Writing About Place
DESCRIPTION:Lambert’s Passion for Place is Crystal Clear  \nThere is not a single illustration in Sandra Gail Lambert’s debut novel\, The River’s Memory\, and yet each of its 238 pages comes alive with captivating imagery. For example\, in a passage written in her compelling first-person narrative\, Lambert invites you to skinny-dip with her young female character in the spring-chilled waters of Ocala’s Silver River. \nUnderwater grasses stroke down my back and bottom. Minnows gum at my heels. The water pushes me into the shallows\, and left sitting waist deep. Spikes of red flowers surround me. Mating dragonflies float through the air liked jeweled bracelets. Yellow swallowtails flicker around my nipples. \nSimply put\, Lambert paints with words. Her ability to describe settings in vivid sensory detail allows readers to immerse themselves in the environment her characters are experiencing. \nShe was kind enough to share her writing process during WAG’s first monthly meeting of 2015\, at the Millhopper Branch Library. She stressed the use of setting not just as a backdrop to stories but as a unifying force. The writer’s challenge is using distinct and evocative language. \nThe process did not come naturally to Lambert. “What I wrote early on was pure insomnia\,” she said\, eliciting chuckles from the audience. By reading other authors\, notably Randy Wayne White and his descriptions of Florida\, Lambert developed a knack for writing about place. \nShe often wraps the description around the plot. “My plot is revealed throughout the book\,” she said. “By the end\, it pulls together.” However\, there can be pitfalls. Lambert cautions writers about wanting to share all their research and becoming too absorbed in setting. \n“Any place will want to escape its bounds and take off\,” she said\, noting that she resisted going on ad nauseum “about the mating habits of dragonflies.” \nLambert not only uses place to develop characters\, she tells herself that the setting — in her case\, the river — is a character in itself with an omniscient point of view. “I got to write about a place close to my heart.” \nIn The River’s Memory\, Lambert introduces a number of female characters: “depressed women who have given birth to just too many babies that  die on them\, people escaped from slavery who lived quiet but dangerous lives on the Florida frontier\, disabled women who find a way to explore their worlds\, artists of pre-Columbian Florida who yearned for better materials and more skills.” \n“I know these type of people existed\, but their lives are lost to a formal historian\,” because\, of course\, no facts were recorded. “But as fiction writers\, we can believe in their existence and write their lives back into history of an era. Because there’s a way a novel can preserve history\, especially the history of women\, especially the history of marginalized people\, that would otherwise have been lost to us. We can meld history and story into a novel or story that perhaps reveals the emotional truth of an era. And that’s not a small thing to offer the world.” \nIn a question-and-answer period following her talk\, Lambert admitted\, “I never thought of myself as a creative person. I ran a bookstore.” Now she tells writers not to be discouraged by rejection letters\, especially when a publisher  goes through the trouble of providing a personalized response. \nIn addition to her book\, Lambert’s essays have appeared in the journals New Letters\, Brevity\, Water’s Stone\, Weekly Rumpus\, North American Review and Arts and Letters. \nLambert\, a longtime WAG member\, published The River’s Memory through Tallahassee-based Twisted Road Publications. \n 
URL:https://writersalliance.org/event/dragonflies-manatees-and-snakes-lots-of-snakes-writing-about-place/
LOCATION:FL
CATEGORIES:Speaker
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