Workshop Title: The Long Journey – From Journalist to Published Fiction
How does a journalist with “no clue what she was doing” end up as a published novelist? In this session, Beth Brookhart will share her winding path—rookie missteps, the classes and workshops that launched her forward, and how she wove some of life’s craziest moments into fiction. She’ll also touch on the querying process (which she calls as “archaic as a rotary-dial phone”) and why, despite it all, she refused to give up. Writers will come away encouraged by one author’s candid, and often humorous, road to publication.
Beth’s Bio:
Beth Brookhart has been a storyteller since childhood in Colorado, beginning with a book of poems written for her mother. A journalism graduate of Colorado State University, Beth spent two decades reporting on agricultural news, often found tromping through farm fields in pursuit of a story. Later, her career shifted to communications roles with several agricultural organizations in Bakersfield, CA. In 2010, she embarked on her fiction-writing journey, leading to the completion of The Book Project, a prestigious two-year program at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. An avid volunteer, Beth was inspired by her seventeen years of service on the board of her local museum to pen The Four Queens of the Buttonbush Museum.
You can connect with Beth here:
Website: https://bethbrookhart.com/
Meeting on Saturday, November 15, 2025
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield