Natalia Corres

Words of the Valley: Poetry

March 19, 2015 By Natalia Corres

April is National Poetry Month inaugurated by Academy of American Poets in 1996. In Kern County, National Poetry Month started 2010; now an annual event. Initiating the events in Kern County was influenced by two poets who have passed on. They are Helen Shanley, who was a founding member of Writers of Kern, and Lee McCarthy. They influenced poets while they were living; and continue their influence from the memory of them and the beauty and truth of their poetry.

This year, three college/university campuses will have poetry events:

NPM kick-off event Valley Life: Poetry about our Community, April 9, 7:00 p.m., Levan Center for the Humanities, Bakersfield College
Readings by Local Poets, April 21, 7:00 p.m., CSU Bakersfield, Dezember Room of Stiern Library
Reading by New York Times Published Poet Joseph Lease, April 30, 1:10 pm to 2:25 p.m., Taft College Cougar Room
April is Jazz Appreciation Month: Jazz and Poetry, April 26 at 2:00 p.m., Center for Spiritual Living

Other events are:

Poetry Open Mic featuring LisaAnn LoBasso, April 3, 6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m., Dagny’s Coffee
Feel, Heal, Write: Poems by Portia Choi, April 18, 1:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m., Art and Spirituality Center, Mercy Hospital, 2215 Truxtun Ave.

All events free to the public. For more information call (661) 717-1346 or email ssportia@aol.com.

Writers of Kern Fall Writing Contest

August 28, 2014 By Natalia Corres

Writers of Kern Members! You are eligible to enter the Fall Writing Contest and get your name engraved on the Fall Writing Contest plaque.

Jean Chapman, winner of the 2013 contest, dispelled the illusion that you must be “Robert” or “Rob” to win.

Annual dues may be paid online. To renew your current membership, please click here. New members, please click here. Annual membership dues must be paid by August 31, 2014.

Jean Chapman Recommends…

May 17, 2014 By Natalia Corres

Sue Monk Kidd’s latest novel, The Invention of Wings, is the compelling fictional story of real-life American heroine, Sarah Grimké. Raised in Charleston in the antebellum south, Sarah abhors slavery. Her family owns slaves and the pervading southern culture embraces the “right” to own slaves as a way of life. Sarah is given a little black girl, Handful, as a hand-maid on her eleventh birthday. The two become friends and the novel traces their life journeys over the next three decades. Sarah becomes the first American female to write positional papers on not just abolition, but on the need to give women the same legal rights as men in American society. This fictional novel will educate the reader about not just historical events in the American landscape but it will prod the conscience and current consciousness about racial tensions that still exist in our society. Highly recommend this book!

Malcolm Gladwell’s latest work of non-fiction, David and Goliath, challenges the perception of what constitutes “giants” in our lives. Perhaps, just perhaps what seems like a formidable foe rising up against us is actually at a disadvantage because of its size. Consider the childhood Sunday school version of the story of David and Goliath from the Old Testament of the Bible. The giant warrior representing the Philistine army facing off against King Saul and the Israelite army in the Valley of Elah issues a daily challenge to the opposing soldiers. Not one of the Israelite warriors, dressed in full armor with weapons, dares to go against the nine-foot giant. A slight teen-ager, however, visiting his brothers on the battlefield, hears and answers the challenge.

David and Goliath is a powerful little book about confronting the “giants” in one’s life. Is dyslexia the giant? A weaker,smaller high school girls’ basketball team? How about the challenge of getting into an Ivy League university? Challenge the odds. Perhaps, in fact, very likely, the underdog has the advantage in unique situations. Gladwell encourages the individual to face the “fear of being afraid.” Once we face a particular fear, we might very well be on the way to victory in our lives. I highly recommend this book for inspirational and encouraging true-life stories that defy traditional thought.

Writers of Kern Spring Writing Conference, March 15

March 3, 2014 By Natalia Corres

$20 members — $30 non-members
Clarion Hotel
3540 Rosedale Hwy. (Hwy. 58)
Bakersfield, CA 93308

8:00 – 8:30 Meet & Greet with continental breakfast

8:30 – 9:00 Welcome, Writers of Kern President, Dana Martin

Book sales provided by Book Hounds, hourly door prizes, Q&A with speakers

9:00 – 9:45 – CAROL SANDERS

A Writer’s Journey: In this session, Sanders will discuss the requirements of the first chapter of a novel, then proceed with a verbal tour of her journey as a creative writer. Highlights of this tour include a peek into a writer’s birthing chamber, a place of both pain and delight. Discussion will include the traits necessary for a creative writer, the helps and hindrances for writing, and the roller coaster of publishing.

Carol Sanders is a retired high school English teacher. After 30 years in the classroom, Sanders moved to Oregon and wrote Spy on Clinton Street, published in 2013 by dMon Publishing, Dallas, Texas, which followed her first book, the already-published novel Selene, retitled One Last Kiss, published by Zebra Press.

10:00 – 10:45 – ESTER SHIFREN

How to Self-Publish Successfully: Attendees will learn how to build a platform prior to self-publishing and the importance of social media as it relates to building your platform on the road to publication. Shifren will explain how to develop a theme to get speaking engagements and how to get noticed by subscribing to, and regularly commenting on, excellent blogging sites. She will also break down publishing using Createspace and Kindle (KDP) and other self-publishing engines.

Ester Shifren is a published author, artist, musician, and dynamic international speaker. In 2005, in England, she was featured in the BBC1 program “We’ll Meet Again,” and was a guest lecturer for several days at the Imperial War Museum. Ester’s book Hiding in a Cave of Trunks details all facets of Shanghai’s colorful multi-ethnic population and relates the saga of her family’s century-long existence in China.

11:00 – 11:45 – NINA AMIR

How to Blog a Book: Rather than just blogging and repurposing your posts into a book, or booking your blog, learn how to write, publish, and promote a book on the Internet using blog technology. Blogging a book is the easiest and quickest—and most efficient—way to write a book and promote it at the same time. If you can write, you can blog. That means you can blog your way to creating a successful book—one that attracts readers and publishers.

Nina Amir has 35 years of experience in the publishing field, earned a BA in magazine journalism from Syracuse University, and has edited or written for more than 46 publications on a full-time or freelance basis. She is the author of How to Blog a Book and The Author Training Manual, is a successful book editor, and speaks widely to inspire people to create books that positively impact others.

11:45 – 12:30 Q&A, discussion, book signings, books sales, closing

Scrivener: An Amazing Value for Writers

January 5, 2014 By Natalia Corres

Professional or aspiring writers seeking a powerful, inexpensive application for producing prose, scripts, or research papers should consider Scrivener. Scrivener is software that allows you to organize a large writing project, so that you can easily switch between scenes, arrange scenes into chapters, store your
research, sort, categorize, and search. Then when you’re ready, you hit a button and it spits out a formatted manuscript or e-book. It has some neat features, like a full-screen clutter-free writing space, a random name generator, target word counts, and ‘snapshots’, which allow you to roll back and compare previous versions of scenes. The one thing Scrivener doesn’t do is help you get started or coach you through structuring a story.

Although Scrivener was originally written for novelists, it is adaptable enough to be used for almost any sort of project. The writing function is smooth and efficient, and organization by scene or section allows easy editing and manipulation, and makes writing out of order much simpler. The corkboard and outline features are extremely handy. The program’s ability to store all sorts of research material eliminates the need for scattered outside files. There is a lot to explore, and there is definitely a learning curve, but don’t let all the features overwhelm you. Use what you like and ignore the rest, until you need them.

Scrivener 2.0 is available for both Mac and PC. You can get a free 30 day trial from their website, Literature and Latte, and the cost of purchase is only $45., which is an amazing value for writers.