If you missed April’s Writers of Kern meeting, here is the video of the first Virtual Meeting held due to the Covid-19.
Don’t miss out on our next meetings. Check out the Events Page to see what’s coming!
Events
18 April 2020 | Featured Speaker Cyn Bermudez | “Surviving the Slush Pile”
You’ve written the manuscript. It’s gone through the editing process and several rewrites. Now you plan to submit it to an agent.
But wait! Before you hit the submit button, you need to know:
- How a story goes from slush reader to editor
- Why a story is chosen for publication
- How to avoid common mistakes that get your manuscript rejected
Guest speaker Cyn Bermudez was a slush reader for Clarksworld, one of the top short story magazines in science fantasy. During her presentation she will share how to avoid common mistakes and keep your manuscript from being rejected. As an editor-in-chief for Riding Light, a lit journal, she will share her insights and expertise on how to make your story stand out amongst the other manuscripts.
Bermudez is a cross-format and hybrid author, poet, and artist from Bakersfield, California. She attended college in Santa Barbara, California, where she studied physics, film, and creative writing. She is the author of Brothers (West 44 Books). Her short stories and poetry can be found in the anthologies such as Building Red: Mission Mars, The Best of Vine Leaves Literary Journal (2014), and others. Her fiction and poetry can also be found in Middle Planet, Perihelion SF, Strangelet, Mirror Dance, 805 Literary and Art Journal.
To register for this free virtual event, click here go to EVENTBRITE.com.
Please Note: After you’ve registered you will receive a confirmation through Eventbrite. Then two days before the event, you’ll get a reminder email. And on the day before the event, you will get the link and phone information for the event in email. If you have not used the Zoom Conference web application before, you’ll need to download a small file prior to attending the video conference. You can do that by clicking the conference link, and following the instructions. If you have attended a Zoom meeting before, you should be good to go with the link.
We look forward to your attendance!
Important Message Regarding the MARCH WOK 2020 Spring Conference and the APRIL 18 General Meeting
I hope you and your families are staying safe during this time of uncertainty. We, at WOK, are doing what we can to follow the recommended guidelines and cancel all gatherings and maintain social distancing. In order to do that, the WOK Spring Conference has been postponed until July 18, 2020.
WE will continue to monitor the situation and IF we cannot have an in-person conference, we are considering a live virtual conference. If you’ve purchased tickets for the March event, you’re good to go with the July event. (If it is held online, you’ll also receive a video recording included with your ticket!)
If you’ve paid for the conference and prefer to request a refund, all requests will be honored at this time.
Please send refund requests and any WOK event related questions to [email protected]
PLEASE NOTE: Our APRIL 18 meeting will be held online (9:15am, April 18). Members and guests will be able to attend FREE and receive a video recording of the event. Information on the April meeting will be sent out in April.
Thank you for understanding.
Joan
National Poetry Month 2020
Your Poem – Published on the Writers of Kern Blog!
April is coming, of course before May,
And WOK celebrates in a very fun way.
We publish original poems each day
To showcase our poets and what they say.
Aside from the hokey poetry intro, WOK Friends:
Established poets, emerging poets, and would-be poets all could be published during National Poetry Month, which is April.
But, hey, we need YOU to submit your poetry for consideration! Beginning February 20th and throughout March, please send your poems to [email protected] . Deadline: March 31, 20202
Submission Guidelines: Please follow exactly.
- Poem line limit: 30 lines or fewer (per poem)
- Number of poems: Up to three
- Submit poems as a Word Document ; 12-point font, Times New Roman or Arial
- Include a short bio (50 words or fewer)
- Include a head shot
- Send to [email protected]; In the subject line write the letters NPM and the title of your poem.
You have questions?
Please address them to [email protected]
28 March | WOK Spring Conference | Speakers Spotlight
Adam Richardson
Workshop Topic: Interviewing for Writers
Adam will teach the audience police interviewing skills, including question phrasing for obtaining detailed answers, the basics of deception detection, and how to hack rapport building. Whether you’re a crime-fiction author looking to make your police characters more streetwise or a writer doing research for your next bestseller, Adam will help bring your interviewing skills to the next level.
More about Adam:
Adam has been in law enforcement for 23 years and he spent 17 of those years as a detective, having conducted a countless number of interviews and interrogations.
As a veteran police detective in California, Adam has helped authors (including #1 New York Times Bestsellers), screenwriters, and television writers of shows for Showtime, CBS, Netflix, and Amazon Video with the “cop-stuff” since 2015.
Every week, Adam answers fiction-writers’ questions about police work and criminal investigation as the host of the Writer’s Detective Bureau podcast.
Connect with Adam on his website and listen to his latest podcast: http://writersdetective.com/
You can also find him on Twitter: Click HERE.
His Facebook group dedicated to help fiction writers
with their “cop stuff” questions: Click HERE.
Dennis Palumbo
Workshop Topic: Writing From The Inside Out
In Dennis’s informative, entertaining workshop, attendees will learn how to address the most common issues that writers face: blocks, procrastination, fear of rejection, etc. Using a combination of lecture, anecdote and in-class exercises, attendees will discover how to challenge the psychological impediments underlying these issues, freeing themselves to be the best writer they can be.
More about Dennis:
Formerly a Hollywood screenwriter (My Favorite Year; Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), Dennis Palumbo is a licensed psychotherapist and author. His mystery fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Strand and elsewhere, and is collected in From Crime to Crime. His series of mystery thrillers (the latest of which, Head Wounds, was named a “Best of 2018” by SUSPENSE MAGAZINE) features Daniel Rinaldi, a psychologist and trauma expert who consults with the Pittsburgh Police.
For a sneak preview of Dennis,
check out this interview he did on the show “Between the Lines.”
Connect with Dennis on his website: http://www.dennispalumbo.com/
Jerry Mathes
Workshop Topic: Writing Life
Jerry’s presentation will feature a short lecture and discussion with participants about the art and craft of writing their experiences into compelling narratives. He believes it’s not enough to have a good story, but writers must have the tools to bring the reader into that world and take them on their journey of discovery.
Jerry wants writers to learn how to select the key moments of an experience to create scenes and learn how to write them in a compelling way. To escape the “and then, and then, and then” trap writers fall into sometimes when recounting an experience. He also wants writers to learn to reflect on the underlying story and why it is important to be told. Questions to the writer include: Is it only sensationalist or is there something revelatory about it? Why are you telling this story?
More about Jerry:
Jerry D. Mathes II is an award winning author, photographer, book critic, and librettist. Two of his novels are Shipwrecks and Other Stories, and a memoir, Ahead of the Flaming Front: A Life on Fire, about his experiences fighting wildfire throughout the American West, including four years on an elite helicopter rappel crew and ten years as a crew boss and an incident commander. He gave it up to be a single-dad to two girls, taking a job in an oilfield north of Bakersfield.
To connect with Jerry, find him on his website and social media sites:
http://www.jdmathes.com/
Instagram: @jdmathes
Twitter: @jdmathes
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-mathes-967481b/
Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/JerryMathesII/
Keith Silvas
Workshop Topic: Social Media Marketing for Authors
(How to leverage social media to help authors
build their audience and find new readers.)
During his workshop, Keith will share what he’s learned about establishing a presence as an author on social media focusing on “The Big 3” social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter). Attendees will learn how to find and engage with their community, marketing themselves and their books, gaining followers, and more.
More about Keith:
A self-published author who loves to write science fiction and fantasy, his journey of learning to market himself as a writer has given him a good understanding of social media and how to utilize its power to help individuals and businesses effectively promote themselves online.
Keith has spent countless hours on research ranging from reading blogs and listening to podcasts, to actually testing the strategies himself on the different platforms. His business provides social media management services as well as web content writing (blogs, etc.) for clients.
To connect with Keith, find him on his social media sites:
Instagram @keith.silvas
Twitter @keith_silvas
Facebook.com/keithsilvasauthor
Cyn Bermudez
Cyn Bermudez a writer and artist living in Bakersfield. She is the author of the Brothers series and the forthcoming And the Moon Follows. She has a variety of short story and poetry publications in journals and anthologies. Her first collection of short stories and poetry is available on Amazon. Visit her website at cynbermudez.com.
Donnée Patrese Harris
Donnée Patrese Harris is a reporter turned novelist. She is co-owner of First Draft Publishing and writes erotic romance and romantic suspense. The author of six books including the entire “Prohibited” series, she is currently working on her seventh book due out in March.
Jenny Estes
Jenny Estes joined Writers of Kern in 2015. Her first book, The Anglican Rosary: Going Deeper with God, was released in June 2019. Jenny’s work has also been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Power of Gratitude; The California Writers Club Literary Review; and Res Ipsa (Kern County Bar Association).