Guest Speakers

Jim Grayson has stumbled through an adventurous life that has included flying airplanes and helicopters, teaching SCUBA diving, sailing, ski patrol and other pursuits designed to pry him off the couch. His professional law enforcement career began in the 1970s, where he served as patrol officer, sergeant, and patrol division commander. His police tenure emphasized de-escalation or calming the waters during potentially violent encounters. Jim’s law enforcement career was followed by 25 years in security consulting, including 5 years with UCLA’s Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center exploring crime prevention in schools and small retail establishments. Jim has enjoyed writing in various forms, including reports, poetry, short stories, magazine articles including Chicken Soup for the Soul. Thirteen years ago, his writing shifted to novels. To date, he has written 4 including Trailer Vamp – Love Bites which he self-published on Amazon and Kindle.

Workshop Title: Find Your Writing Voice

Every writer has a natural voice, with their own way of telling a story. Unique as the individual writer, the natural voice has its own rhythm, pace, sense of detail, and anecdote. The cadence of voice can be discovered in fiction and non-fiction and is essential to reveal the story’s content and form. It takes time, patience, and work to refine into polished prose that can tell a story. In this session, Sheryl will provide questions and writing prompts to encourage the writer to discover their writing voice or if genre is determined, how they can further hone their writing voice.

Exchanging hurt for hope is Sheryl Giesbrecht Turner’s focus— a message she shares with audiences as a recovered drug addict, stage-four cancer survivor, and former widow. A dynamic teacher and motivating leader, Giesbrecht Turner has endured many changes and challenges, moving her to a deep faith.

Sheryl is an award-winning author of five books. Unraveling the Lie-Knot: Finding Freedom from the Tangles of Discouragement, Deception, and Depression was released in June 2021 and won the 2021 Non-Fiction Christian Market Book Award with Advanced Writers and Speakers Association. She served as Focus on the Family’s columnist for Pastor’s Wives for four years. Hundreds of her columns, magazine and devotional articles have appeared in Focus on The Family Magazine, Pastor Resources, Lead Like Jesus, Just Between Us, Discipleship Journal, CCM, Walk Thru the Bible’s – InDeed and Tapestry publications.

Sheryl has a passion for coming alongside those in crisis or trauma. Sheryl is certified through Talbot Theological Seminary, specializing in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and in Grief, Loss, and Trauma Counseling. (www.biola.edu/talbot) She has authored and recorded 14 teaching and training videos for BrightCourse, a subscription-based video streaming service for pregnancy care center providers who want to help their clients learn about prenatal care, parenting, relationships, life skills, and more. (www.brightcourse.com) In the USA, BrightCourse serves over 60,000 pregnancy center clients per year and 30,000 views of their videos in one week.

Sheryl also has heart for missions and is avid about reaching out to the poor and needy, locally through the local Rescue Mission and worldwide through various ministry partners. Giesbrecht Turner is a Lead Like Jesus Facilitator www.leadlikejesus.com  and has been personally involved with equipping hundreds and facilitating the training of thousands of leaders internationally.

The joys of Giesbrecht Turner’s life are her children and fourteen grandchildren. An untimely widow in 2009, she is excited about the new beginning she shares with her recent marriage to Dr. Jim Turner. Sheryl holds a Bachelor of Arts from Biola University, a master’s in ministry and a Doctor of Theology. She lives in California’s central valley where she enjoys running 5K races with her 90-year-old mother.

Stay in touch with Sheryl – Receive Sheryl’s weekly blog on her website:

www.sherylgt.com or www.fromashestobeauty.com

More About Freedom In Christ Ministries: www.ficm.org

Follow Sheryl on Social Media!

Facebook pages: Sheryl Giesbrecht Turner or @SherylGiesbrechtAuthor

Twitter: @SGiesbrecht

Instagram: sherylgiesbrecht

LinkedIn: Sheryl Giesbrecht

Scribd: Sheryl Giesbrecht

Pinterest: SherylGiesbrecht

Crush Imposter Syndrome and Start Writing!

You have a great story idea, create a few characters, a decent plot, but when you sit down to write, your negative voice kicks in: “I’m not a writer.” “No one will ever want to read this.” “I don’t know what you’re doing.” “Everyone else is better, younger, older, smarter, more talented…than me.” Imposter Syndrome. Otherwise known as the ultimate Dream Killer. If you’ve experienced these thoughts or lost your passion for writing, you won’t want to miss this workshop. In this workshop, we will look at past experiences and how they help and not hinder the writing process. We are more than prepared to be writers! We will also learn how to take negative thinking and reframe our thoughts into empowering statements as well re-ignite passion for writing. Register below! Breakfast is included. Hope to see you there.

Some of the best stories have marvelous twists, where the reader/viewer thinks they know what is going on and then the world shifts beneath their feet. In this presentation we will look at some well-known twists, analyze different types of twists, and discuss how to put twists in our stories.

Writers will learn the elements of a great twist and how to add twists to their own stories.

We use tools we understand. Before we can add great twists to our stories, we need to understand the different types of twists, and how they are constructed. It is twists that make stories come to life, that thrill us. They also provide a significant psychological truth–that is, that life is full of shifting understandings. We need to be ready to reevaluate what we thought we knew at all times.

Raised in Southern California, Mike Apodaca managed the local Taco Bell at seventeen-years-old and became the senior pastor of a church at twenty-one. He has a master’s degree from Fuller Theological Seminary. He’s retired from public school teaching after 30 years. Writing for over 30 years, Mike has four books self-published in his Godsend series. He has four unpublished books. He has also published five short stories, two in The Literary Review. For the last three years he has served as vice president of the High Desert branch of the CWC.

This workshop will focus on using visual mediums as a source of inspiration.

In this workshop participants will:

• Examine the use of paintings
• Listen to the life stories of the artists and absorb their colors, shapes, and messages.
• Write using a visual prompt
• If you’d like to, share your work

Carla Joy Martin is a poet, pastel artist and piano instructor. After living in New York, Scotland and Pasadena, she found herself in Bakersfield and has been here for thirty years now. She obtained her MA in English Literature from Stanford and enjoys promoting the arts in Bakersfield. She hosts the Dukes Memorial Concerts as well as co-hosts the First Friday Open Mic Nights with Portia Choi. She published her first poetry chapbook, A Kaleidoscope of Love, in the middle of the pandemic. A member of Writers of Kern for many years, Carla is the current Critique Group Chair. She can’t thank WOK enough for all they have done to nurture her talents.

Hope to see you there!

$15 for members and $18 for nonmembers. Click here to register for the event.