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October Featured Speaker – Jenna Brandt

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Workshop Title: Marketing for Indie Authors



This session will cover practical, effective marketing strategies tailored for authors, including the best ad platforms, social media advertising, and how to optimize Amazon ads with the right keywords. You’ll also learn how to automate newsletters, grow your email list, and keep readers engaged.

Jenna will explore tools like Publisher Rocket, Amazon Affiliate Links, and online giveaway platforms to help expand your reach. She will also discuss the importance of a strong book cover—your most powerful marketing tool. Whether you’re new to book promotion or looking to refine your strategy, this session will provide actionable insights to make your marketing efforts more effective.

Jenna’s Bio:

Jenna Brandt is an international bestselling and award-winning author who writes inspirational romance. Her page-turning books have elements of humor, suspense and faith. She has several best-selling series including Disaster City Search and Rescue, First Responders of Faith Valley, Badges & Baristas, and The Lawkeepers all based off the life of her husband in law enforcement.

You can connect with Jenna here:

Website: https://www.jennabrandt.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JennaBrandtAuthor
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/jenna-brandt
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennabrandtauthor/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/JennaBrandtAuthor/
Jen’s Joyful Page Turners Reader’s Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/844819802336835/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16847426.Jenna_Brandt

Meeting on Saturday, October 18, 2025
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield

Writers of Kern Monthly Meeting and Workshop Fee. Breakfast is included.

September Featured Speaker – Lisa-Behrens Smith

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Workshop Title: Pull It Out of Your Life – Overcoming Writer’s Block

When writer’s block freezes your pen, when your ideas flow like mud, when you can’t find the perfect words to start your best excuse for not writing, the answer isn’t in journaling or doodling or reworking a piece you’ve already discarded. It’s in your life. Period.

All writing–all good writing–reveals what it means to be human, and that means “you”. Your simplest musings about a stain on your table, a frustrated cry, or your worst burnt dinner can be the story you’ve been struggling to begin, the beginning of the book you’ve been meant to write. You just need to notice it. Then the writing “becomes”!

This presentation, from a California teacher and independent writer, can show anyone how to begin writing the pieces that present life in its most authentic way. Group participation and discussions will highlight the hour and leave all participants inspired as they learn how to pull those ideas out of their lives.

Lisa’s Bio:

Lisa-Behrens is a two-time award winner at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and an active member of Writers of Kern.  She has just released her novella Mulberry Seeds, and the memoir of her college life at 40 in the dorms of Isla Vista, including selected fictional work, is in progress.

You can connect with Lisa here:

Website: https://lisa-b-smith.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lostiniv402/
Buy her book, Mulberry Seeds: https://a.co/d/bcFZf7z

Meeting on Saturday, September 20, 2025
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield

Writers of Kern Monthly Meeting and Workshop Fee. Breakfast is included.

August Featured Speaker – Dan Bronson

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Workshop Title: This Writer’s Journey

Good writers READ obsessively, compulsively, continuously.

Good writers LISTEN to the way people actually talk and to the way locale, education, social status, and personality shape their speech.

Good writers RESEARCH, losing themselves in basement libraries, immersing themselves in the backgrounds of their stories, visiting the settings of those stories and getting to know the people who live there.

Good writers learn to unlock their unconscious minds, escaping the world around them and living in a world elsewhere, the world of their stories.

This writer’s journey…from the written word to the screen image and back again.

The maxims Dan writes by:

1) Show, don’t tell.
2) Action is character.
3) Conflict is drama.
4) Make a virtue of necessity.

Dan’s Bio:

Dan has had many careers: Associate Professor of English at DePauw University, Senior Story Analyst at Universal, Associate Story Editor at Filmways, Executive Story Editor at Paramount, Writer/Producer of HBO’s acclaimed Ed Harris thriller The Last Innocent Man and NBC’s cult classic Death of a Cheerleader, author of the memoir Confessions of a Hollywood Nobody, and of the Jack Shannon mysteries Someone to Watch Over Me and Shout at the Devil, books that critics have compared to the novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

Dan also has a B.A. in English, Pomona College. M.A., Ph.d. in English and American Lit, Princeton University. Tenured Associate Professor of English, DePauw University. Senior Story Analyst, Universal Pictures. Associate Story Editor, Filmways Pictures. Executive Story Editor, Paramount Pictures. Independent Writer-Producer at the major networks and studios. Memoirist. Novelist.

You can connect with Dan here:

Website: https://dan-bronson.com
Website: https://hollywood-nobody.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006971839074

Meeting on Saturday, August 16, 2025
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield

Writers of Kern Monthly Meeting and Workshop Fee. Breakfast is included.

June Speaker – Robert A. Lane

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Workshop Title: Art of Audiobook Narration (and Marketing)

NOTE: This meeting will take place on the 4th Saturday of June, on June 28th.

Narrating an audiobook is more than just grabbing your book and hitting the record button. There are two factors that are key to creating an engaging audiobook – the practical and the intangibles.

In this interactive presentation, participants will not only learn but discover that they CAN narrate their own audiobook. They will also learn the practical steps needed to create an audiobook as well as tools to build confidence in their voice.

We will also talk about ways to market your audiobook before, during and after your audiobook is launched.

Robert’s Bio:

Robert A. Lane is an Audiobook Coach & Producer as well as a Transformational Speaker. After working 30+ years in the entertainment industry, Robert founded Robert Lane Coaching in 2020 as a career and life coach, then expanded his business to help nonfiction authors narrate their own audiobooks by creating the “Your Book Your Voice” audiobook coaching program, getting authors published on Audible, Amazon & Apple Books in six weeks.

You can connect with Robert here:

Website – https://www.robertlanecoaching.com/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/robertlanecoaching/
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@robertlanecoaching
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-a-lane/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/robertlanecoaching
“Lights, Action, YOU!” (Book on Amazon) – https://amzn.to/3Ly833t

Meeting on Saturday, June 28, 2025
Breakfast begins at 8:30 am
The general meeting begins at 9:15 am
Hodel’s at 5917 Knudsen Dr, Bakersfield

Writers of Kern Monthly Meeting and Workshop Fee. Breakfast is included.

The Ready-Set-Go of Open Mic Mondays

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Do you want to become more involved with Writers of Kern and your fellow writers? Want to find a welcoming place to read and share your work?  Beginning Monday, October 5th WOK members are invited to participate in Open Mic Mondays over Zoom.

Open Mics offer a friendly environment of like-minded people for you to share your work with, but you are also welcome to just come and listen to others read.

You may be nervous about reading your work. You may even be thinking, Hey, I’m a writer, not a performer! Daunting or not, public speaking is an important skill for a successful writer. You want to be ready when your award-winning poems and short stories are published or your break-through novel or screenplay is optioned for a film.

So plan ahead for Open Mic Mondays with these steps:

  1. Choose your material. Search your files and find something that:
    • Represents you and your writing well
    • Lends itself to being read aloud
    • Can be read in the allotted time
  2. Take time to prepare your material.
    • Print out your selection. Double space. Use a 14pt. (or larger) font so you can see it easily. Number the pages, but do not staple them together.
    • Read through aloud two or three times. Notice where you stumble, and notice where you want to emphasize or change your inflection. Highlight or use a BOLD font  for those areas before you reprint the page.
    • Check to see if you need to polish anything in your piece.  Do you need to: add or delete a word or two? Rewrite a sentence for clarity?
  3. Rehearse.
    • Read aloud to yourself. Read aloud to your mirror. Read aloud to your pet. Read aloud to another person.
    • Record yourself reading aloud.
    • Check your timing and cut where necessary.
  4. Show up on the first Monday of the month for Open Mic.
    • Be sure to Register for the event each month.
    • The flip side of nervousness is excitement. Feel the nervousness, but transform it into the energy you put into your reading.
    • Be proud of yourself for taking this step in moving your writing career forward.

Writers of Kern is dedicated to assisting writers of all levels in meeting their writing goals, and we’re proud offer Open Mic Mondays for our members.   You can go directly to the Eventbrite site to register by clicking HERE. You must register to attend.

We hope to see you there—as a reader or as part of the welcoming audience.

If you have further questions, contact us by email at events@writersofkern.com.