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September Featured Speaker – Lisa-Behrens Smith

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

Square-shaped event flyer for the Writers of Kern September 2025 meeting featuring speaker Lisa-Behrens Smith. All event details are listed in the main body text below.

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

Registration for this past event is closed.

August Featured Speaker – Dan Bronson

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Workshop Title: This Writer’s Journey

Square-shaped event flyer for the Writers of Kern August 2025 meeting featuring speaker Dan Bronson. All event details are listed in the main body text below.

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

Registration for this past event is closed.

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.

Square-shaped event flyer for the Writers of Kern June 2025 meeting featuring speaker Robert A. Lane. All event details are listed in the main body text below.

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

Registration for this past event is closed.

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.

Tips for Crafting a Successful Scholarship Application

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Rebecca Langston-George

The Peg Connelly Scholarship was established by Writers of Kern to both honor the late children’s writer Peg Connelly and encourage all childrens writers in Kern County to achieve their goals. Up to two $500 scholarships are awarded annually.

Applications will be accepted March 11-31, 2017.  To apply, writers must submit an application along with either the full text of a picture book OR the first ten pages of a young adult or middle grade manuscript.

Full details can be found here.

What can the money be used for?

Writing conferences, retreats, and classes as well as travel expenses for research are all appropriate ways to use the scholarship money.  Applicants could also use the money for tools such as a computer or books on writing craft.  If finding time to write is a problem, the money could even be spent on childcare.  Basically, anything the applicant feels would help him or her achieve personal writing goals is an acceptable use of the money.  If you need ideas on where to attend workshops, classes or conferences focused on writing and/or writing for children, here are a few options:

What does a successful application look like?

Applicants who express specific goals along with a brief itemized budget show they have given the task careful thought and have an actual plan they want to accomplish. These type of applications are much more likely to be awarded money.

  • Specific:  My goal is to work on infusing my middle grade novel “Joey’s War” with a unique voice, so I plan to attend the Highlights workshop titled “Characters with Voice” August 21-24 in Honesdale, PA.  The workshop costs $425 which includes lodging and food.  A flight from LAX costs $200 for a total cost of $625.  I can cover the additional $125 if I’m awarded the $500 scholarship.
  • Non-Specific:  I plan to go to a writing workshop.

In addition, applicants who demonstrate a knowledge of craft in the way they format their materials stand out as professionals. Manuscripts should follow the industry standard: double-spaced, in a 12 point serif font, with one inch margins and the first line beginning one-third of the way down the first page.  The age category (picture book, chapter book, middle grade, young adult) should be placed in the upper right corner with the word count below it.  Entries should carefully adhere to all guidelines, be free from spelling errors, be written in an active voice and demonstrate the writer is a professional with a lively interest in writing as well as growing as a writer.

This is a great opportunity for local children’s writers.  With a little thought and planning you could be this year’s recipient, and further your writing dreams.