Patricia Marshall

Patricia Marshall will be the guest speaker at the next meeting of the California Writers Club Tri-Valley Branch on Saturday, September 21, 2013, at the Four Points by Sheraton, 5115 Hopyard, Pleasanton.

Writer and editor Patricia Marshall, who has helped more than a dozen authors self-publish, will walk you through the steps you need to take, from formatting book pages to selecting a cover designer to obtaining metadata and getting your book on the market. Along the way, she’ll offer guidelines for each task to help you determine whether to tackle it on your own or enlist others.

Ms. Marshall’s talk is titled, “You’ve Written the Book, Now What? Ten Steps to Take you from Finished Manuscript to Published Book.”

Patricia Marshall lives in Eugene, Oregon and is the owner of Luminare Press. She is the editor of Forest Magazine, published by a national conservation group located in Eugene. She has extensive experience producing marketing and promotional materials, and in 2010, introduced an online edition of the magazine. She is currently writing a non-fiction book about Burley Design Cooperative. For more information about Ms. Marshall go to http://www.luminarepress.com.

Annette Langer

Annette Langer was interviewed by Kathryn Williams, a Southfield, Michigan writer, who featured a story about Annette in the June 2, 2013 edition of Detroit Healthy Living. In the article, Williams tells Annette’s story and promotes both of her books; Healing through Humor: Change Your Focus, Change Your Life and A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the World: Diary of a Fearless Travel Agent. You can read the article in The Examiner.

Stacey Gustafson

Please join Stacey Gustafson, Not Your Mother’s Book…On Travel and Shelley Riley, Casual Lies A Triple Crown Adventure, who will be signing their books and talking about their work at Towne Center Books on Wednesday, June 26 from 7 pm to 8 pm.

Lani Longshore

To an extent, all novelists need to build the world their characters inhabit. Since I write Sci-Fi I’ve got more work to create alien planets and believable futures. While writers have wrestled with this problem since Jules Verne, I have a new approach – planet as food.

The idea came from a conversation with my daughter about our Solstice Celebration menu. We’ll have Cosmic Soup (recipe yet to be determined) with cheese for the sun and various baked goods for the planets. We discussed the composition of the planets and how that could translate into a cracker or muffin. Mercury, for example, had to be oyster crackers – so crunchy they practically eat themselves. Mars is a pumpernickel cracker – the reddish-brown color is a perfect match. Jupiter, a gas planet, will be a popover. Earth, the watery planet, could be water crackers, but I’m going with Goldfish Crackers.

As I jotted notes for our celebration, I considered thinking of my fictional planets as foodstuffs as a way to spice up my descriptions. What if I wrote about clouds rolling about like dumplings in an alien sky the color of chicken soup? What if my human visitors smelled liver and onions on the breeze? And who could resist a description of running through a swamp the consistency of rice pudding?

I’ll need more details that won’t work with a food-based approach, but now that I’m thinking in new ways I may find it easier to imagine the light, the air, the cities, the songs of my fictional planets. With any luck, I may even come up with a recipe for Cosmic Soup.

Paula Chinick

As this term winds down, I reflect on what we’ve shared. Speakers like Victoria Zackheim gave us tricks for getting an agent. Martha Engber’s workshop informed us of the importance of “Show vs. Tell.” At Winterfest, we discovered the hidden artistic talents of several Tri-Valley members. Robert Dugoni’s workshop took us to new heights with character and plot building. Linda Lee gave us eight important elements for building websites.

We developed a new logo “Write On,” and a beautifully redesigned website. We’ve started our second branch anthology and completed our second annual High School Writing Contest. I am proud to be a part of Tri-Valley Writers.

Shelley Riley

“Relive the Triple Crown Adventure of Casual Lies & Shelley Riley,“ is featured on page 20 of The West June 2013 issue of Independent Magazine. This interview highlights her journey as Casual Lies, the horse she trained, raced in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes.