Take Advantage of this Excellent Writers' Conference

I think the Blue Ridge Writers' Conference is one of the best events an author can attend. Carol Crawford and her staff work all year to bring in the best presenters, and they try to have something for everyone. 

Visit the website and see who is on the program this year. This is a small conference where the writers have an opportunity to talk with authors, agents, editors and to ask questions. 

19 th ANNUAL BLUE RIDGE WRITERS’ CONFERENCE 

April 8 & 9, 2016 

The Mission of the Blue Ridge Writers' Conference is to educate, inform, and inspire writers. No matter the level of expertise, the Blue Ridge Writers’ Conference provides a venue for professional writers, editors and agents to provide honest and accurate feedback to the aspiring writer in how to sell a magazine article, finish a novel, or do historical research. 

Other previous keynote speakers include a number of well-known writers such as novelist Claire Cook, Terry Kay, mystery writers Patricia Sprinkle, Joshilyn Jackson and Sharyn McCrumb, essayists James Kilgo and Steven Harvey, suspense writer Karin Slaughter, and former Georgia poet laureate, David Bottoms. 

Saturday, April 9th begins with light breakfast fare and our keynote speech. The 2016 keynote speaker will be Stephanie Fretwell-Hill. Stephanie is an editor at Peachtree Publishers, an independently owned trade book publisher, specializing in quality children's books, from picture books to young adult fiction and nonfiction; consumer references in health, education, and parenting; and regional guide books about the American South. 

Peachtree Publisher's mission is to create books that captivate and educate young and old readers alike, with well-crafted words and pictures. The day continues with concurrent workshops on everything from Children’s Literature to assembling a book of poetry to marketing a manuscript. 

Our 2016 speakers include a wide variety of poets, fiction, non-fiction writers, and much more. Conference attendees appreciate the chance to network with other writers and speakers during the day and the opportunity to submit their work for critique by one of the conference speakers. High school students from area counties are invited to attend and the Art Center offers scholarships to make this more affordable. 

This year’s Writers’ Conference will also offer a four-hour Workshop Intensive on Friday, April 8th. For an additional fee, the Workshop Intensive, presented by Jennifer Jabaley and Kristin Tubb, titled “Show, Don’t Tell: Yes, Yes, But What Does It MEAN?!”, will discuss show, don’t tell techniques for multiple aspects of your story: wordbuilding, characterization, narrative, and dialogue. 

Writers will leave with a solid understanding of the importance of show, don’t tell and the tools to revise their own manuscripts for more showing, less telling. A great workshop for both fiction and nonfiction writers. 

If you are an author and have registered for the conference, you may sign up with the Art Center to have your books for sale on Friday evening during the reception and on Saturday afternoon during the conference until 3:00pm. 

Please email the Art Center no later than March 3rd at blueridgearts@gmail.com to pre-register for a space. Please limit your book sales to no more than (5) titles with a total of (10) books per title. All books for sale must be delivered to the Art Center no later than 5 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, April 7th. 

The Art Center will sell books in the Mahan Gallery & Art Supply Station for a 10% commission.

Writing Class at Tri-County Community College - four two hour classes

I always suggest to beginning writers to write small before writing large. In other  words, try short stories before starting a novel. In a post on Alice Osborn 's blog, you will find many good reasons to do this. Click here.

In August, I will teach a class at Tri-County Community College in Murphy, NC. We will write short stories, and short nonfiction pieces. When we refer to short fiction, we call it short stories. Nonfiction short pieces can be personal essays, memoir, articles or any true stories.

 Write What You Like: Fiction, Memoir, Articles – Fulfilling Writing Dreams; Goals, Creating New Writing, Revising; Polishing Your Writing: This class is designed to fulfill your writing dreams and projects. You'll also get feedback on your work and learn revision tools. We'll discuss the errors most writers make over and over, the little things we don't know that make a difference, the main mistakes editors see in our manuscripts. Each week, writing prompts will generate material for new writing or further a piece in process. By the end of the month, you will have learned something new and important to your writing success.

The class will begin Tuesday, August 5 at 6:00 p.m. and continue each Tuesday through August 26. We chose this time so people could get home from work and have time to take the two hour class and still be home by 8:30 p.m. 

Years ago when I began taking classes with Nancy Simpson at the college, she taught night classes. We always had a large class and most of them went on to be published poets and  writers. Now our local area is filled with poets because that was Nancy's love.

I want to help our prose writers learn all they can to make their work ready for publication. 

Read the above article to see what a beginning writer needs to do. 

To register for this class at Tri-County College, call Lisa Thompson at 828-835-4313. Tell her you want to register for the writing class in August with Glenda Beall.

  Lisa Thompson Long at 828- 835-4313.

Glenda Beall's published short fiction and personal essays:
How We Met – Forks in the Road -Anthology
Mother's Reunion – Reunions Magazine, Spring 1999, Vol.9 No.3
Tar, Tallow and Prayer -- Moonshine and Blind Mules and other Western North Carolina Tales, 2006
Confrontation  --Muscadine Lines; A Southern Journal - 2009
What Did You Say? - Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - April, 2010
The Trillium -- Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Essays, stories and poems by writers living in and inspired by the southern Applachian Mountains.
Pass it on - Breath and Shadow, online journal, July 15 issue,; ICL Newsletter, 2011, Clay County Progress Newspaper
Buck, My Brother Ned and the Snake - Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal - 2011     
Public Domain - Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - April 2012  
Keeping Up - 234Journal - October 10, 2013        
Profiles and Pedigrees, Thomas C. Council and his Descendants - family history book published in 1998.   Available for purchase at City Lights Books in Sylva, NC                   -