News And Announcements

After serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia on a water sanitation and health education project, Cherie Kephart returned to the United States with an African souvenir that she didn’t expect: a debilitating illness that went misdiagnosed for years and nearly killed her. Her just-released memoir, A Few Minor Adjustments, chronicles the arduous journey to recovery and living with chronic pain. Kirkus Reviews declares the book, “A rich and complicated story, told on each page with clear dialogue and memorable anecdotes.” Stepping in at the last moment as our Saturday morning Special Guest Speaker, we’re thrilled to welcome Cherie back to the SCWC and can’t wait to hear her about her path to publication.

Conference Weekend Walk-in Registration

Discounted pre-registration ends Monday night. Those waiting till the last minute can register at the conference itself, which takes place at the Wyndham Irvine Hotel, 17941 Von Karman Avenue, Irvine, CA 92614. Walk-in registration will be available at the check-in desk beginning Noon on Friday; 7 a.m. on Saturday; and 8:30 a.m. on Sunday.

It’s going to another terrific SCWC. Your work is worth it. You’ve earned it. Be there!

And if you’re planning to attend San Diego 32, dates are Presidents’ Day Weekend, February 16-18, 2018. Limited to 175 writers, discounted pre-registration is now open for our winter event here.

–Michael Steven Gregory
Executive Director, SCWC

#1 international bestseller Lee Child hails her, “A fresh voice in crime fiction.” The Daily Mail (UK) heralds, “Hall deserves to be compared to Kathy Reichs or Patricia Cornwell, and it will not be long before she is recognized as every bit as big a crime writing star.” In City of Saviors, the just-released fourth installment in her series chronicling the trials of Los Angeles Homicide Detective Elouise “Lou” Norton, author Rachel Howzell Hall again earns her accolades. Rachel will be joining us in Irvine as our fourth Special Guest and we just can’t wait to hear whatever she wants to talk about—which includes collaborating with James Patterson on “The Good Sister” for The Family Lawyer, out September from BookShots.

Deadlines Fast Approaching and Working Schedule

As esteemed as the Special Guest Speaker slate inevitably is at any of our events, do remember that the SCWC aims to not be about those behind the podium. It’s about tending to the writers willing to do the hard work. Craft is key, so brace yourself. It’s going to be a very busy conference weekend.

The bulk of the working schedule is now posted. While a few tweaks are being finalized, you can check out the Weekend-at-a-Glance or Interactive Schedule and start making plans now. Several new workshops are being introduced this year, including a “read & critique, rewrite & re-critique” that we’re excited about. With NaNoWriMo right around the corner, we’re also devoting one to making the most of it for those daring to do so. View all of the sessions planned on the Workshops & Events page.

Whoosh! The following deadlines are coming up fast…

• Advance Submissions: Sept. 1
• Discounted Hotel Lodging: Sept. 1
• “Best Foot Forward” Workshop Participation (still a few spots left to get in): Sept. 1

 
If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to our .COMmunity to receive important updates via email. As we’re getting down to crunch time, there’ll likely be one or two over the next few weeks.

The deadline for discounted pre-registration is also approaching. Get your work the attention it deserves. Save today and register now.

And for those planning ahead, discounted pre-registration for our 32nd annual San Diego conference, taking place Presidents’ Day Weekend, February 16-18, 2018, is now open. Limited to 175 writers, get all the details here.

–Michael Steven Gregory
Executive Director, SCWC

Dave Pelzer (A Child Called “It”) calls Scared Selfless: My Journey from Abuse and Madness to Surviving and Thriving, “A riveting memoir that takes readers on a roller coaster ride from the depths of hell to triumphant success.” Vanity Fair declares it, “A beautifully written book … with honesty [and] humor.” It’s author, Michelle Stevens, PhD, joins the SCWC for the first time to discuss the challenges of sharing her remarkable story with searing honesty, often with great hilarity. A now-veteran of the Big 5 auction block, she’ll also be conducting a workshop, “Crafting a Compelling Memoir Proposal.“

Speaking of memoirs, as large a market as there is for them, writing one can prove daunting on many levels. Whether to inspire or inform or merely entertain—or all three at once—the best personal narratives rely heavily on the tools writers of fiction have at their disposal when crafting stories. And be certain, memoir is story, story rooted in one’s life story, not one’s life story itself. (That would be autobiography.)

We’ve had many excellent memoirs come out of the SCWC, including Peggy Vincent’s Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife and Stacey O’Brien’s beloved Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl, among others. Over the past several recent conferences, however, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in such manuscripts coming through. While I won’t go into the specifics of why too many of these efforts fail at being commercially viable, I will cite that not exploiting the fiction writer’s toolbox factors greatly. To remedy this we’re introducing a series of workshops that directly address writing the modern memoir.

“Structure in Memoir: How to Reveal the Universal Story Inside the Personal Narrative,” “Tell Me a Story—Using the Techniques of Fiction to Craft a Compelling Memoir,” and “Time in Memoir—A Chronology of Its Own” will all be conducted by Judy Reeves; “Turning Your Real-life Experiences into a Book” by Maralys Wills; “Nonfiction for Newbies: Is it a Book or Not?” by Marla Miller; as mentioned above, “Crafting a Compelling Memoir Proposal“ by Michelle Stevens; and possibly one more we’re waiting to hear on. Also, don’t forget that Jean Jenkins’ “Best Foot Forward: Polishing to Impress” workshops also provide crucial hands-on attention to memoir. Check out the Workshops and Events page for details.

I suspect these sessions will prove as much value to the novelists in the house as any of the non-fictionalists.

Editor and publisher of Harper Wave, the imprint she founded in 2012, and a senior vice president at HarperCollins Publishers, Karen Rinaldi recently had this to say: “This writing and book business is a conversation, between a writer and herself, between an editor and a writer, and ultimately between the writer and her reader.” I would add that this holds truer to memoir than possibly any other genre. We’re all quite excited about the added focus. We hope you are to.

This Month’s Good “Muse”

We mentioned back in December longtime author/SCWCer Janis Thomas’ 2-book deal with Amazon Publishing imprint Lake Union. Slated for release come November, the jacket for the first title, What Remains True, has just been revealed. The novel’s available for pre-sale now … Before then, author/SCWCer Marlene Wagman-Geller’s Still I Rise: The Persistence of Phenomenal Women drops July 25, 2017 from Mango … And for all those devoted readers of SCWCer Evan Ramspott’s (who writes under the pen name Better Hero Army) zombie-themed saga, Plagued: The Battle Creek Zombie Rectification Experiment has just been released. The picture below is of him at this week’s signing at our favorite independent bookseller, Mysterious Galaxy.

On the awards front, Cherie Kephart won Best Memoir at the San Diego Book Awards for A Few Minor Adjustments; Eric Peterson’s The Dining Car nabbed Contemporary Fiction; Tammy Greenwood’s Where I Lost Her got General Fiction; and George Berger’s well-deserved Four Nails took Historical Fiction.

For the 2017 International Book Awards, Matthew J. Pallamary’s n0thing is a finalist in Science Fiction, and Gregory A. Fournier’s Terror in Ypsilanti: John Norman Collins Unmasked is a finalist in the True Crime: Non-Fiction category.

Good job, all. Congratulations!

Much more to come as we finish knitting September together. Discounted pre-registration for Irvine is now open. Be there or be…ware!

–Michael Steven Gregory
Executive Director, SCWC

A clenched breath bereft of staggering ambition, in the short story a writer can explore ideas that don’t necessarily warrant a book. And at their best, extraordinary short stories can deliver as lasting visceral resonance as even the most exceptionally crafted novel. While the form is a great way to hone one’s writing chops, the mindful author also understands that short stories can be key to spanning the gulf between herself and new readership—readers who may then be encouraged to buy books. And now there’s an entirely new platform devoted to reaching those readers.

Committed to discovering and publishing great short fiction in the era of the mobile reader, Great Jones Street publishes (and pays well for) stories by A-list and emerging contemporary writers daily, having already curated thousands through its unique selection process. The company’s CEO and co-founder, Kelley Abbott, who’s helped launch and grow social media, dating, and publishing products purchased by Match.com, Adobe, and Oprah, will join us as a Special Guest Speaker to discuss the company’s innovative approach.

Advance Submission Readers

Though there’s more staff to announce, we’ve decided to open Advance Submission Readers selection early as so many have been confirmed. Along with many of the workshop staff, several agents have been confirmed, including Jennifer Kim of Sandra Dijkstra Literary, Patricia Nelson of Marsal Lyon Literary, Kari Sutherland of Bradford Literary, and Justin Wells of Corvisiero Literary. If you truly believe your work is ready for prime time and elect to submit to an agent, think of the cover letter accompanying your submission being akin to a regular query letter. This handy info graphic by David R. Slayton should help nail it into shape. Check out All About Advance Submissions for even more info.

That’s about it for now. September’s conference is taking shape, and we’re quite excited about the shape it’s taking. We’re introducing several new workshops, as usual, and will start rolling them out in June. Given the amount of memoir coming through, we’ll be addressing the subject not necessarily in a track, but more substantively than we have these past few conferences. Memoir is far trickier to write for market than—at least in our experience—many realize.

As discounted Early “Bard” Pre-registration is open, register today to save more for tomorrow’s investment in you.

–Michael Steven Gregory
Executive Director, SCWC

Author and longtime SCWCer Greta Boris will be joining us for the first time as a Special Guest Speaker come September. The first two titles in her forthcoming domestic suspense Seven Deadly Sins series, A Margin of Lust and The Scent of Wrath, are out this year from Fawkes Press. Been a long time in the making and we’re thrilled to have her. Greta will also team up with Megan Haskell (The Sanyare Chronicles) to conduct “Choose Your Adventure: A Publishing Guide for Aspiring Authors,” which debuted at this past February’s San Diego conference, to substantively address the modalities and serious considerations emerging writers must now factor when choosing a path to publication. It was a hit at SD31. It’ll be must-attend again in Irvine.

Good “Muse” Abides

In anticipation of the release of his second novel, CopWorld Press has acquired the rights to SCWC director Wes Albers’ Black & White. First published to wide acclaim from both civilians and law enforcement in 2012, the novel chronicles veteran San Diego Police Department patrolman John Hatch’s efforts to solve a gruesome murder between 911 calls and breaking in a rookie partner … Following a long hiatus, author-editor Robert Yehling returns to the conference with several new titles under his belt. Voices, his latest, is a “father-daughter-daughter relationship journey set against a half-century of rock and roll.” Pub. date from Open Books Press is May 9th.

More SCWCer titles that have dropped over the past few weeks include Indy Quillen’s Pursuit, the follow-up to her debut murder mystery. This time around tracker Fox Walker is tasked by the FBI to hunt down a fugitive survivalist and former Navy SEAL, then forced to question the reasons why … Ever-prolific author Linda Thomas-Sundstrom’s Angel Unleashed brings us a vengeful angel hell-bent on recovering her wings from those who stole them centuries before … Matthew Quirk’s latest thriller, Dead Man Switch, is out in hardcover from Mulholland Books. New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder (Paranoia and Guilty Minds) declares it “A tour de force.” And if you joined us for our 2016 Irvine event, you might understand why. (Be sure to check out an excerpt from Matt’s keynote below.)

In Alan Russell’s latest mystery, The Homecoming, out June 13th from Thomas & Mercer, a young girl mysteriously returns to her family after seven years, claiming to have been abducted by extraterrestrial nomads … And though we don’t yet have a release date, we do have a cover reveal for Cherie Kephart’s eagerly awaited memoir A Few Minor Adjustments. A poem of Cherie’s, however, “Dreams,” is included in the Magee Park Poets Anthology, 2017, available now from Aionios Books.

One more bit of good “muse” is that Eric Peterson’s The Dining Car (Huckleberry House) landed an Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) Benjamin Franklin Gold Award for Popular Fiction. A rollick of a novel edited by our own Jennifer Silva Redmond–who will of course be with us in Irvine–PBS’ “Barbecue America” host and author Rick Browne proclaims it, “A glimpse into a life we all dream about, it’s also an entertaining, engaging read with a deft touch of humor.” Deserved recognition.

It never ceases to inspire, how so many in our expansive SCWC community endeavor to produce such fine work by settling only for exceptional. Congratulations and success to all!

Discounted Early “Bard” Pre-registration is now open. Register and save today. And don’t forget to join the conversation on our SCWC Facebook group, where there’s always valuable information being shared.

–Michael Steven Gregory
Executive Director, SCWC