Author: joanna

Meeting James Patterson at The Palm Beach Book Festival

It’s Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done. This week: I Discover The World’s Bestselling Author is Also A Super Nice Guy.

How do you introduce an author who has sold more than 300 million copies of his thrillers worldwide to a standing- room- only audience at a book festival?  This is how Lois Cahall, founder and organizer of the Palm Beach Book Festival, did it last week at the Harriet Himmel Theatre, City Place, West Palm Beach.  She told the audience that at one point while organizing the third annual book festival, she realized she had booked only non-fiction writers to appear on the festival panels. “So, I went out to look around for someone who writes fiction,” she said, ” and I found this guy.” Continue reading “Meeting James Patterson at The Palm Beach Book Festival”

Summer Sayonara

It’s Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done. This week: When the Season Shuts Down. Continue reading “Summer Sayonara”

Telling A Good Story

Cards created by the women of Burckle Place

It’s News Squib Saturday. Time to share the best, most interesting (or most entertaining, or most outrageous) tidbit of information I’ve gleaned from all the stuff I’ve read –or done. This week: There’s More Than One Way to Tell Your Story

About a year ago, I purchased a box of all-purpose cards during a fundraiser for The Lords Place, a non-sectarian, non-profit organization that provides housing and other services for the homeless of Palm Beach County. Continue reading “Telling A Good Story”

Writers Rate The Four-Day Novel Workshop

It’s Squib Saturday and, as promised last week, for anyone who is thinking of attending a writers’ conference or workshop, I am publishing the comments of my fellow writers about the effects and benefits of attending the four-day Algonkian novel workshop recently in St. Augustine, Florida. I can honestly say I loved their company during the workshop (okay, the happy hours, too!) It was absolutely terrific to be with writers genuinely dedicated to improving their craft and their story-telling. Continue reading “Writers Rate The Four-Day Novel Workshop”

Do Writing Workshops Really Work?

 

View from our workshop in St. Augustine, FL

It’s Squib Saturday, and it’s also about a month since I returned from the Algonkian Author-Mentor Novel Workshop in St. Augustine, Florida.  I was horrified to realize that in the last month I have not written a single word for my new thriller. Which brought me to the $64,000 question: Do writing workshops really work? Continue reading “Do Writing Workshops Really Work?”