Additional Opportunities for Writers

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine


Here on Suite T a few weeks ago, I blogged about some immediate opportunities that writers can get in on.  Today, I'd like to update you on some of them and add a couple of new ones to the mix.

SHORT STORY CONTEST 2017
First, I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you that the deadline for our 6th annual Short Story Fiction Contest is this Thursday night, June 15th.  If you haven't sent in your <1500 word story yet, the $250 first prize might be the right incentive! The easy guidelines are online.
http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/shorts.html

WHERE WRITERS WRITE
Secondly, I want to thank all the authors who jumped right on the mag's new "Where Writers Write" feature, sending us photos of your work spaces. It's fascinating and fun to get a glimpse of the very spots where great books have come into being. We are full for the July/August issue of Southern Writers, but if you get us your photo and description by July 1st, there's a good chance you'll make it in the September/October issue. Visit http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/promos-2017.html

SIGNINGS AND SELF-PROMOTION
We knew you guys were clever, but some of the promotions you've cooked up and sent us photos of for this upcoming feature have been downright inspiring. If you've developed a creative giveaway for marketing your masterpieces or have a photo from a book signing you're proud of, show it off in Southern Writers Magazine.  http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/promos-2017.html

TITLE WAVE
We've been getting in some very entertaining submissions for this article about how book titles were changed before publication, and the reasonings behind each one. Got a story to share about the evolution of your book's title? Tell us about it at http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/promos-2017.html

GALLERY OF STARS
Each week our online Gallery of Stars gets a ton of visitors seeking to discover authors and new releases (it's only Tuesday and we've already gotten 1,200 hits this week). If you write books, you should be in there! All Southern Writers subscribers are offered a FREE author page in the Gallery. Even if you have your own website (and you do, don't you?), the Gallery is a solid and steadily-seen addition to your promotional platform. Details are at the bottom of this alpha list of authors. As you can see, you'll be in good company! http://authors.southernwritersmagazine.com

SUMMER WRITERS CONFERENCES
The season is heating up with lots of choices that would make a terrific destination for a summer vacation while you regain your writing mojo and get friendly with your fellow wordsmiths. Coming right up, for example, is the popular Mystery Fest Key West this Friday thru Sunday, June 16-18 (www.mysteryfestkeywest.com). Other soon-to-come conferences are in Alabama, Missouri, Virginia, West Virginia, and Nashville, to mention a few. You'll find this summer's offerings at: http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/conferences.html

As you can see, there are lots of opportunities to get the word out about your books and to recharge your literary battery this summer. What a great time to be a Southern writer!

Collaborative Beauty

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine


Each time I attend a writers conference, as I had the pleasure of doing this weekend, I come away with a renewed sense of the community spirit that writers share.  It's a brotherhood and sisterhood unique in the fact that we all have something to say.  Not only do we respect each other's right to say it, but we're eager to help each other do so.

The folks who visited my table for 15-minute one-on-ones were all promising writers with diverse interests: songwriting, playwriting, creative fiction, and more.  They were each working on projects at various stages of completion.  But what they all had in common was the question, "Now what do I do?"

My first question back to them is to find out whether they have a platform for promoting their work. I'm quick to recommend Edie Melson's comprehensive but easy read, Connections: Social Media and Networking Techniques for Writers.  Lots of books offer advice on using Facebook for marketing, but few address specific promotional tactics to help writers develop an online audience, and Edie has practiced what she preaches with great success.

To those who want to know how to approach a publisher with what they've written, I then pull out my copy of W. Terry Whalin's Book Proposals That $ell: 21 Secrets to Speed Your Success.  From coming up with an elevator pitch to putting together the whole presentation package, Terry's voice of experience as an acquisitions editor has helped countless writers learn how to get their feet in the door and their manuscripts looked at.

Occasionally, I can even answer a writer's question without the aid of a book! But in moments like these I'm reminded of how grateful I am for Terry and Edie.  I'm especially grateful that they contribute their talents to each issue of Southern Writers Magazine.

As a huge movie buff, I have an affinity for the insights of screen and stage writer Shelly Frome, who left his mark in the Big Apple before taking up roots as a Southern novelist.  Shelly's articles on screenwriting also appear in each issue.  He explores themes, scenes, character motivations and much more from an insider's perspective.  If you like to ponder the psychology of what's on the silver screen, Shelly is the man in the director's chair.

Acclaimed Virginia poet and author Sara M. Robinson is one busy gal.  In fact, she presented at another convention herself just a few weeks ago.  But she finds time to contribute her deep thoughts via "Poetry Matters" in each issue.  Her ability to analyze prose and its purpose is of TED Talk caliber.

C. Hope Clark is another regular in the mag who parlays her talents as a novelist into valuable instruction, in this case on writing dialogue.  You can catch a glimpse of Hope's enviable ear for the spoken word via an entertaining new video she and I collaborated on, called What Rhett and Scarlett Can Teach Writers About Dialogue at bit.ly/RhettWrite

What can I say about Steve Bradshaw besides that he is a scholar and a gentleman, and has seen more corpses than Vlad the Impaler? Well, that's been a necessary evil in his career as a forensic investigator, biotech entrepreneur, and now a celebrated mystery author. His articles in each issue dig into medicine and murder as only someone who has investigated over 3.000 unexplained deaths can do, so that you don't have to.

We couldn't do what we do without those talented folks, much less the 30 to 40 authors who appear in each issue and an awesome writing staff that includes Vicki H. Moss, Chris Pepple, Jessica Ferguson, Londa Hayden, Barbara Ragsdale, and Annette Cole Mastron, who also makes this very blog you're reading happen.  Put them all together with our fearless leader, Editor-in-Chief Susan Reichert, and it adds up to a collaboration much greater than the sum of its parts.

This is not so much a shameless plug for the magazine (although it is!) as much as a well-deserved plug for these authors and any others who sacrifice their own precious book-writing time to show other writers how it's done. We never take them for granted, and I hope when you meet them at a conference, you'll take a moment to thank them too.

Three Reasons Writers Need a BFF

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine


From Casper the Friendly Ghost to flying the friendly skies, from "You've Got a Friend" to "Friends are Friends Forever", everyone acknowledges the value of a good friendship.  But writers receive some unique, specific rewards from that coveted alliance.  Be a pal and check them out.

1. EXPOSITION 
In fiction, a writer's best friend can be the friend they give their protagonist.  Far from playing second fiddle in the story, a well-crafted companion can open the door for revealing interaction and dialogue. Instead of banging the audience over the head with facts, details conveyed comfortably in a conversation feel perfectly natural, and can even disguise their eventual importance to the story.

In Veronica Roth's blockbuster Divergent series, the first friend Tris makes when entering the intimidating new world she has chosen is Christina.  Roth cleverly chose to make Christina a "Candor", whose outspoken observations are a steady source of revelation and discovery.

2. ASSOCIATION
"No man is an island," said poet John Donne (whose name not only rhymes, but who gave us another famous saying in the same discourse, the one about for whom the bell tolls).  His point was, of course, that we are social creatures who need each other.  Those of us writers who thrive on creative isolation and would rather take a road trip to Alaska alone than attend a spouse's Christmas party may find it against the grain to do the people thing, but a good writers group is the ideal way to step off the island and get one's feet wet.

Communing one-on-one with others of the same intention is inspiring and eye-opening.  Besides sharing the contagious writing bug, the variety of fresh perspectives in a writers group is limited only by the the imaginations of the attendees.  If your group offers critique sessions, take advantage of them, and offer your own constructive criticism.  Friends don't let friends write junk.

To be an even steeper leaper into literacy, check out writers conferences. The many offered each year means there's one coming to a city near you.  An intensive weekend of focused enlightenment in the company of peers and professionals is something all serious writers should experience for themselves, and those who do it once will often become regular attendees. You'll find many of this year's conferences on the Southern Writers website at: 
http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/2014-conferences.html 

3. COLLABORATION
If we're honest with ourselves, not all of us are meant to collaborate.  Depending on our personality type, we may indeed flourish in a literary partnership, or we may require the satisfaction of knowing every single word was our own.  But regardless of how we approach our prose, we are all collaborators in the sense that we learn from and echo each other.

One of my favorite collaborative teams is that of Lisa Wingate and Julie Cantrell. Highly-regarded authors in their own right, these longtime friends are an example of the support and productivity that like-minded wordsmiths can gain from one another.

Far from keeping this valuable gift all to themselves, they reach out to all writers via their Facebook page, The Writer's Jar, a place where you can take part in the writing conversation.  And we're very proud to announce that Julie and Lisa will now be allying with Southern Writers Magazine via a new feature debuting in the July issue, in which we get to eavesdrop on their private conversations with other leading authors.

As writers, we share the enviable mission of capturing the world as we see it and translating it for those who walk this earth with us. As C.S. Lewis said, "Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'"