Saturday, September 27, 2014

Bainton Gallery, 423 Queen Street, Blyth

9:15am-11:15am, $20/per person

Choose out of three dynamic writing workshops.

Self-Editing 2, with Melanie Chambers

Following up on last years' successful Workshop Melanie helps you make the leap from a good writer to a great writer by sharing great editing tips and tricks. From substantial structural editing to fine tuning sentences and words, we will dissect samples, as well as your writing, to ensure a crisp and tight publishable piece. Students will also get to play editor as we edit each others' work. *Please bring a maximum two page sample of your work. Pens and notebooks will be provided.

Melanie Chambers is a writer, magazine editor and a Western University instructor. She has gained recognition for editing commercial publications as well as providing travel articles for The Globe and Mail and Grand Magazine, and also for developing Frommer's Niagara Region guidebook among many other feats. She is a well-travelled writer and enthusiastic reader with a lively presentation style that is sure to captivate the attention of aspiring literati.

Research for Writers – Beyond Google, with Jodi Jerome

Sometimes getting the facts isn't as simple as googling.  Sometimes it's about digging deeper, exploring avenues or backdoors you hadn't thought to go through.  Discuss fact-checking as well as the ins and outs of researching – where to find all that juicy information for your articles, poems, novels – for writers of all genres.

Jodi Jerome is a writer, editor, historian, poet and researcher. She has published 2 history books, poetry, a local trail guide and edited an upcoming autobiography of Malcolm Lamont about the first years of settlement in the Wingham area, in addition to helping writers from the Toronto Star and Walrus magazine research articles on Alice Munro. She also assisted Robert Thacker with his biography of Alice Munro and Donald Smith on his book, Honore Jaxon. She is currently researching her own book on Alice Munro and launching an online project on the Men of the 161st Huron Battalion.

Beyond Print: Getting Creative with Social Media with Brian Francis

Thanks to technology and social media platforms, today’s writers have an unprecedented array of opportunities to use as their canvas. But no one wants to read a novel on Twitter. Or spend all of their time looking at an author’s vacation photos. So what are the best ways to utilize social media to further your own creativity and reach new readers? Author Brian Francis explores the ins and outs of the technology and social media platforms available to writers, including Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Instagram, as well as self-publishing options, to help emerging writers find their voice – and their readers – in our modern world.

Brian Francis is the author of two critically acclaimed novels. His most recent, Natural Order, was selected by the Toronto Star, Kobo and Georgia Straight as a Best Book of 2011. The book was shortlisted for a 2012 Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award. His first novel, Fruit, was a 2009 Canada Reads finalist and was selected as a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers title. His fiction has also appeared in 07: Best Canadian Stories. Francis is a former recipient of the Writers’ Union of Canada’s Emerging Author Award. He lives in Toronto.

All workshops will take place at the Bainton Gallery, 423 Queen Street, Blyth