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Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Lyn Bishop

Carla King

Host: Carla King
Guest: Lyn Bishop, Book Design Consultant
Topic: Your Book's Inner and Outer Beauty: How to create a compelling visual presence that complements your words and sells your book.

\Make the right decisions on the look for your book. Here's what authors need to know about fonts, swashes, ligatures, leading, margins, photography, color, and layout. In this presentation, we’ll use examples to demonstrate what it takes to create a compelling interior and book cover, and talk about how to work with a designer. Self-publishers will find out how much it costs to hire an interior and cover designer as well as the pluses and pitfalls of doing it yourself verses paying or trading with professionals.

Author Carla King's third self-published book, American Borders, will be released in January 2007. Lyn Bishop was the design consultant for that book, and the cover designer for Wild Writing Women: Stories of World Travel. Read more about Lyn, and be sure to check out her Wanderlust series, too.

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Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Host: Lisa Alpine
Guest: Don George, Editor (Lonely Planet)
Topic: Get published in "The Trip That Changed My Life"

Full of surprise, passion, wonder, curiosity and revelation, the 31 real-life tales in this anthology compose a kaleidoscopic portrait of the many Nowheres we visit – and the many roads we take to get there – in our lives. Contributors include Tim Cahill, Pico Iyer, Simon Winchester, Pam Houston, Jason Elliot and our own Lisa Alpine.

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Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Host: Cathleen Miller
Guest: Dr. Persis M. Karim, Editor & Professor
Topic: Writing About Place and Politics

Dr. Persis M. Karim is the editor of LET ME TELL YOU WHERE I'VE BEEN: NEW WRITING BY WOMEN OF THE IRANIAN DIASPORA (University of Arkansas Press, 2006). She is an associate professor of literature and creative writing at San Jose State and has written numerous articles about the emergence of Iranian American literature. Her poems have appeared in Caesura, Reed Magazine, HeartLodge, Alimentum and di-verse-city. She is also co-editor of A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans (George Braziller, 1999). Read more about Dr. Karim on her website.

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Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Host: Suzanne LaFetra
Guest: Alison Biggar, Editor of Chronicle Magazine
Topic: How to get published in newspapers and magazines

After 10 years of blue collar jobs (bike messenger, waitress, typesetter), Alison read a book called "Careers for English Majors and Other Geeks" and discovered there was a job called copy editing. She took the three-course copy-editing series at UC Berkeley extension, flooded the Bay Area with 32 applications and got one job at the Phoenix Journal in the Oakland Hills. From there she moved onto Diablo Publications, where she edited Giants Magazine (having never attended a baseball game), became managing editor at Diablo Magazine, and then senior editor at Examiner Magazine. She was named Editor of Chronicle Magazine one day before her second maternity leave. She lives in the Oakland hills, is married and the harried mother of an almost 6 year old and a 4 1/2 year old. She's a second generation Californian and a graduate of UCSB.

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Wednesday, July 5

Host: Pamela Michael
Guest: Aleta George
Topic: In Praise of the Generalist

This month’s guest, Aleta George, writer and columnist for Bay Nature, speaks In Praise of the Generalist. Like most writers, Aleta George is tenacious at chewing her way through external challenges and internal doubts as she builds, clip-by-clip, a freelance writing career. After bristling at the advice of seasoned professionals to specialize, Aleta has come to embrace her natural inclination as a generalist. She has found that following her heart and her own palette of interests matches her personality and gives a boost to her paychecks and portfolio. Aleta writes a quarterly column for Bay Nature magazine and is a frequent contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle and Solano Magazine. Her work has also appeared in Divide: The University of Colorado's Journal of Ideas, KQED Perspectives, Skirt!, Writer’s Digest Writer-on-Line, and several Traveler’s Tales anthologies. She also has a piece coming up in West, The Los Angeles Times Magazine.

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Wednesday, June 7

Guest: Camille Cusumano
Host: Jacqueline Harmon Butler
Topic: The Travel Essay versus the Travel Story
 
Camille Cusumano, editor of several travel anthologies, will speak about the travel essay versus the travel story -- literary versus "pop" consumption travel. She will be presenting her latest book in a series of travel anthologies: Mexico, a Love Story, and will also talk about the France and Italy versions. Camille has invited contributors from all three books, so join us for a lively evening of travel story questions and answers.

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Wednesday, May 3
Guest: Danny O. Snow
Host: Lisa Alpine
Topic: Two Roads, One Destination: a workshop on self-publishing, courtesy of Lulu.com
 
Danny O. Snow, an author, publisher and journalist specializing in new publishing technologies, will do a live, hands-on demonstration of how to turn your manuscript into a real book in one hour at Lulu.com. Lulu is a new kind of "print-on-demand" self-publishing technology with no fees or minimums that's available to anyone. Read more about Lulu, as reported by the BBC.

--- May Salon Report ---

A big thanks to this salon report t Laurie King - Get her Travel Writers News in your inbox every month. Sign up at http://www.laurieking.com/news/index.html)

Salon Report: It's a Lulu

The May Wild Writing Women salon was a great inspiration: Danny O. Snow gave us a demo of Lulu.com's self-publishing technology. In the space of an hour, he uploaded, formatted, and prepared a book for print. (OK, it was only three short chapters, and he skipped the table of contents, but we got the idea.)

The Lulu site is easy to use, guides you all the way, and lets you choose from multiple sizes and formats for your book. The best part is, you can prepare and preview your entire book without spending a cent, or even submitting your credit card info. And you can produce your book in a minimum quantity of one. For a reasonable price.

Not only that, but you don't have to worry about warehousing and fulfillment, because the Lulu site manages all that, too. You decide on your price, direct buyers to the site, they order the book; Lulu produces and ships it, takes their money, and puts a few bucks into your Paypal account.

As salon host Lisa Alpine said (I'm paraphrasing): It inspires me to get going on my book, because now I don't have to wait until I've sold it; I can print it myself as soon as I've written the last few chapters.

--Laurie King

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Wednesday, April 5
Host: Carla King
Guest: Lin Lacombe
Topic: PUBLICITY & PROMOTION: Put together a plan to market your writing now!

Lin Lacombe is an independent publicity consultant based in Sausalito who will discuss the art of publicity and promotion for published and unpublished authors, short story writers, and journalists. She'll give us information on how to attract media in print, on the web, on the air, at industry conferences, and more. Lin recently participated in Get Published seminar in San Anselmo, speaking on independent book publishing and marketing, and her session was packed!

Lin is involved in many media and publishing organizations. She serves as Vice President of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, and Vice Present/Public Relations Chair of the Women's National Book Association. Lin has experience in creating successful local and national strategic public relations, marketing, and media campaigns and events not only for publishing, but for hi-tech, financial, and business.

--- April Salon Report ---

The salon was wonderfully informative--Lin is a great speaker and passed on a lot of valuable information. Many San Francisco writers were in attendance. Among them were:

Laurel Tielis, author, The Girl's Guide to Getting on Top
Jody Weiner, Prisoners of Truth
Nancy Calef, painter
Rik Isensee - author
Elaine Merrill - proofreader
John Burns - author, The Many Adventures of Pengey Penguin
Jeanne Powell, poet
Jean Feilmoser, writer and SF tour guide
Laura Kiniry, author (Moon Handbooks: New Jersey)
Barbara Traub, photographer/author: Desert to Dream: A Decade of Burning Man photography
Christine Arylo, author, What Every Woman Should Ask Before She Says Yes
Debbie Elkington, writer, videographer

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Wednesday, March 1
Host: Pamela Michael
Guest: Larry Habegger
Topic: The Art and Craft of the Personal Travel Story

Larry Habegger is a travel writer, editor, journalist, and teacher who has been covering the world since his international travels began in the 1970s. A freelance writer for more than two decades and syndicated columnist since 1985, his work has appeared in many major newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Travel & Leisure, and Outside. In 1993 he founded the award-winning Travelers' Tales books with James and Tim O'Reilly and is currently executive editor. Larry is an expert in the field of travel safety and security and an inspiring writing teacher and coach, emphasizing the craft and art of the personal travel story. He is an experienced radio guest and public speaker on the subjects of travel writing and travel safety, and he regularly teaches at writing conferences. He lives with his family on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. More about Larry.

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February 1, 2005
Guest: Candice Hern
Host: Jacqueline Harmon Butler
Topic:  The joys of writing, and reading, romance novels

Candice Hern is an award-winning author of historical romance novels. Her books have twice appeared on the prestigious Library Journal "Best of Year" lists (2002 and 2004), and her awards include the HOLT Medallion, the Golden Quill, the CRW Award of Excellence, the Booksellers' Best Award, the Write Touch Readers' Award, and the Dorothy Parker Award of Excellence.  She writes stories set during the English Regency, ie the era of Jane Austen, and she prides herself on the extensive research that goes into each book. Her 12th novel, the first in a new trilogy, will be released on February 7.  Candice will be talking about how she became a romance novelist, why she loves it, and why she thinks the genre is so popular.

For further information about Candice, please go to:
http://www.candicehern.com

January 4, 2006
Host:  Cathleen Miller
Topic: Interviewing techniques

We begin our fifth year of salons at the Monticello Inn with a night of insights and stories garnered during Wild Writing Woman Cathleen Miller's around-the-world trip. To research her forthcoming biography of UN leader, Nafis Sadik, she interviewed sources ranging from the prime minister of Norway to the Masai tribe, from a 35-year-old Argentine congresswoman to an HIV-infected prostitute in Bangkok. With aplomb, our intrepid traveler has survived the terrorist bombings in Bali, rats in her couchette, and propositions from men on five continents. Join us as this internationally bestselling author shares what she's learned about the art of the interview, the fight for reproductive rights, and life on the road.