Clinics meet during the two hour-long workshops each day (for a total of six hours) making it possible for participants also to attend a continuing session. Those accepted for one of the clinics must be registered for the entire conference and pay an additional $65 upon acceptance.
Because the clinics will not be taped, we will do our best not to schedule your one-on-one appointments or any paid critiques during this time. A laptop computer is strongly encouraged to get the most out of the clinic.
Your application must be received by e-mail no later than July 8. You will be notified whether or not you have been accepted by July 13.
Click here for application.
Nancy Rue
Author, Mentor Limit 12 participants
www.nancyrue.com
Nancy comes to the mentoring table with a wealth of experience: 30 years writing both fiction and nonfiction for middle grade, YA, new adult, and adult audiences and 42 years teaching creative writing. She has over 100 published books for adults, teens, and tweens. While continuing to write, Nancy has expanded her ministry through her Writers Mentorship Program to mentor new authors who are led to a writing ministry of their own.
If prior to the conference you will have a completed first draft of your manuscript in any fiction genre, including middle grade or young adult, Nancy will guide you in making your work richer, deeper, and more polished in readiness for submission to agents and editors. Interactive presentations and in-class exercises based on the students’ own work will include:
Strengthening plot
Deepening character
Enriching detail
Improving dialogue
Fine-tuning imagery
Expressing your “message”
Developing the needed platform
Writing a synopsis
Putting together a proposal
Writing a query letter
Writing a series
Revising your own work
Each student will receive written feedback on his/her writing sample.
To be considered for this clinic you’ll need to complete the application and submit a 1 to 2 page synopsis and the first 500 words from your book by July 8. Again, a completed first draft is a pre-requisite, on the honor system. We trust you’ll respect that.
Bill Watkins Limit 6 participants
President, Literary Solutions
Senior Editor, BroadStreet Publishing Group
Award-winning Author
Bill is the president of Literary Solutions and senior editor at BroadStreet Publishing Group. He is an award-winning author with 7 published books and about 150 other kinds of writing, including essays, articles, dictionary entries, booklets, pamphlets, study guides, book reviews, and opinion pieces. In his editing work, which has often included book acquisitions, he has worked with Thomas Nelson, Marvel, Bethany House, Baker Books, Chalice Press, Moody Press, NavPress, Broadman & Holman, Authentic, Servant, and the American Center for Law and Justice. He loves to teach and mentor aspiring writers, and he has worked with hundreds of writers, helping a large number of them find publishing homes for their manuscripts. In his 35-plus years in publishing, he has worked with such authors as Mike Huckabee (the former governor of Arkansas), William Bennett (the former US Secretary of Education), Charles R. Swindoll, Josh McDowell, Norman L. Geisler, Leslie Vernick, Paula Rinehart, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Dallas Willard, Peter Kreeft, Gary Habermas, Cecil Murphey, Jo Kadlecek, and George Grant.
?In this hands-on clinic, you will learn the six most important questions to developing a nonfiction book, and you will receive the help you need to answer those questions in relation to your own book idea. You will also work on your book’s focus, table of contents, and opening chapter to help ensure that your book can reach its intended audience with the message you wish to present. This clinic is open to all writers who are serious about writing a nonfiction book.
Click here for the application. In addition to completing the application, you will need to email your first chapter (double spaced), a one-to-three-paragraph overview of your book, plus a descriptive table of contents (i.e., chapter titles with a single paragraph description under each title that briefly tells what that chapter will cover). All are due no later than July 8. Please save all documents as ONE file in Word 2003-2007 or in RTF.
Prerequisite: A serious commitment to complete a nonfiction book, a first chapter, overview, and table of contents.
On acceptance: You will receive the first chapter, overview, and table of contents of the other clinic participants that you will need to read before the conference.
Pam Halter & Kim Sponaugle Limit 8 participants
C
Writing for kids is not easy!
Award-winning author/illustrator team, Pam and Kim, love picture books! This clinic will break down the picture book process in such a way that participants will leave with a manuscript that is ready to submit to a traditional house or self publish with confidence.
Prerequisite – Applicants need to have a finished picture book manuscript (Christian or a story that does not oppose Christian values) under 1,000 words. They do not have to be published (or self-published).
Click here for application that you will need to submit along with your book manuscript no later than July 8. Please submit in Word 2003-2007 or RTF.
On acceptance you will receive via email a copy of what others in the clinic have submitted that you will need to read before the conference.
