(l-r) Lisa Meltzer Penn, Birgit Soyka, Adele Langendorf, Pam Reitman, Mary Hower, Joe Ramelo, (seated l-r) Kate Britton, Juliane Cortino, Mary E. Knippel

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the WNBA-SF Open Mic Reading at Keplers last Friday. Members and guests networked, sharing what they are working on and milestones they had achieved. Both published authors and writers with works-in-progress took us on a creative journey with their inspirational and moving pieces. Subjects ranged from the frozen tundra of Alaska, classroom interactions, the glories of gardening, the courage to face life’s challenges, battling breast cancer and more.

My sincere thanks on behalf of WNBA-SF to Keplers for providing us with such a welcoming environment, to everyone who joined me at the podium, and to those who came to witness our readings.

Mary E. Knippel,

WNBA-SF Open Mic Chair and Immediate Past President

http://wnba-sfchapter.org/ Saturday, March 27^th, 2010 in San Francisco

Pitch Tips for WNBA-SF Chapter’s Speed Dating/Meet the Agents, Acquisition Editors, & Publishers Event

“Make Every Word Count When Pitching to Agents or Acquisition Editors”
by WNBA-SF Chapter Board Member and Writing Career Coach Teresa LeYung Ryan

You have spent months, perhaps years, writing and rewriting your project/work.  And, you’ve decided to pursue either an agent (who earns his/her commission when he/she sells a client’s work to a publishing house) or an acquisition editor (whose job is to buy authors’ works for the publishing house he/she works for). Let’s say you’ve done your homework and have compiled a list of agents or acquisition editors who specialize in the kind of project (commodity) you wish to sell.

An agent or acquisition editor receives hundreds of pitches/query letters each week.  What can you do to catch these folks’ attention?  Use the right bait.  Make every word count.

Whether you’re pitching in person, over the telephone, through an E-Mail, or by old-fashion mail, keep this in mind—the pitch (bait) has three components:
•    who needs your project
•    the unique qualities about your commodity
•    why you are the perfect author for this work

Here are 4 examples:

Genre: Self Help / Relationship / Marriage

The 50% and 60% divorce rates, for first and second marriages respectively, are a wake-up call for the United States 55.2 million married couples.

Through my book, I empower couples to get the marriage they’ve always wanted.

The Marriage Meeting Program: 45 Minutes a Week to Guarantee the Long Term Relationship You’ve Always Wanted shows how to conduct a weekly meeting that increases intimacy, romance, teamwork, and smoother conflict resolution.

A proactive, preventive approach is crucial. Regardless of how good a relationship is, there is always a need to keep it on track and room for it to grow. The Marriage Meeting Program’s step-by-step approach makes it easy to conduct the meetings. Follow-up studies show a 20 to 80 percent increase in marital happiness for couples who implement the program.

I am Marcia Naomi Berger, a psychotherapist, writer, speaker, workshop leader, and instructor of a class for therapists and counselors at the University of California Berkeley Extension. http://www.marriagemaven.com

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Genre: Memoir

There are more than 38-million boom-generation women in this country.  Through my book, I show middle-aged women how to cope with family and social pressures while dealing with their own mortality issues.

My memoir, Oldham Street, is about my journey from east coast to west bearing the pain of a son in prison, the long slow death of my father, the end of my counseling career and a ten-year relationship.  I knocked on a lemon-colored door on a short block in San Francisco.  In the next twelve years, the woman who opened that door, along with the other quirky characters in the neighborhood, inadvertently joined me in a process that brought me home to myself and into a comfortable role as the matriarch of my tribe.

I am Lynn Scott:

• author of A Joyful Encounter: My Mother, My Alzheimer Clients, and Me (a memoir about the abundance of spirit that I found among my Alzheimer clients).

• contributor to eight anthologies of fiction, memoir, and poetry.

• a guest on OPRAH and other talk shows trying to educate others about the mental disorder causing child molestation.

http://lynnscottbooks.com

http://lynnscott.wordpress.com

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Genre: Women’s Fiction

Recent survey data indicates that 22% of the 55,000,000+ married women admit to having an extramarital affair. STAYING AFLOAT is the story of one of these women –although she wouldn’t have admitted it if she hadn’t gotten caught.

Crystal Scott is a stable and stalwart, stay-at-home wife and mother, aiming only to run an efficient home, care for her children and avoid confrontation.  Whatever her private thoughts are, she keeps them to herself.  But when her husband loses his job and shows no signs of looking for another, fault lines in their marriage are exposed.  She’s forced to re-enter the workforce, and when her dazzling, dynamic boss takes a personal interest in her, she slips into territory that most women have fantasized about, even if they don’t want to admit it — she morphs into a sex-starved adulteress.

I am Judith Marshall, author of the award-winning novel, HUSBANDS MAY COME AND GO BUT FRIENDS ARE FOREVER. I’ve been writing for thirteen years and am a member of the California Writers Club and the Women’s National Book Association. In addition, I am the President of Human Resources Consulting Services and a member of the faculty of the Council on Education in Management, for whom I teach a number of public seminars on a variety of HR-relates topics. I’m currently working on my third novel, BITTER ACRES.
http://judithmarshall.net/

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Genre: Women’s Fiction / Humor

39%  of the 68 million women employed in the U.S. work in management, professional, and related occupations. Through my book Katie Carlisle, I show women how to hold onto their integrity, humor, and vision . . . in spite of having to fight sexism in the corporate world.

Katie Carlisle has been lucky enough to have a mentor (her boss) who has taken her to a point where her promotion is pretty well guaranteed.  Only then everything goes wrong.  Her beloved mentor leaves the company under a cloud; his successor is a man whom Katie hates and fears; and a downward spiral in her fortunes starts.  This is the story of a smart woman’s struggle to hold onto her integrity, humor and vision in spite of the tumult around her—and her eventual triumph.

I am Margaret Davis.  I have a doctorate from Stanford University in Sociology, with a specialization in the structure and behavior of formal organizations.  I have had two non-fiction books published in my field.  Katie Carlisle, a humorous spoof on everyday life in a large corporation, is a work of fiction.  Yet, as many of my readers have commented, “Everyone who has ever worked in a big company will relate to and love this book.”

I am also the author of Straight Down the Middle, a family drama involving a young mother’s efforts to do what is best for her child while trying to come to terms with her own sexuality.
http://margaretdavisbooks.com/

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Writing Career Coach Teresa will help you practice your pitch
at WNBA’s  “Meet the Agents, Editors, & Publishers”
on March 27, 2010   http://wnba-sfchapter.org

Teresa LeYung Ryan is:
*   Board member at WNBA-SF Chapter since 2004
*    Author with agent and NY publisher
*   Writing career coach
*    Past president of California Writers Club-SF Peninsula Branch
*    Library advocate

Writing Career Coach Teresa is the author of  Build Your Name, Beat the Game: Be Happily Published (a 22-day workbook for writers to build their names and attract attention and fans before and after publication).   http://WritingCoachTeresa.com

As a community spirit, Teresa LeYung Ryan uses her novel Love Made of Heart to:
• shed light on stigmas suffered by immigrant women, men, and children
• advocate understanding of mental illness/traumas to the mind
• help survivors of violence find their own voices through writing
www.LoveMadeOfHeart.com

COME ONE, COME ALL to help us Celebrate the Joy of Shared Reading…

By Lynn Henriksen, President WNBA-SF

 …and the chance to win delicious raffle prizes donated by several neighborhood merchants, including Pacific Catch, Max’s, Ciao Bella, Izzy’s, and Book Passage. We’ll also toast our 10 sister chapters around the country with a wee bit o’ the bubbly and sparkling water.

Three superb novelists are the main attraction, of course, for our 3^rd annual National Reading Group Month event at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Thursday, October 15^th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

I promise you that the evening will be spirited, informative, and entertaining with Tanya Egan Gibson, C.W. Gortner, and Kathi Kamen Goldmark front and center. C.W. Gortner will bring you insight into his intriguing and highly adventurous historical novel, The Last Queen, and what’s next from him. Kathi will read about one fabulous character (her health-food-obsessed mom, Betty) from both a fictional and a nonfiction perspective. Kathi warns, “Bring your own wheat grass juice.” Tanya will moderate the evening, read, and talk about writing her critically acclaimed debut novel, How to Buy a Love of Reading, where you’re sure to fall in love with reading all over again. We aren’t suggesting the love of reading is something to be bought, but we know you’ll be inspired to buy these authors’ praise-worthy books.

      Many thanks to our partners for this event: Book Passage for their steadfast support of authors,  books, and writing; and Whole Foods Market of Mill Valley for providing specialty foods. 

 ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Tanya Egan Gibson’s debut novel, How to Buy a Love of Reading, was release in May, 2009. She was born and raised on Long Island’s south shore, the“Egg”-less side of the island Fitzgerald didn’t write about. She earned a B.A. in English from Cornell University and an M.A. from the University of Washington. She began writing How to Buy a Love of Reading ten years ago, while teaching high school English. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children.

Kathi Kamen Goldmark is the author of And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, a novel; co-author of The Great Rock & Roll Joke Book, and Mid-Life Confidential: the Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude; and has contributed essays to several anthologies—including Feed Me! (edited by Harriet Brown). With her husband, Sam Barry, she writes a monthly aspiring-writer-advice column in BookPage called “The Author Enablers.” A 2007 San Francisco Library Laureate and winner of the 2008 National Women’s Book Association award, Kathi is the founder and a member of the all-author rock band the Rock Bottom Remainders, president and janitor of “Don’t Quit Your Day Job” Records, Author Liaison for many high-profile literary events—including Book Group Expo and the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library annual Laureates Dinner—and the producer of the nationally-distributed radio show West Coast Live.  

C. W. Gortner is the author of The Last Queen (Ballantine Books). This book takes a look at the life of Juana of Castile, the last queen of Spanish blood to inherit her country’s throne, and it is highly praised by Publisher’s Weekly. Half-Spanish by birth, Gortner holds an M.F.A. in writing, with an emphasis on historical studies, from the New College of California and has taught university courses on women of power in the Renaissance.  He was raised in Málaga, Spain, and now lives in California.  He is currently at work on his next book, which is about Catherine de Medici and will be released by Ballantine Books in 2010.  Visit him at www.cwgortner.com.

REVIEWS OF AUTHORS’ BOOKS:

Our own Elisa Southard showered this praise on Goldmark, “The novel, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You by Kathi Kamen Goldmark, was written with a lot of style. Goldmark explored family issues with wonderful rhythm, compassion, and humor, as the protagonist, Sarah Jean Pixlie, gets her big break in the country music scene. And if you love Northern California, this is a local read that will take your imagination far.”

My reviews for Gibson and Gortner:

Captivating Throne of Passion, Juana la Loca of Spain: Juana’s courage, strength, and passion amazed me as The Last Queen came of age so vividly under C.W. Gortner’s admirable pen. This historical novel is fraught with crushing battles of power and chilling intrigue throughout the courts of her parents, Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, and of her husband, Philip of Flanders, as the Infanta of Spain attempts to take her rightful place on the thrown she inherited from her mother.

My soul was struck as I witnessed…click here for complete review.

Can’t buy me love, no, no, no, no: I would characterize Tanya Egan Gibson’s delicious debut novel, How to Buy a Love of Reading, as love stories between three couples even though ‘love story’ isn’t the premise of her book. Or is it?  But these love stories come with a twist, wherein the power of choice prevails as the characters literally rewrite their stories, their lives, and their fate. Actually there are three tales of love within two parallel stories.

In this is complex novel Gibson’s characters are very much…click here for complete review.

It happened at the 2009 Meet-the-Agents/Editors event!

By Mary Jo McConahay

“Only connect,” counsels E.M. Forster. I had begun to think the British novelist invented the phrase for would-be authors and their would-be agents.   My book project had moved along considerably in 18 months, but where did one go from here?

 As I wrote, researched, and rewrote, I made sure I also was “putting myself out there” at literary events, just as the manuals advise. I met one or two agents, amenable but failing to connect to me or to my work, and I, unable to connect with them.  I even bid at a benefit auction, for lunch and pitch time with an agent whose name you would know; as other bidders peeled off, I got scared, but raised the prize $10.00 each time against those who remained.  The poor agent would be my captive audience; I would order something that didn’t stick in my teeth; after a last glass of Napa Merlot, I would walk out past the kind of dustless palms that grow only in restaurants, a represented author.  When the bidding reached $700.00, I quit.

No one had ever told me getting an agent might be the hard part. 

Now a chance was coming to talk not just to one agent, but a dozen, each pledged to give me three full minutes of attention.  The process, unfamiliar to me, had a name I kept referring to mistakenly as “Kiss and Tell.”  By the time I reached the Women’s National Book Association venue, I knew to call it, “Speed Dating.”

Last March I joined a hundred other men and women from the WNBA San Francisco Chapter at Sinbad’s Restaurant for its annual Meet the Agents event.  From the windows, views of the Bay were the blue of dreams, and expansive enough to calm the most nervous.  I won’t say I wasn’t a little jittery as I looked around the room, at the agents waiting at their little tables, and before each, folks like me lined up in orderly queues.  

From the WNBA website, I had taken down the agents’ names days before, and researched them as thoroughly as I might have fact-checked a sentence in my book.  One specialized in novels – not my genre – but had once written about geography similar to that in my book, so she ranked on my list anyway.  Another had represented a National Book Award nominee, that again, was fiction, but rooted in the country I described, so I considered that a bridge.  With one agent I could see no point of contact at all, except that his last name was Polish, like my mother’s; I decided I was not above using any contact point, real, or a stretch, with anyone behind a table, and would talk to him, too.

There was one particular agent I hoped would love me, or at least be drawn to my project, because I really liked his life story (you can find anything on Google), and non-fiction specialty.  Others I would have been perfectly happy with.  Only one fell into my category of any port in a storm, but if she liked my project, I would admit to having misjudged. You’ll notice the hubris with which I walked into that room, and stood in the lines: as if any of the men or women there would take me as a client, I who had a good writing record, but new in the book publishing world. However, without possessing, or pretending to posses, the confidence that I would “only connect” with someone, I would never have had the nerve to subject myself to the strange, but unexpectedly enjoyable, process.

By the end of the morning, I had talked to every agent, some of the WNBA officers, and many other writers, and learned something from each one.  As I find the opening lines of a chapter to be, the first was the hardest.

“Have you got something I can read?”

No hello. I handed over Chapter 1.

“What is this supposed to mean? ‘Surf line.’ What is that?”

Damn, I knew I should have cut it. 

First lesson: Follow your gut.

His voice was loud. I felt like disappearing into to the Ladies’ Room.  He continued to read silently.

“Good,” he said, and gave me his card, without ceremony.

When I stood to leave, he did too, and put an avuncular arm around me.

“Send it, please.”

Second lesson: Hang in there.

Others, much more talkative, invited me to send a chapter and outline, or the entire ms. when finished, or simply and graciously said I might be a better fit with someone else.  I drank three cups of (free) coffee.  Had many laughs with fellow authors. Discovered I could encapsulate my project in a 30-second sound bite; explain why Rysard Kapuscinski and Joan Didion are my models; compare my project to a bestseller, while making it different enough to pique interest; and of course, describe my platform, how I might help “sell” the book.  In fact, the hours were so learning-intensive and fun, that something in me will miss the experience at the next Meet the Agent event, while I’ll continue to recommend it to anyone who asks.

Because, Dear Reader, I called an agent I met, to whom I felt connected, and within a few days we were literary representative, and client.  This week, some six months later, I sign the publisher’s contract.

Mary Jo McConahay’s Maya Roads: Travels Through Time and Space in the American Rainforest, will be published by Chicago Review Press. Her agent is Andy Ross.  www.maryjomcconahay.com

Book Launch

Well, the truth about life is that if you are truly living, you are learning everyday. As I get older, I seem to fall into a little trap called “I now have enough life experience to know how things work.” It’s safe to operate that way; there are less surprises. But am I closing myself off? The truth about life is we don’t know what’s around the corner. The ‘learning experience’ du jour is what it’s really like to launch a book.

Since I signed the contract for my book this past summer, I have been working with WNBA member and publicist Kim McMillon to set up readings and interviews. And despite the fact that most newspapers’ book review sections have been drastically cut, we mailed out over 60 galleys and review copies. We sent letters and press kits. And, in the middle of everything, I had a pre-publication reading and celebration in November. By December, I was having anxiety dreams – showing up for readings naked, being unprepared.

The book’s publication date was set for Jan. 6^th but by the end of December I had only 2 commitments for reviews. I was bumming.

January 6^th came. And suddenly, things kicked in. I’ve gotten invited to do a teleseminar with the San Francisco Writers Conference on January 22^nd, and also to be interviewed on several blogs and radio shows. In a total twist of fate, I ran smack into the poetry reviewer of a major newspaper – at the gym!

The lesson? While it’s important to prepare for your book’s launch, surprises happen! And, success builds on success – something I teach in my “Submission Strategies” class. Looks like I might have a successful launch after all! See www.joangelfand.com for updates on upcoming events and classes.