March 12 - Panel: Where Do Writers Get Their Ideas? - Women's National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter

Friday, March 12, 2021

12pm

What sparks a captivating story? Do writing ideas just appear out of nowhere? Do authors sit around waiting for great ideas to emerge, or do they systematically go out and find them?

Join five published authors as they demystify what often appears as an inexplicable black box. They will share how and where they find the inspiration for their writing, ranging from lucid dreams, people watching, historical events, and more. Bring your questions about writers’ sources of inspiration for them to answer at the end of the session.

Moderator:

Nita Sweeney is the award-winning wellness author of the running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink and co-creator of the writing journal, You Should Be Writing: A Journal of Inspiration & Instruction to Keep Your Pen Moving. A long-time meditator, three-time marathoner, and former assistant to writing practice originator Natalie Goldberg, Nita founded the Facebook group Mind, Mood, and Movement to support mental well-being through meditation, exercise, and writing practice. Nita’s eBook Three Ways to Heal Your Mind is available for download.

Panelists:

Goal-setting expert Debra Eckerling is the author of Your Goal Guide: A Roadmap for Setting, Planning & Achieving Your Goals and founder of the D*E*B METHOD. Debra helps individuals and businesses figure out what they want and how to get it through one-on-one coaching, workshops, and online support. She is the founder of Write On Online, a website and community for writers, creatives, and entrepreneurs, as well as host of the #GoalChat Twitter chat and #GoalChatLive on Facebook.

Kate Farrell Storyteller, author, librarian Kate Farrell is the author of Story Power: Secrets to Creating, Crafting, and Telling Memorable Stories. Kate founded the Word Weaving Storytelling Project and published numerous educational materials on storytelling. She has contributed to and edited award-winning anthologies of personal narrative, Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s, and Cry of the Nightbird: Writers Against Domestic Violence.

Marlena Fiol, PhD is a world-renowned expert on why and how people change their understanding of who they are. Her significant body of published material on the topic, coupled with her own raw identity-changing experiences, makes her uniquely qualified to speak and write about deep change. Her latest book Nothing Bad Between Us: A Mennonite Missionary’s Daughter Finds Healing in Her Brokenness is a vulnerable and inspirational tale of personal transformation. Marlena lives with her husband Ed in Eugene, Oregon. To learn more, please visit marlenafiol.com.

The author of three poetry collections, a chapbook of short fiction and You Can Be a Winning Writer, a book for writers, Joan Gelfand’s work appears in national and international journals including Rattle, PANK! The Los Angeles Review of Books, Prairie Schooner, Kalliope, California Quarterly, the Toronto Review, Marsh Hawk Review and Levure Litteraire. Her chapbook of short fiction won the Cervena Barva Fiction Award. President Emeritus of the Women’s National Book Association, a member of the National Book Critics Circle and California Writers Club, Joan coaches writers. Joan’s novel, Extreme, set in a Silicon Valley startup, was published by Blue Light Press in July, 2020.