Flash Memoir Contest
Writer Advice seeks flash memoir (750 words or less). Dazzle, delight, and entice us. Low fee for detailed feedback from an award-winning author, plus the chance to earn a cash prize and publication. Deadline: 03/01/19. Fee and details: www.writeradvice.com
February’s Presentation
Kelley Way Discusses Copyrights and Writer Law at
FAW
On February 23rd, attorney Kelley Way will address the FAW on copyrights and other legal issues that affect authors.
As an aspiring writer of young adult fantasy novels, she has a personal stake in this topic. Way was born and raised in Walnut Creek, California, and graduated from UC Davis with a Juris Doctorate. Kelley is a member of the California Bar, practicing copyright, trademark and estate planning law at The Law Office of Kelley A. Way.
Without copyrights, there would be no way to truly profit from your work or prevent others from copying, using or even selling your work without your permission, but what are they? When do they begin to protect your work? Can you copyright an idea before it’s published? Is your work protected automatically?
What can go wrong?
Kelley Way will teach you what rights you have, and how to use copyrights to your best advantage at the Fremont Area Writers gathering, 2PM, Saturday, February 23rd at 42 Silicon Valley, at 6600 Dumbarton Circle, Fremont CA 94555. For more information contact FAW here, or Kelley Way at kawaylaw.com
This event will be held at 2PM on Saturday February 23th. Admission is free to the public ($5 donation is requested from members) and will take place in Room 115 of 42 Silicon Valley (formerly known as DeVry University), 6600 Dumbarton Circle, Fremont CA 94555.
Book Signing at Half Price Books
Fremont Area Writers is now partnering with Half Price Books in Fremont to present “Meet Your Local FAW Authors” monthly readings by FAW published authors on the second Saturday of each month. Readings will be scheduled from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. A different author will be featured each month. Authors will have the opportunity to read and answer questions about their work, as well as sign and sell their books.
This “free” opportunity is available to FAW members who are published authors with books to sell. Time slots for the year are filling up—so act now. Keep an eye on your email for more information or contact Nancy Guarnera
President’s Message
Terry Tosh – February 2019
And, we’re off!!! The year just started and January is gone. What a wonderful time it was. We had a great general meeting with 20 visitors, and the highest turnout ever for our general meeting!
Our first Half Price Books (HPB) event was a smashing success, with more than 30 attendees, and excellent book sales for our author, Chris Dews! Thank you, Chris, for being our inaugural speaker; it can be nerve-wracking to be the first person to do something new. We appreciate your courage. By the time you read these words, our February “Second Saturdays” author, Tish Davidson, will have shared her newly published book The Vaccine Debate at Half Price Books and we’ll be getting ready for our third event featuring children’s author Penelope Anne Cole on March 9th. We are most grateful to Nancy Guarnera for initiating and coordinating these monthly events with Half Price Books for our published authors.
Also in early February, FAW had another book signing at NewPark Mall in Newark; a special thank you to Jan Small for her perseverance and hard work in arranging this event.
I am very encouraged with the momentum our branch is building, and the willingness of everyone to step up and help out. It’s all about volunteering and helping each other learn and grow, accomplish and progress. You will read all about it in this edition of Ink Spots. Know that we value every one of our visitors and members, and we encourage and challenge you to step up a little higher, get out of your comfort zone, and be a part of what we get to experience in the coming months of our 10th Anniversary Celebration. We know you won’t regret a moment of it!
See you at our upcoming events.
FAW’s Guest Speakers for 2019
Information supplied by Knuti VanHoven
February 23- Kelley A Way, Atty at Law: On Copyright Laws
March 23- Lee Ann Krusemark topic TBD possibly Motivation
April 27- Lisa Rosenberg, 2017-2018 Poet Laureate of San Mateo County and
Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford.
May 25- Andrew Benzie on Self Publishing &, Marketing Your E-Book
June 22- Shelley Bates on Planning and Plotting Your Own Book Series
July 27- Potluck , No Speaker
August 24-
September 28-
October 26-
November 23-
December 28- Potluck, no Speaker
News!
Collected by Knuti VanHoven
Jan Small nominated for Jack London Award!
The purpose of the Jack London Award is to honor a branch member whose service to the California Writers Club (CWC) and/or a branch has been exemplary. Each branch may select one award recipient biannually in odd-numbered years. The award is presented at the July annual CWC meeting of statewide representatives.
Carmen VonTickner has agreed to fill the vital Board position of Secretary.
Carmen began her new position at the last meeting on January 26, and has hit the ground running. Thank you Carmen!
Jan Small is Planning another Local Authors Event at NewPark Mall
Jan has negotiated for New Park Mall to host another Authors’ Event, with FAW Members displaying and selling their wares in the corridor outside the food court. People are passing by on a regular basis and last October we did make sales, while learning a few lessons: 1) Splitting the cost of a table so that one person would be selling in the morning and the other will sell in the afternoon makes for a much less tiring day. 2) Since pedestrians don’t expect to see authors at Malls, having signs about what kind of book you’re selling on the front of your table is a good thing!
The Mall’s charge for a table last time was $25, which can be split by two or more authors.
This year’s event is on February 9th. There is one table unclaimed. If interested, Contact Jan Small right away.
Remember to bring your used books to the Book Exchange Table at FAW Meetings.
Books you bring are free to members. Take any you like, but at the end of the meeting, if yours have not been selected, please take them home and bring them back next month.
If you especially recommend a book, put a marker in it with a brief note to let folks know why it’s special!
Members can save a fortune by recycling books instead of buying news ones!
Get Involved with FAW
Fremont Area Writers has lots of great volunteer opportunities!
If you’d like to to make a positive contribution to these projects please, contact our President.
Send your Book Cover jpgs to webmaster@’this website URL’ for our Members’ Book Display, then check out other members books and if you can give them a 5 star rating, go online to Amazon, Goodreads or other websites and post your review for them. This is one of the most important ways that we can help each other out!
Contest Judges Needed
The League of Women Voters has asked us to sponsor (run) Jr Hi or High School writing competition. We need Judges who’ll volunteers to read and kindly rate the entries. Having judge credits on your resume, by the way, can be a good credit. Interested? Email Us.
Shutterbug Alert! We have an on-going need for active, in-focus Photos of FAW speakers and events for Press releases and Ink Spots & this website. Faces should be as large a portion of the photo as possible with expressions of active interest in the project that’s depicted. If you get a good shot, send it to webmaster
Elevator-Speech-Polishing Event, at every FAW Meeting
FAW has a 45 minute membership meeting. 15 of those 45 minutes are set aside for up to thirty members to practice their 30-second “elevator speech”, introducing themselves and their projects. An elevator speech isn’t social chit chat or a biography. It’s a quick teaser to use at professional events, like conferences, where agents and publishers are looking for product to sell. Each of them is looking for specific types of product that they have a market for. If they don’t need what you have to sell, you need to move on and keep moving until you find your possible connections.
Once you’ve each introduced yourself with your name and role (Author, Agent, Publisher) you have 30 seconds to let them know what you have to offer: Your book’s genre, target audience, plus a couple of interesting details and what support you’re seeking.
IF that’s what they’re looking for, you exchange more information. If not, you exchange quick pleasantries and move on until you find a more suitable match.
You may need to present to many, many people before you meet one who’s after exactly your project. with the right needs. While it’s important to be congenial, it’s not time for normal socializing .
After thirty seconds, if you haven’t already moved on, your contact will either be interested or be scanning the room for their next prospect.
THIRTY SECONDS! At Every FAW meeting you can polish and refine this vital skill and get feedback afterward, at break. Going over that time at a conference risks losing your new contact’s interest or creating a situation where they feel like they can’t get away from you.
Going over that time at an FAW meeting will only get you buzzed, because, though we love you, we have other agenda items and only if everyone sticks to thirty second introductions, afterwards we’ll only have 30 minutes of meeting time left!
So start planning your next elevator speech now. Time it out, and we’ll see you at the next meeting!
Anyone have a productive Agent that would be a good speaker for an FAW meeting? We need someone who’s current and can give productive tips to our members about how to choose the right agent, then how to work with them. Please email Knuti.
Help!
Are you looking for fame and fortune? While you’re working on that, how about learning the ins and outs of websites? Please offer to help maintain this site. Training given. Contact the webmaster.
Kudos!
Kudos…
In this area we record writers’ awards and successes. Keep your eye on this page as awards are received all the time.
KUDOS to FAW Members
Jan Small was nominated for the Jack London Award on January 26.
Shirley Ferrante won 3rd place for her piece “Togetherness” in the Half Price Books Flash Fiction Contest held on the 22nd of September. (Check out Shirley’s contest winner in the FAW Writers’ Corner of the October2018 issue of FAW’s newsletter Ink Spots.)
Nancy Guarnera won 1st and 2nd place in the Half Price Books Flash Fiction Contest held on the 22nd of September. Her “Home Coming” took 1st place and “Three Times” took 2nd place. (Check out Nancy’s contest winners in the FAW Writers’ Corner of the October2018 issue of FAW’s newsletter Ink Spots.)
Art Carey’s modern, tongue-in-cheek version of Jonathan Swift’s classic satire, A Modest Proposal, appeared in an August issue of The Satirist, America’s Most Critical Journal (Since 1999).
The following authors who participated in the FAW Book Signing at the Newpark Mall on Saturday, July 14th : Art Carey sold 1 book; Penelope Cole sold 11 books; Paul K. Davis sold 1 book; Chris Dews sold 3 books; Jo Ann Frisch sold 5 books; Urmila Patel sold 4 books; Jan Small sold 2 books and 1 art print; Dave M. Strom sold 1 book; Anita Tosh sold 1 book; and Helen Vanderberg sold 3 books. A total of 32 books and 1 art print were sold for total sales of $402. Sales per author ranged from $2 to $95.
Chris Dews has recently published a new book – Antler Jinny and the Raven, and has revised and republished his previous book, The Druid and the Bracelet. His books will be available at Coastside Books and Ink Spell Books in Half Moon Bay. You can also find them online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Evelyn LaTorre, an FAW founding member, will have her memoir titled, No Guardrails, From Montana to Machu Picchu, A Peace Corps Romance, published in 2020 by She Writes Press.
Clevermag.org has notified Evelyn LaTorre that her piece about her recent trip to Ireland, “Is Ireland Really Heaven,” will be published in the Fall 2018 issue of their e-zine.
Dave M. Strom recently updated his book, Super Holly Hansson in Super Bad Hair Day to roughly 120 printed pages of stories, audio scripts, and Super Holly artwork. At Worldcon, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) recently held at the San Jose Convention Center, Dave shared a table with authors from the South Bay Writers branch of CWC. He sold nine paperback copies and one Kindle eBook.
A long-awaited anthology about the life of a dollar bill has been published by South Bay Writers. FAW’s Dave Strom was an editor and has a story in it.
Tish Davidson’s non-fiction piece “Miss Tish and the Okree Ladies” has been published in the 2018 California Writers Club Literary Review.
Evelyn LaTorre’s non-fiction piece “The Potato Caper” has been published in the 2018 California Writers Club Literary Review.
Judy Taylor’s poem “A Trail of Pap Crackers on the Beach has been published in the 2018 California Writers Club Literary Review.
An Open Mic for writers to read their work is held from 7-9 p.m. at Suju’s Coffee and Tea, 3620 Thornton Ave., in Fremont, on the fourth Monday of the month.
