Thursday, September 9 "Getting the Most Out of Your Writing"

Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara

Presents

Laure-Anne Bosselaar
& Kurt Brown

"Getting the Most Out of Your Writing"

Thursday, September 9, 7 pm*
*Come early to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent. The speaker presentation will start around 7:30pm
Downtown Borders (Upstairs)
900 State Street
(805)899-3668
FREE and open to everyone!

For our September 9th meeting we have two speakers who are award-winning, widely published writers and editors, Laure-Anne Bosselaar and Kurt Brown. Come ready with your questions about the creative process, getting published, and attending writers conferences. These well-versed scribes will offer answers based on their vast knowledge and experience.

Laure-Anne Bosselaar grew up in Belgium, where her first language was Flemish. She is the author of a book of poems in French, Artemis (1973), and two collections of poems in English from BOA Editions: The Hour Between Dog and Wolf (1997) and Small Gods of Grief (2001), which won the Isabela Gardner Award. She is also editor of three anthologies, Outsiders: Poems about Rebels, Exiles and Renegades (Milkweed Editions, 1999), Urban Nature: Poems about Nature in the City (Milkweed Editions, 2000), and Never Before: Poems about First Experiences (Four Way Books, 2005). With her husband, she co-edited the anthology Night Out: Poems about Hotels, Motels, Restaurants and Bars (1997), also from Milkweed Editions. A new collection of poems, New Hunger, was published by Ausable Press in 2007. She taught poetry workshops at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York and was the Bruce McEver Visiting Chair in Writing at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia in February, 2008.

Kurt Brown is the editor of Drive, They Said: Poems about Americans and Their Cars (1994) and Verse & Universe: Poems about Science and Mathematics (1998) both from Milkweed Editions. He is also co-editor, with his wife, of Night Out: Poems about Hotels, Motels, Restaurants and Bars (1997) also from Milkweed Editions. In addition, he has edited three books of lectures delivered at writers’ conferences across America: The True Subject (Graywolf Press, 1993), Writing It Down for James (Beacon Press, 1995) and Facing the Lion (Beacon Press, 1996). A fourth collection of essays, The Measured Word: On Poetry and Science, appeared from University of Georgia Press in 2001. His own first collection of poems, Return of the Prodigals, appeared from Four Way Books in 1999. A second collection, More Things in Heaven and Earth, was published by Four Way Books in 2002. A third collection, Fables from the Ark, which won the 2003 Custom Words Prize, was published by WordTech in 2004, and a fourth, Future Ship, appeared from Red Hen Press in 2007, followed by a fifth collection, No Other Paradise, in 2010. He is the founding director of The Aspen Writers’ Conference and Writers’ Conferences and Centers, now part of the Associated Writing Programs.

Meeting minutes for Thursday, August 12, 2010

Janie Hewson, owner of Marketing Creatives, spoke on the topic of “Powerful Marketing for your Writing Career” at our August meeting. She encouraged writers to give yourself the opportunity to become extraordinary; by submitting, competing, showing your work. Nowadays, a writer must compete for the chance to be published. You will most likely find yourself shut out at every turn. You need a plan to figure out where you’re going. That’s where good marketing comes in.

“It takes nine times of seeing something to remember it.” - a marketing saying.
Through marketing, you can define yourself as a business rather than just a ‘little writer’.

What is it to market? In marketing, you are seen and remembered. If you can’t find a way to be known or seen, you’re not putting yourself in the market where you can be sold.

Websites, blogs, and all forms of new media raise your status as a writer. These tools are changing and will continue to change. Find a new one every year. Learn it. Use it. Most people are not surfing the web to find you. You need to get them to go there. The Internet is a great place for editors, representatives, organizations and other writers to make connections with you.

Where are you? Where can they find you? See you? Who are you in the world? This is a marketing strategist’s job. Know who you are. What do you write about? Know who ‘they’ (the public) are. Who are you giving this to? What makes them spark to you as an individual? Remember, it’s all about being seen first. How can you be seen first?

Set goals. Move yourself from where you are. No one’s going to do all this for you. Your deal is to take responsibility for yourself. Make a list. Make goals and meet them. Get it together and make it happen. Important: when you set these goals, you need to meet them. If you’re not, you’re living by excuses. Give up your excuses.

In this business, you need clients; buyers; money. Develop relationships. Be friends with the people who are in the world you want to be in. The creative business also requires money. Know that going into it.

Persistency, consistency; all the things your mother told you about, are key in this business. Being seen and remembered means you do the same thing over and over and over again. That’s your job as a writer…

Janie Hewson is available for consultations. Her website is: marketingreatives.net.

Respectfully submitted by Danielle Greene, Association secretary