Sunday, March 28, 2010
at Book Passage, Corte Madera

"From Passion to Publicity: Getting Your Book the Attention it Deserves"

Lin Lacombe

Lin Lacombe, literary publicist and Vice President (Marketing) of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, will speak about publicity or independent and traditionally published authors. She will present real-world examples, list do's and don'ts, provide handouts, and answer questions about publicity and marketing.

Lin has over twenty years expertise directing successful strategic public relations and media campaigns in the book publishing, technology, and financial services sectors. As a literary publicist she represents books such as The Population Fix - Breaking America's Addiction to Population Growth; Listen Up! How to Communicate Effectively at Work; Simply Successful Surgery; Growing More Beautiful; Awakening the Warrior Within; Raising Yourself: Making the Right Choice; and Social Capital: How to Get It, How to Use It. Her corporate clients have included Hewlett Packard, Presidio Trust, and Paul Newman Foundation's ReNew America.

She has served as Vice President for the Women's National Book Association and as Past President, now as VP Marketing, of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, and is working with London-based Susan Mears Agency as its US co-agent. She is a contributing columnist for Brian Jud’s Marketing Matters Newsletter, IBPA’s Independent, and other publications.

Sunday, April 18, 2010
at Book Passage, Corte Madera

"Adapting Sideways: The Not-So-Straight-Forward Transition from Screenwriter to Novelist"

Charlotte Cook & Jon James Miller

The dwindling market for original screenplays in Hollywood has left many aspiring screenwriters looking to the literary market to find an audience for their stories. But the process of adapting from a screenplay into a novel presents unique storytelling issues that have yet to be formally addressed. This interactive workshop is the product of a year-long partnership between a publisher and award-winning screenwriter to develop an award-winning script into a publishable novel. Together Jon James Miller and Charlotte Cook have developed a seven-point evaluation for scripts and screenwriters that will also benefit novelists in evaluating their work. Points include determining if the script has enough story, translating from ensemble cast to point of view or point of narration, and taking back parenthetical direction and filling in all “the white on the page” to make for interesting reading from first page to last. Jon and Charlotte will provide examples from the process they have followed and pointers to novelists who would like to help their novels be more easily adaptable to the screen.

Charlotte Cook is president and story editor of KOMENAR Publishing, as well as a popular presenter at writers conferences and events, and a successful teacher and workshop facilitator. She will also act as a judge of fiction categories for the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Recently she’s been working with an agent on a book for writers, developing workshops for novelists and screenwriters, and preparing for presentations at several writers conferences later this year. http://www.komenarpublishing.com http://www.fictionwriteideas.com

Jon James Miller earned a Bachelor of Science in Cinematography and worked for several years in cable documentaries for A&E, Lifetime and The History Channel while writing original feature length screenplays in LA. He has had three screenplays optioned. His screenplay “Garbo’s Last Stand” won Grand Prize of the 2008 AAA Screenplay Contest sponsored by Creative Screenwriting Magazine and The 2009 Golden Brad Award for Drama sponsored by the Movie Script Contest. Another original screenplay, “Agent Cynthia,” won the 2009 Best Historical Screenplay at the First Annual ThrillSpyInternational Film Festival in Washington, D.C. and was an Honorable Mention at the Big Bear International Film Festival, where both scripts were finalists. Jon will be a juror at the 2010 Big Bear International Film Festival and a panelist at the 2010 CreativeScreenwriting Expo in LA. He is currently adapting his award-winning script “Garbo’s Last Stand” into a novel with an interested publisher. http://www.jonjamesmiller.com

Sunday, May 23, 2010
at Book Passage, Corte Madera

"The Wild and Wooly, Stumble and Bumble Your Way to Success Story. Or: How Anyone Can Publish By Saying Yes"

Jordan Rosenfeld

In this new day of publishing, writers have to think even further outside the box on the road to publication--and get comfortable with the fact that the line to success may not be a straight one. Jordan Rosenfeld uses her own experience "saying yes to unexpected opportunities" along the way of her career to illustrate how important it is to be creative, take opportunities and not limit yourself on the road to publication. She'll give examples of unusual avenues for publication ranging from radio to readings, magazine articles to book proposals.

Jordan E. Rosenfeld is author of two books for writers: Make a Scene, and with Rebecca Lawton, Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life. Her freelance articles and book reviews have appeared in the Marin Magazine, Publisher's Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, The St. Petersburg Times, Writer's Digest, The Writer, and on NPR-Affiliate KQED Radio's "California Report" among others. Her fiction has appeared in Literary Mama, The Pedastal, Smokelong Quarterly, the Summerset Review and more. http://jordanrosenfeld.wordpress.com

Photographer © Cathy Evers Cooke

Sunday, June 27, 2010
at Book Passage, Corte Madera

"Fact vs. Fiction: The Joys and Pitfalls of Writing Memoir"

Zoe FitzGerald Carter

When Zoe FitzGerald Carter began writing a book about her mother's decision to end her life, she intended to write it as a novel--a fictionalized version of events. But when her agent convinced her to try writing it instead as memoir, she found that the writing was easier to generate because she was drawing from real events, real emotions. The challenge of having to put these events on the page led her to re-live and reconsider the past. And having to carve out a story rather than just "dumping the notebook" forced her to consider what about a story is truly interesting to readers. To write the story as truth rather than fiction enriched her.

But choosing truth over fiction also came with repercussions. How would the people she wrote about react to the book? Could she be sued for invasion of privacy? Libel, even? What it would have meant to her parents, both of them deceased, that she was writing about and exposing them in this way? And most important, by writing and selling her story, Imperfect Endings, would she somehow "lose" it--would it no longer "belong" to her?

Zoe FitzGerald Carter is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School and has written for numerous publications including New York magazine, The New York Observer, Premiere, and various national magazines. Imperfect Endings, her first memoir, won first place in the 2008 Pacific Northwest Writer's Association literary contest and was a finalist at The San Francisco Writer's Conference. It was also picked by Barnes & Noble as one of its 2010 Discover Great New Writers series. First serial rights went to O magazine and an excerpt appears in their March issue. http://zoefitzgeraldcarter.com

Book Passage
The Marketplace
51 Tamal Vista Blvd
Corte Madera, California
415.927.0960
800.999.7909
www.bookpassage.com