write angles october 2011

8/3/2019 Write Angles October 2011

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October2011

Wallace Stegner (19091993), often called The Dean of Western Writers, is remembered fohis formation in 1964 of the renowned creative writing program at Stanford University, wherhe served on the faculty until 1971. Along with his career as a writing teacher, he wrotenovels, historical nonfiction, memoirs, and essays. In 1972 he won the Pulitzer Prize forFiction for hisAngle of Repose. Committed to the preservation of the American West, he waalso a dedicated environmental advocate.

A writer is an organism that will go on writing even after its heart has been cutout. [Angle of Repose]


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View from the Mountain TopLinda BrownOctober is a special month for me and for the California Writers Club. In 2003, yourCWC Central Board, under the leadership of the Marin Branch president Barbara Truax,petitioned the state legislature to proclaim the third week in October as CaliforniaWriters Week. The elected officials obliged us with a joint resolution recognizing thatweek in perpetuity.

When I asked Barbara for her thoughts on that effort today, she emailed the following:The authors on the resolution represent the 14 branches of California Writers Club atthat time and were chosen with great care. Each author had to stand the test of time,and the list had to show the diversity of California. It was truly an honor to be a part ofCalifornia Writers Club's history that day.

In the seven years since that Resolution, the number of CWC branches has grown to 18, a28.6 percent increase. To me, that indicates that people recognize the benefit of being aCWC member.

To learn more about California Writers Week, go to www.calwriters.org and look undertheAbout Us Tab. Also, learn more about our newest CWC branch, Writers of theMendocino Coast, from the link on the home page.

On a personal note, October is important to me because it is my birthday month,although Im not sure about this one. I applied for Medicare! I still think I am perfectlyhealthy despite having to postpone my planned trek across Northern Spain on the CaminoSantiago trail.

October brings me the first smell of fall and fond memories: quail hunting with my dad;walking past the harvested pastures; gathering bittersweet, the twisted vines with darkorange and red buds, with my mom; and birthday picnics at Missouris Crowder State Parkand hiking beneath the vivid red/orange sugar maple trees. Perhaps those early outingsare the foundation for my affinity for Joaquin Miller Park today.

October is also important to me as a Californian and longtime womens and civil rightsadvocate. City staffer and Oakland Tribune columnist Annalee Allen, who has mentionedthe CWC favorably in several columns, reminds us that October is the 100th Anniversaryof womens suffrage in California. She invites CWC members to share in the Parlors &Politics Celebration at three of Oaklands historic houses on October 1 and to join theOakland Suffrage Parade on October 1. For details, search the web or call 510-834-7640.

Other NewsThe San Francisco Examinerreported on the Yone Ngouchi exhibit by CWC Mt. Diablomember Nina Egert at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Read the story at http://www.examiner.com/poetry-in-oakland/poets-praise-poets-1. Her book, Noguchis California,Poetic Visions of a 19th Century Dharma Bum, celebrates the poet who brought haikupoetry to the West when he lived on Joaquin Millers land. The view on the book cover is

(Presidents message continued on p. 6)

October

2011

contents

Presidents message 1

October Speaker 2

Member Profile 2

Poetry Page 3

Report on E-book Sales 4

October Survey 4

So Many Blogs 5

CB News & Whos Who 6

Member News & Tidbit 7

The Last Word 8

Speaker Flyer 9

California Writers Week 10

South Ba Worksho 11

Presidents Message

upcomingevents10/7-15 Litquake

10/16 SpeakerTracy Seeley: The

Reflective I in Nonfiction

10/16-22 CA Writers Week
http://www.calwriters.org/http://www.calwriters.org/


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October speaker

A Pilgrimage of Reconnection

David Baker

Thats how Tracy Seeley, our featured speaker for the October 16 meeting,describes her travels in search of the world she lived in as a child. Seeleysmemoir, My Ruby Slippers: the Road Back to Kansas, is a model for those of uswriting works of literary nonfiction. But fiction writers, too, can learn from heras she recaptures childhood experiences molding the person she became andwonders why we tend to place in tidy boxes, and thus distort, our pastencounters with reality.

A professor of literature and creative nonfiction, Seeley had worked atshucking Kansas off like the skin of a cicada and was enjoying San Francisco.The discovery of a tumor needing chemotherapy and, a day later, her partnersannouncement that he was leaving her to live with another woman destroyedher pleasurable routine. Self-reflection followed. She thought about her caringmother, the father who abandoned her, frequent moves from town to town or from one street to another, and cameto realize that her memories had no place to settle. Guided only by her mothers list of the thirteen addresseswhere the family had lived, Seeley set out on her pilgrimage.

One of the toughest questions she faced was: How will members of my family feel when I share unpleasant truthswith strangers? Based on her experience walking the family minefield, Seeley advises: be truthful, even indangerous terrain, but keep your motives clean . . . . Writing a memoir isnt your chance to get even, avenge awrong, blame or shame someone. Its an opportunity to focus on yourresponses to events and on how they shapedyour inner world. Even if youre writing about Aunt Josies hi-jinks, keep your eyes on what it has to do with themain character, you. Well consider numerous memoir dos and donts at the October meeting, when Tracy Seeleyexamines the reflective I and helps us make our way through shadows in the past.

Member Profile:

Kathleen OroscoIn November 2005, I met Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada at a Literatti inAlameda, CA. A month later I submitted a one-page synopsis, and he respondedwithin the same evening that he would love to see a proposal. I was working onmy thesis for my masters in education and explained that I was not able toproduce a complete manuscript at that time. Nonetheless, I immediately beganthe research on my manuscript.

After returning from a long visit to my home state of Texas, one day I wanderedthrough the books in a Barnes & Noble Bookstore in Oakland, and heard greatlaughter. The sounds literally drew me in to seek the voices out. The CaliforniaWriters Club meeting was being held, and it was love at first sight, so I joinedthe same month.

That love has deepened through the camaraderie, professional support of my writing, and incredible learning curve.Stephen Kings philosophy and mentoring in his book, On Writing, has provided a clear guide, with funny examplesabout how he manages his writing lifestyle with all the ups and downs of life and the busy routine of marriage, family


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Write Angles Page 4and friends. I am currently working on a nonfiction manuscript and a magazine article to be submitted to The TexasMonthlymagazine this month.

We write to make sense of it all.Wallace Stegner

Poetry Page page 3

Poetry Page


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What Are Sales Like for E-books?-Lloyd Lofthouse

The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) newsletter for September 2011 (published in paper, and many ofits articles will not be available in virtual form) had a piece about e-book publishing and where the sales are going.

The result of information gathering by "Sourcebooks" reveals that for paper-printed books, 42.3% of sales were adultnonfiction, 25.2% were adult fiction, 7% were juvenile/children (both fiction and nonfiction) and 25.5% werecalendars/audio/journals, etc.

Of the 42.3% of paper books that represented adult nonfiction, sales were broken down further into the top fivelargest categories: reference 15%, general nonfiction 12%, health/fitness/medicine/sports 11%, religion/Bibles 11%,and biography/autobiography/memoir 9%.

However, the pie chart representing e-books reveals that about 82% of sales were adult fiction (narrative), whileadult nonfiction was maybe 15%, and children/juvenile maybe 3%.

This tells us that the strongest place for independent authors that are either self-published or published by a smallindie press is to focus on adult narrative fiction, because the small indie author's best market is e-books.

And this is because the largest and mid-sized traditional publishers have the brick-and-mortar bookstore marketpretty much locked up. The average brick-and-mortar bookstore carries between 20 and 50 thousand titles and theaverage super-sized brick-and-mortar bookstore carries about 150,000 titles. But more than 3.3 million new titleswere published in 2010 (over 3 million from indie authors and about 300,000 from the traditional publishingindustry). Thus we discover there isn't enough shelf space in brick-and-mortar bookstores for indie authors.

In addition, only a limited amount of shelf space in brick-and-mortar bookstore is available for new titles. Visit alocal indie brick-and-mortar bookstore or a Barnes & Noble superstore and count the new titles displayed on the newrelease shelves/tables. The rest of the books in that bookstore are mostly old titles that still sell well months/yearsafter being released, and most of them are from traditional publishers.

October Survey

Do You Enter Writing Contests?Some people love writing contests. Others have no use for them. Haveyou entered any writing contests? Did you have much luck? Whichcontests do you think are worth entering? Have you had a bad experiencewith a contest? Do you have a great contest story you want to share?

Here is your chance to let us know what you think about writing contests.Well have the results in the November issue ofWrite Angles so that youcan see which contests your fellow club members are entering and why.

The survey is really easy to fill out. Just click on this link and answer thequestions: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/65V99Q7But do it no later than October 12!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/65V99Q7http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/65V99Q7


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Creation is a knack which is empowered by practice, and likealmost any skill, it is lost if you don't practice it.

Wallace Stegner


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With So Many Blogs to Read, How Do I Know Where to Start?

Tanya Grove

Perusing the blog of my friend and former Berkeley branch president,Al Levenson, I came across something he called simply Blogs ILike. I trust Als suggestions in the same way that I valuefriends book recommendations, so I scanned his blog roll to seeif anything sparked my interest, which is often how I find sitesthat end up on my favorites bar. In that same vein, I decided tofeature several blogs that might appeal to Write Angles readers.Who knows? Maybe one of them will be the next addition to yourfavorites bar.

Of course I follow Als blog,A Year on the Road, where he keeps us up-to-date on his travels across America in the Jolly Swag.http://allevenson.wordpress.com/

Nathan Bransford writes the best all-around publishing blog. He oftencomes up with intriguing questions for his readers and does agreat week-in-publishing wrap-up on Fridays. He has an active

group of regular followers who comment, if youre interested in the interactive, social aspect of the bloggingcommunity. http://blog.nathanbransford.com/

Slush Pile Hell is a collection of crazy queries that will make you feel better about any that youve written. Thedescription of itself is One grumpy literary agent, a sea of query fails, and other publishing nonsense. Itsshort and funny, with a new post every Monday. http://slushpilehell.tumblr.com/

Nanoism is perfect for people who love fiction but dont have much time. Edited byBen White, it is an online publication for stories of up to 140 characters, or as thewebsite states: stories that fit in the cracks of your day. http://nanoism.net/
http://allevenson.wordpress.com/http://blog.nathanbransford.com/http://slushpilehell.tumblr.com/http://www.benwhite.com/http://nanoism.net/http://allevenson.wordpress.com/http://blog.nathanbransford.com/http://slushpilehell.tumblr.com/http://www.benwhite.com/http://nanoism.net/


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Write Angles Page 8The Berkeley branch is full of bloggers, including Alon Shalev. Alons Left Coast Voices is all about social justice

and activism. http://leftcoastvoices.wordpress.com

Another former CWC president, Dave Sawle, writes about human nature, improving processes that help in planningfor the future, and psychological studies in a way that grabs your attention. His posts have great titles, likeSailboats, Donkeys and Household Duties in the First Week of Marriage.http://foresightimprovement.com/

Write Angles staffer Thomas Burchfield describes his blogA Curious Manas an eclectic collection of essays,reviews and other ephemera, mostly relating to writing, publishing, literature, film, humor, and travel.http://tbdeluxe.blogspot.com/.

Kymberlie Ingalls writes about her blog, Writer of the Storm: The storms of life that we all weather are whatdefine us. She has been writing online since 1997 and warns that readers may be subject to fallingopinions.http://www.writerofthestorm.com/

And since writers are supposed to take advantage of every opportunity to promotethemselves, I may as well offer up my own online ponderings, For Words,which usually touches on writing or words in all their varied forms, and oftenpoints out beauty found in unusual places; though I freely admit that I willwrite about almost anything that intrigues me, which, it turns out, is a lot.http://tanyagrove.wordpress.com/

If you have a favorite blog you want to share (including your own), send the link [email protected] with a brief description of the blog itself and reasonswhy you like it or why other members might want to read it. Write Angles willpublish readers suggestions in the November issue, subject to space, ofcourse.
http://leftcoastvoices.wordpress.com/http://foresightimprovement.com/http://tbdeluxe.blogspot.com/http://tanyagrove.wordpress.com/mailto:[email protected]://leftcoastvoices.wordpress.com/http://foresightimprovement.com/http://tbdeluxe.blogspot.com/http://tanyagrove.wordpress.com/mailto:[email protected]


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Presidents message continued from page 1

at moonrise from the California Writers Memorial Grove in Joaquin Miller Park. Nina has donated a number of thesebooks to the CWC and other nonprofits for fundraising purposes. For more information on the exhibit, which laststhrough the lunar New Year in January, 2012, go to: http://web.mac.com/ninaephd/Site/Nina_Egert.html andwww.oacc.cc.

Consider, too, that the CWC would like to help our published authors get story placements like this one in magazinesand newspapers. Lead time is important, so plan months in advance by sharing your ideas with the CWCs MarketingGroup and Communications/ PR volunteers.

CWC Central Board (CB) News

When the CB learned that the state planned to shut the Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen next year, itjoined the Valley of the Moon Natural History Association. With our dues, CB president Bob Garfinkle, Fremont

Branch, wrote I am enclosing a donationwith the desire that these funds be used in your efforts to keep theParkopen to the public. Garfinkle goes on to write about the CWCs close relationship with another park, OaklandsJoaquin Miller Park. Members from the CWC Redwood Branch will be the main contact. Joyce Krieg, Central Coast,will provide support as she does for the CWCs work at Joaquin Miller Park. If you can write a story, direct attentionto this effort, or help in other ways, contact Joyce Krieg (Central Coast)[email protected] or Abby Bogomolny(Redwood Branch) [email protected].

The CB is planning for year 2013the year the CWC incorporated and the 10th anniversary of California Writers Week.We are looking for a CWC-BB member who likes to write about history for magazines to represent our Club in thepublicity planning on this effort. If that person is you, contact Linda Brown, [email protected].

Purely Social Events

At the summer planning retreat, we had suggestions for more social events. To celebrate California Writers Week,

Mary Luersen volunteered to plan a get-together at Jack London and Joaquin Millers hangout, Heinolds First andLast Chance Saloon, in Jack London Square on Thursday, October 20, 5:30-7:30 pm. Just drop by for this informalget-together and watch for more details in the prezs blast e-mail.

Enjoy the month and see you soon.

Whos Who in CWC-BBBoard Members

President: Linda BrownVP Administration: Al LevensonVP Membership: Cliff HuiVP Communications: Open

VP Programs: Barbara RuffnerVP Marketing Writers: Francine HowardVP Writing Groups: Barbara GilvarSecretary: OpenTreasurer: Madelen Lontiong

Delegates

Central Board: OpenNorCal: Jeff Kingman & Kathleen Orosco

Key Chairs (alpha order)

New Member Orientation: BarbaraGilvarSpeakers: Jane GlendinningTechnology Team: Kristen Caven

Workshops: OpenFifth-Grade Story Contest: Debby FrischWrite On! Story Contest: OpenWrite Angles Editor: Tanya Grove

To volunteer, pose a question orexpress interest, contact the leadersor [email protected]
http://web.mac.com/ninaephd/Site/Nina_Egert.htmlhttp://www.oacc.cc/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://web.mac.com/ninaephd/Site/Nina_Egert.htmlhttp://www.oacc.cc/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Write Angles Page 10z

Our monthly meetings are free and open to the public and feature

a speaker, an author event, or both.

Member News

Nina Egerts exhibit Yone Noguchi in California: A JapanesePoet Among Oakland's Famous Writers is opening at theOakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St, from September 8

to January 2012. There will be two new display cases aboutikebana and the evolution of Japanese poetry to haikuwritten in English. Book signing on September 8. For moreinformation on the exhibit, go to:www.oacc.cc.

Risa Nye was guest blogger in ItBuilds Character . . . AndOther Parenting Clichs, Sept. 13, 2011, with her piece,The Rise and Fall of Ms. Fixit.http://www.itbuildscharacter.com/parenting/been-there-done-that/do-it-yourself-home-repair

Sarah Clark read her original piece, "Aging with Delilah," onSeptember 23 and 25, in an event sponsored and hosted byMontclair Presbyterian Church, Oakland, where she was oneof ten writers offering stories and poetry related to thetheme of aging.

Thomas Burchfield's Dracula novel, Dragon's Ark, now in paperback from Ambler House, is available at localindependent bookstores and online retailers (including e-book editions). His comic screenplay, Whackers (alsofrom Ambler House), is now available as an e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the i-Bookstore and the SonyBookstore. His essay, "You Never Give Me Your Money," was a prize winner at a recent Red Room blogcompetition. http://tbdeluxe.blogspot.com/.

Jeffrey Kingman will have two flash fiction stories published in October in GreySparrowand decomP magazinE. A poem ofJeffreys will be published later this yearin lo-ball magazine.

Therese Pipe will show some of her photographs in the El Cerrito Art AssociationAnnual Art Show at the El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moeser Lane. Opening onSeptember 30, 7:00-9:00 pm, the show runs through the weekend. [email protected].

Write Angles welcomes letters to the editor, book reviews, and articles of interest to writers. Submit [email protected]. If you are a member and want to share news, please write Member News in thesubject line. Deadline is the 15th of the month.

Oakland Public Library

West Auditorium

125 14th Street 94612

Entrance on Madison
http://www.oacc.cc/http://www.oacc.cc/http://www.itbuildscharacter.com/parenting/been-there-done-that/do-it-yourself-home-repairhttp://www.itbuildscharacter.com/parenting/been-there-done-that/do-it-yourself-home-repairhttp://tbdeluxe.blogspot.com/mailto:[email protected]://www.oacc.cc/http://www.itbuildscharacter.com/parenting/been-there-done-that/do-it-yourself-home-repairhttp://www.itbuildscharacter.com/parenting/been-there-done-that/do-it-yourself-home-repairhttp://tbdeluxe.blogspot.com/mailto:[email protected]


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Write Angles Page 11Tidbit

The newest batch of Macarthur Fellows has a familiar face. Poet Kay Ryan was recentlyawarded one of the prestigious Genius grants. This former poet laureate of the UnitedStates also received a Pulitzer Prize this year and was featured last month on thePoetry Page ofWrite Angles. She grew up in the San Joaquin Valley and has lived in

Marin County since 1971. Write Angles applauds this distinguished California writer.

Photo courtesy ofJennifer Loring

Visit our web site @calwritersclub.wordpress.com


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The Last WordTanya Grove

It takes a lot of people to put out a monthly newsletter, so Im taking a few moments to thank them.

Karren Elsbernd is in charge of the cover, which features a distinguished California writer. She finds photos,

writes a short bio, and comes up with a few choice quotes that wonderfully exemplify that writer.

Linda Brown delivers From the Mountain Top, her message from the president that always keeps us informed of

goings-on in CWC as well as in the writing community at large.

David Baker gives us the lowdown on upcoming speakers in articles that are both informative and fun to read.

Barbara Ruffner selects a poet (or poets) for each issue, finds their photos, writes about them, and gives us a

sample of their verse on the Poetry Page. And despite her attempts to find someone to take over for her, she

stalwartly continues to shoulder the responsibility rather than rob our readers of their monthly dose of poetry.

Thomas Burchfield finds Berkeley Branch club members to profile so we can all get to know each other a little bit

better.

April Kutger is in charge of reading all of your answers to our surveys, compiling and analyzing the data, and

writing it up in an interesting way so that we learn from and about each other.Our representatives to NorCal, Jeff Kingman and Kathleen Orosco, send us highlights from NorCal meetings.

Anne Fox is our eagle-eye copyeditor, which means she has to read everything that goes in the newsletter andcorrect mistakes. And if that werent enough, shes also in charge of Member News and Tidbits.

And I am your humble editor who slaps it all together with chewing gum and masking tape.

Together we make up the backbone ofWrite Angles, but we are not alone in creating the content you read. Weare also lucky enough to be the beneficiary of reader submissions. Sometimes those take the form of book

reviews, which we are always happy to receive. Shereen Rahman has covered workshops that shes attended.

Last month we got to see behind the scenes at the Book Expo America through the lens of our own Francine

Howard. In this issue we have a timely article on the state of e-books by Lloyd Lofthouse.

The wonderful thing about producing this newsletter is that our readership is made up of writers! Who better to

submit articles? If you wish you could read a piece about something in the field of writing that is near and dear to

you, and it isnt being covered in Write Angles, maybe you should be the one to write it. You may just have onearticle to submit, or you might have a great idea for a regular feature. You can submit a finished article (Word

doc, no fancy formatting) by the fifteenth of the month, or query me with an idea any time.

My e-mail: [email protected]

Write AnglesEditor Tanya Grove

Copyeditor/Member News/Tidbits Anne FoxCover Author Contributor Karren Elsbernd

Presidents Message Linda Brown

Speaker Profile David Baker

Poetry Page Editor Barbara Ruffner

Member Profiles Thomas Burchfield

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mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Survey Analyst/Reporter April Kutger


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write angles october 2011

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