AUGUST 1-4, 2011

Monday - Thursday
from 8:30am- 12:30pm

at CAPITAL PUBLIC RADIO
SACRAMENTO, CA

The summer workshops are offered to CCYW members who want to improve their writing.  The workshops will take place over the course of a week.  Various classes will be offered to students  including fiction, non-fiction, screenplay, poetry, broadcast radio, journalism, technical writing, etc.  Each year, the classes offered will vary and change according to the needs and desires of the students and availablility of authors. The main focus of the workshop will be in developing the art and craft of writing.  Key concepts for success will be stressed such as the necessity for good grammar, editing and revising – skills necessary in any field.  Instructors will be professionals in the industry, educators and published authors. 

 For directions to the venue, click here Capital Public Radio

Cost:  $ 125

Registration:  Open until the 15 spaces are filled.  Open to members in junior high and high school (or high school seniors who graduated this year in 2011).  

***Workshop is FULL***

Call or email Verna Dreisbach at info@capitolcityyoungwriters.org or 916-804-5016 to confirm availability before mailing check to:

Capital City Young Writers

PO Box 5379

El Dorado Hills, CA 95762

A limited number of scholarships are available.  Sponsorships are provided by the following persons and/or organizations:

Tracy K. Saville, T2 

Monday, August 1, 8:30am-10:30pm
Kim Culbertson 
Topic: Travel is Transformative 

Being in a far away (or even not so far away) place can allow us to see the world differently, view our lives through a new lens.  And sometimes, it can make a fun foundation for fiction.  When Kim was a new teacher, she and one other teacher took 16 high school students to Italy for a spring trip.  In this workshop, Kim will discuss how she used that experience as the backdrop for her young adult novel, Instructions for a Broken Heart.  Bring a trip of your own in your back pocket.  Kim will take you through several writing exercises and discussions to show you how you can use your travel experiences as a foundation for your own fiction.  Workshop focus:  Sense of Place, Character, Conflict.

Kim Culbertson technically writes for teenagers, but there are some grown-ups who also like her work. Her award-winning first young adult novel Songs for a Teenage Nomad was published by Hip Pocket Press in June of 2007 and was reissued in fall of 2010 by Sourcebooks Fire. Kim’s second young adult novel Instructions for a Broken Heart was published by Sourcebooks Fire in May 2011.  When she's not writing for teenagers, she's teaching them, and has taught high school English, creative writing and drama for 14 years in both public and private schools. Currently, she works at Forest Charter School, a progressive personalized learning program. She lives in the Northern California foothills with her husband and daughter where she loves her small town life and drinks more coffee than perhaps she should.

Monday, August 1, 10:30am-12:30pm
Tanya Egan Gibson 
Topic: World Building

Who wants to hang out someplace boring?  Not you.  And not your readers, either.  Yet, while we devote considerable attention to developing exciting characters and clever plots, we often relegate setting to the background--window-dressing to be addressed after the major story work is already done.  The result can be a story that feels disconnected, ungrounded, unreal. (And, um, boring.) Envisioning the "world" of your fiction early, on the other hand, allows your setting to help shape your characters and propel them into action.  So how do you construct a world that is unique yet believable, exciting yet grounded?  Whether you want to build a world on a faraway planet or in a suburban Northern California community, this workshop--which includes group and individual writing exercises--will help you lay the groundwork for a destination that readers will be eager to visit.

Tanya Egan Gibson is the author of How To Buy a Love of Reading (Dutton - 2009), a novel in which the wealthy, clueless parents of a book-hating teenage girl decide to "buy" her a love of reading by commissioning an author to custom-write a book tailored to her interests. (Only one problem: her parents have no idea what she actually cares about, how she thinks, or who she loves.) Tanya's short fiction has been published in Carve magazine, where it was nominated for a Pushcart Prize; her short fiction for young adults has been published in Cicada magazine. She is a contributor to the recently-released anthology Milk & Ink: a Mosaic of Motherhood. Her worldbuilding article, "Make It Up, or Keep it Real," appeared in the March 2011 issue of The Writer magazine; her article about using your camera as a notebook will appear in the August 2011 issue.  She teaches writing classes at Book Passage, and holds degrees from Cornell University and the University of Washington. She would love you to visit her website, http://www.howtobuyaloveofreading.com, where you can share a story about how reading changed your life.

Tuesday, August 2, 8:30am-10:30am
Stephanie Chandler
Topic:  Publish, Promote and Profit from Books, eBooks and Information Products

The internet provides many opportunities for writers, included opportunities to promote your work and sell related products. In this workshop, you will learn how to create and promote a variety of information products including books, e-books, special reports, audio programs, and more.

You will learn how to:

• Establish credibility with your audience online
• Publish your own books and ebooks
• Generate ideas for books, e-books, and other information products
• Automate product sales and delivery with online shopping carts
• Start and run your own blog
• Use internet marketing and social media strategies to build your audience

If you’re serious about writing, come learn the many creative ways you can promote and sell your work online!

Stephanie Chandler is the author of several books including Booked Up! How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book to Grow Your Business, LEAP! 101 Ways to Grow Your Business, From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur: Make Money with Books, eBooks and Information Products, and The Author’s Guide to Building an Online Platform: Leveraging the Internet to Sell More Books. Stephanie is also founder and CEO of http://AuthorityPublishing.com, which specializes in custom publishing for non-fiction books, and http://BusinessInfoGuide.com, a directory of resources for entrepreneurs. A frequent speaker at business events and on the radio, she has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, BusinessWeek, Inc.com, Wired magazine, and many other media outlets.

Tuesday, August 2, 10:30am-12:30pm
Deborah Grabien
Topic:  Show Don't Tell

In this workshop you will learn the difference between "showing" and "telling", why one is vital in fiction and the other vital in journalism and non-fiction: how to tell them apart, how to train yourself to see the difference and recognise patterns in your own work, and when crossovers are not only okay to happen, but actually enhance what you're doing.

Deborah Grabien can claim a long personal acquaintance with the fleshpots -- and quiet little towns -- of Europe. She has lived and worked and hung out, from London to Geneva to Paris to Florence, and a few stops in between.

After publishing four novels between 1989 and 1993, she took a decade away from writing, to really learn how to cook. That done, she picked up where she'd left off, with the five novels of her Haunted Ballads series being brought out by St. Martins Minotaur between 2003 and 2007. Still Life With Devils, a standalone thriller, was released by Drollerie Press in 2007. Dark's Tale, her first YA title, draws on her and her husband's experiences working with the San Francisco SPCA's feral cat program in Golden Gate Park. Her current series, the critically acclaimed JP Kinkaid Chronicles, are the books of her heart. Narrated by ageing rock superstar guitarist John "JP" Kinkaid, this character-driven mystery series not only takes the reader into the way rock and roll really works at the highest end, but illuminates what living with a chronic progressive illness is like. Like JP, Deborah herself has lived with multiple sclerosis for nearly a decade.

Deborah's been married to bassist Nicholas Grabien since 1983. They share a passion for rescuing cats, and are both active members of several local feral cat rescue organisations. Deborah has a grown daughter, Joanna, who lives in Los Angeles.  These days, in between cat rescues and cookery, Deborah can generally be found listeoning to music, playing music on one of eleven guitars, hanging out with her musician friends, or writing about music, insofar as her multiple sclerosis will allow. See more at www.deborahgrabien.com

Wednesday, August 3, 8:30am-10:30pm
Rachel Dillon
Topic: Illustrations and its connection to writing

 
Learn about the power of words and their ability to inspire art. We will explore several children's books and how the illustrations reflect and enhance their stories. Author and illustrator, Rachel Dillon will describe how recognizing the connection between her poems and her paintings changed how she has created her children's books.
 
Hands on - Having an image to inspire your words.
 I will show a photograph of a person, animal or place. The participants will have 10-15 minutes to write 2-3 paragraphs telling a story about what is happening in the photo. We will then take 5-10 minutes for volunteers to read what they wrote.I will show a photograph of a person, animal or place. Participants will have 10-15 minutes to write a poem based on the image. We will then take 5-10 minutes for volunteers to read what they wrote. With any time remaining, I will ask the kids to throw out adjectives and I'll do some quick sketches of my interpretations of the words they give me. 

Rachel Dillon graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1994, with a Bachelor of Science in Art, emphasizing in Graphic Design. Rachel combined her passion for animals, teaching children, and creative expression, to write and illustrate her first book, "Through Endangered Eyes - a poetic journey into the wild." 
 "Through Endangered Eyes, " a non-fiction children's book, was published by Windward Publishing, an imprint of Finney Company, in 2009. It received an Eric Hoffer Honorable Mention award in 2010. Rachel has been a featured artist in "Wildscape Magazine," a contributing artist in gallery and museum exhibitions, and a speaker at art and writing conventions and conferences. 
 Rachel is currently working on her second endangered species book with Windward Publishing, "Through Desert Eyes." She also has two young adult novels in progress.

Wednesday, August 3, 10:30am-12:30pm
Indigo Moor
Topic:  Poetry

Indigo is a 2003 recipient of Cave Vanem's Writing fellowship in poetry and the winner of the 2005 Vesle Fenstermaker Poetry Prize for Emerging Writers.  His work has appeared in the Xavier Review, LA Review, Mochila Review, Boston University's The Comment, The Ringing Ear, the NCPA 2006 Anthology, and Gathering Ground.  His collection, Tap Root, was published in 2006 as part of Main Street Rag's Editor's Select Poetry Series.

Thursday, August 4, 8:30am-12:30pm
Topic:  Storylines

Writers will colletively brainstorm a storyline, develop meaningful characters, a setting that contributes to the development of the story and a plot that will intrigue any reader. 

Note:  At the suggestion of attendees from last year's event, this workshop has been extended from 2 hours to 4 hours.