Judge Training for Contests – March 15 to March 28
Great Opportunity! Improve Your Writing from the Comfort of Your Own Home! Take CFRWA’s Online Judge Training Class with Author Lois Winston! No Charge! March 15 – March 28. Join the fun! Contact for more info.
Instructor: Lois Winston
Award-winning author and literary agent Lois Winston writes humorous cross-genre contemporary novels, amateur sleuth mysteries, romantic suspense, and non-fiction essays. Her books often draw upon her extensive experience as an artist and crafts designer for her source material.
Winston’s published novels have received accolades from readers, librarians, booksellers, reviewers, and fellow authors. Talk Gertie To Me was the recipient of the Readers and Book Buyers Best Award, took second place in both the Beacon Awards and Laurel Wreath Awards, and was nominated for a Reviewers’ Choice Award and a Golden Leaf Award. Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception was the winner of the Winter Rose Award for Excellence in Romantic Fiction, the More Than Magic Award, and the Laurie Award. The book also took second place in the Beacon Awards and garnered Golden Leaf and Golden Quill nominations. Her books have been called “smart,” “witty,” “fun,” “captivating,” “fresh,” “fast paced,” and “unable to put down” by bestselling authors Christina Skye, Kasey Michaels, Alesia Holliday, Lori Avocato, Lauren Baratz-Logsted, and Jan Coffey.
Winston has also contributed to several anthologies: Dreams & Desires, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 and House Unauthorized — Vasculitis, Clinic Duty, and Bad Bedside Manner.
When not writing or designing, Winston can be found trudging through stacks of manuscripts as she hunts for diamonds in the slush piles for the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency. She began her association with the agency as a client. Several years ago she was invited to join the agency as an associate, opening what she likes to call their East Coast division. She continues to be represented by one of the other agents in the agency.
The Ashley Grayson Literary Agency was established in 1976 and consists of four agents who handle both literary and commercial fiction, children’s fiction, and some non-fiction. Recent sales have included romance, women’s fiction, urban fantasy, YA, and mysteries to Pocket, Harlequin, Grand Central Publishing, St. Martin’s Press, Harper Collins, Viking, Scholastic, Red Sage, and Dorchester, as well as children’s chapter books to Little Brown and Feiwel & Friends.
Visit Lois Winston at www.loiswinston.com and look for Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in her new crafting mystery series, coming in early 2011.
Medical Speak for Writers
Many romance novels feature a main or secondary character with a disease, an injury or a chronic illness. Others use the backdrop of a medical facility or conveyance or have a character who works in the medical field. In order to get the details straight—a critical necessity for today’s savvy reader—an author must be able to access credible medical information.
Medical Speak for Writers is a four-day class that covers the various types of medical facilities, the departments of a typical hospital, medical terminology, various medical specialties, patient experiences and common injuries.
Why is it so imperative to be accurate? How much detail is too much? What are the best and most credible plain speak websites to find the information you need to create plausible medical situations?
Day One: How much medical detail does your story need? Why is accuracy so important? Commonly featured errors, fallacies and misconceptions about medical care in fiction. Different types of hospitals, common departments, other medical facilities and conveyances.
Day Two: Types of medical personnel, their job description and educational requirements.
Day Three: Areas for conflict. The scope of volunteerism. The patient experience – diagnosis, testing, common disorders and injuries.
Day Four: Common mental health conditions, alternative medicine, terminology and resources. Q&A.
$20 for CFRW members and $25 for non-members — PayPal buttons to be added.
Instructors:
Joanie White is a Nurse Practitioner who currently works in clinical transformation and patient safety. She spent ten years as a pediatric trauma transport nurse and possesses a Bachelor of Science Degree in nursing and a Master’s Degree in business.
Dara Edmondson has published more than a dozen romances under her own name and her pen name, Wynter Daniels. She currently writes for Ellora’s Cave, Loose Id and Red Sage Publishing. She has also been teaching in-person and online classes for writers for several years. You can find her on the web at www.WynterDaniels.com.