CFRW holds a monthly meeting, typically on the first or second Saturday of the month.
Please note: The July meeting will be held July 10 and will be in a different location than normal. See below.
Our Meetings are held in the community room of the Fashion Square Mall in Orlando.
3201 E Colonial Dr. (East Colonial Drive and Maguire)
Orlando, FL 32803
Next Meeting…
July 10, 2010 – 10:15 am – Downtown Library, Orlando
Magnolia Room
Orange County Public Library
101 E. Central Blvd.
Orlando, FL 32801
407.835.7323
Library website:http://www.ocls.info/Locations/MainLibrary/default.asp
Parking info: http://www.ocls.info/locations/MainLibrary/parking.asp
Topic: Prepping for PRO
Local Published Authors Karen Potter, Jax Cassidy, Kristen Painter and Leigh Duncan discuss the road to publishing and what you need to know about the pitching and submission process.
They will also listen to and critique two anonymous pitches. In addition, conference etiquette will be discussed.
Upcoming Meetings…
August 7, 2010 – 10:15 am – Fashion Square Mall, Orlando
Topic: TBD
Speaker: Karen Rose
Previous 2010 Programs…
June 5, 2010 – 10:15 am – Fashion Square Mall, Orlando
Topic: Research Beyond Google
Speaker: Christopher “Kit” Beats
Christopher Beats is a historian and writer currently living in South Florida. He received his Bachelor’s magna cum laude in Historical & Political Studies at Chaminade, University of Honolulu after moving to Oahu to marry his high school sweetheart. He finished his Master’s in History from the University of Central Florida in 2007, writing his thesis on the religious and military conflict during Florida’s First Spanish Period (1565-1763). He has taught freshman classes at UCF as well as Rollins College in American, European, and World History. He is currently on a break from teaching to be a part-time writer and full-time dad to his new son.
May 1, 2010
Topic: How to Mend a Broken Scene
It happens to all of us. We write a scene, close the doc, and walk away.knowing something is wrong. Do we rewrite? Revise? Rationalize? Or just hit delete? In this workshop, national bestselling author of twenty-four books Roxanne St. Claire will offer writers the tools needed to create an exciting, emotionally charged, page turning scene. The workshop will teach the basic elements of scene structure, then it will help identify the symptoms of a broken scene, and finally present three different “levels” to fix the work and make it strong, whole, and ready for publication!
Speaker: Roxanne St. Claire
Roxanne St. Claire is a bestselling, RITA-award winning author of twenty-four novels of suspense and romance. For the past few years, she’s been writing a popular romantic suspense series called “The Bullet Catchers” published by Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books. In addition to being a four-time RITA nominee, her books have won the National Reader’s Choice Award for best romantic suspense for two consecutive years, as well as the Daphne du Maurier Award, the HOLT Medallion, the Maggie, Booksellers Best, Book Buyers Best, several Awards of Excellence, the Aspen Gold and multiple Gayle Wilson Awards of Excellence, and her last release was nominated for an RT Reviewers Choice Award. In 2010, she will launch a new romantic suspense series, featuring an extended family of street smart crime fighters known as the Guardian Angelinos, published by Grand Central.
Prior to launching a full time career as a novelist with her first romantic suspense release in 2003, Roxanne spent nearly two decades as a marketing executive and public relations consultant. She is a graduate of UCLA, an active member of several national writing organizations, and a lecturer on a wide range of writing-related topics. She lives in Satellite Beach, Florida with her husband two children, and if you know her, you call her Rocki.
April 3, 2010
Topic: How Authors Can Embrace and Utilize Social Media Tools to Promote Their Work and Build Fan Bases
Speaker: Amanda Forbes, Senior Account Executive, Public Relations at Fry | Hammond | Barr
March 6, 2010
Topic: Keeping Your Head Above Water.
Our guest speaker is Karen Potter. Please find more information about Karen below.
“…Someone just like you who made her dreams come true.”
In December, 2003, shortly after I received “The Call,” and sold Daddy in Waiting, the manuscript that started life as The Old Fashioned Way and finalled in RWA’s Golden Heart competition, I was asked to speak to a group of librarians about what it was like to write and sell a book.
For weeks I struggled to find a title for my talk but could never come up with just the right one. Instead, I led with the subtitle that I felt said it all…Someone just like you who made her dreams come true. That this bit of wisdom rhymes is probably no accident. I started my literary career writing very bad poetry.
I was born in rural central Kentucky, in a small town of 7,000, where everyone not only knew your name, but knew your family’s personal business all the way back to the flood.
I attended local schools, eventually graduating from the same high school as my father had twenty-eight years before, then went off to the University of Kentucky where the freshman class was more than three times the size of the town I’d left. I high-tailed it to junior college, then to Kentucky Wesleyan in Owensboro, where I graduated with a BA in English.
All the while I read…fiction, non-fiction, the classics, with a concentration in Nancy Drew and Shakespeare. For a time I aspired to grow up to be a sleuth, to drive a blue roadster and wear white gloves to luncheon. I outgrew that, though, because as much as I love mysteries and detective stories I can never keep the clues in my head long enough to solve the crime, and at the end of the book I always find myself saying, “I never saw that coming!”
For many years I thought I might teach, but found the classroom stifling. At Wesleyan I fell into a job at the campus library, then later at the local public library, and at the suggestion of one of my professional co-workers, high-tailed it back to the University of Kentucky for a master’s degree in librarianship.
But how did you get to be a romance writer, you ask?
By being a voracious romance reader.
One day I was talking with a co-worker about the romances we were currently reading and I joked that someday I ought to write a story about a gorgeous flame-haired librarian and her hunky chairman of the board who “did it” on the circulation desk. Now, this was in the days before my library got it’s automated system and there were no check-out computers, back when there was room to “do it” on the circulation desk, if indeed one wanted to, in front of a bank of very large windows. But, regardless of the inconvenience and modesty factors, the seed was sown. Or, I guess I should say the idea was planted in my head. That book (yes, I actually did write it, but it still needs some major tweaking) was just the beginning.
Today I still work as a librarian and dream of the day I can write full-time. I have characters of all sorts and descriptions living in my head, distracting me from mundane things like cleaning my house and washing my car and sticking to my diet. I like to travel to exotic places and spend time with my family and watch my nieces and nephews grow up. I dream of writing a “keeper,” of making the New York Times best seller list, or the USA Today best seller list, or, heck, any list. I want someday for a reader to tell me, “I just love your books.”
I am…just like you.
February 6
Our speaker is Louise M. Gouge, a long-time, published member of CFRWA. Her topic will be “Inspirationals: What are the rules?”.
Award-winning author Louise M. Gouge has been married to David Gouge for 44 years. They have four grown children and six grandchildren. Louise earned her BA in English/Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida in Orlando and her Master of Liberal Studies degree at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. The author of nine published novels, Louise is also an adjunct professor of English and Humanities at Valencia Community College in Kissimmee, Florida.