[stylist] Monthly Telephone Gathering- TOMORROW! OCT. 24th

Sat Oct 23 23:26:50 UTC 2010

Dear Division Members and guests (If you are not a member, please do join
us, we will all benefit)

TOMORROW!

RE: This month's telephone gathering! Sunday October 24th and it will be
super great! (Below, Read about our guest, Patricia , review the questions
that we sent her, think up new info you need and check the times and numbers
to do your call-in.)

--The guest speaker for the October conference call for the Writers'

Division will be Patricia Foster.  Her online biography reads:

"Patricia Foster is the author of two books of nonfiction and the editor of
three anthologies of nonfiction prose. Just beneath My Skin (University of
Georgia Press, 2004), her latest book, is a collection of essays that
explores autobiography as a means of creative self-examination. Kirkus
Review (starred) called it "perceptive, thoughtful - and thought-provoking -
with abundant moments of insight," whereas the American Library Association
noted that "although writers can feel alone and alienated, Foster seems to
have found a place of redemption, where she is at home living beyond the
ordinary, which, in turn, infuses her writing with its notable lyricism."
Four essays in this collection were named Notable Essays by Robert Atwan
(Best American Essays) while "A Second Look" won the Mary Roberts Rinehart
Award for nonfiction.

Patricia Foster began her book publishing career with the anthology Minding
the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul (Anchor/Doubleday, 1994), a book
translated into German, Dutch and Portuguese, chosen as a QPB Paperback
selection, and performed as a play by the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
Sister to Sister (Anchor/Doubleday, 1996), The Healing Circle co-edited with
Mary Swander (Dutton, 1998), and a memoir, All the Lost Girls (University of
Alabama, 2000), winner of the PEN/Jerard Fund Award for Women's Nonfiction,
all continued her interest in narrative nonfiction.

In addition to personal essays, Patricia Foster is a writer of fiction and a
graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has published both fiction and
nonfiction in such literary quarterlies as the Gettysburg Review, Virginia
Quarterly Review, Iowa Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner and Fourth
Genre. She won a Lake Effect Fiction Award, a Florida Arts Council Award, a
Yaddo residency, four Alabama Arts & Humanities Awards, and a Dean's Scholar
Award (University of Iowa). In 2003, she was an exchange professor at Paul
Valery University in Montpellier, France.

In addition to her MFA in fiction, Patricia has an MFA in art (UCLA) and a
Ph.D. in women's literature and creative writing (Florida State
University)."

--Priscilla McKinley sent your questions on writing and publishing to
Patricia, who will  address those questions, as well as other questions,
meeting. And I have pasted those questions in below:

Suggestions - Interest for Discussion

For Guest Speaker 

1. I would love to learn about writing autobiographical essays. I find that
writing about myself is the hardest thing to do, and would love tips on how
to do it.

Jewel

2. How about having the instructor give "common mistakes" writers make.
That could be like a list of 3, or maybe 5.  I'm thinking about mistakes
writers make who fall into the beginner, or maybe unpublished, category.  

Bob

3.  

First--punctuation around quotation marks.  I do a lot of technical writing
for work, so grammar is not that much of a problem.  It's just that you
don't use quote marks much in technical writing; so I never got the hang of
the grammar.

Research--tips on doing research for stories would be helpful.

Shawn

4. I think it is always important to stress possessing knowledge of style
and structure.  Even though writers often rely on editors, we still need to
have some level of knowledge when it comes to this stuff.  I don't pretend
to be an expert when it comes to grammar and all that, but you would not
believe how awful some peoples grammar is when I am editing for the
newsletter.  And these are intelligent people. Also, I think it is
beneficial to have some forum where our work can be work shopped.  Whether
it is a classroom, online or community peer group, it is important to have
that feedback and criticism. Maybe, too, pointing out the benefits to
studying your craft.  Whether it is a traditional method like I have chosen
or self-study or joining a community type class, studying writing can only
make us better writers.

Bridget

5. I'd want to ask questions about marketing:  Where do you research
magazine publications, and what do you look for?  

What journals take articles about writing?  

What websites do people use?  

Are they the same ones we use?  

What about market directories--should we even be looking at them any more? 

Should you publish first in your own region or State?

What books on writing do you recommend?

Thanks for the opportunity.

Nan

--The time is- 8:30 PM Eastern; 7:30 PM Central; 6:30 PM Mountain; 5:30 PM
Pacific.

The phone number to call is- 218-339-4300 

The code is: 568839# (last character is a number sign)

--(It will be recorded and posted to our website) 

Robert Leslie Newman

President- NFB Writers' Division

Division Website

 <http://www.nfb-writers-division.org> http://www.nfb-writers-division.org

Personal Website-

 <http://www.thoughtprovoker.info> http://www.thoughtprovoker.info