Sex Scene Writing On-Line Class

**Permission to forward granted and encouraged**

Yosemite Romance Writers is proud to present their online workshop for April.

Date: 4/6 - 5/1/09

Workshop title: Creating Effective Sex Scenes

Writing about sex in our stories is often a literary mine field. You can easily find yourself caught up in clichés, aphorisms, and euphemisms. You might end up romanticizing or depersonalizing sex, or find the genuine emotion connected with it so difficult to capture that you exaggerate or pull away. This four-week course gives you a lot of strategies and tips that make it unnecessary to fade to black. You learn the key elements of a well-crafted sex scene and how sex in your stories can enhance and promote character, plot, and theme. You also learn how to use language that is sensory, specific, and thoughtful to create scenes you love (and others will too). By the end of the course, you have in hand one-to-two new scenes.

About the instructor: Jessica Barksdale Inclán

Jessica Barksdale Inclán's debut novel Her Daughter's Eyes, published in 2001, was the premier novel published under New American Library's new imprint Accent. Her Daughter's Eyes was a final nominee for the YALSA Award for the best books of 2001 and best paperbacks for 2001 and has been published in Dutch and Spanish. Her next novel The Matter of Grace was published in May 2002 and was re-released in a mass market version in May 2004. Her third, When You Go Away, came out April 1, 2003. Her fourth, One Small Thing, was published April 2004, and has been published in Dutch and Spanish. Her fifth, Walking With Her Daughter, was published in April 2005. The Instant When Everything is Perfect was published in February 2006. In June 2006, she published the first in a trilogy from Kensington Books. When You Believe was followed by Reason to Believe and Believe in Me. Being with Him--the first in a second trilogy, was published February 2008 and the second, Intimate Beings, is due out October 2008.. She is a 2002 recipient of the CAC Artist's Fellowship in Literature. Inclán teaches composition, creative writing, mythology, and women's literature at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California, and on-line creative writing courses for UCLA extension. She has studied with Sharon Olds, Anne Lamott, Kate Braverman, Grace Paley, Marjorie Sandor, and Cristina Garcia. Her short stories and poems have appeared in Rockhurst Review, Hotwired, The Salt Hill Journal, Free Lunch, The West Wind Review, The Prairie Star, Gargoyle and many other journals and newspapers. Her short story Open Eyes was given first prize by Sandra Cisneros for El Andar magazine's 2000 writing contest. She co-edited a women's literature/studies textbook Diverse Voices of Women (Mayfield Publishing, 1995). Ms. Inclán has degrees in sociology and English literature from CSU Stanislaus and a Master's degree in English literature from SFSU. Ms. Inclán lives in Oakland, California and is currently at work on her next novel.

Deadline to register: 4/5/09

Fee: $20 YWR members; $25 non-members. RWA Membership isn't required; Anyone can take our courses.

Where to sign up: You may register online at our website. Please click the Pay Now button and follow the instructions for Paypal, then EMAIL us at Workshops@YosemiteRomanceWrtiers.com to Confirm. You may also YRW at YosemiteRomanceWriters@YosemiteRomanceWriters.com. For any other Questions.

Thank you for considering our workshops!!

Sandra Marlow Vice President, YRW Yosemite Romance Writers http://WWW.yosemiteromancewriters.com

MarsCON Schedule

I'm going to be in attendance (mostly as my alter-go, however,) at MarsCON this weekend. It will be at the Holiday Inn Select in lovely Bloomington, Minnesota, where there is still several inches of snow on the ground.

Here is my annotated schedule:

Friday, March 6
9:00 - 9:45 pm
HOW TO SURVIVE A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

A small group of people, who have made it be their hobby to think about what to do when zombies infest the world, share their knowledge with those who are willing to accept it. Instructions on locations, weapons, and specific situations will be explained with questioning throughout out the whole thing.
With Brian LaBounty, Jr., Kevin Berg, Erik Pakieser, Lyda Morehouse[1]

Saturday, March 7
Noon - 12:45 pm
BROAD UNIVERSE RAPID-FIRE READING

A series of twelve minute readings by Broad Universe members. BU promotes work of women SF/F/H writers
Catherine Lundoff, hoest: Kimberly Long-Ewing, Lyda Morehouse, Catherine Schaff-Stump[2]

Saturday, March 7
1:00 - 1:45 pm
GOOD THINGS IN SMALL PACKAGES

Small and medium press publishing for sf/f/h writers and readers: what's out there? What are the differences between presses that do POD (print on demand), ebooks, and small print runs? What's in it for writers? For readers?
Catherine Lundoff (mod); Roy C. Booth, Rob Callahan, Lyda Morehouse, Bryan Thao Worra [3]

Saturday, March 7
3:00 - 3:45 pm
TRUE BLOOD TO TWILIGHT

Vampires in literature, films, television, comics, and games (Radio perhaps?)
Cythnia Booth (mod); Jeanne Cavols, Jessie Berg, Roy C. Booth, Lyda Morehouse, Jason D. Wittman. [4]

Saturday, March 7
10:00 - 10:45 pm
THE DAY STAR WARS DIED FOR ME

Come discuss with your fellow panelists the day the Star Wars saga died for you.
With: Ben Ellis, Romeo Azar, Lyda Morehouse, Roy C. Booth, Cynthia Booth. [5]

------

End Notes:

[1] It should be noted that I am not at my best any time after, say, eight at night. Also, I'm not actually a zombie expert at all, and so the "questions" part will probably be me.

[2] I'm currently thinking about reading a short segment of my short story "The VanBuylen Effect" which appeared in the 09 issue of Tales of the Unanticipated because it's, like, the only SF I really have.

[3] I signed up for this panel to get the scoop on the small press deal, since I'm going to have a novel published by a small press for the first time this fall (provided, of course, I finish it on time.) I'm also hoping to provide, if necessary, the counter point of someone who's had years of experience with a New York publisher as well.

[4] Vampires! Finally!

[5] Another late-night-out-of-my-element panel for me, but Romeo is awesome so I may drag myself back to the con in order to have this conversation with him.

Local Announcement -- Copyright Workshop

Tuesday March 10, 2009:
Who Owns What? Learn about permissions and copyright

On Tuesday, March 10 at 1 PM, the Twin Cities chapters of the National Writers Union and the Professional Editors Network will hold a free workshop abou t permissions and copyright and other intellectual property issues concernin g writers and editors.

Location: St. Louis Park Library, 3240 Library Lane, St. Louis Park. Two attorneys—Debra Kass Orenstein and Kenneth Kunkle-- will explain copyright and permissions.

Literary property lawyer Debra Kass Orenstein is in private practice representing writers, publishers, and agents all over the country. She has worked in the legal departments of Harper & Row (now Harper Collins) and McGraw Hill and was General Counsel to the Lazear Agency in Minneapolis. Attorney Kenneth Kunkle’s practice focuses on legal issues affecting creative professionals. He assists his clients with a variety of matters, including copyright, trademarks, licensing and general business issues.

Please join us for this FREE event! For more details about the Twin Cities National Writers Union, visit www.nwu-tc.org For more details about the Professional Editors Network, visit www.pensite.org

TGI-March!!

February 2009 is going to always be remembered in my household as the month everyone was sick. We started off the month quite nicely with a poetry party in honor of Brigid, but after that, everything pretty much went to hell in a hand basket.

The very day of our party, Mason got sick. Turns out he had strep AND what the doctor described as a "macho" cold. That took him (and his mom, Shawn, who is susceptible to ANY virus that comes into the mere vicinity of her) out for at least a week. Then, in my fool hearty way, I mocked the virus's ability to take me down. "Ha," I bragged on my livejournal, "I have the constitution of an ox. It'll never get me!!!"

Famous last words, no?

So I, who so rarely get sick, was completely knocked on my a$$ for a week and a half.

At some point in here, Shawn fell down our stairs, hurt her back (she's always had a bad back -- a herniated disc(k?), and got a migraine that last ten days (the worst she's ever had.

The calendar changed, and POOF! We all got better.

I have never been happier that it's March in all my life.

My project for today is to get back on track, and I can't say it's started out all that well. I headed off to the gym this morning after dropping Mason off at school and discovered that I'd forgotten to repack my tennis shoes. As I didn't think I'd get much of a work out done in snow boots, I gave up and went home.

So now I'm sitting in front of the computer gathering notes for the next book project (Honeymoon of the Dead is in the hands of a beta reader: SMM, whom I hope to get some good advice about ASAP), which is the small press project for my alter ego. I had a brilliant flash about it last night, and that is that I'm planning to try to make it read like a faux memoir. I just read a really great memoir by Patricia Monaghan called RED-HAIRED GIRL FROM THE BOG, which I devoured in three days (very unusual for a slow-reading dyslexic like me) and I thought, "Hmmm, normally I despise the form of memoir, but maybe this is the structure I've been needing. Because then I don't have to tell things in chronological order!"

Wish me luck. This will be the sixth time I've re-started this novel.