Exciting Writing Classes, Past & Upcoming

San Diego Writers, Ink, FFW; Story Circle Network; and SCWC in SD

I am going to share some info for my fellow writers in today’s post, starting with this tempting autumn treat: The Fall For Writing virtual writing conference at San Diego Writers, Ink, started today (Friday, November 22), but you still have time to join them tomorrow or Sunday or both!

The weekend event is a mini, online, pay-what-you-can conference, with plenty of classes to introduce students to some of the incredible offerings SDWI provides. I am not teaching this time, but I will be online listening and looking and learning and also I am donating a content edit for their raffle. We’d love for you to stop by if you can!

Conference Details: View the Full Conference Schedule here

If you have a friend or twenty who might benefit from attending some classes during this almost-free event, please do share this post with them. As a reminder, the conference is a fundraiser for SDWI. Please make a donation for each class (of any amount) as it helps support this wonderful organization. And every donation enters you into a raffle for amazing prizes, including my aforementioned manuscript edit and free admission for one to their annual winter retreat.

Speaking of writing craft classes, I did one about Pitching your book idea recently for the Story Circle Network (on Zoom). The class was fun—we had a small group which allowed us time to pitch and get feedback. A few even pitched again after reworking their original pitch. If you are interested, you can watch the class—the link below will open the webinar recording on YouTube—and you can also check out more Story Circle Network offerings on the list of upcoming webinars and workshops right here on their site.

And don’t forget about the Southern California Writers’ Conference (SCWC) in February of 2025. I will be teaching a couple of workshops, plus doing “Pitch Witches” and one on ones with writers who send in material for Advance Submission. That, in addition to my usual “Early Bard” rogue read and critique on Sunday morning is bound to be a whole lot of fun and learning. One of the workshops I’m doing is about how not to pinch pennies in the publishing process, and will be co-presented with my friend Eric Peterson, author The Dining Car and Sunshine Chief. We’ll be discussing self-publishing and hybrid publishing—imparting real world info, along with specific dollar amounts and no B.S.

The SCWC is held in San Diego on Presidents’ Day Weekend (February 14-16, 2025), at the beautiful and oh-so-convenient-to-everything Sheraton Mission Valley hotel. The conference is limited to 175 conferees, which means you actually get to talk to and socialize with the workshop leaders, literary agents, and successful working authors. This is where we all get to hang out, learn a lot, make new friends, and add to our writing tribe. Discounted pre-registration is now open and there’s plenty of info about staff and much more right here on their site.

And, last but surely not least, my latest travel column was just published Wednesday on Womancake Magazine right here on Substack. It’s a short tale about expectations and enjoyment in traveling—even when you pick the wrong game, encounter “rough weather” (on land or on sea), terrible accommodations, and other disappointments. I hope you’ll click here to check out Womancake (and please subscribe, because we just had an editorial meeting today and there is some wonderful stuff coming to the magazine in 2025, including cool content from our New York-based beauty editor!

Next week I’ll be announcing my Top Books of 2024, complete with a couple of new thumbnail book reviews (some of my best books list were already reviewed here and some are new!). This weekend, I will be putting three of those five books on Shepherd.com as part of their ever-growing list of Three Best Books of the Year, which you can check out now and then again next week. I hope you’ll join me here again next Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

Russel and I are running away for a couple of days during his week-long school break: one day to a state park to hike and another day and night to a nearby hotel room with a luxurious Jacuzzi spa tub, all of which is enough to make me thankful to the max. I am also thankful for those of you who have followed or subscribed to this newsletter in the last year. I’m grateful that you take time out of your busy Friday/weekend/week to join me here.

What are you going to get up to this coming week—traveling/visiting, cooking/eating, watching/playing football? Please comment below—and hit subscribe if you haven’t already.

And, speaking of thanksgiving—I want to say thanks to those of you who have bought and/or reviewed my book, which hit #32 this last week on Amazon’s list of Aviation & Nautical Biographies & Memoirs!

The author journey continues, the voyage continues, and the honeymoon continues.

hasta pronto!