If you would like to speak at one of our meetings or workshops, please submit a speaker registration form:
Annette O’Hare – 03/09/2023
Presentation: Caviar Marketing on a Canned Tuna Budget
Annette O’Hare will speak on the good, the bad, and the ugly of book promotion. And she will share cost effective marketing skills she has used in her book promotion campaigns.
Biography:
Annette O’Hare is an award-winning author of inspirational romance from a bygone era. Her Bolivar Point Lighthouse series covers more than seventy-five years of Texas Gulf Coast history. O’Hare also writes pre-teen mysteries set in the Texas Hill Country. Her engaging characters work together to solve mysteries while dealing with the issues facing young people today. Annette’s ultimate desire is to reveal the love of God to her readers while hopefully giving them something to smile about. She and her husband Dan live in Southeast Texas and enjoy spending time with family, RVing, and saltwater fishing.
Website: http://annetteohare.com
Janice Thompson – 05/06/2023
Workshop: Fiction Intensive
In this three-part workshop, we will learn how to fully develop characters that our readers will fall in love with, we will learn how to maximize the power of our stories by strategically selecting the most effective point-of-view (POV), and we will learn how to tackle the plot-design process to ensure that all the critical pieces are included to carry our readers on their journey to a gratifying end.
Biography:
Award-winning author Janice Thompson got her start in the industry writing screenplays and musical comedies for the stage. Janice has published over 150 books for the Christian market, crossing genre lines to write cozy mysteries, historicals, romances, nonfiction books, devotionals, children’s books and more. She particularly enjoys writing light-hearted, comedic tales because she enjoys making readers laugh.
Janice is passionate about her faith and does all she can to share the joy of the Lord with others, which is why she particularly enjoys writing. Her tagline, “Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters!” sums up her take on life.
Janice lives in Spring, Texas, where she leads a rich life with her family, a host of writing friends, and three mischievous dogs. When she’s not busy writing or playing with her nine grandchildren, Janice can be found in the kitchen, baking specialty cakes and cookies for friends and loved ones. She loves to blog about cakes, cookies, and other sweet treats on her Out of the Box Baking Blog, even though she’s currently on a weight-loss journey. (She’s a walking, talking conundrum, y’all.) No matter what she’s cooking up—books, cakes, cookies or mischief—she does her best to keep the Lord at the center of it all.
Website: www.janiceathompson.com
Kathrese McKee – 08/05/2023
Workshop: The Waif, the World and the Way
In this workshop, we will cover three major components of writing great fantasy. If you do not write fantasy, that’s okay because MOST of the material applies to any fiction genre. We will identify the common fantasy tropes and archetypes, we will learn how to create fascinating yet believable worlds full of mystery and magic, and we will learn how to create epic journeys with meaningful, heartfelt messages.
Biography:
Kathrese McKee has edited fiction professionally since 2014 in the following genres: urban and paranormal fantasy, fairytale retellings, dystopian and military science fiction, women’s fiction, and contemporary and historical romance.
She is the host of the Writing Pursuits podcast and writes and produces a weekly newsletter, Writing Pursuits Tips for Authors. Kathrese is the author of speculative fiction books, short stories, and flash fiction. Her goal is to help you prepare your story for the journey ahead.
As a Three Story Method Certified Editor, she specializes in story analysis and diagnostics. Her mission is to help authors understand their strengths and weaknesses and polish their work for publication.
Website: https://www.writingpursuits.com
Martha Rogers – 10/12/2023
Presentation: How’s the GUM in Your Manuscript?
GUM: It’s what holds your manuscript together and helps it to make sense. We’ll go over what editors look for in grammar, usage, and mechanics as they read your manuscript. We’ll cover things like misuse of words and punctuation marks, possessive plurals for words ending in the letter s, sentence type and structure, and using the correct part of speech. The cleaner your manuscript, the less work for your editor and for you in making your final copy.
Biography:
Martha Rogers is a prolific freelance writer of both fiction and non-fiction. She has authored five series as well as numerous novels and novellas, and she has contributed to several compilations. She was named Writer of the Year at the Texas Christian Writers Conference in 2009 and is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) for whom she writes the weekly Verse of the Week.
Martha is a frequent speaker for writing workshops. She is a retired teacher and lives in Houston with her husband Rex. Their favorite pastime is spending time with their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Central Houston IWA! 