Powell River Writers Conference

YES You Can Get Paid To Write!

Besides publishing books my goal was to get paid for writing magazine articles. But first I did my time. I wrote for local papers for free to get exposed and used to the tighter style of writing and meeting a deadline. The first time I was published in Our Canada, a national glossy magazine, even though it was unpaid I was thrilled. What I got out of it was book sales, a free subscription and a place to stay in Ontario. Being an RV writer, I started with RV Times also for free. Writing a series on our cross-Canada trips sold books, and created a fan base which continues to this day.

I couldn’t join BC Association of Travel Writers unless I sold at least two articles per year because this is an organization of professionals. The first year I scrimped to sell two. But by the next year Snowbirds & RV Travel found me and paid for the 10 part series about our 2009 northern trip.

This year after the BCATW gala, an invitation went out for three travel writers to go to Dawson City, Yukon all expenses paid. Yahoo!! I finally felt like I belonged among the other professional travel writers. No more writing for free, or at least minimally and only under special circumstances like for Powell River Living.

Those four days in Dawson were the pinnacle of my travel writing career. I was treated like royalty by tourism and business people alike. Three of us were wined and dined, toured around, given gifts and taken to the Commissioners Ball. The 1898 style ball is formal with dresses being specially designed starting at $2,000. Do I ever have stories! I did my homework ahead of time, contacting the seamstress, the commissioner’s office and an editor for a Yukon magazine.

Could you earn an income with your stories or enjoy what are called “fam tours”/ familiarization tours put on by tourism …YES You Can! Haven’t started yet? Start writing for free in local magazines to build up a portfolio of clips/tear sheets. Set a goal for when you’ll start selling stories. Writing is a job and we deserve to get paid just the same as the ad person does. Among the professionals, it’s a sore point when established writers give their work away because it makes it harder for the rest of us to find editors that will pay.

Start small, learn as you go, attend workshops, pick the brains of experienced magazine writers, study magazine articles  for content and structure.

The Powell River Tourism project is the perfect place for locals to get their feet wet… or is that their computers working? Believe in yourself and your writing and you’ll go far. YES You Can!

Article by Barb Rees, author of two RV books, and free-lance Métis travel writer and speaker. www.write2dream.com

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May 15th, 2010
POWELL RIVER TOURISM WRITERS GUIDELINES
FOR TOURISM WEB-BASED STORIES
SHOWCASING THE POWELL RIVER REGION
SUBMISSIONS
SENDING A QUERY

PR Tourism welcomes articles from all Powell River Regional writers. You may submit a finished article, but it is recommended that you send a brief written query outlining your story idea before investing your time in an article that may prove unacceptable. Tell the editor who your potential sources will be, and the proposed angle you are pursuing. Indicate how the piece will be illustrated and whether you have photos, illustrations, or graphics. Advise if you have been published.
Email is the preferred method of communication.

Send queries to Darren Robinson, Executive Director, PR Tourism: tourism@discoverpowellriver.com

EDITORIAL PREFERENCES

Tourism is looking for stories that highlight the beauty and viability of the PR Region as a great vacation destination or retirement spot. Interactive tourism is hot, a focus on the Educational, Culinary, and Volunteer Tourism, Habitat for Humanity, are examples. Another example are quirky with a slight edge would be of great interest. And don’t forget those “special characters” in your locale where you can focus on the human element.

GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS

This is a major tourism project with proper funding and potentially positive benefits for the Region. We are looking for many stories that showcase the following areas: Powell River, Texada, Savary/Lund, and Lasqueti. Please send your queries or stories as soon as possible.

Submit your article as an attachement to your email, not as part of the email itself. Articles should be typed using a wordprocessing program and saved as a “text only” file, extension txt. Always include your name and contact info in your file, as well as the word count and suggested working title for the article.

We are asking for a word count of 400-700 words which ensures good, tight writing, where every word should have weight.

Please proof and spell check your material before submission. Facts should be double-checked, and any contact numbers given in the article should be called to make sure you have not mistyped them and that they are sill in service. Eg: one digit out of sequence can cause huge ramifications, such as some unsuspecting private citizen being deluged by calls relating to an article of which they know nothing. Please pay special attention to names and titles to ensure total accuracy. Articles must be our original work.

PAYMENT AND COPYRIGHT

A flat fee of $100 will be paid  upon website publication. All rights will remain with the author, but with the understanding that they are allowing Powell River Tourism to use their material in various forms on a continuous basis.

PHOTOGRAPHY

There is a small budget of $15 per photo to pay photographers who produce quality shots. Digital form is preferred. Photos that require a lot of touch-up and manipulation to overcome poor lighting, poor composition, or poor focusing will not qualify for payment. Photographic rights remain with the author. A flash program will prevent downloading off the Internet.

SENDING EMAILS

Due to file sizes and storage issues, please attache only text documents(no photographs, PDSs or Word documents with embedded photos). Emails with large attachments will be deleted upon receipt. To avoid disappointment, or a flurry of phone calls, please email additional materials only when they are requested.

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 Powell River Writers Conference Newsletter May, 2010

Publishing Coming to Powell River

CHPPPR (Community Heritage Publishing Project Powell River) is about to be born. Think of it as a chipmunk dancing on a printing press!

A fund-raising project will soon be rolled out to earn Powell River its very own Espresso Book Machine. Our goal? $150,000. By when? The end of 2010! Chipmunks are cheaper and faster than cats!

CHPPPR offers community publishing to Powell River and beyond. What does that mean? It means that, for the first time in history, anyone can put out a book, a real, official, perfect-bound book, for just a few hundred dollars.

The Espresso Book Machine manufactures beautiful books with full-color covers (black-and-white book blocks) in just a few minutes apiece. Our local publisher, The Pack Press, offers editing services to authors. CMG Printing provides layout and book design. All these skills have been pulled together to make Powell River a new and vibrant center of writing, publishing, and book manufacture that it deserves to be in its second century.

An office for CHPPPR is being established. Stay tuned for details of fund-raising initiatives. If you have always wanted to publish a book, whether it’s a family history, a book for your grandchildren, a reprint from history, or the Great Canadian Novel (no, it hasn’t happened yet!), call coordinator Eva van Loon at 483-4940 to develop a plan unique to the needs of your book.

Peace Poem Lyrics Set to Music

I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to work with the Peace Poem initiative with Eva Van Loon under the PRIPPWA (Powell River International Peace Poem Walkers Association) tag over the past two years, as judge and now this year as Vice President.

The poems are judged on merit, but in addition, I had begun a Poem-to-Song Workshop last year, continued this year in a larger way with Canada Folk star, Valdy. Out of this year’s entries came some promising ‘lyrical” poems that we chose as possible song writing material. With the approval of the family, I chose Braea Mayenburg’s poem, “Tears” as lyrics, and wrote the music for this poem. In doing such a thing with someone’s work necessitates their input and approval. After writing the music for Braea’s words, and having her excitement over this, we have now launched this song. In the days to come, the song will be recorded professionally and released.

 This is the song the world needs to hear, an 11 year old girl showing the world how to stop war.

I’ve just posted a video of Braea’s song “Tears” on Youtube. Check it out.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQn-IlCmL9o&feature=channel

Randy Pinchbeck, Bass Clef Studios
 Tears
 
They were brave they were loyal,
 They were willing to die,
To die for their country,
 Their spirits to fly.
 
The tears on the faces,
 Of the people who lost,
A brother, a husband,
They all paid the cost.
 
They dreamed in the trenches,
They wished for the sound,
The sound of the guns,
 Being dropped to the ground,
 
The war has continued,
When will it stop,
When will these tears cease to drop.
 
            Braea Mayenburg. 2010

Research Tools
   
         When your writing calls for research, the following 2 sites can be a big help.

Our Provincial library system has a great service called AskAway. You can access it from our PR Library’s home page. You chat online with a librarian somewhere in cyber space and they solve your problem.

The website www.globallibrarian.info connects people to librarians worldwide (through the Surrey Public Library service). It is available online 24 hours a day. It guarantees a response within 10 hours.

Wanted: Powell River Tourism Stories

POWELL RIVER TOURISM WEBSITE IS POISED TO PUBLISH AND DISTRIBUTE REGIONAL STORIES ON THEIR TOURISM WEBSITE CELEBRATING POWELL RIVER AND LUND, AS WELL AS SAVARY, TEXADA, AND LASQUITI ISLANDS.

THERE IS AN IMMEDIATE NEED FOR 25 POWELL RIVER STORIES WRITTEN BY POWELL RIVER WRITERS.

WRITERS WILL BE PAID A FLAT RATE OF $100 FOR ACCEPTED STORIES, PLUS $14 PER PHOTO. LENGTH: 400 TO 700 WORDS.

INTERESTED WRITERS ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO ATTEND THE ‘INFORMATION EVENING’ FOR A DISCUSSION OF ‘WRITERS GUIDELINES’ ON WEDNESDAY MAY 19TH, 6:30 PM – SCHOOL BOARD DOWNSTAIRS BOARDROOM.
Contact: Gary Grieco: 604-486-7770

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The Annual General Meeting was held May 12 with conference reports and elections.
Welcome the new board:
Barb Rees: President
Donna Koleszar: Vice President
Gwen Enquist: Secretary
Dave Rees: Treasurer
Bud Gilham: VP of Membership
Heidi Sullivan: VP of Publicity
Members at Large: Eva van Loon, Jennifer Salisbury

We wish you time over the summer to get rejuvenated and refreshed before we move   
 into the planning stages for April 15,16, 2011 conference.

Anyone can contribute to the newsletter. We’re interested in anything to do with the writing world, especially if it pertains to local writers. Send items of interest to egwen@shaw.ca for inclusion in the newsletter.

Newsletters

March 2010 Newsletter

 The Powell River Business Directory

  The Business Directory in the Retail & Wholesale Section now contains pages for local authors with each author’s name and contact info listed with their book titles and a one-paragraph description of each book.  There is the option of taking out an advertisement that will show the cover of the book with a more complete description.

 So please spread the word to any authors you know and send the details noted to:

 Norah LeClare

604.487.0177
http://www.powellriverdirect.com/

 Write to Sell

 The brainchild of Gary Grieco and Barb Rees, this pilot project launched Group 1 in December. With the support of Darren Robinson at Tourism Powell River, and the bottomless wisdom of Ann Nelson, they set about to write “articlettes” …Gary’s word for a filler piece of no more than 300 words. The Patricia Theatre was the theme for those nine participants.

 Over two sessions they were shown how to write cover letters, do research, find magazine editors and guidelines. At the end six had bravely stuck with the project, and several sent articlettes to magazines.

 Group 2 with five writers had two sessions in January with the theme “Powell River’s Centennial.” We are happy to report that Roger Whittaker and Janet May sold their stories. Congratulations!

 Write to Sell was the appetizer to more in depth workshops at the coming writers conference. Bigger…Better…and designed to take your writing to the next level. By now you’re gathered from our site that’s the theme for this years 7th annual event.

 Writers Buzz

Friday, April 30

 Powell River will be buzzing with many readings, and extra workshops. Details on Writer’s Buzz page.

 International Peace Poem Walker’s Association

 Congratulations Eva van Loon and the Powell River Live Poet’s Guild! IPPWA became official Feb.12/10. For the last two years in conjunction with our festival/conference, they have gathered peace poems from all the schools in Powell River, judged them and held an awards ceremony. From that Eva produced 2 little books of poetry on Powell River’s first perfect binding press thanks to CMG Printing .  This year the awards take place April 8 at Max Cameron Theatre ahead of the writers’ conference.

 Details at: Live Poet’s Guild  or contact Eva: mettalaw@gmail.com.

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 Any body who is planning to attend the Powell River Writers’ Conference and who has not yet registered, is asked to email Gary Grieco at griecogary@gmail.com to be included on a “soft list” of attendees. Thanks. Deadline for early bird special is March 31/10. Deadline for So You Think You Can Write contest is April 10/10. Go to writing contest for guidelines.

Cash-strapped writers are in need of sponsors to assist them to attend the writers conference. Please donate their registration($100 by end of March or $120 after) and reap the reward of knowing you helped further someone’s dream to become a writer. Your name will also be on this site and on the program at the event. Call Barb(604-485-2732)  if you’d like to become a “Friend of the Conference” with this donation or any other you have in mind.
Any event of note to writers can appear in the newsletter. Please send contributions to egwen@shaw.ca.

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POWELL RIVER WRITERS’ CONFERENCE NEWSLETTER OCTOBER, 2009
CONGRATULATIONS to Christa de Beaupre on the publication of her article “Wild About Foxi” in the magazine More of Our Canada, September, 2009.  It is a charming article about Christa’s friendship with a feral fox. What happens when a city girl encounters a feral fox? You might be surprised at the answer.

FROM THE POWELL RIVER LIVE POETS’ GUILD

 Can You Hear Peace? a little book containing our children’s thoughts on peace, is surely one of the most inspiring and moving “products” Powell River has ever generated. Inexpensive at $15 and easily mailed, it also makes a great gift or memento of our terrific community.

This second annual Powell River International Peace-Poem Anthology (PRIPPA) is the first perfect-bound book ever to have been completely written, edited, published, and manufactured right here (except for contributions from Zoey Schutz, the Grand Second-Prize winner, who hails from Sechelt–close enough!). Corey Matsumoto of CMG Printing and Eva van Loon of the Powell River Live Poets’ Guild decided about six months ago that there was no reason Powell River, having been a paper-making town for a century, shouldn’t also become a book-making town for the next century. Technology co-operated, in the form of a new invention, a more or less portable perfect-binder which can stand in for the ten-grand behemoth machines that used to be necessary to the production of a “real book”. The machine arrived in Powell River this summer.

There is a steep learning curve to mastering the technology, but with the publication of Can You Hear Peace? van Loon’s latest “crazy idea”– accessible community publishing–has birthed its firstborn.
“The idea is to turn the wacky publishing industry on its head. Instead of bashing your head endlessly against the wall to find a publisher, or spending thousands of dollars with a print-on-demand self-publisher producing hundreds of books no one may ever want, you as writer or publisher can choose to have just a few dozen copies of a book manufactured, right here in town, and see if it flies.

”You can get your own editor, or you can hire one. You can be your own publisher, or you can submit your book to The Pack Press, Motley Crew House, or any other house prepared to have the work digitally published by CMG Printing. This way clubs, families, and organizations can put out that history in real book form for the lowest possible cost, with the least possible waste of materials. If the Great Canadian Novel is languishing in your desk drawer, finish it, publish reading copies, hand them around and see what happens. Once a work develops enough steam to make some serious profit, it can be re-published by letterpress through our relationship with bigger Canadian book-manufacturers. For tryouts or projects with probably limited distribution, there’s no reason not to use digital publishing on an affordable, local scale.”

The local publishing initiative has already produced several siblings:
Kaimana Wolff’s novella Bitters and Glasstown by young poet Katje van
Loon. There’s more coming in time for Christmas. Motley Crew House, a new
local publisher focused on publishing plays, will first produce How to Keep
a Human, purportedly written by a canine author, before turning to Powell
River’s award-winning play, Just Shoot Me by Eva van Loon.

A second new local publisher, The Pack Press, will shortly put out the
eagerly awaited Parallel: forty-nine Canadian poets speak to Obama edited by Eva van Loon of the Powell River Live Poets’ Guild, followed by Martin Rossander’s brainchild, Beyond Survival: A Journal of Cultural
Creatives.

“Bitters, Glasstown, and Can You Hear Peace? are available from Kingfisher Books, Breakwater Books, CMG Printing, or the Live Poets’ Guild. Contributions to Beyond Survival are welcome.”

POWELL RIVER WRITERS’ CONFERENCE, OCTOBER 17, 2009

 
Taking it to the Next Level: Professional Writing Advice
“It’s a game.” “It’s like preparing for a first date.” were among the exiting responses from the twenty-strong audience at Powell River’s Writer’s Conference. The question that they were addressing was “What is a Query Letter?” Over the morning it was answered in various and hilarious ways. Presenter Sylvia Taylor offered a formula and robust advice on approaching agents and publishers, emphasizing the importance of the 250 words in “your door to being published.” She encouraged dialogue between participants, and introduced some surprising ideas.  After lunch, Sylvia shared her own writing, and her enthusiasm for sculpting the 300-word articlette. She recommended using the Global Librarian for accuracy when we’re doing research. www.globallibrarian.info
The conference culminated in So you think you can Write a contest where nine brave writers presented pieces based on Powell River, with a nod to tourism, and were roundly criticized and praised by a panel of eccentric judges. Winners were: Donna Kolezar (3), Amber Lynch (2), and Angie Davey (1). Congratulations to all the winners. First place winner Angie Davey’s piece will appear in Powell River Living magazine.

7th Annual Spring Conference Update

A new date has been set to accommodate the busy schedule of Powell Riverites in April 2010. Mark your calendars for April 30, May 1 at Dwight Hall for the biggest and best writers conference as we “Take it to the next level.” Our co-mentors/patrons Sylvia Taylor and Tony Dalton will find us the best presenters to teach: Self-editing and Writing from Life, Creative Non-Fiction. Sylvia and Tony are offering a new feature in the form of Master class’s. These will be two hour intense workshops taught April 30 as separate fee based entities. Watch for details and registration.  We will continue to work with the schools sending the presenters to them on the Friday. Each school holds its own writing contest. Opening night ceremonies with lively entertainment and So You Think You Can Write contestants will set the tone for our 7th spring event and 14th conference.
For the third year the Live Poets Guild will be holding a peace poem contest for the youth.
Will you be joining us as we celebrate our 7th birthday?
Details TBA.
Membership: We now have the highest amount of members ever! Our goal is to have a membership of 50 by Jan.1/10. A bigger membership base gives more clout when we’re approaching sponsors or looking for grants. Tell all your friends to join us for $10. They don’t have to be writers to support PRWC. For those of you who are writers; one of the benefits is the opportunity to have your profile and photo on this site.
Welcome new members and thank you for supporting Powell River’s literary community.

THANK YOU FOR CONTRIBUTING
A special thank you to those people who contributed to this newsletter. Anyone may send any item of interest to writers. Anything from events to newsy items to helpful websites are welcome. Send to egwen@shaw.ca.

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NEWSLETTER – AUGUST 2009

POWELL RIVER WRITER’S CONFERENCE

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN WRITE?

The latest buzz is our newest fall contest:  So You Think You Can Write?  The Powell River Writer’s Conference has teamed up with the Powell River Tourism Board to promote tourism!  We are conducting an incredible contest entitled “So You Think You Can Write?”  All entries cost $10 (unless you have already paid your annual fee, then your entries are free), which also gains the author a year membership in the writer’s conference.  Stories are limited to 300 words, and poems to 20 lines. 

The subject?  Why people should visit Powell River – Howe Sound to Lund, actually.  All entries are due by September 18, 2009.  Local travel magazine editors will review all entries and reduce the final numbers to the final 10 entries.  The authors will present their entries at the fall (October 17th, 2009) workshop at VIU, in front of 3 judges (like Canadian Idol).  The winner’s entry will be published!  Please mail all entries to:  Powell River Writer’s Conference
4300A Scotia Place, Powell River, BC  V8A 2X2. 

Please enter the contest yourself AND please help us get the word out.  For more information, people can call Jennifer at 604-485-0564 OR you can visit the Writer’s Conference website for complete details at www.prwriters.org.  Students are especially encouraged to enter and are NOT charged the entry fee – the school must be clearly marked on the entry for the fee exemption.

We will be at the Blackberry Festival on August 21^st, and have community advertising on 97.3FM, 95.7FM and Channel 4 TV.  We have requested money from The Rotary Club of Powell River to assist us with additional marketing.  Further, we have been granted a complimentary airline ticket for Sylvia Taylor (you may remember her from our spring conference) to conduct our fall workshop. 

FALL 2009 WORKSHOP

Our Fall workshop is on October 17, 2009. The cost is $50 and we will have lunch options for purchase.  The workshop is from 9am to 3pm, conducted at Vancouver Island University, Powell River Campus. 

The subjects of the workshop:

1.  How to write an articlette, and get paid good money for it.  What is an articlette?  A small “snippet” of an article, between 100 to 150 words, which magazines use as filler spaces.  Some of these articlettes are very lucrative, and may be a good source of income for those who wish to know more about it. 

1. How to write a query letter.  Most publishing editors read the cover letter and may read the manuscript (if the cover letter is sufficient).  The query letter is the most essential part of selling your manuscript.  The workshop will include how to write an effective query letter, and how to better approach publishers with your work.

1. The finale of the contest “So You Think You Can Write”. 

The registration form will be up on the website soon to attend the workshop.  Get your contest entries in!

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Congratulations Wayne Lutz on the release of his new book!

We’ve long known Wayne for his regional “Up the Lake” series but there’s a side to  his literary talents we’ve not seen before. He has released his second Sci-Fi novel: Inbound to Earth

Available at Amazon.com or at www.powellriverbooks.com

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June Newsletter is now posted! Click on this link to read the newsletter…

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After six years, and 10 festivals of watching the Powell River Festival of Writers inspire writers and yet not seeing any growth in  attendance, Barb Rees was blown away by the announcement at this year’s festival. Presenters, Sylvia Taylor and Anthony Dalton(see bios) were so impressed with the caliber of the event that they announced they wanted to become its patrons. Sylvia and Anthony’s words were, “This has all the components of the bigger writer’s conferences we’ve been too, yours is just smaller. We intend to help you grow it.”  They will help with finding presenters, grants, promote it with us, and offer special classes when they attend next year no-charge.

With that offer came the suggestion that the festival is more about serious literary workshops so it needed to be recognized as a conference rather than a festival. Thus, the new name: Powell River Writer’s Conference.

Watch this spot in the months to come for exciting news about the conference, and the first membership summer social July 11.

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