1st Annual Women’s Writer Retreat

Malaga, Spain

 

Bambu Resort, May 10^th- 17^th, 2014

 

Do the one thing you’ve always wanted to: write under the Spanish sun for an entire week!

Join a small group of writers at Bambu Resort in Malaga, Spain for a week of writing and constructive feedback. Get your work under way, or work through that novel you’ve been stuck on.

The retreat will be run by Victoria Oldham, editor and writing consultant. Joining her will be Radclyffe publisher at Bold Strokes Books and author of more than forty books. Receive constructive feedback at writing sessions throughout the week, with plenty of time to do your own writing and enjoy the laid back lifestyle under the Spanish sun.

The package includes your accommodation, breakfast and a light lunch every day, plus your writing workshops and feedback. Bambu is a gorgeous resort set against a backdrop of mountains and avocado groves, with the beach only fifteen minutes away, just outside the city of Malaga. Share your room with a fellow writer and receive a reduced price, or bring a partner for a small supplement, and she can enjoy the sun and sand while you write. Tavernas and shops are a short walk away, making it a great place for couples who may want to do different things.

Seven days of writing and feedback from professionals, in a private resort under the Spanish sun. Make your writing dreams come true, and book early!

For more information, go to:

http://www.bambu-resort.com / reservations@bambu-resort.com

www.globalwords.co.uk

globalwords1@gmail.com

Paying it Forward

BY RACHEL SPANGLER

My wife, Susie, gave me my first lesbian fiction novel when I was nineteen years old.  It was Rita Mae Brown’s Venus Envy.  I thought it was pretty interesting, and I wished there were a lot more people taking a crack at lesbian love stories, but our local bookstore had no section for such novels.  I never saw them in grocery stores or on course syllabi in any of the English classes. None of my college friends had ever read any of them either. As a child of the Internet age, it probably seems odd to say I never looked there, but I didn’t think to search for something I didn’t know existed.

Then, my junior year in college I got involved in the PRIDE group at Illinois State University. Part of my job was to make sure our office was staffed five hours a week, which involved me sitting on a folding chair in a tiny cubicle in the basement of the Student Services Building. No one stopped by because virtually no one knew the space existed, and aside from some old posters and out-of-date textbooks, we didn’t have anything to offer them. We didn’t even have room for them to sit down. Most of the time I did homework or stared at the walls. Then one day I arrived to find a box of books on the floor. The student in the cubicle next to ours said, “Two women dropped those off. They don’t have room for them anymore.”

I dragged the book into the office thinking that we didn’t really have room for them either. They looked old and musty, probably more textbooks from days when we were called “sexual inverts.” I picked one up and scanned the back cover to realize I couldn’t have been more wrong.  They were novels, novels by women I’d never heard of, women with names like Vin Packer and Ann Bannon. Some of them had comic-book style covers and comical titles labeling their subjects as “stranger” or “of the shadows.”  I had been an English minor and a Women’s Studies minor for years, but I had no idea what I was looking at.  I had no idea lesbian pulp fiction had ever existed. I sat on the floor and dug deeper into the box until I came across some mellower titles.  I read the backs of each of them until I found one about a cabby who fell for an Ivy-league college student. The book apparently told their story across the backdrop of the budding women’s movement.

I began reading Lee Lynch’s Toothpick House right there on the floor, and that’s how I finished it.  I felt like she’d written it for me, right now, instead of the year I was born. I couldn’t believe stories like that had been around my whole life and no one had told me about them. I went through the entire box.  Week by week I taught myself the classics, or at least the ones I had access to.  I also began to write about them. I wrote reflections on them in my English classes; I wrote analyses of them for my Women’s Studies classes; I even wrote a term paper for a political science course on their role in raising public awareness. As I did my research, I found more books, newer ones, ones being published right then. I read everything I could get my hands on. I bought as many as I could afford until I was literally paying for them with dimes and nickels. Then when I ran out of books to read, I started to write my own. I wrote during my free time; I wrote during my office hours; I during my classes. I haven’t stopped writing since.

Years later I ended up back at Illinois State University with Lee Lynch. I sat in one of my old classrooms listening to one of my heroes talk to a group of women at the National Women’s Music Festival, and I realized I’d come full circle. I’d signed a contract with Bold Strokes Books to publish that book I’d written in these classrooms.  I was sitting alongside the author who’d introduced me to a genre I’d come to consider my own.  As I listened while she graciously answered questions and offered advice to budding writers, I wondered how I could ever repay her or those women who’d shared her books with me.

Since then I’ve written five more books, and I’ve come to consider Lee a very dear friend and mentor, but I still don’t know the names of those women who left the books outside that basement office in the Student Services Building.  I’ve come to realize I’ll never be able to repay those debts I incurred at Illinois State University.  There’s no way to pay someone back for showing you your life’s work, but for the first time in my career I feel like I’m in a position to pay it forward.

Last year, the administration of Illinois State allowed for the creation of an LGBT Center.  It’s a real office, a space where students can gather, filled with bookcases, tables, and plenty of chairs. It’s a place where students and faculty can plan events like the one I attended last fall to share my work with Redbirds old and new.  I choked up when I saw all the books lining the shelves and thought of all the students to come who would finally get to know them for the treasures they are. The only problem is that the center is not currently funded, meaning it has no assigned staff, no programing budget, and very little opportunity for students to access the space. What the point of having an LGBT student center if no one gets to use it? So I’ve stepped into leading a fundraising campaign for the center.

This is my chance to give back, not to Lee Lynch or to the women who shared their books with me, but to every student who’s never had a chance to experience the treasures they shared with me. I would be deeply honored if those of you who love gay and lesbian literature would join me in helping to make sure the books we love are accessible for the next generation of readers by making a donation for any amount here http://lgbtq.illinoisstate.edu/giving.  And if you’ve got suggestions for other ways to reach out to the readers of the future, I’d love to hear about them in the comment sections of this blog.

Behind the Wheeler

Here’s a chance to meet Bold Strokes editor and author, Jerry Wheeler:

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

BY RADCLYFFE

I was tagged by Diana Simmonds (http://dianasimmonds.wordpress.com) to participate in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop this month. It was a real pleasure to get reconnected with one of my favorite authors and to have a chance to contribute to such a fun enterprise. I’ll be talking about my newest release, Crossroads, which came out in November, 2012.

Now onto the questions:

1) What is the working title of your book?

Crossroads.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

I started writing in the romance subgenre of “medical romances” with Passion’s Bright Fury, first released in 2003. I discovered I enjoy setting romances within the action-packed sphere of emergency/trauma medicine and have written a number of books set in that arena. This time, I decided to move away from trauma, but not all that far, because I find that life and death circumstances, be they medical, environmental, military or otherwise, heighten the characters’ emotional investment and connection, making for a volatile developing romance. Also, I enjoy writing about the hospital community, which is like a large extended neighborhood. As I began to write this story, I found myself returning to the familiar neighborhood I first introduced in Fated Love and wrote about again in Night Call. I’ve found that my readers enjoy returning to familiar settings and catching a glimpse of characters as they move through life following their initial romance.

3) What genre does your book fall under? 

This would be considered a traditional character driven romance in the medical romance subgenre. By traditional, I mean that character interaction, rather than an external plot, such as intrigue, action adventure, thriller etc, primarily drives this story.

4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 

I don’t have the slightest idea. I need help on this one. Maybe you could pick someone

5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book? 

A midwife and a high risk OB are forced to work together despite a rocky past, professional differences, and unexpected attraction.

6) What is the longer synopsis of your book? 

Dr. Hollis Monroe and Nurse-Midwife Annie Colfax first meet under the most frightening circumstances–when Annie turns up in the emergency room alone and in the midst of a precipitous, life-threatening labor. Four years later, they meet again when both are assigned against their will and professional judgment to work together to form a high risk pregnancy clinic with shared care between hospital obstetricians and community-based nurse midwives. While initially at odds, with unresolved anger and distrust simmering between them, they discover their mutual compassion for their patients and passion for one another changes both their lives.

7) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Neither. I am published by Bold Strokes Books, Inc. and am not represented by an agent (which is true of 95% plus of the authors at Bold Strokes Books).

8) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

10 weeks, which is standard for me, although as I revise each chapter before writing the next one, I actually have a second draft by the end of that period of time.

9) What inspired you to write this book? 

I recently read an article in the New York Times about the plight of nurse midwives after the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. Because in some states nurse midwives are required to practice under the “auspices” of physicians, these practitioners were suddenly without legal standing. Nevertheless, they were committed to caring for their patients and their patients were committed to continuing with them. Some of these issues inspired me to place my characters in a similar situation.

10) What else about your book might pique the readers interest?

This book explores community on many levels–the hospital as community, the neighborhood as community, extended friendships as family and community. Annie Colfax, one of the main characters, has a young child and her interactions with her friends and neighbors, including those with other children, help show the impact of falling in love on all the aspects of our life–social, emotional, physical, and spiritual. I hope that this book does what every good romance should do–allow the reader to experience the joy of falling in love on all those levels.

Crossroads is available at the Bold Strokes Books web store in print and digital versions, as well as at retailers online and at your local bookseller.

In It For the Long Haul: How One Writer Forges a Career

by Lesléa Newman

1. QUIT YOUR DAY JOB: If you have something to fall back on, you will fall back on it. If you have to be successful at your writing in order to eat, believe me, you will find a way to make that happen. Barbra Streisand never learned to type, because she figured if she did, she would wind up typing instead of singing. Dump Plan B and stick to Plan A!

2. B.I.C. (Butt In Chair): This is the only cure for writer’s block. You have to put in your time. You never know what’s going to happen when you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. But you do know what will happen if you don’t put in your time: nothing!

3. SHOW UP: If you are going to live a literary life, live a literary life. Go to readings, workshops, conferences, seminars. Join –or start—a writers group. Become a member of a writers organization (Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, etc.) Create your own network of people who will support your literary career.

4. READ, READ, READ. Read everything and anything you can get your hands on. Every book you read will teach you something, even the terrible ones. Especially the terrible ones. Study how other writers handle dialogue, description, character development, action, setting, plot. Every once in a while, read something you don’t ordinarily read (if you always read fiction, try nonfiction; if you always read poetry, try some prose). Think of all the people who said, “I never read fantasy” and then picked up Harry Potter.

5. BE DIVERSE: Just as you read many different forms (see above) write in many different forms. I started out my literary life as a poet, then wrote my first novel, GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT, then my first collection of short stories A LETTER TO HARVEY MILK, then returned to poetry, SWEET DARK PLACES, and then wrote my first children’s book, HEATHER HAS TWO MOMMIES. Perhaps it’s because I get bored easily, but nevertheless, I learn something from every form in which I write. Writing poetry has helped me add sensory detail to my prose; writing fiction has helped me write poetry with a narrative arc. And being versed in different forms has helped me create something new: my most recent book, OCTOBER MOURNING: A SONG FOR MATTHEW SHEPARD explores the impact of Matthew Shepard’s murder in a cycle of 68 poems which add up to a historical novel written in verse.

6. REVISE, REVISE, REVISE: Writing is rewriting. Someone famous said, there are two ways to do something, the quick way and the right way. Take your time to get it right, whether that’s writing seven drafts or twenty-seven drafts. Show your work to people you trust and listen to what they have to say. Consider their suggestions and try them. When I do this, very often something else entirely appears on the page that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been willing to at least consider someone else’s suggestions. Don’t get too attached to what you’ve created. I find that the sentence/paragraph/chapter I’m most attached to is usually the one that has to go. I recently wrote a chapter book for young readers which consisted of 10 short chapters (30 pages). My editor thought it would make a better picture book, so I shortened it to 5 pages. Ouch! So much of my brilliant writing landing on the cutting room floor! But in the end, I had to admit that my editor (who ultimately bought the book) was right.

7. KNOW THE MARKET: Writing is a creative act; publishing is a business. Do your homework and research publishing houses to find the best home for your work. Sometimes it’s obvious (sending my novelTHE RELUCTANT DAUGHTER to Bold Strokes Books was a no-brainer). Sometimes it takes a while for a book to find its home. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Never give up.” As a friend of mine likes to say, sometimes the editor who will fall in love with your manuscript hasn’t even been born yet. She was kidding (sort of) but the point is, be persistent. Another friend of mine says, “Never co-habitate with a manuscript.” If you offer (not submit) your manuscript to a publisher and it is declined (not rejected) turn it around and offer it to someone else.

8. SUPPORT OTHER WRITERS: I firmly believe that when one of us succeeds, all of us succeed. Go to readings. Tell friends about books you love. Use your social networks to sing the praises of your writing friends and colleagues. Share their success stories. Plug their books. Cheer them on. This is a tough business. We writers need to stick together!

9. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF: If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you. Which isn’t to say that everything you put on paper (or screen) is brilliant. (See #6). It means that you know your work is important and you will make a commitment to give it the time, energy, and effort it deserves. Find others who believe in you, too. And I can’t stress this enough: make sure you choose wisely when it comes to love. Your beloved has to understand how important your writing is to you. If you wind up with someone who doesn’t take you seriously as a writer, there’s going to be trouble.

10. BE KIND TO YOURSELF: This, above all, is the most important gift you can give yourself. Writers seem to be good at beating ourselves up (myself included). My writing isn’t good enough, I don’t do it often enough, I’m not writing in the right form, my work isn’t important, I’m a hack, etc etc. Sound familiar? Try to get the critic in your head to shut up. See if you can find a nurturing voice (the Goddess? your best friend? your mother?) to replace the critic and praise you daily. Write yourself a pep talk, a love letter, a positive review. Tuck it in an envelope and give it to a friend to mail to you at some point in the future as a surprise. Look in the mirror every morning and say, “I am a writer” to your gorgeous reflection. Pat yourself on the back for being brave enough to create something out of nothing. It’s your letter to the world, as Emily Dickinson said. And those of us lucky enough to read your work are all the richer for it.

What Are Your Priorities?

by Greg Herren

I don’t know how many times people have said the following to me, but if I  w as given a quarter each and every time, I’d be living on an island sipping a cocktail right now: “I would write if I only had the time.”

Ah, time. I personally am frequently amused by the excuses I will think up not to sit in front of the computer and do my work. “I can’t write with dirty dishes in the sink. I can’t write when I have all this laundry to do. I can’t write with the house a mess. I can’t write when I have all these errands to run. I can’t write because I am just fried from everything I did today. I can’t write with Hezbollah bombing Israel. I can’t write while George Bush is in the White House.”

Pretty much any excuse will work, really. That’s the beauty of writing; we do it usually in the privacy of our home where no one is watching, no one is standing over our shoulder with whip in hand forcing us to do it. And if we don’t have the pressure of a deadline looming—and sometimes even then—all bets are off. (In fact, right now I am trying to think of a reason—any reason— not to write this column.)

But in order to publish, you have to write. Even if its crap. Even if it’s something that no one else will ever see. (Trust me, I have written a lot of stuff that no one will ever see. Ever. Under any circumstance.) Even when you don’t want to do it, you have to sit your ass down at the computer and open a new document and do the goddamned work.

If you want to be a writer, you have to look at it as a job. Whether it’s a part time job or a full time job, if you want to make it, if you want to get published, you need to view it that way. There are so many times you really have to force yourself to do it. Skip Desperate Housewives or whatever the big hit TV show of the moment is and turn on your computer and just do it. How many hours a week do you waste in front of your television set? Cancel two of your TV nights and spend the evening writing instead. There are any number of things you can probably give up to write.

The question is, do you want to?

How badly do you want to be published?

If you don’t want it bad enough to give something up in order to make it happen, then it’s very likely that you won’t. I wanted to be a writer for many years, but was too busy thinking up excuses not to take it seriously rather than coming up with reasons to write. And finally, one day I decided, “this is never going to happen unless I change the way I look at it.”

It stopped being a fantasy and became a reality.

Within a year I published my first story.

Take your writing seriously, and take yourself seriously as a writer.

It’s amazing what a difference that can make.

Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Anniversaries

Earthquakes and hurricanes be damned! The Bold Strokes Books Authors’ Blog is celebrating its first anniversary on Monday. We will kick off the week with Lee Lynch’s Amazon Trails. We may also hear from a few other BSB authors- even some we haven’t heard from yet.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this past year of blogging. In appreciation for all of your support, BSB will be giving away a book a day beginning Monday  August 29 and ending Friday September 2. All you have to do to enter is comment. Please stop by and tell us what you’ve enjoyed this past year and also let us know what you want the authors to blog about in the coming year.

Writing Outside the Ring

Accomplished Bold Strokes Books author and editor Greg Herren shows me some moves. Some literary. Some not.

Judging a Book by its Cover

Nothing wrong with judging a book by its cover when the covers are as original and artistic as the ones Bold Strokes Books produces. Meet one of BSB’s amazing cover artists, Barb Kiwak. You can learn more about Barb and her artwork at kiwak.com.

It’s Work, People, Not A Hobby

By Greg Herren

Nothing drives me crazier than the mentality people have that because I work at home I have nothing but free time.

“Oh Greg, I need you to do this favor for me” and so on and so forth–because you know, when you make your living as a writer and work at home, everyone just seems to assume that you really spend most of the day with your thumb up your ass, sitting on the couch eating bon-bons and watching Oprah. I know part of this is my own fault; my inability to say no to people and put my foot down and say, “Um, do I ever ask you to take time off from work to do something for me?” I think it is enormously frustrating, to say the least, the way the vast majority of people never take ‘writer’ seriously as work. I think it has something to do with the mentality that every single person out there who can either read or write the English language thinks they, too, can write a book, if they only had the time–little do they realize that once you do decide to take the time to write a book, everyone in the world thinks you’re now available to do errands for them–or to do this or do that, or just sit around bullshitting on the phone.

It is enormously frustrating, as I am sure you can imagine, because writing actually is work. It requires time, focus, and discipline—and it is endlessly annoying to have people act like it’s a hobby.

When people now say to me, “Oh, I have always wanted to write a book,” whereas before I would smile and say ‘that’s nice’–now I say, “so why don’t you?” And then, as they offer up a thousand and one reasons as to why they don’t, I just smile and say, “Then I guess you don’t REALLY want to write one.”

When I work on the one of my series novels, which are told in the first person, I have to go inside Chanse’s (or Scotty’s) head and write from his point of view; not mine. I have to think like he does, I have to see the world the way he does, I have to make sure that everything that he says is his, and not mine. I have to remember everything that has happened, not only in the manuscript so far, but in the previous books. (Because people are more than happy to point out continuity errors.) I have to figure out where the story is going, and take it there.

And when I have to go weeks (or days) between working on it, I then have to go back and reread everything I have written so far, otherwise there will be massive continuity errors. This requires focus, and yes, discipline, so then to have someone get pissy because I don’t want to talk on the telephone in the middle of this process, or drop everything and run to the store, or whatever, it makes me want to just take a baseball bat and then beat them to death.

This is why I also turn down all those wonderful offers from people to write for free…because of course, my time is worth nothing. Sure, when you are first getting started, you should write for everywhere that will let you, regardless of whether they can or will pay you for the work; because its important to get publishing credits, so that other venues that do pay will take you seriously. And once you crossover into the getting paid category, you should never do anything for free again–unless it’s a favor for a friend, or something for a fundraising effort, or something like that–but you are not required to do that, either, and if a friend gets pissy because you won’t write something for them for free, well, then maybe they aren’t as good a friend in the first place as you thought.

No matter what anyone thinks, writing is work, and you need to look at it that way—even when everyone you know in the world acts like it isn’t.

And the next time someone bothers me with something stupid while I am working, I can’t be held responsible.

Just hope they have health insurance.