Personal Essays that Get Published
With Abigail Green
Class Begins January 13, 2010
Prerequisites: None
The popularity of reality shows, blogs, and tell-all books proves that it pays to get personal these days. Whether you want to write introspective essays, short humor pieces, or first-person reported stories, your life is a goldmine of rich material that all kinds of publications are pining for. Personal Essays that Get Published will teach you how to get your personal experiences down on the page and get them published. Students will learn how to find ideas, hone their voice, craft solid leads and endings, reslant their work for different markets, and submit their essays for publication.
Cost: $250.00
More/Register at www.christinakatz.com

Updated and Improved!
Turn Your Specialty Into Course Curriculum
With Christina Katz
Class Begins on January 13th
Prerequisites: Former student or Permission from Instructor. Recommended before CSNBP.
I bet you have worked long and hard to discover your specialty, narrow the focus of your expertise, and build your credibility, so shouldn’t you also develop a course curriculum that you can use as the starting point for years of teaching and learning from your students? I have been doing this for eight years and in this six-week class, I will share all of the insights I have learned so you can create your own class, including strategies for cultivating a following of students who succeed. This is probably the most important class I teach because it helps writers make the most of the expertise they already have.
Cost: $399
Register at www.christinakatz.com

Coming Classes:

Pitching Practice: Write Six Queries in Six Weeks
With Christina Katz
Class Begins May 12th
Prerequisites: WPSS with published clips or permission from the instructor.
In this writing class, pitching is all you do. Each week, you will study a successful writer’s query and create your own list of steps to follow. You will receive a three-page worksheet weekly, which will provide helpful ideas and checklists to help you systematize your query writing process and increase your productivity.
Cost: $250.00
More/Register at www.christinakatz.com

Updated and Improved!
Craft A Saleable Nonfiction Book Proposal
With Christina Katz
Class Begins on March 3rd
Prerequisites: Former student or Permission from Instructor.
Most writers underestimate the comprehensiveness needed to craft a saleable book proposal that will garner the interest of agents and editors. They also mistake the definition of platform and importance of aligning their proposal to a solid track record. A two-time author, Christina has helped hundreds of nonfiction writers succeed over the past seven years. Now she’s making her proposal-writing advice available in a six-week e-mail course to aspiring authors who want to nail the proposal the first time around. The best way to craft a short, tight proposal that will impress agents and editors is with the help of a seasoned professional.
Cost: $399.00
Register at www.christinakatz.com

Read the updated information and register here.

 Invest In Your Writing Career Today & Reap Greater Rewards Tomorrow.

Time for another happy story. Poor me, I have so many success stories to share at the end of this year!

I’m very pleased to have played a small role in supporting Cindy Hudson in the selection and development of her book concept for Book By Book, The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs (Seal Press 2009).

There is nothing a teacher loves more than a student who is conscientious, focused, and consistent and Cindy Hudson has been all of those things over the years while launching and raising her writing career alongside her two daughters.

This year, Cindy’s oldest daughter left home for college and guess what happened at the same time? Her years of steady effort and passion for her topic blossomed into the publication of her first nonfiction book.

I’m thrilled to share this interview with Cindy with you. I’ve included a picture of a bunch of us celebrating Cindy’s book deal at the 2008 Willamette Writers Conference and pics from her recent book launch party, including a photo of the wonderful (and delicious) cake that was served there. I hope you will let her example inspire you to achieve your own publication success story.

Q. Why did you decide to start mother-daughter book clubs with your daughters?

A. Even though she loved books, my oldest daughter, Madeleine, came to reading slowly. I was thrilled when she started reading voraciously on her own in third grade. But when Madeleine came to me in fourth grade with the news that some of her friends said it wasn’t cool to read anymore, I knew I had to do something to counteract that. Forming a mother-daughter book club seemed like a great way to keep her reading for fun.

Three years later when Catherine turned nine, she was ready to start her own club too. I know part of her motivation was seeing how much fun Madeleine and I had in our book group.

Q. One of your book groups has been meeting for eight years now and the other for five. How do you think being in these clubs has benefited you and your daughters?

A. While there may be an endless number of small, day-to-day things we’ve gained from being in a book club together, there are a couple of major benefits that I’d say have made a difference in our lives.

One, it was a way for us to spend time together reading and talking about life issues as my daughters grew. I believe we can talk about anything now, from problems with friends and boyfriends to issues at school and more. I think it would have been difficult to tackle some of the topics we’ve discussed, like sex, underage drinking, and using drugs, without the entrée a book discussion provided.

Second, we’ve become really great friends with our book club moms and daughters. Many of them we didn’t know before we started our groups, but now it’s hard for us to imagine not seeing all of them on a regular basis. I’ve enjoyed getting to know my daughters’ peers, and they know they have other moms they can rely on if they need help.

Q. How old should your daughter be when you start a mother-daughter book club?

A. If there’s an “ideal age” it may be nine. That’s when your daughter is probably able to tackle more complex texts when she reads on her own, and she’s beginning to understand more about relationships. It’s also a time when she’s likely to enjoy spending time with you, both the two of you together and in a group with other moms and daughters.

That being said, you can find ways to simplify your group meetings and discussions if you start earlier. And I’d say it’s never too late if your daughter wants to be in a group with you.

Q. Why did you write this book?

A. It was partly born of my own frustration of not finding reliable information to help moms find good, age-appropriate books that appealed to both their daughters and them. And I couldn’t find much advice on running meetings that take in the needs of two generations either. So I started a website first, www.motherdaughterbookclub.com. The site features book reviews, author interviews, and ideas for meetings as well as other resources. But there was so much more helpful information that I didn’t have room for on the website that I knew I could include in the book. And I thought it would be helpful to give real examples from book clubs all over the country as well as feature advice from parenting experts and others.

Q. What advice do you have for moms who have sons?

A. Read together as much as you can, and encourage your husband to be in a father-son book club with them. While it’s true that you can create a mother-son book club, I think it’s more difficult to have in-depth discussions on meaningful topics as they grow. I often hear from librarians who say that lack of interest from dads is the biggest reason there are few father-son book clubs. But sons need time with their dads just as mothers need time with their daughters. And there are so many books that have multi-generational appeal for guys it should be easy for dads to be more on the bandwagon with this concept.

Q. Working moms may be worried that they don’t have enough time to be in a mother-daughter book club. Do you have any advice for them?

A. Every mom but one in my mother-daughter book clubs works either full time or part time outside the home. And most of the moms I interviewed for Book by Book also work. Many shared good ideas on fitting in time for mother-daughter book club. They may do I find that working moms are already good at a bit of extra juggling. Prepping for book club creates a good excuse to schedule precious time just for you and your daughter.

Q. What would you say makes a book a good choice for clubs to read?

A. Surprisingly it’s not the book that everyone likes, even though you may feel pressure to opt for something likeable when it’s your turn to pick. For instance, when we read Twilight in Madeleine’s book club we didn’t really have much to talk about. We all liked it; some of us (mostly the girls) loved it. There was not much more to say. Books that create layered discussions on multiple issues that group members may have differences of opinion on are more likely to keep your discussions lively. These books will keep you talking and thinking about them even after you leave the meeting.

Madeleine, Cindy and Catherine Hudson

Q. Can you give us your top three books recommendations for mother-daughter book clubs?

A. Hmm…it’s so difficult to narrow it down to just three. How about three in each of three age categories?

Nine and 10 year olds:

• A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
• Boy by Roald Dahl
• Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Eleven through 13 year olds:

• Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce
• The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
• Tangerine by Edward Bloor

Fourteen years old and up:

• A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
• Light Years by Tammar Stein

Q. Can you do other fun things in mother-daughter book clubs besides reading the books?

A. Absolutely. Some of the most fun I’ve had with my groups has been on weekend getaways we schedule once each year. Other moms have found it rewarding to volunteer with their book groups or stage a play or write poetry. You may even find yourself meeting with the author of the book you read. There are so many opportunities for enrichment, and you can decide together as a group which ones you want to pursue.

Q. Your oldest daughter is now in college, and your youngest will soon be out of high school too. Do you think your groups will continue even when the girls don’t live at home?

A. I believe they will in some form. The moms in Madeleine’s group all bought tickets to a visiting author series this year, so we can keep meeting together regularly. And we’re hoping to plan two events a year that involve all of us, one over winter break from college and one in summer. I see us being involved in each other’s lives for many years to come, even if we don’t meet in our traditional mother-daughter book club format. And who knows? We may be lucky enough to morph our groups into adult mother-daughter book clubs.

Cindy Hudson is the author of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs (Seal Press, October 2009). She is a mother-daughter book club consultant, journalist, and editor. Hudson has more than twenty years of experience as a marketing and public relations professional. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two daughters. Visit her online at www.motherdaughterbookclub.com and www.motherdaughterbookclub.wordpress.com.

NEW!!!
Destination: Book Deal
Advanced Student Discussion Group
With Christina Katz
Prerequisites: 3 Previous Classes with Christina
Destination: Book Deal is a monthly 90 minute accountability group that guides members towards landing a book deal sooner rather than later. Members will check in each month and set monthly goals. Christina Katz facilitates this group by phone as a way to stay in touch with her former students and point out the shortcuts, pitfalls, and career building opportunities available to experienced writers aiming for a traditional nonfiction book deal.
Cost: $150.00 (Intro price)
Dates: January – June 2010
Days & Times of monthly calls TBA
Space is limited to 12 participants
More/register: E-mail Christina

NEW!!!
Article Accountability Dream Team For Former Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff Students
With Christina Katz
Prerequisites: WPSS
The Article Accountability Dream Team is a monthly 90 minute accountability group that guides members towards getting more articles in print in less time than it might otherwise take going it alone. Members will check in each month and set monthly goals. Christina Katz facilitates this group by phone as a way to stay in touch with her former students and point out the shortcuts, pitfalls, and career building opportunities available to article writers, who wish to get published and profit from their writing.
Cost: $150.00 quarterly (Intro price)
Dates: January – June 2010
Days & Times of monthly calls TBA
Space is limited to 12 participants
More/register: E-mail Christina

Okay, so this is really, really fun!

You may already have heard me mention (about a hundred times) how happy I am to see my friend and former Columbia College Chicago classmate, Kristin Bair O’Keeffe, out on tour with her newly-published hardcover debut novel, Thirsty.

But here are few things you may not know…I’m being mysterious now.

Kristin and I have known each other for a wicked long time. Like since 1992. That’s seventeen years, people!

Kristin drafted one of the scenes for Thirsty, all those years ago in a class on writing historical fiction we took at CCC taught by Wade Roberts. (That class was a blast by the way. Thanks, Wade.)

I played a role in helping to get Thirsty into print. You can read the story in Kristin’s words over at Editor Unleashed, if you like.

I think Thirsty is a terrific book. In fact, if you examine the cover, you’ll see that I have high praise for the book. But don’t take my word for it (clearly I am biased), check out what Meryl K. Evans has to say about the book instead. She writes a darn good review, too.

Or, you can find recommendations in the November/December issue of Writer’s Digest from Jordan Rosenfeld (on stands now), read the opening line over at Poet’s & Writers, read the first chapter in The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, or watch the book trailer.

And now, without further ado, here’s some of Kristin’s thoughts on the writing process:

What inspired you to write Thirsty?

As a writer, I’m deeply inspired by place so I wasn’t surprised that Thirsty, the town, came to me first. I grew up in Pittsburgh’s steel-making milieu. My maternal grandparents lived in Clairton, Pennsylvania, and my grandfather worked in U.S. Steel’s Clairton Works. This was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and steel was everything in Pittsburgh. We talked about steel over dinner. My sisters and I chanted, “Rotten eggs, rotten eggs,” every time we took the twenty-five-minute drive from our house to our grandparents’ house and got close enough to smell the mills on the Monongahela River. And from my grandparents’ back porch, we watched flames and big puffs of steam rise from the smokestacks. Later we watched the demise of the steel industry.

Not long after I clearly saw the town of Thirsty in my head, Klara began to appear. Right away I saw the awful marriage she was in. I’m especially sensitive to women in abusive situations. When I began to see Klara both as a young girl and an old woman, I knew I was going to be writing a story with a long arc.

What was the most challenging aspect of writing the novel?

I faced two big challenges while writing Thirsty:

1)    I started my writing life as a poet so language and rhythm are important to me. I read everything I write (even emails) out loud…over and over again…until the language and rhythm of every sentence feels right. I must have read Thirsty a thousand times out loud before I felt I could let go of it. And even then…even now…given a few minutes to read out loud and rewrite…I’d probably change a few more words.

2)    Telling Klara’s story as fully as possible—including the scene in which Drago cuts off her hair—wasn’t easy. But I knew I had to. It was only fair to see the abuse as vividly as Klara lived it. Domestic violence is an experience shared by many, many women. Too many women. And it’s too easy to turn away from it in fear and shame…too easy to gloss over the most crucial, heartbreaking brutality. No woman escapes domestic violence on her own; Klara has Katherine, BenJo, and Old Man Rupert. I believe if we face it together, there’s hope.

How long did it take you to write Thirsty?

A total of about seven years. I started it in 1992 and completed a full draft as my graduate school thesis in 1996. I worked on it off and on for another three years.

How long did it take you to have it accepted for publication?

I took a circuitous, scenic route to publication. It took sixteen years from the day I wrote the first scene to the day I got the email from David Sanders at Swallow Press that said, yep, we want to publish this book. I’m a big believer in right time, right place. I always knew Thirsty would find its home; I just didn’t know when or where.

Describe your writing habits.

I do a lot of work in my head: subconsciously in my dreams and consciously when I’m walking around the world, taking care of the mundane responsibilities of life. When I write, I am very disciplined. Before I became a mom, I got up every morning before dawn and wrote (for hours and hours). Now that I have a little one, I have to be more flexible. I write before my daughter wakes up, when she naps, and after she goes to bed.

You live in Shanghai, China. What is it like promoting your first novel from halfway around the world?

Creatively cool: The fact that I live in China gets people’s attention, and attention when promoting a novel is (almost) always good.

Logistically difficult: Shanghai is twelve hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the U.S. (except during Daily Savings Time when it is thirteen hours ahead). In some ways this is good because I work when folks in the U.S. are sleeping. That means that I don’t get a lot of emails during my work hours (they pour in during U.S. daylight hours when I am sleeping), thus often I can write without too much distraction. But it works the other way as well. When I’m ready to Twitter about Thirsty (or anything else), many U.S. Twitterers are asleep. If I need to talk to my publicist or the events coordinator at a bookstore, I have to stay up until ten o’clock or eleven o’clock at night to catch them during their morning hours (and often I have to call them back around my midnight or one o’clock a.m.). Not conducive to a good night’s sleep.

You teach writing. Three things you tell students?

1)    Sit your butt down. Write.

2)    Writing begets writing.

3)    Read your work out loud.

4)    Sit your butt down. Write. (Did I say that already?)

Note: Obviously there’s more, but this is a strong first draft.

What advice can you offer to writers?

My mantra: Tell the best story you can…believe in your writing…work your arse off.

Favorite authors?

Here’s a sampling, though there are many more:

• for language, rhythm, and soul: Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez
• for writing about women’s lives in significant ways: Alice Walker and Toni Morrison
• for thinking like me: Dr. Seuss and Amy Krouse Rosenthal
• for keeping me centered: Thich Nhat Han and Pema Chodron
• for writing inspiration: Natalie Goldberg and Anne Lamott
• for writing craft: Christina Katz, Wendy Burt, Sage Cohen

Favorite books?

This list changes and grows all the time, but here are a few I love: Anaïs Nin’s diaries, The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Book Thief, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Odyssey, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Sula

What’s next?

A memoir about my path to love, marriage, and mamahood (definitely not the usual path). And a second novel (mum’s the word).

Learn More!

http://www.thirstythenovel.com

http://www.kristinbairokeeffe.com

http://www.swallowpress.com