Lisa Norman

LISA NORMAN BIO:

Lisa Norman is the owner of Heart Ally Books, an independent publishing company. She also owns a website design company specializing in creating websites for authors, Deleyna’s Dynamic Designs. For over 25 years, she has worked with both indie and traditionally published writers on everything from writing through publication and marketing. She has taught students from 10 to 80, both in person, locally, and online. Her customers range all over the US, Canada, and as far away as Australia. Mostly she coaches people one-on-one, and she loves public speaking. She’s most proud of her children, adores her husband, and seems to be constantly surrounded by cats. 

Lisa is the author of a series of nonfiction ebooks, Publishing Gold: Step-by-Step Guides for Success In Your Writing Career. She also writes under the pen name of Deleyna Marr.

LISA NORMAN'S WORKSHOPS:

Awesome-Author Websites

What if you could have a website that would meet your needs whether you're a beginner or a NYT best-selling author?
What if it could be affordable and easy to maintain?
We'll cover the basics of what an author needs to build a powerful home base for their online presence. I'll teach you where the pitfalls are and how to make having a website a natural and fun part of your writing life.

Awesome-Authors on the Web

Tweet like a twit? Facepalm every time you check Facebook? Feel like a pinned bug on Pinterest? Confused by controversy? Troubled by trolls?
What's an author to do with all of the social media opportunities clambering for our attention? In this talk, I'll show you how to use your newsletter to build your following and how to make social media work for you without draining your creativity!

Caren Burmeister

Caren Burmeister Bio

Being captivated by a good story is one of life’s greatest pleasures, which is why Caren Burmeister loves being a storyteller, and why she treasures stories that explore universal truths about human nature. 

A Jacksonville, Florida-based seasoned writer with more than two decades in journalism, Caren left the newsroom and began a journey grounded in personal faith, yoga and self-discovery.  Her intention?  To discover what could she could do to bring out the best in others. 

As a result, she started an independent book editing and publishing company, Caren Tells Your Story.  She helps fiction and nonfiction authors write compelling stories that deeply connect with readers.  In September 2022, she co-wrote and published Remember Me: How to Create a Spiritual Legacy of Love Light.  Part memoir, part how-to guide, the book reminds us that our ties to our loved ones are eternal and that the story of our life may be as important as life itself.

Workshop descriptions:

Now, more than ever, readers are buying fiction to escape a steady series of world events that are making many people feel powerless and anxious.  Regardless of genre, readers are relying on you — the author — for the kind of intrigue that will transport them to another time and place.  These two workshops will help you achieve those goals. 

Workshop one: Build Suspense to Keep Readers Turning Pages.

You’ll learn how to:
 Establish compelling and credible motives for the main characters
 Raise the consequences of the character’s decisions and actions
 Intensify their risk of failure as the book progresses

Workshop two: Create a Strong Sense of Place to Evoke Vivid Mental Images and Associations.

You’ll learn how to:
 Draw rich descriptions through sensory immersion, travel and research
 Consciously use setting to inspire or generate plot
 Employ dialogue to cue a sense of time and place

Kevin Tumlinson of Draft2Digital

Suzanne Purvis

SUZANNE PURVIS BIO:

Suzanne Purvis is a transplanted Canadian living in the Deep South, where she traded “eh” for “y’all.” An author of long, short, and flash fiction and poetry for both children and adults, she has won several awards including those sponsored by the University of Toronto, RWA, Bethlehem Writer’s Roundtable, and Women Who Write. You can find her work in print anthologies, magazines, ezines, and ebooks. Visit  www.suzannepurvis.com , www.suzannepurvis.blogspot.com, Facebook, Amazon Author’s Central.

SUZANNE PURVIS WORKSHOPS:

Writing Your Brilliant Blurb

Wowza!  Your book is done. Congratulations. You’re ready to put your fabulous story out there into the publishing world. One of the best ways to get your book noticed and sold is to write a brilliant blurb.

Who Should Take This Workshop

• authors writing query letters
• authors looking to self-publish and are in need of a stellar back cover blurb

What You Will Learn

• • the key elements to a brilliant blurb
  • some do and don’t for blurbs
  • the necessary steps to creating your brilliant blurb
  • how to highlight the uniqueness of your story and why it’s important
  • the importance of voice in a blurb
  • the importance of researching blurbs and what you can learn
  • why you might want to include comparison titles in your blurb
  • the importance of revising and refining your blurb until it shines 
  This workshop will include interactive exercises to help get you started with your brilliant blurb.

REVISION BOOTCAMP

You’ve got your first draft done or almost done. Or maybe you’re on your second, third, or LAST revision and you’re working toward the finish line. You’re ready for REVISION BOOTCAMP. Sign up. Get your marching orders and learn strategies to attack your revisions.

Who Should Take This Class

• Any writer looking for successful methods to work through the revision process.
• Any writer who’s stuck and doesn’t know what to do next in their draft process.

 What You Will Learn

• Strategies for attacking the revision process
• A slew of specific revision tips including strong beginnings, compelling voice, a scene checklist, and how to use transitions from scene to scene, what to do about backstory, how to listen closely to your words, why to vary your sentence structure, a quick start tip for your next revision session, plus much more.

KG Fletcher

Marilyn Baron

Marilyn Baron Author Bio:

 A Miami native, and graduate of the University of Florida, Marilyn Baron is a Floridian at heart. In addition to Miami and Gainesville, she’s lived in Palm Coast and Tallahassee. Marilyn writes in a variety of genres from women’s fiction to historical romantic thrillers and romantic suspense to paranormal/fantasy and cozy mysteries. She’s received writing awards in Single Title, Suspense Romance, Novel with Strong Romantic Elements and Paranormal/Fantasy Romance. She was also The Finalist in the 2017 Georgia Author of the Year Awards (GAYA) in the Romance Category for her novel, Stumble Stones, and The Finalist for the 2018 GAYA Awards in the Romance category for her novel, The Alibi. Her latest novel, The Case of the Missing Botticelli: A Massimo Domingo Mystery, released January 24, 2022, is her 28^th work of fiction, which includes short stories, novels, anthologies and even a musical. Book 3 of the series, The Case of the Forgotten Fragonard, will be released in 2023 by The Wild Rose Press, Inc. A public relations consultant in Atlanta, Marilyn is past chair and current member of Roswell Reads (a one-city, one read program that has featured such authors as Rick Bragg, Ann Patchett, Delia Owens, Laura Morelli and Geraldine Brooks) and serves on the Atlanta Authors Series Committee, which gives local authors the opportunity to share what they have written with library patrons. To find out more about what Marilyn writes, visit her website at: www.marilynbaron.com/

WORKSHOP

Novel Ideas: What Sparks a Writer’s Imagination?

In a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway said, “The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life—and one is as good as the other.”

Where do ideas for novels come from? This is the number one question an author is asked by readers. Ideas for books can come from anywhere and everywhere at any time. And when you least expect them. Do ideas drop from the sky? Come from the cosmos? When inspiration strikes, they just might. Ideas are floating out there in the universe. You just have to be receptive to them.

What are the Top 10 Sources of Inspiration for a Novel?

Genre Jumping: To Switch or Not to Switch

A recent New York Times article noted that most blockbuster authors break out because of a popular series, like “Twilight” or “Harry Potter.” Conventional wisdom dictates that writers build a brand by sticking to one recognizable genre. But what if you’re an outlier like literary phenom Colleen Hoover, the best-selling author in the United States, who had five of the top 10 best-selling print books of any genre.

“I’ve been told that authors need to brand themselves as one thing. And I was like, well, why can’t I brand myself as everything?” says Hoover. “Why can’t I just brand myself as Colleen Hoover?”

It may take awhile to find your voice, find your genre of choice and find your passion.

Best-selling author Celeste Ng says she’s still honing her voice after three novels and there are themes writers tend to come back to.

Should you limit yourself to one genre or subgenre? Marilyn Baron writes in a variety of genres from humorous women’s fiction to historical romantic thrillers/suspense and from paranormal to cozy mysteries. She writes in all formats from short stories and series to anthologies and full-length novels. She and her sister even wrote a musical about Alzheimer’s called Memory Lane. Is it advisable to genre jump? To Switch or Not to Switch Genres, that is the question we’ll try to answer.

Jenna Grinstead

At We

1425 Chaffee Road S Jacksonville, FL 32221