WilleisnerA few Goosie writers attended a number of the PEI Writers Guild, Wild Threads Literary Festival sessions. All of them were great fun and educational. The final session was ‘Publishing Your Story: 30 Years with Acorn Press’ with a special professional development panel and Q&A on Sunday Sept 22nd at the Charlottetown Library Learning Centre. The presenters were Acorn Press’ Terrilee Bulger and Tracy Belsher
I learned about what a publisher is looking for in a script or a query letter. Actually, I’d never heard of a ‘query letter’. There’s a ton of people wanting to get published so your work needs to be ‘the same, but different’. I watched a number of very interesting pitches. We learned that in your pitch, you need to stay on target. They need to know where are you going with your story. You need to ‘Paint a picture with words’. You need to be wary of ‘toxic positivity’. We discussed ‘toxic positivity’ which is “the belief that people should maintain a positive mindset no matter how dire or difficult a situation is.” Tracy brought a number of ‘must read’ books for writers (listed below) wanting to get published.
The Shooting Script, A Knight’s Tale
Brian Helgeland
Your Screenplay Sucks!
100 ways to make it great!
William M. Akers
The Emotion Thesaurus
Writers guide to character traits
Story Physics
Harnessing the underlying forces of storytelling
Larry Brooks
Hooked
Write fiction that grabs readers at page one and never lets them go
On Writing Horror
The Horror Writers Association
Edited by Mort Castle
Willeisner
Graphic Storytelling and visual narrative
Principles and practices from the legendary cartoonist
Cinematic Storytelling
The 100 most powerful film conventions every filmmaker must know
Jennifer Van Sijel
scbwi
society of childrens book writers & illustrators publication guide
Spunk & Bite (love this book)
Writing Down the Bones
Freeing the Writer within
Mastering Suspense Structure and Plot
How to write gripping stories that keep readers on the edge of their seats.
Jane K Cleland
Stephen King
On Writing
A memoir of the craft
Anne Lamott
bird by bird
some instructions on writing and life
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
how to edit yourself into print
Renni Browne & Dave King
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The Writers Journey
Mythic structure for writers
Christopher Vogler
The Virgins Promise
Writing stories of feminine creative, spiritual and sexual awakening
Kim Hudson
The Kick-Ass Writer
1001 ways to write great fiction, get published and earn your audience
Chuck Wendig
Save the Cat!
Writes a Novel
The last book on novel writing you’ll ever need
Jessica Brody
Save the Cat!
Writes a Young Adult Novel
The ultimate guide to writing a YA bestseller
Writing with Pictures
How to write and illustrate children’s books
by Url Sh?
Children’s Picturebooks
The art of visual storytelling
Writing Picture Books
Spilling
a young writers handbook