Book Signing--Sunday, November 1, 2:00 p.m. at Hickory Stick Bookshop, Washington Depot, CT, www.hickorystickbookshop.com for directions

Please join me!

Pushing vs Resting--Why We Need Both Will and Vision to Complete a Book

Today I am sitting still. I'm visioning, listening, waiting. It's the opposite pace of these last few months, when my novel Qualities of Light was released into the world. When a book gets born, there's nonstop activity.

Publicity, the book tour, interviews, good reviews if you're lucky. I've been deep in all of this. Today is different.

Outside my window are sunlit fields and the fiercely gold last-ditch efforts of three fading maple trees. Inside, a vase of flowers is catching the light. I haven't noticed this beauty lately, because of the pushing, the pace, the will needed to move my project out into the world. Like birthing, it takes that push. It's essential.

Today I am resting from the pushing, to let bigger visions filter in and bring their welcome creativity and renewal.

Balance of Visioning and Will
Visioning and will balance each other in book writing like two ends of a seesaw. If you don't have an initial vision for a book, you really don't create something that goes deep enough to touch readers, make them tell their friends and family and writing group about your writing, even change lives if you're lucky. Visions change as the book evolves. For Qualities of Light, I started with a vision of unexpected romance. As it evolved, as more characters got developed, the vision changed into healing of a family. Both stories made it into the final book. I like to think the pauses, the visioning I did, helped them weave together into a whole.

It's hard to book time for visioning. The sequel to Qualities of Light is cooking. It needs the visioning help to take it to the next step--I have a solid draft, some edited sections, but not a sense of the whole picture. While I'm working on my publicity, I can't seem to slow down enough to vision. I have to book a visioning day.

Today, the end of October in peak leaf-changing New England, it feels like a cycle shifting, a perfect time to vision. New possibilities, the season changing. Ideas are starting to come, faint pictures that will make a wholeness for this next book. I am committed to taking notes today.
I enjoy the golden trees, the flowers indoors. The pushing mind empties, the attention is freed up.

When You Know You Need Visioning Time
I usually don't accept the need for visioning time until I'm maxed. Yesterday it hit me as a wave of sheer exhaustion: I needed visioning time like oxygen. I'm very happy about all that's happened but the pushing it's required has stressed me way beyond my comfort zone. I'm grateful for the cheers and congratulations, but I'm an introvert (like many writers) and it wears me out after a while. I'm really excited about my booksigning this weekend, November 1, in Washington Depot, Connecticut, and my booksigning Thursday, November 5, at the Loft in Minneapolis. I'm really thrilled with the reviews coming out, the buzz happening. Releasing a book is the realization of a dream: wonderful, joyous, overwhelming. But it needs the balance of visioning. Otherwise we lose sight of why we're doing it. Don't we.

I was driving back from teaching a writing class when things reached critical mass. The cell phone rang, I couldn't locate my headset in time, and for some reason this felt like the last straw. I was on the very rainy Saw Mill Parkway, a twisty highway in western New York, and Chris Pureka was on the radio. Her melancholy voice perfectly reflected the rainy fall day. I felt myself let go inside. Let the call go to voice mail. Let myself just listen and drive, sink into the slow motion.

Then it happened. I suddenly got a picture, a new idea, a wholeness. As my pushing self let go of all the efforts, creative ideas came fast. Ideas to solve some dilemmas in my next novel, things I'd been struggling with.

Planning for Visioning
Take advantage of the change of seasons to set up a visioning time for your writing project this week. Maybe you've noticed the difficulty in talking yourself into this need--and the effect of dried up writing that comes when you don't have an overview of your project? And maybe you've noticed the serendipity that comes through, the originality, when you let yourself stop pushing and start visioning?

This week's exercise: Take your solo self and your writing notebook someplace for an hour, an afternoon, a morning or a day. Let yourself look at changing leaves or mountains or the ocean. Sketch, doodle, or write what comes. Take notes. Maybe you'll get the overview of vision, worth gold to the book writer.

Also: Write down what you'd really like from the project you're working on. What vision do you have for it? Why are you doing it, really?

Five Things You'd Never, Ever Do for Yourself

One of my favorite writing exercises is to list five things I'd never do, or I'd never make a character do, then write a scene imagining that very thing happening. It's an edgy exercise. But it always gets me out of a slump.

This past week, I did something on my list--stand in front of about 70 people and read from my new novel. The novel is edgy, and I'm always aware that the subject matter might be seen as, to quote my wonderful mother, "not my cup of tea." But it was what I felt compelled to write. I'm proud I pushed past my fears, that I did something that scared me. Because the results were so very worth it.

The picture above was taken by photographer Bruce Fuller ( see his amazing work at http://www.brucefuller.com/). If you look closely, you'll notice I'm not fainting or stumbling over my words, but really having a pretty good time. You'll see people listening and not walking out in boredom or disgust (a common fear of authors at readings). It's a SRO crowd (the empty seat was even taken).

Most important to me, this photograph captures a moment where I was facing my fear and doing what was in my heart.

This week's exercise is about pushing past your limits and fears. Want to try it?

This Week's Exercise

Make a list of five of the most frightening or impossible things you can think of doing to further your creativity, your book, your writing in general. Buy an expensive pen or laptop you want? Take a workshop you can't imagine being brave enough to try? Spend a weekend at a writing retreat to get peace at last?

You can also try this with your character, especially a stubborn character who refuses to evolve. What five things would this person never, ever do? Have them do one.

Warning label: Results of this exercise might feel astonishing, freeing, and joyous. The process might make you tremble before it helps you fly.

But look at me, in the photo. I'm actually having a blast. No problem that I couldn't sleep the night before, worrying about every little thing. It was worth it. And afterward, I slept like a baby. Very satisfied that I'd tried something that a few years ago I would never, ever do.

Creative People Have Two Jobs

In a roundabout way, I learned of a new book on creativity: Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod. Then I learned of some fascinating notes on the book at Derek Sivers's website.

Sivers is no slouch when it comes to creativity--he knows whereof he speaks, having created the awesome www.cdbaby.com that helped so many independent musicians stay independent.

One of Ignore Everybody's main points is that most creative people have two jobs. Ouch, my friends say. Can't I make a living at what I love?

Well, yes, if you really really want to. That means (1) amazing luck, (2) incredible hard work, and (3) sometimes years of not earning enough to rent a teepee. I've watched so many writers quit their day jobs when The Book Idea comes along. I've watched them suffer with the pressure of trying to write to make that six figure advance, when they never wrote a word before. Better to take that pressure off your creativity, not flatiron your book into being. Books don't like that.

You may not like this post this week. You may be a worthy dreamer who hates your cubicle life and wants to break out into the wealthy world of published authors. Most of us aren't. We're midlist, which means our books sell OK but not enough to pay all the bills. The most I ever earned from royalties in a year was about $30,000. I loved my book which earned that, but it was written without the pressure to earn big bucks.

I was able to, because of my day job, stay creative. That's the point, isn't it? How to stay creative in a world that doesn't really like it.

That's why MacLeod's book is so timely.

This Week's Writing Exercise
This week's exercise is pretty simple. Read the book review for Ignore Everybody on Derek Siver's site http://sivers.org/book/IgnoreEverybody then write your own list of what it takes for YOU to stay creative.

Is it about ignoring everybody?
Is it about paying attention to a few trusted people?
Is it about a room of your own, a la Virginia Woolf, or a kitchen table a la J.K. Rowling, or a great Internet cafe that keeps you bubbling with stolen dialogue lines?

Enjoy making your list. Let it simmer all week.

Responding to What's Out There--Writing Letters to the Editor

In my novel, Qualities of Light, there's a triangle of love interests. Boy likes girl, girl kind of likes boy, girl falls in love with another girl. Not so unusual these days. To make matters even more tangled (a key element of novels), the love affair begins during a family tragedy, an accident that causes the girl's young brother to fall into a coma. The accident, of course, is caused by the girl. Or so she believes. And her belief causes the main dilemma of the story.

Considering the questions exercise from last week, I was intrigued by this one, and it became the pivot for my book: Is love something you can expect, something you can delight in, when you are in deep trouble? When you have almost caused someone you love to die?

My novel has several layers of these kinds of questions. I enjoyed not knowing the answers, exploring the topics.

One topic that fascinates me is how gay or coming-out teenagers cope with their lives. So when a colleague pointed me toward an amazing article in last Sunday's New York Times magazine, I had to respond.

I decided to write a letter to the editor. My experience sparked an idea for the writing exercise this week.

Writing Your Passion
The article was called "Coming Out in Middle School" and author Benoit Denizet-Lewis interviewed some very interesting teens who did this and had various experiences. Molly, my heroine, struggles with the same issues real-life gay and straight teens face--acceptance and rejection, self-identity, the beauty of falling overwhelming in love at last. In writing the book, the struggles of my heroine and other kids like her became my passion. So I wanted to send a passionate response to this wonderful writer, Benoit Denizet-Lewis.

Letters to the editor are a chance for low-risk passion statements. They may never get published, of course, but they're a chance for you, the book writer, to get your ideas, thoughts, and words to readers who might not otherwise touch them.

My letter isn't a model of great Letters to the Editor, but here it is:

Dear Editor,
"Coming Out in Middle School" by Benoit Denizet-Lewis spoke eloquently of the challenges teens and pre-teens face when they discover they are gay. Finally our society offers support for GLBTQ youth, the necessary emotional shelter they need as they come to terms with who they are. I especially enjoyed reading the discussion of how old youth are when this awareness happens--much younger now, and thankfully much more supported.

However, the author did not cover a huge and essential aspect of teens coming out: What happens when a teen finds out they are gay because of a sudden love interest? I explore this topic in my new young-adult novel, Qualities of Light (October 2009, Spinsters Ink). Perhaps the teen has always dated boys and suddenly falls in love with a girl. What happens when the teen's friends, who are heterosexual, make fun of the new pairing? Is it safe to tell parents, who may not support the sudden change?

Unlike Denizet-Lewis's subjects, these teens may not know how to make the transition. When researching for my novel, I found few books treated this subject, few served as literary mentors for teens falling in love with their best friends, as my heroine Molly does. A vastly different experience than the gradual coming out of the profiled teens in Denizet-Lewis's excellent article.

It's timely that this article comes out at such a ground-breaking moment in our history, when states are legalizing gay marriage and accepting that love is love. What we need is more literary models for teens who experience the sudden awakening of the heart and wonder how to reorient their lives to its truth.

Sincerely,
Mary Carroll Moore

Stand Up in Print--A Way to Practice Your Book-Writing Passion
Do you feel it's important to stand up for something in print, be heard--before your book sees its readers? Find an article to praise and comment on. Editors of publications like both. They work hard to find good material and they love it when readers notice that.

Scan your local newspaper or a monthly magazine this week and find something that connects with your book topic. Craft a response. Mention your book (in progress, if that's true). Send it off. See what happens.

PS Most Letters to the Editor can be sent by email nowadays. Just follow the guidelines--they usually need your name, address, and phone, although the last two items are usually not printed.

The Power of Unanswered Questions

As someone who loves it when the ducks are lined up, I used to hate unanswered questions. Problems I couldn't solve, dilemmas unresolved, drove me nuts. I worked hard at applying solutions to every problem.

I felt great when the issue got fixed. I tallied up answers like gold.

Then I began writing books. Books are large, unweildy events, worse than organizing a family wedding. Hard to predict what will happen. Hard to plan entirely. Full of unresolved problems and big questions that may not get solved until the final draft. My first books were nightmares, partly because of my need to solve every problem right away. Luckily, back in the olden days when I began publishing, I worked with patient editors who taught me the power of the unanswered question.

This may not be your issue--at all! But if it is, read on.

Love the Questions Themselves
Rainier Maria Rilke, the German writer responsible for the beautiful volume Letters To A Young Poet, said, "Have patience with everything that remains unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them."

Rilke's point was that hanging around with questions leads to the best answers. You need time to live your way to the answers. There's real gold in the questions themselves because they open up the creative self.

I've often asked my book-writing classes to begin a list of questions about their books-in-progress. Add to the list, one question daily, and let yourself muse and wonder about what the answer could possibly be. Once I became patient enough to try this myself, I saw great improvement in my writing. It was as if a creative faucet got turned on.

I wasn't just working my problems to find solutions; I was creating something new. My random, creative, wondering and wandering writer inside was excited.

Does Unanswered Equal More Creative?

Why are unanswered questions so helpful for book writers? Why do we need NOT to know everything before we begin our writing process?

Theme, subtext, and inner story all emerge from the random, creative side, not the linear left brain of the writer. You can't get good theme by going after it directly. It bubbles up. It surprises you. A writing mentor once told me: "If it doesn't surprise you, it won't surprise the reader." You'll have a too-predictable plan, leading to an unoriginal and uninspired book.

This week, make a list of unanswered questions. Things that are worrying you about your outline or theory, plot or characters, theme or beginning or ending. Let the list simmer. Let the questions become part of your breathing and living each day. When you get the bubbling up of a possible creative idea that addresses your question, listen and take notes.

Your muse is talking.

PS This exercise isn't just limited to writing. I've used it to create answers to tangles with family and friends, health issues, everything under the sun. It's fun, creative, and it works.

So Your Book Is Finally Written and Published--How Do You Launch It?

If you're in the very lucky position to have (1) finished writing your book, and (2) sold your manuscript to a publisher, you'll soon be facing an exciting question:

How do I want to launch my book?

You're about to be on stage--and that's a good thing. Long ago, publishers did this work and writers stayed behind the scenes, but readers of this blog who are savvy to the changes in the book publishing industry know that publishers no longer launch a book for you, unless you're a proven best-seller. You do your own singing. Often there's very little publicity budget once your book is published, and most publishers depend on writers to do the legwork, find the reviewers, and set up their own book events to help readers find out about their books. You can't be shy now--you have to believe in your book enough to design, dream, and deliver a successful launch.

I can hear those trigger fingers moving, but before you click away from this post ("I am nowhere near launching anything!"), read a bit further. Even beginning book writers might have fun with this week's exercise. It's a way to design your book launch but also work with a tried-and-true universal principle of thinking from the end. In other words, what you put your focus on, manifests. Put your focus on publication, and it might work.

This week's exercise is in two parts, and we begin with famous cartoonist Scott Adams.

Scott Adams Did It

Dilbert's creator, Scott Adams, was said to have penned a positive statement about his cartooning career each day. He wrote it fifteen times. The theory is that his focus was shifted, over time, to the potential instead of the fears. I don't know what he wrote, but it was something like, "I will be a famous cartoonist." And so he was.

I love this exercise. I use every time I am wanting to manifest something really good--like an excellent book launch--and remind myself of the potential rather than the fears in this crazy life of writing books. The exercise works best if you keep the statement beneficial to more people than yourself (another universal principle).

Some examples of this exercise from my writing students: "I'm delighted with my published book." "My published book is everything I've dreamed it could be." "Readers are loving my book and it's changing lives for the better." "My book is practically writing itself--and I am thrilled at how it's coming together." "My writing feeds my soul."

As I prepare for three book events for my new novel, Qualities of Light (see below for dates--please join me!), my positive statement is: "My book events are easy, delightful, and full of joy, and people are so inspired by my novel."

It focuses me on the highest dream. Try it yourself, at whatever stage in book writing you are right now. Make sure to write the statement fifteen times--because something shifts around the tenth or eleventh time you pen that statement. It starts to click in the change of attitude.

Part 2 of the Exercise

Once you've set the tone of your book launch, it's time to get specific. Ask yourself:

1. What venue would I enjoy most (a bookstore, a writing school, a gathering in a community center or art gallery)? No limits nowadays. Just be sure you can accomodate the crowds you hope for, there's plenty of parking, and the venue is open to the public.

2. What format would make my book shine? At a minimum, authors will often read an exciting excerpt (about 10 minutes max), answer questions from the audience, and sign books at a table. But you can also conduct a free workshop on your book's topic, talk about how you wrote it, offer a panel discussion of contributors, etc. Think about your best result (see part 1 of exercise) and what would bring it.

3. What publicity do I want to do ahead of time? Are you up for radio/TV/print interviews? Posters and postcards? Email to friends and family? Publicists say that people need to hear about something six times before they are hooked enough to buy or show up, so spread the word in more than one way.

Using the inspiration from your positive statement, written fifteen times, brainstorm on the specifics. Spend 10-20 minutes on this part of the exercise. Benefit: You focus on the potential, not the fears.

Please join me for the book launch of Qualities of Light, my first novel,

if you're near any of these locations:

Tuesday, October 13, 7:00 p.m.: Hudson Valley Writers' Center, Sleepy Hollow, NY (Westchester County, on train line from NYC), http://www.writerscenter.org/ for directions.

Sunday, November 1, 2:00 p.m.: The Hickory Stick Bookshop, Washington Depot, CT, http://www.hickorystickbookshop.com/ for directions.

Thursday, November 5, 7:00 p.m: The Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis, MN, http://www.loft.org/ for directions.

Reading My Own Novel--A Lesson in What Happens When You're Not Looking

The week I got my first copy of my new novel, Qualities of Light, I was like a raft floating in serene blue water. It had happened at last. Holding it in my hands was a thrill. I didn't even open it for a few minutes. Then I gave myself two days and read it cover to cover.

A wonderful editor accepted the book and a wonderful press has published it, but I spent a year trying to sell it before that happened. I'd kept notes from agents and editors who'd seen the manuscript that difficult year. These agents and editors sent me brief or beautiful rejection letters--and I kept many of them. The helpful ones encouraged me. The agents and editors who were kind enough to take time from their busy workdays to tell me why they rejected my manuscript, what they'd recommend changing. This kind of information is gold to the writer struggling to publish.

The most constant comment: "Begin the story in chapter 5." Chapter 5 is where the main character begins to fall in love. I couldn't figure out why everyone thought this was the main story of the novel. To me, the main story is the complex relationship Molly has with her artist father. But everyone else disagreed.

Eventually, I heeded the advice. The last helpful editor sent me detailed suggestions, including the now-familiar "Begin with chapter 5." So I jettisoned the first four chapters. I put them into my "extras" file on my computer and wove the best bits into other chapters. Now the book starts right in with the love tangle instead of the family tangle.

Rereading it this week, I saw why it works. As deeply as I was interested in the family tangle, most readers love a love story. That's what they wanted.

Why We Writers Need Readers

These agents and editors--and my writing partner and writing groups--did me a great service. Their comments forced me to go back to what I was originally excited about in this novel when I began writing it nine years ago. It was the unlikely romance. The family tangle came later, when I was searching for a subplot to give tension to the story.

Once I rediscovered, via helpful advice, the real center of my story and rearranged it accordingly, I sold it within a month.

We writers want to keep our ideas "pure" and untouched by others' opinions. This is downright snobby, a typical ego-driven artist viewpoint. I'm there often, and it never serves me. Most readers, if they're intelligent and kind, will point the writer back to her original focus. They will help the writer weed out the sidetracks that don't serve the story.

This Week's Writing Exercise

Make a list of feedback you've gotten so far about your book. What's the most consistent comment? Is it, like with my novel, to begin somewhere else, with another focus? Why have you listened or not listened to this feedback? What has changed in your writing because of it?

Then make a list of the readers in your life--people who have read your work and given you feedback. Send the most important one a thank-you note. Tell her or him why you appreciate the feedback, what it's taught you.

How to Use Your Writing Notebooks to Feed Your Book

Sarah Tieck, a fellow instructor at the Loft Literary Center, emailed me with a great question about writing notebooks. I've heard the same question from other writers.

"I was remembering a recent blog entry where you talked about how you work with your exercises in your notebook on a weekly basis," Sarah said. "I'm wondering what you do with older writer's notebooks. . . I've got dozens and their current format isn't useful. I almost never return to them because the information is not organized or easily retrievable. How do you handle your archives? Any tips or thoughts would be appreciated!"

Writers produce writing. And if you're a writing geek like me, you love to write longhand in notebooks, not just on the super-fast computer. Notebooks let the right brain ramble slowly, and the writing I do longhand is often pensive, full of imagery. I notice things I'd breeze over.

My just-released novel, Qualities of Light, started from a notebook full of tiny scenes scribbled while vacationing at a lake cabin in the Adirondacks. It was too hot to think, so I filled one notebook with random images: weedy lake smells, sounds of loons yodeling, fast-moving clouds, a girl in a bright-red tank suit racing across the lake on water-skis. This slow cooking got me started. I moved to scenes where the girl falls in love, her six-year-old brother almost drowns, her artist father betrays her, her entire family tries to orient itself after the near-tragedy.

Each tiny snippet became a chapter. And now it's all become a published book--thanks to my notebooks that summer. So I believe in these notebooks. Big time. The question is: How can you make the best use of yours?

How to Use Your Notebooks

Claire-Fontaine notebooks are my favorite. I fill them up pretty fast--every two months if I'm cooking on a new book. New books require lots of freewrites, bad writing, shitty first drafts as Anne Lamott calls them. Notebooks are private, so they are perfect for these SFDs.

But notebooks become unusable if you let them languish on a shelf. Right?

So I set up a system. On a writing day soon after I complete a notebook, I set aside two hours for reading and marking. I try to take myself out to lunch or dinner or to a museum or public garden, make this a little artist's date, a la Julia Cameron, have some fun. I bring along a yellow highlighting pen and a stack of Post-Its in different colors, snacks and tea, my iPod with no-lyrics music, and headphones. I plug into my wordless music (lyrics are too distracting when I'm reading). I plug into my word-filled writing.

Mark Anything You Can Use

Reading through the freewrites, ideas, notes to self, and character sketches, I first mark the ones that seem possible for my current book. These get a yellow highlighter stripe down the margin. Even if I don't know how I'll use the material, I mark it as possible.

Post-Its are for ideas to follow up on. In my writing notebooks, I gather lists: books to read, topics to research, people to contact, websites to visit. The Post-Its become the logging system. Different colors for different tasks.

The key here is to be as nonjudgmental as possible about your work and ideas. Treat anything as possible--and view your raw writing as if you've never seen it before. Like a reader would. Look for sparks that could possibly ignite something bigger.

Back at the Desk

When I get back to my writing desk, I begin the hard work: transferring the highlighted sections into a computer file called "extras." This is tedious work (for me). But so necessary. Otherwise, I'll never, ever use the writing I've just delighted in.

I also make a list on a legal pad of my to-do's. Sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly organized, I'll keep separate lists of tasks by type. This actually helps the tasks get done. And before I'm finished for the day, I select three tasks and put them into my calendar with dates to tackle them.

Then What? What to Do with the Pile of Past Notebooks

I never throw out my writing notebooks. Yes, this means dedicating an entire file drawer or shelf for them. But too many times I've been stuck for an idea and when I browse one of the old notebooks, I find it.

Then there are the stacks of past notebooks that, once filled, haven't yet been opened. Milking them requires a steel will and a full day or more. When I was working on my last nonfiction book, How to Master Change in Your Life, I forced myself to go through old journals. Too many words to read carefully and still be home for dinner, so I just skimmed and place a Post-It on pages that seemed promising. I visited a photocopy store and Xeroxed the pages. Then put them into a folder. Planned an artist's date. Read through them and did the highlighting work.

These became the backbone of my nonfiction book--believe it or not. All my best stories came from these notebooks. Even though they were old and reading through them was nothing short of embarrassing, I tried to keep that nonjudgmental attitude and be open to what might work. A lot did.

Your Exercise This Week

Get one of your writing notebooks, even one you haven't finished, and try the highlighting and Post-It exercise above. Take an hour and transfer the most promising into your computer file. Name it "extras" and save it where you can find it again.

Two more ideas: See the new post below for a step you might want to take--using your notebooks to advantage by pairing them with a weekly class.

And visit Sarah's website at http://www.sarahtieck.com/.

Path of Least Resistance

What's the path of least resistence, when it comes to writing and publishing a book?

I've found you need three things: persistence, support, and inspiration. This blog was started to provide them all--the accountability that comes from regular writing, showing up at the page (whether in your notebook or on the computer) with practice; a forum for book writers to gather online; and inspiration via stories from those who've published.

But sometimes you need another step, a real-time gathering of writers like yourself.

My next round of weekly book-writing classes begins Monday, September 21, at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center near NYC. These three-hour classes meet Monday afternoons for 6 weeks each fall and spring. We go through the basic steps to organizing and manifesting a book in any genre: writing "islands," storyboarding, editing, theme--all the keys you'll need.

Plus you get weekly feedback on your writing from me.

Cost is $355 for 6 weeks, 3 hours a week. The Writers' Center is a beautiful writing school in Sleepy Hollow, NY, near Tarrytown. Sound like a good fit? Please email me (mary@marycarrollmoore.com) or call the Hudson Valley Writers' Center at 914-332-5953. You can also email them (info@writerscenter.org) or visit www.writerscenter.org for more details.

Hope to see you there!