OWL Fall 2020 Conference

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OWL September 11th - 12th 2020 Agenda

The September meeting will be in Grand Hall A

Friday September 11th

7:00 p.m. Presentation of Writing Awards - Details TBA

Saturday September 12th

8:00 a.m. – 8:45 a.m. Registration and Art Contest entries due.

9:00 a.m. – 9:10 a.m. Opening Remarks

9:10 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. Chuck Sasser - Writing Controversy in an Age of Controversy

10:15 a.m.--10:30 a.m. Break

10:30 a.m.– 11:30 a.m. Marti Attoun and Joan Banks- The Publishing Panel

11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Lunch on your own. Feel free to bring your lunch or enjoy one of the many restaurants in Branson.

1:00 p.m.– 2:00 p.m. First Pages

2:00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. Break

2:15 – 3:00 p.m. Veda Boyd Jones - Top 10 Writing Tips I Learned

in School.

3:00 – 3:15 p.m. Election of officers. Art Contest Winners Announced.

Writing Controversy in an Age of Controversy - Advice on how these turbulent times demand a careful touch in writing both fiction and nonfiction.

Military veteran Chuck Sasser’s published credits include over 60 books and well over 3,000 magazine articles and short stories. He’s written fiction and nonfiction and has lived quite an adventuresome life: solo-canoeing the Yukon, solo- sailing the Caribbean, motorbiking across the U.S. continent, racing camels in Egypt, dog-sledding in the Artic, floating the Amazon, climbing Mt. Rainier, running with the bulls in Spain, and more.

Chuck Sasser

The Publishing Panel—Ask any writing/publishing/networking question you want, and these two multi-published authors will give their best shot at answering.

Marti has published hundreds of articles in national publications, including Woman’s World, Family Circle, Good Housekeeping, Ladies’ Home Journal, Reader’s Digest, Redbook, The Christian Science Monitor and Woman’s Day. For 14 years, she served as a contributing editor for American Profile Magazine and has been a weekly humor columnist for The Joplin (MO) Globe for more years than she’ll ever admit.

Marti Attoun

Joan's first sale was an article inspired by a merciless attack by 200 chiggers. She has been published in Ranger Rick, National Geographic Kids, SuperScience, Seventeen, The Christian Science Monitor, Missouri Conservationist, Missouri Life, Highlights for Children--and others. She formerly taught writing for the Long Ridge Writers Group, a correspondence-based program, and as a writer for Petfinder, an online database of homeless pets, she wrote over 2,000 "happy ending" stories that were published on the website. Another 400 were syndicated in newspapers across the country through American Profile. She counts four suspense novels, one adult nonfiction book and six children's books to her credit.

Joan Banks

First Pages—Anonymous session.

In The Writer magazine, agent Nat Sobel wrote he early realized that nearly everyone in the publishing industry skims. “They read the first page, or sometimes only the first paragraph of a story, before rejecting the work, so a writer has to engage the editor very early on in the process. I began to read that way, too. I had to.”

Agents read with an eye to what editors will buy. Editors read with an eye to what readers will buy. So, we’re taking our First Pages session straight to the reader.

Email your first page to veda@vedaboydjones.com by September 1, and it will be read without byline at our afternoon session. Listeners will have identical slips of paper that have a space to check either: Yes, I’d turn the page or No, I’d quit here. A blank line is for a gut-reaction one-sentence reason why. Those will be collected and read aloud, again anonymously, then slipped in an envelope in case the writer wants to review them later.

Details: Paste the first page in the body of your email. Give it a title and label:

If fiction, label if as a short story or novel, and give genre.

If nonfiction, label it as a magazine article, opinion piece, or book.

Top 10 Writing Tips I Learned in School. - Take a short cut to earning a master of fine arts in writing degree from these tips.

Veda Boyd Jones’ published credits include 47 books by traditional publishers and 10 original e-books and over 600 articles and short stories in magazines. She earned an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast in the University of Southern Maine, and is a member of the Authors Guild, American Society of Journalists and Authors, and Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Veda Boyd Jones