The Tony Hillerman Conference is Back!

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Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
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Tony Hillerman Conference
$10,0000 Hillerman Prize
Anne Hillerman
WORDHARVEST

Join Us for a Writers Weekend in Santa Fe


Author Margaret Coel
After a year's hiatus, WORDHARVEST has restructured the Tony Hillerman Writers Conference and moved it to Santa Fe, N.M. In this newsletter, we preview parts of the conference and offer you a successful writing tip from Tony Hillerman. The program, Nov. 12-13, includes a day focused on developing characters and creating dialog under the guidance of Margaret Coel, a comprehensive session on the business of writing with Bill O'Hanlon, and an evening with author (and former CIA agent) Valerie Plame Wilson. In response to your requests, we've added a manuscript critique. Complete information and registration is available here. In addition, we plan to announce the 2011 Tony Hillerman Prize (Deadline for entries: June 1!) Our host is the Inn and Spa at Loretto, with roooms offered at considerable discount from their standard rate. We hope you will join us...and help spread the word to your friends.



Tony Hillerman Writers' Weekend Nov. 12-13, 2010
Show Me the Energy!


Author Bill O'Hanlon
Find the Fuel to Start, Complete, and Sell Your Writing Projects

Leave your excuses at home and have some fun! Author and featured Oprah guest Bill O'Hanlon will show participants how to:
Find the fuel to begin, persist, and complete writing projects
Free more time in our busy lives to ensure that the writing gets done
Unstick your creative impulses when you stall
Energize yourself to do the platform building, marketing, and sales parts of your writing lives
Sell your book before you write it
Use social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in and more)and the web to find and build an audience for your books
Get a literary agent in one day (Bill will teach you his secret)
Bill O'Hanlon is the author of 30 books, including Write Is A Verb. He wrote his first 10 books when he had four kids at home, a private practice in psychotherapy, and a speaking career on the side! A much sought-after teacher, Bill is known for his entertaining, life-changing content.

Create Compelling Characters and Dynamic Dialog



Margaret Coel's latest mystery

Who are those people in your head? And what are they saying? Author Margaret Coel will help you get to know the characters in your imagination and transport them into your story. You will learn how to give characters distinct personalities, viewpoints, and motivations that will make them come alive on the page. Coel will show how dialog is a crucial devise to transform characters into multi-dimensional people--and keep the story moving. Using non-intimidating, hands-on practice, she will help students learn to write dialog that feels like conversation and develop techniques that allow characters to act, react, suffer, change, prevail and, finally, live on in the minds of the reader.
The New York Times best-selling author of the acclaimed Wind River mystery series, Margaret Coel sets her stories among the Arapahos on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation. Her novels have won many awards and been on numerous bestseller lists including the Los Angeles Times, the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. Among her honors are five Colorado Book Awards and the Rocky Award for Best Mystery Novel set in the American West, presented at the Left Coast Crime Conference.

As Requested: Manuscript Reviews



Editor Judith Van Gieson
Author. publisher and editor Judith Van Gieson has agreed to help aspiring authors refine their first chapters and improve their synopses. Judith will read a synopsis and up to 25 pages of the first chapter of the manuscripts and meet with writers privately during the conference to discuss their work, focusing on strenghts and on areas that could use some improvement. The offer is open to writers of both fiction and non-fiction and includes a written critique, a half-hour private session with Judith and a two-hour class on writing first chapters. Critques are available at a discount to those who register for at least one day of the conference.


June 1 Deadline for $10,000 Hillerman Prize
The Tony Hillerman Prize for best first mystery, created and co-sponsored by WORDHARVESTand St. Martin's Press, honors the memory of New Mexico author Tony Hillerman.The contest is open to previously unpublished book length manuscript (no less than 220 typewritten pages or approximately 60,000 words).The story must be set in the Southwestern United States and the author must be unpublished in the mystery genre. (Most self-published novels are allowed.) Entries must be postmarked no later than June 1, 2010. The complete guidelines and entry form are here. Good luck!

Successful Writing Tip:

Author Tony Hillerman often quipped that writer's block "was spelled L-A-Z-Y."
However, if a novel he had in the works stalled, he would drive out to the landscape where the story took place, usually the Navajo reservation. This emersion in the scene, and time away from the computer, usually reinvigorated his writing process. Try it yourself.


We'll be in touch with announcements about the conference and hope to have our next newsletter to you in mid-May. If something interesting has happened in your writing life, please send us your news with NEWS in the subject line. Photos are welcome, too. We'll try to include your news in our next issue or on our blog. Until then, happy writing!

Sincerely,

Anne Hillerman and Jean Schaumberg
WORDHARVEST

Connie Gotsch www.conniegotsch.com Host Write On Four Corners KSJE FM, Farmington NM www.ksje.com Author two award winning novels Snap Me a Future and A Mouthful of Shell available www.dlsijpress.com

Always in Print ‘Cuz They’re Print on Demand!

And now out! Belle’s Star,’ a youth novel from Artemesia Press at http://www.apbooks.net and amazon.com, and through your local book store. Winner 2010 Mom’s Choice Award Finalist 2009 New Mexico Book Awards