"How to Build Your Story," Saturday, January 22, Oakville

Plotting novels and writing short stories
~ an editor & an author explain it all ~
Saturday, January 22
10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Oakville Central Library, 120 Navy Street, Oakville
Good all-day parking on Water Street, just north of the library. Map here

This workshop will show you how writers plot a novel. You’ll also get the best tips on writing short stories, where to get them published and how to win contests. Best yet, you’ll see how to apply the story-building techniques you’ve learned to your own writing.

Workshop leader Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing teacher for more than 25 years. He teaches at Ryerson University and George Brown College and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Moncton. But his proudest boast is that he has helped many of his students get published.

Guest speaker Lynda Simmons has published seven novels and has an eighth coming out in December.  Her most recent novel, Getting Rid of Rosie (from Berkley Books, a Penguin USA imprint), came out in August 2009. Rosie is an outrageously entertaining novel of life, love, death – and the afterlife. (Book review here.)

Lynda’s next novel with Berkley, Island Girl, will be out in December.  Island Girl represents a departure for Lynda in that it's a much more serious book.  Set on the Toronto Islands, the novel recounts the emotionally riveting story of a 55-year-old mother, Ruby Donaldson, who fights to reunite her family as she struggles with the diagnosis of early on-set Alzheimer's and her determination to control her own future.. (More here.)

Before going mainstream, Lynda served her apprenticeship as an author by writing six romance novels, published by Harlequin, Silhouette and Kensington. Lynda specializes in comic novels and her presentations are known for their humour. At the workshop, she'll share her insights into plotting novels and creating a character arc.

Fee: $38.94 + 13% hst = $44 paid in advance
Or $42.48 + 13% hst = $48 if you wait to pay at the door

To reserve a spot now, email brianhenry@sympatico.ca

For information about all of Brian's writing workshops and creative writing courses, see here.