How to Get Published workshop, with literary agent Martha Magor Webb of the McDermid agency, Sat, Feb 22, Burlington

Karen Le Billon, author of
French Kids Eat Everything,
is represented by Martha Magor Webb
of the McDermid Agency

“How to Get Published”

~ An editor & an agent tell all ~

Saturday February 22, 2014

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Burlington Public Library, 2331 New Street, Burlington, Ontario (Map here.)

If you've ever dreamed of becoming a published author, this workshop is for you. We’ll cover everything from getting started to getting an agent, from getting your short pieces published to finding a book publisher, from writing a query letter to writing what the publishers want. Bring your questions. Come and get ready to be published!

Special Option: Participants are invited to bring a draft of a query letter you might use to interest an agent or publisher in your book. You don’t need to bring anything, but if you do, 3 copies could be helpful.

Workshop leader Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing teacher for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada’s most popular blog for writers, teaches creative writing at Ryerson University 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 their first book published and launch their careers as authors.

Guest speaker, Martha Magor Webb, is a literary agent, director and full partner at Anne McDermid and Associates. The McDermid agency represents literary novelists and commercial novelists of high quality and writers of nonfiction in the areas of memoir, biography, history, literary travel, popular science, investigative journalism and true crime. The agency also represents a certain number of children's and YA writers and writers in the fields of science fiction and fantasy.

The McDermid agency's clients include distinguished literary novelists such as David Adams Richards (Winner of the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for both fiction and nonfiction), Nino Ricci, Andrew Pyper, Michael Winter, Michael Crummey, and Alison Pick.

Martha

The agency also represents nonfiction authors, such as Charles Montgomery, Andrew Westoll, and James MacKinnon, all three of whom won the prestigious Charles Taylor prize for literary nonfiction in their years of publication.

The agency also represents upmarket commercial fiction writers, such as Leah McLaren from the Globe and Mail, Andrew Pyper, Robert Wiersema, and Peter Darbyshire. (More on the McDermid Agency here.)

Martha represents a growing list of writers, focusing on literary fiction, narrative nonfiction (including memoir and true crime) and ideas-driven nonfiction. 

Her clients include Pasha Malla (long-listed for the Giller, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, winner of the Danuta Gleed and the Trillium awards), Damian Tarnopolsky (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Amazon.ca award), Russell Smith, Jessica Grant, (winner of the Amazon.ca First Novel and the Winterset awards), Grace O'Connell, Matt Lennox, Andrew Westoll, and Karen Le Billon, whose first book French Kids Eat Everything sold into thirteen countries and translated into ten languages.

More about the McDermid agency here.

Fee: $38.94 + 13% hst = $44 paid in advance by mail or Interac
or $42.48 + 13% hst = $48 if you wait to pay at the door
To reserve a spot now, email brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See Brian’s full schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Bolton, Caledon, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

The CommuterLit Anthology is here!

At long last the first CommuterLit anthology has been published. CommuterLit Selections 2013: A Month of Reading for Your Transit Commute features 20 short stories and poems culled from the best of CommuterLit.com. 

The print anthology is available to order now from Lulu.com. This is a cooperative publishing venture; money from the sales will flow to the anthology’s contributors and will help fund future CommuterLit anthologies. Thank you for supporting your fellow writers. Buy your copy here.

Featured writers include:

Elizabeth Barnes
Nancy Boyce
Larry Brown
Brandon Crilly
John Donlan
Kim Farleigh
Brad Gischia
Celynne Grewe-Hinzmann
Eirik Gumeny
Gloria Jean Hansen
Cathy Hendrix
Phyllis Humby
Dianne Korchynski
Cassie McDaniel
Dave Medd
Michel Milburn
Frank T. Sikora
Catherine Sword
Joan Vinall-Cox
Jan Wiezorek

Wow – what a great collection of authors! If you've attended my classes or workshops, you've likely met some of these people. Perhaps you even helped them bring their stories up to scratch. What a delight it is to see them now published in book form. I vote we all buy this book. – Brian

See Brian’s full schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Bolton, Caledon, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Love letters: Where your fellow writers are finding an agent, getting published, and winning contests

Lead judge John Cull and winners of the 2012 Alice Munro Short Story Contest: Royden McCoag, Sheila Eastman, Hayley Linfield, Yasmina Jaksic, and Bronte Cronsberry. Yay, Sheila! Here’s hoping we have winners to celebrate this year, too.

Brian,

Hi! I wanted to let you know that I am one of the five finalists in the Alice Munro Short Story Contest (teen division). After seeing your post about the contest on Quick Brown Fox, I entered "In Facing the Sun," a story I had critiqued in your class. I appreciated all of your constructive criticism, and I feel it really helped my piece reach its full potential.

Thank you very much for all of your help. The awards gala is on September 28, so I will let you know what happens, although it is an honor just to be recognized. 

Sincerely,
Dana Mitchell

Karma Brown

Good morning, Brian.

I wanted to let you all know my exciting news ... I'm now represented by Carolyn Forde of Westwood Creative Artists here in Toronto!

Since our class so many great things have happened with this book, and I'm thrilled with my new agent and her vision for the story. I actually ended up having a choice between three stellar agents, but ultimately chose Carolyn because she was so passionate about the project, and I imagine we'll work really well together.

Hope you're all doing well, wherever you're at with your writing!

And always happy to hear good news, so please keep me posted.

Karma Brown

Note: On October 5, I’ll be leading a workshop in Georgetown with literary agent Carly Watters of the P.S. Literary Agency. See here.

For information about literary agent Carolyn Forde and Westwood Creative Artists, see here.

Hi, Brian.
Have a look at the Toronto Star. There is a 1 1/2 page feature in the Insight Section about my research and my book, Spice & Kosher – here.

Regards,
Bala Menon

Hi Brian,
I wanted to share my non-fiction piece with you again; I wrote this for Show and Tell in your Creative Writing Classes this summer and much to my excitement it was accepted for publication in the Globe & Mail, Facts & Arguments.  You can see my essay, "Why I want my daughter to inherit old winter boots" here.

Thanks very much for all your feedback.  I couldn't have done it without you!

Laurie Nguyen

For information about submitting a "Facts & Arguments" essay to the Globe & Mail, see here. 

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Bolton, Caledon, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

"Bring me the sunset in a cup" and "Of no fixed address" by Elizabeth Barnes

Image by Nahmala

“Bring me the sunset in a cup” 

 – Emilie Dickinson

 “Bring me the sunset in a cup”

To keep the heart alive

and pour me a bowl of ocean.

Then bring me the sunrise in a thin hand-blown jar

shore birds tipping the edge.

But first bring me the sunset in a cup

to keep the heart alive.

Then bring me the moonrise in a silver dish

adorned with the vast jellied stars—

let me taste the sweetness of distance;

but do bring me the sunset in a cup

and my mantel of star-sprinkled sky—

lay it about my shoulders;

then bring me my cup of sunset, please,

to keep my heart alive.

… of no fixed address

I shun all attachment

to walls and carpets,

to images and porcelain cups and saucers

to flannel sheets, and small dogs that plead

…to the comfort of your arms

I shun all this

and choose to live under a tarp

with a battered aluminum pot

where risking the violence of the elements

and itinerant prisoners of the former British Empire

having now served their time

—and mine not yet up—

I tend my pots of curry

festering in the Australian sun

Now and again

I pitch in the shade of your urban porch

away from the broiling skies

but never enter your premises

I haunt the sidelines of your life

I prefer it this way—

being a vagrant

I choose with whom to share my whiskey

and my hand-rolled cigarettes,

the paucity of my conversation

I’ll drink your coffee

and then I’ll be gone

For you know I am a person of

no fixed address

gone to where I cannot be found

Elizabeth Barnes has been writing prose and poetry for more than 20 years. She is published in Canadian Voices Vol I and II. in 2002 she was short-listed for the Writers' Union of Canada short story contest for her story “The Yellow Dahlia.” She is a member of the High Park Writers’ Group, the Ontario Poetry Society and regularly attends meetings of the Canadian Federation of Poets. As well as writing, she takes photographs, sews wall hangings and is trying to improve her skill on the piano.

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Bolton, Caledon, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Short story contest with $5,000 in prizes, plus Dentist stories, mind-stretching prose and poetry, and true stories wanted

Image by Matt Walford

Empty Sink Publishing is looking for prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and visual media submissions that “stretch the mind, defy convention, and offer a new perspective on life.”

Deadline: October 14, 2013. But submissions received after Oct 14 will be considered for the next issue. Submission guidelines here.

Your McMurray Magazine and Northword, the literary journal of Canada’s north, present a short story competition with seriously big prizes.

How big? Well, third prize is $500, Second Prize is $1,500 (Yes that’s right, that’s only the Second Prize), and First Place is $3,000.

Whether you are a Canadian living in Canada, a Canadian living anywhere else or even a non-Canadian who lives in Canada eh, you qualify to enter.

Length: between 800 and 2,500 words.

Age Restrictions: Somewhere between life and death.

Deadline: Midnight Mountain time, the October 31, 2013, (2 a.m. on the November 1 for all you Ontarians.).

Topic: Aha, here’s the fun part. There is no real topic; but, there are two conditions. As a salute to the Fort McMurray region, the word “oil” must appear in the story at least once, and there has to be something criminal in the tale.

Why: Because we said so, and because the best stories always have a conflict in them.

What’s in it for me the author? Apart from the chance to win money, the winner will be published in YMM and the other prize winners will be submitted for publication in Northword magazine. In addition, if there are enough good entries – and we fully expect there will be – we will present a collection of short stories for public consumption in e-book form and maybe even on real paper as well. And, you’ll get advance notice of the 2014 competition.  (We’ll tell you the day before we tell everyone else).

Writers are allowed to submit up to three entries each. Each entry will cost $10, although there is a special $25 for three discount. (The fee is to cover administrative and photocopying). 

Full contest rules here.

New online dental magazine Dentists on the Frontier (Canada) seeks short, pithy, provocative and even happy stories of dentists and dental procedures from practitioners and patients of dentistry. Filed under the title “Writing Home Again,” stories should be in the form of an anonymous open letter (Dear Dentist or Dear Patient). Accepting nonfiction and creative nonfiction only. Length: 600 words max.

Deadline: ongoing. Guidelines here. 

Tell Us a Story posts one new true story every Wednesday. All submissions must be be based on something that actually happened. Length: 2,000 words max. Also interested in flash [non]fiction, experimental stories, poems, and plays.

Deadline: rolling. Guidelines here. 

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Bolton, Caledon, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Next Step in Creative Writing, Thurs evenings, Jan 23 – March 13, in Georgetown

The Georgetown Wordsmiths present...

The Next Step in Creative Writing

8 weeks of creative growth

Thursday evenings, 6:45– 9:00 p.m.

Jan 23 – March 13, 2014 
First readings emailed Jan 16

St. Alban's Church, 537 Main Street, Georgetown, Ontario

In the village of Glen Williams. Once you go around the bend on Main St, it’s the second church on your right – Map here.

Note: You can also take this class Thursday afternoons in Mississauga (here), and you can take Intensive Creative Writing, a similar, slightly more advance course, is offered Wednesday afternoons in Burlington and Wednesday evenings in Mississauga. For details or to register, email brianhenry@sympatico.ca

This course will challenge you to take a step up in your writing.  The format will be similar to the "Intensive" courses, but with less reading between classes each week, leaving you with more writing time.

Over the eight weeks of classes, you’ll be asked to bring in three pieces of your writing for detailed feedback. All your pieces may be from the same work, such as a novel in progress, or they may be stand alone pieces. You bring whatever you want to work on.

Besides critiquing pieces, the instructor will give short lectures at the start of each class, addressing the needs of the group.

In addition to learning how to critique your own work and receiving constructive suggestions about your writing, you’ll discover that the greatest benefits come from seeing how your classmates approach and critique a piece of writing and how they write and re-write. This is a challenging course, but extremely rewarding.

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

Fee: $132.74 plus 13% hst = $150 Advance payment only, by mail or Interac

Note: These courses fill up, so enroll early to avoid disappointment.
To reserve a spot now, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca 

See Brian’s full schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Bolton, Caledon, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Next Step in Creative Writing course, Thursday afternoons, Jan 23 – March 13, in Mississauga

The Next Step in Creative Writing

8 weeks of creative growth

Thursday afternoons, 12:30 – 2:45 p.m.

Jan 23 – March 13, 2014
First readings emailed Jan 16

Unity Church, Unit 8, 3075 Ridgeway Drive, Mississauga, Ontario

(Don’t look for a steeple. Unity Church is a unit in a business mall and looks nothing like a church. Map here.)

Note: You can also take this class Thursday evenings in Georgetown (see here), and Intensive Creative Writing, a similar, slightly more advance course, is offered Wednesday afternoons in Burlington (see here) and Wednesday evenings in Mississauga (see here).

This course will challenge you to take a step up in your writing.  The format will be similar to the "Intensive" courses, but with less reading between classes each week, leaving you with more writing time.

Over the eight weeks of classes, you’ll be asked to bring in three pieces of your writing for detailed feedback. All your pieces may be from the same work, such as a novel in progress, or they may be stand alone pieces. You bring whatever you want to work on.

Besides critiquing pieces, the instructor will give short lectures at the start of each class, addressing the needs of the group.

In addition to learning how to critique your own work and receiving constructive suggestions about your writing, you’ll discover that the greatest benefits come from seeing how your classmates approach and critique a piece of writing and how they write and re-write. This is a challenging course, but extremely rewarding.

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

Fee: $132.74 plus 13% hst = $150 Advance payment only, by mail or Interac

Note: These courses fill up, so enroll early to avoid disappointment.
To reserve a spot now, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca 

See Brian’s full schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Bolton, Caledon, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.