All over the world this week, fans of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD are celebrating the release of GO SET A WATCHMAN. I haven’t gotten my copy yet, so I’m watching twitter and facebook with one eye closed to avoid seeing spoilers. Instead, I’ve been busy reading and critiquing manuscripts by two of my writer friends. This is one of the best parts of being a writer: getting to see exciting new manuscripts years before the rest of the world gets to see the published book (publishing takes forever). I love this!
We have a couple of author events this week, plus FIVE writing events! Hurray!
JULY 14, TUESDAY, 6:30-8:30 PM
The Houston Writers’ Guild
Trini Mendenhall Community Center, 1414 Wirt Rd.
Julian Kindred: Crafting Characters and What Makes Them Compelling
Cost:$10 Members; $20 Nonmembers; $5 Students w/ID.
Characters are the driving force behind any literary work. No plot is complete without a compelling individual or group of individuals to drive it forward. In this workshop, we will examine the art of crafting characters who engage the reader by examining the use of voice, flaws, and motives. Exercises will explore the creation process and developing your characters and their relationships with the world around them.
JULY 15, WEDNESDAY, 7:30-9:00 PM 
Writespace
Andreana Binder: Music and Writing
Level: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced; Cap: 12
Cost: $20-$25
Many writers find that writing in a room filled with music unleashes new ideas. For some writers music helps them connect with the rhythmic and sonic qualities of language, while for others music relaxes them and opens the door for the subconscious to deliver its wonderful surprises. Whether you write to music often or you have never written to music before, this workshop will help you connect with your story, essay, or poems in new ways. Participants will listen to varying tempos of ambient and instrumental music and free-write about what comes to mind based on the melodies. This will be an opportunity to see how music can inspire, transform, and enhance writing projects. Those with an existing project, please bring a draft. Those without existing projects may use this workshop as a way to inspire their next project. Writers of all experience levels are welcome.
July 15, Wednesday, 7:00 pm
Blue Willow Bookshop
Mary Pearson, YA Author
Mary Pearson will discuss and sign her new book THE HEART OF BETRAYAL. Held captive in the barbarian kingdom of Venda, Lia and Rafe have little chance of escape, and even less of being together. Desperate to save her life, Lia’s erstwhile assassin, Kaden, has told the Vendan Komisar that she has a magical gift, and the Komisar’s interest in Lia is greater than either Kaden or Lia foresaw. Meanwhile, the foundations of Lia’s deeply-held beliefs are crumbling beneath her. Nothing is straightforward: there’s Rafe, who lied to her, but has sacrificed his freedom to protect her; Kaden, who meant to assassinate her but has now saved her life; and the Vendans, whom she always believed to be barbarians but whom she now realizes are people who have been terribly brutalized by the kingdoms of Dalbreck and Morrighan. Wrestling with her upbringing, her gift, and her very sense of self, Lia will have to make powerful choices that affect her country, her people, and her own destiny.
JULY 18, SATURDAY, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Houston YA/MG
At Writespace
Cost: FREE; All are welcome!
Monthly meeting including a craft talk at Writespace. This month’s program has not yet been announced.
JULY 18, SATURDAY, 1:00-4:00 PM
Writespace
K.J. Russell: The Secrets of Effective Characterization
Cost: $30-$45
When we write, it can be easy to stumble into the trap of creating characters we’ve come across before, but often these characters are stereotypes or caricatures. Populating a story with characters that seem unique and truly alive, that draw readers irrevocably into the story’s fictive world can be a challenge. In this workshop, K.J. Russell will teach you how to easily render fully-formed characters, so that every character, including your minor characters, becomes a chance to add flavor and life. You will learn what makes a character effective, the difference between a character and a caricature, and how to render a fascinating portrayal that takes seconds to write, yet stays with a reader for the length of your work. Come learn the tools you need to vitalize your heroes from page one and to transform your minor characters into major assets.
JULY 18, SATURDAY, 1:30-5:30 PM
Inprint
Jennifer Mathieu: Young Adult Fiction
Cost: $90
Writing Real Teenagers for Real Teenage Readers (and Adult Readers, Too!)
It’s hard to deny that realistic teen fiction is having a moment. In recent years books like John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park have captured the hearts of teenage readers as well as readers whose high school years are long behind them. But how can an adult writer craft an authentic teenager as protagonist? How do we, as grown-ups, write stories full of the tension, excitement, longing and frustration that come with being 16?
This four-hour workshop focuses on writing realistic contemporary fiction for young adults. We’ll spend time in class studying two mentor texts and discussing how and why they work, including analyzing the voice, characterization, setting, structure, pacing and plot. Participants will have time to write in class, applying our conversations to an existing work in progress, or they may choose to respond to an exercise or two. Sharing is optional but encouraged. Participants will leave with a reading list of some of the best contemporary young adult fiction from recent years as well as resources on the querying and publishing process.
July 18, Saturday, 2:00 PM
Blue Willow Bookshop
Kim O’Brien, YA Author
Kim O’Brien will discuss and sign her new YA novel, BONE DEEP. When Paige Patterson travels to Arizona to spend the summer with her archeologist father, she expects answers. Why did her parents divorce? Why did her father choose his career over family? She doesn’t expect to be reunited with her best friend Emily Linton, or to find herself falling for the project manager’s son, Jalen Yazzi. But the summer takes a terrible turn when Emily vanishes. As the police struggle for answers, Paige sets out to find the truth.
The search takes Paige from the Cliffside ruins of prehistoric Native Americans to the Navajo Nation to the horrifying possibility that the answer is much closer to home. Her father has no alibi for the night Emily disappeared. An intern with the motive insists he’s innocent. And Jalen has secrets of his own. Old bones might not be the only things buried in the ruins. As Paige digs deeper into Emily’s disappearance, she realizes that uncovering the truth may cost her everything—even her life.
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