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Members Only
Interested in reviewing books? Contact us at
member@writersleague.org with "Members Review" in the subject line and we will respond with more details.
"Meet the Members"
Want to be profiled on our blog? We are looking for willing subjects for our weekly Q&A posts with current members. If interested, write us at
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Member News
Available in both
paperback and
ebook format, it
builds on his 2015 book How the WTC Was REALLY Demolished on 9/11, which
has 49 images in it.
Chick Morgan (Wimberley) announces the Descanso Residency and Retreat for Creatives, October 18 - November 1, 2017, in Tuscany, Italy. Enjoy an immersion into your writing by day and communal dinner and conversation with wonderful food, wine, and cello in the evenings. For details please visit the retreat website
here.
Bill Rodgers (Austin) published his second short-form humor book,
History Retweets Itself: Rock & Roll Edition,
in February 2017. Bill has been writing material for Jay Leno for over 20 years.
History Retweets Itself: Golf Edition
will be released in the Spring of 2017. Visit Bill's website
here
.
Manning Wolfe (Austin) is presenting "Legal Issues for Authors" at the Houston Writers Guild Annual Conference on
April 28-30. She will be covering contracts, copyright, the use of trademarked products in writing, obtaining an ISBN & LCCN, and much more! The conference will be held at Rice University. Find more information
here.
Are you a current WLT member interested in submitting to Member News? Email your 50-word blurb (including links and your city of residence) to member@writersleague.org. Please make sure to follow the third-person format used in our announcements. For a full list of guidelines, click here.
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Salón Cultural: Race, Writing, and Culture
7 pm
Multipurpose Room in the Gordon-White Building on U.T. Campus
210 W 24th St
Austin, TX 78705
Attend an evening panel discussion by leading Mexican American writers, poets, and cultural critics focused on the role and significance of Mexican American literature at a moment when the eyes of the nation are fixed on the border.
Panelists include Dagoberto Gilb, Dr. John Morán Gonzalez, Emmy Pérez, Natalie Diaz, and moderator Dr. Olivia Mena.
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Open Office Hours - April 13
Registration closes
April 12 at 12 pm
Members can meet one-on-one with a WLT staffer (in person or call in). This option is available to all members regardless of their city of residence!
Click
here for guidelines and to sign up. Current members only.
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March Third Thursday
Celebrating Texas Independents:
Our Great Literary State's Independent Presses, Journals, Bookstores & More
Thursday, March 16, 2017
7 PM
BookPeople, 603 N. Lamar Blvd.
3rd Floor
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
Every month, Writers' League members and friends gather at BookPeople in Austin for a panel discussion on topics related to the craft and business of writing. These events are the highlight of our month at WLT; we love meeting our members, connecting with fellow writers, and fostering positive conversation and growth in the Austin literary community and beyond. We also record these conversations for our podcast so that writers everywhere can join us, regardless of their location.
This month, our Third Thursday is part of a special series of panels we've been doing throughout March around the state. Our
Celebrating Texas Independents panels
focus on the great opportunities for writers and readers that Texas has to offer--independent presses, journals, bookstores, and beyond--while also answering writers' burning questions (bring your burning questions!) about the publishing process, submitting to presses and journals, catching the
eye of an editor, and more.
Our Austin panel will feature four distinguished panelists:
 Colleen Devine Ellis has worked in book marketing, publicity, and sales for 18 years. She is currently the senior publicist for the University of Texas Press, where she has been in the marketing department since 2006. She previously worked for Barnes & Noble as a community relations manager. Colleen lives in Georgetown, Texas.
 Will Evans is president and co-founder of Cinestate, an entertainment studio established in 2016 with the film producer Dallas Sonnier, combining book publishing, film production, and audio experiences. In 2013, Evans founded Deep Vellum Publishing, and he also co-founded Deep Vellum Books in early 2016, a brick-and-mortar bookstore and cultural community center in Dallas's historic Deep Ellum neighborhood. His translation of Oleg Kashin's political satire novel Fardwor, Russia! A Fantastical Tale of Life Under Putin, was published by Restless Books in 2016.
 Abby Fennewald is the Director of Marketing and Publicity at BookPeople, the largest independent bookstore in Texas. She previously managed events at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C.
 Sunny Leal is an associate editor for fields magazine and a reader for Feminine Inquiry. Having completed her studies in English and Rhetoric at the University of Texas, she currently resides in Austin, Texas, where she works as a proofreader. Growing up in a traveling military family, fiction was her constant companion. Now poetry holds a special place in her heart as a means to better understand the self and those around her.
Can't attend in Austin? Find us in Dallas or in Houston -- more details below:
March 23, 2017
7 pm - Dallas, TX
Deep Vellum Books
3000 Commerce St
Dallas, TX 75226
Panelists: Karen DeVinney, Will Evans, and Matthew Limpede
Click here for more details.
March 31, 2017
7 pm - Houston, TX
Brazos Bookstore
2421 Bissonnet St
Houston, TX 77005
Panelists: LeeAnne Carlson, Will Evans, Jill Meyers, and Gabriela Baeza Ventura
Click here for more details.
Hope to see you at one or all of these events!
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2017 Agents & Editors Conference
Every year, the Writers' League of Texas brings a faculty of close to thirty agents, editors, and other industry professionals to Austin for the Agents & Editors Conference. As we look ahead to the
24th Annual A&E Conference
, taking place June 30 - July 2, 2017, we're happy to share Q&As with some of our faculty here.
If you have not yet registered for the conference, a reminder that the deadline to
receive a
FREE
with registration consultation is midnight on March 15.
Click here for more information on the 2017 Agents & Editors Conference, including pricing (the price will jump on April 30) and confirmed agents, editors, and speakers.
Michelle Brower, Aevitas Creative Management
Michelle Brower
began her career in publishing in 2004 while studying for her Master's degree in English Literature at New York University. After stints at Wendy Sherman Associates and Folio Literary Management, she joined Zachary Shuster Harmsworth and Kuhn Projects, now Aevitas Creative Management, where she is looking for literary fiction, suspense, "book club" novels, genre fiction for non-genre readers, and narrative non-fiction. To read an interview with Michelle, click here.
"I do love it when a debut author is some magical combination of hardworking, eager to promote, and just an all-around good human being. I find most of my authors are that way; I think we self-select each other." -Michelle Brower
Actively Seeking
Fiction: High Concept Commercial, Literary, Women's, Mystery/Suspense, Thrillers
Nonfiction: Narrative
Anjali Singh,
Ayesha Pande Literary
Anjali Singh
is an agent at
Ayesha Pande Literary
. Most recently Editorial Director at Other Press, she has also worked as an editor at Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Vintage Books. Two upcoming projects include Sherine Hamdy and Myra El-Mir's young adult graphic novel about coming-of-age as a Muslim-American, and Bridgett M. Davis' What Does Happiness Play For?, a memoir about growing up in Detroit in the 60s and 70s with an extraordinary mother. Singh is looking for character-driven fiction or non-fiction works that reflect an engagement with the world, memoirs, and MG and YA literature and graphic novels. To read an interview with Anjali, click
here.
"I want to find and help get published the
stories we just haven't seen enough of, and that have the power to open up readers' understandings of the 'other' - in whatever shape that might take." -Anjali Singh
Actively Seeking
Fiction: High Concept Commercial, Literary, Graphic Novels
Nonfiction: Narrative, Memoir, Essays
Children's: YA Fiction, YA Nonfiction, MG Fiction, MG Nonfiction
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Are You A WLT Member? Volunteer With Us!
Are you a WLT Member? We need your help! We're looking for volunteers for two events. On
April 8, we'll be in
San Antonio at the
San Antonio Book Festival. We need a few good volunteers to help us represent WLT at our booth. You'll get to meet diverse readers and writers from all over the state. And
June 30 - July 2, we need volunteers for our
2017 Agents & Editors Conference in
Austin. In exchange for hours worked,
you'll be able to attend conference programming.
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ONLINE: Unlock Your Story's Setting
Does your fiction take place in a vacuum?
Do your find yourself unsure where to set a particular scene?
Do you want your story or novel to carry your readers away?
This class can help.
Online registration closes Thursday, March 23 at 5 pm.
In one of her best craft essays, Eudora Welty asks the question, "What place has place in fiction?" It's a question every fiction writer should ask themselves. Exploring setting can serve as a secret trapdoor to storytelling in a short story or novel. By delving deeply into where a story is set, a writer gathers crucial clues about character and plot. Because place is so evocative (think about why we send postcards, or what has made Instagram such a popular medium), nailing setting is essential for good fiction writing. In this class, students will learn:
- How to choose your setting(s),
- How to depict setting in a way that captures a reader's imagination and transports them to another place,
- How to make setting work overtime (i.e., how setting can help evoke other fictional elements like character and plot), and
- How to enjoy writing setting (hint: it's the only vacation most writers can afford)
For more details and registration, click
here
.
All registrants will have access to the recording for one week after the class date.
Brittani Sonnenberg is the managing editor of Tribeza Magazine
and the author of the novel Home Leave
. She was raised across three continents and has worked as a journalist in Germany, China, and throughout Southeast Asia. A graduate of Harvard, she received her MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan. Her fiction has been published in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 as well as Ploughshares, Short Fiction, and Asymptote. Her nonfiction has appeared in Time, Associated Press, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NPR Berlin.
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Read and Critique
Like a Writer
Need help identifying what works and doesn't work in your story?
Feeling nervous about having others critique your work?
Not sure how to turn story feedback into revision?
This class can help.
Online registration closes Thursday, March 23, at midnight.
This class satisfies the requirement to participate in
future Advanced Craft Workshops offered by the WLT.
Workshops are a tried and true way to gain valuable feedback on a work-in-progress. Giving and receiving good workshop feedback is a learned skill that writers can develop and hone, and learning how to participate in and benefit from a workshop can be invaluable to any writer looking to take their craft to the next level. Allowing other writers to critique your work in a group setting (where you critique their work in turn) offers fresh eyes and a fresh perspective, helps you to zero in on problems you might be overlooking, strengthens your skills as a reader, and opens the way to communing with your peers in a safe, nurturing environment.
Upon registering, you will be emailed a short story and essay to read before the class convenes. These will be the basis of an in-class critical discussion or "sample workshop."
Through the lessons and handouts, you will leave the class with a greater understanding of the following:
- What to consider when reading works with a critical eye, including how to identify what is working within a piece and, just as important, what isn't working and why, and how to identify the narrative structure and rhetorical strategies at work;
- How to "read like a writer" (tools for better understanding the technical aspects, the nuts and bolts, of storytelling) and how to apply those techniques to your own stories;
- How to give feedback in a helpful and constructive way;
- How to accept feedback in a workshop and how to apply it to your work-in-progress.
For more details and registration, click
here
.
Stephanie Noll taught the Writers' League's Advanced Craft Workshop in Fall 2016. She studied fiction writing at Texas State University, where she earned her MFA. She is a frequent storyteller at The Story Department, a monthly fundraiser for the non-profit Austin Bat Cave, and has also told stories at Listen to Your Mother, Backyard Story Night, Hyde Park Story Night, and the Tellers. Stephanie has 18 years of teaching experience and works as a senior lecturer in the English department at Texas State where she recently was awarded an Excellence in Teaching award. Stephanie is the director of Old Books for New Teachers, an organization that helps first-year teachers build classroom libraries. She has written a novel about a standardized test cheating scandal at an inner-city Houston high school.
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