Writer's Workshop Recap

I attended the First Annual Southwest Virginia Writer's Workshop at the Inn at Virginia Tech yesterday sponsored by H&H Services. I went into thinking it would be more about teaching writing, when in fact, it was more about writing itself. That was great for me because it provided me with some new motivation and some new resources.

Jerry Haynes, author of A Cotton Mill Town Christmas, was the sponsor, and first speaker who spoke about procrastination and getting through with the first book.

April Asbury, acclaimed poet, spoke about internet research resources.

Her mother, JoAnn Asbury, spoke about the Annual Highland Summer Conference.

Sharyn McCrumb talked about doing research for her books, writing compelling fiction, and tone.

Gloria Houston, author of The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, talked about writing with children and about her writing.

Bill Brooks did a 3 hours writing workshop in the afternoon that took us through exercises and challenged us to keep writing.

This was a long day--8am-6:30pm on a Saturday, but it was well worth it. I learned lots of new things--I have a binder full of notes that I will be sharing over the next few days. I got to network with a few people that I had never met before, and I got some new books!

I bought:
St. Dale by Sharyn McCrumb
Once Around the Track by Sharyn McCrumb (available in a few weeks at bookstores)
** By the way, I know nothing about NASCAR, and I'm not a NASCAR fan, but Sharyn talked about fiction in such a compelling way, that I'm convinced it's not about NASCAR, but a good story. So I will try these books out for size.
I won My Great-Aunt Arizona by Gloria Houston as a door prize.
I also bought:
The audio recording of The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree read by Gloria Houston
How Writing Works: Imposing Organizational Structure Within the Writing Process (a writing text for teachers of writers and students of writing) by Gloria Houston

More to come on what I learned...