First Official AI Newsletter: April, 2010

Welcome to the first official Authors Incognito Newsletter, sponsored by...well, Authors Incognito. 

Big news: 

Christine Bryant and Jenn Wilks have teamed up with Nichole Giles to create this newsletter in hopes of enabling our members to better keep track of all the important tidbits of AI news. Thanks for volunteering, ladies!


Writing tip of the week:   

 Attend conferences. As many and as often as you can. The information is invaluable, as are the networking opportunities. Friends you make at conferences can support you through your writing journey.

News:

This is the place where from here on out we’ll be sharing all kinds of news, mostly to do with writing, but sometimes just great things happening to our members. We have so much news this year, I have no idea where to start. So, for this issue, I’m going to do a quick rundown of all the Authors Incognito books that have been published in the past year, and a few other recent good news tidbits.

These covers are in no particular order, but I’m hoping that future issues will include publication dates and all the important launching and signing information.  

Holy wow! That is quite an impressive list, people. We're on our way to the big time, I say.

**More news**

While the rest of us are partying it up at the Storymakers conference this weekend, Janice Lefevre is finally graduating from college as the class Valedictorian/ Outstanding Graduate. This is an accomplishment she has been working toward for years, and we are so proud of her for finishing with high honors.

During the conference, Moderators Darvell Hunt and John Ferguson will are teaming up with member Daron Fraley to offer a presentation on building websites for all of us who need help in that area. We’ve been hoping for a class like this for years, so be sure to stop by and learn from the masters.

Their class is titled You Can Be a Dot Com: Creating Your Own Author Website, and is scheduled for the first breakout session on Friday afternoon at 12:30 and will extend into the second session until 2:30.

Also presenting at the conference:

Elana Johnson: Writing a Killer Query , second and third breakout sessions, from 3:00-4:50. Elana, a contributing author on the querytracker blog and author of From the Query to the Call, is otherwise known as the query ninja. She knows her stuff. This is a class not to be missed. But if you do, be sure to catch her second class, The Querying Process, on Saturday afternoon at 3:00. 

Josh Perkey, Writing for Church Magazines, How and Why. Josh is our resident magazine editor, who has extensive knowledge of the ins and outs of magazine publishing. If you have any aspirations of writing things of this nature, this is the guy who can teach you how to get published here.

Mary Greathouse, Writing Memoirs:  Bringing the Dead to Life & Getting Skeletons out of the Closet. Mary’s class is during the first breakout session on Saturday morning, from 9:30-10:20. This also promises to be a great class.

Rebecca Talley, Short Stories Simplified. Rebecca has had numerous short stories published in magazines. She has some excellent advice for writers of short stories and articles. This class is also on Saturday morning from 9:30-10:20.

And Friday night, after your brain is thoroughly fried, be sure to stop by the Authors Incognito mix and mingle. See information in the post below.

Contests: In which we share information about writing contests for all our writing friends.

Sarah Eden is holding a contest all month long. Click here for more details.

On Tuesday, April 27th, Querytracker is hosting an agent judged contest. Be sure to check their site for more information.


Nichole Giles is posting information on a contest being hosted by Donna Hatch this coming Wednesday. Be sure to check her blog to find out how you can win a free book.




**If you know of a contest you think we should share, please contact Jenn Wilks with the link and information.

Author / book spotlights: In future issues, we’ll be spotlighting books and authors. Most of the time, these authors will be members of our group, but sometimes they will be other authors we feel have made important contributions to the writing world. For this issue, we’re going to skip this part since the author news section is so long.

Quote to live by: You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.  ~Ray Bradbury

Thanks for visiting our newsblog! And remember, you can't be a bestseller until you think like one.

MIX & MINGLE

Attention

All Authors Incognito Members

Your presence is hereby requested on

Friday, April 23rd

from 10:00pm - Midnight
(but you can come early and stay late)

at the annual

MIX & MINGLE

Here's What's Happening:

Group Photo
(This will be taken shortly after 10:00)

There will be two get-to-know you games for the entire group
(Stephanie Humphreys & Valerie Ipson)

Door Prize Drawing
Any and ALL donations will be accepted
Just bring them when you come.
(Taffy Lovell)

Board/Card/Table Games
(bring a favorite to share with the group)

Snacks and Goodies
(donated by members)

I've just put a poll on the group page so you can let me know what you plan to bring, if you're coming and if you plan on donating to the drawing or the gift baskets. Please contact Nichole if you have any questions about the gift baskets. Bring all items to the party. If you won't be at the party until later on, please send basket items with someone else or make sure Nichole gets them earlier. We usually put those together first. Here's the poll:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/authorsincognito/surveys?id=2958651

If you have any questions, email me at
christine@ckbryant.com

Can't wait to see you all there.
Hugs
Christine