Talk – 

Research ideas and random things I’ve learned while marketing my book 

Bio – 

Jennifer Marra writes and constructs crosswords. Her debut novel, The Days Between, is available now. Jennifer’s creative nonfiction has appeared in literary journals including The Forge and Wanderlust. She won an award for her essay “Getting the Hang of It” in Fall 2020. Her crossword puzzles are regularly published in major newspapers and have appeared in The Atlantic.

Jennifer lives in Texas, with frequent escapes to Connecticut.

Her debut book, The Days Between, is out! On Amazon, B&N, bookshop.org and more. 

Check out my website for news about my crosswords and novel. https://www.jennifermarra.com/

We meet on Saturday the 25th at 10:00 a.m. at Fellowship Hall.

Iretired from Kyndryl in 2025 and walked directly into the writing career I had been building in the margins for forty years.

Today I write under the name J. L. Yarrow with my wife, Leanne. Our series, the Time Forward Trilogy, is published by The Story Plant and has earned international award recognition. The deadlines on my calendar now involve manuscripts, not migrations. The problems I solve involve plot and character, not cloud architecture.

https://jlyarrow.com/home

Our next in-person meeting will be Saturday, March 28, 10:10 am, in the Hood County Library – upstairs in the Cottonwood Room.

Geoff Mantooth will speak on conflict and how to keep readers turning pages.

“The Quick and Dirty Novel Synopsis”

William Ledbetter started out as a short fiction writer, so came to novel writing with a different perspective and like many writers, developed his own unique way of pulling together the elements of a story to create a synopsis. He calls it “The Quick and Dirty Novel Synopsis” and will share this “one of many methods” via a humorous presentation about an alien invasion.

Our next in-person meeting will be Saturday, January 31 in the Hood County Library at 10:10 am. Wendy Wheeler will speak.

Title: Step Up but Watch Out! Social Media for Writers

If you have a book or books, social media and other forms of self-marketing can help you increase your audience. If you self-publish, then all marketing (as well as all the other deliverables of getting a book out and finding people to sell it to) is up to you. I’ll share what current theory is on how/where/why to promote yourself with social media, gaffes to avoid, and also take a side trip into the wild world of Writer Beware, a lawyer’s blog about scam artists preying on writers.

Bio:

Next in-person meeting is Saturday, November 22. Robin Tatum will speak on intuitive EDITING by Tiffany Yates Martin.

Tiffany Yates Martin is editor for many best-selling and career authors. Her writing blog (at foxprint Literary) offers a wealth of transparent, useful information. I will present a summary of her book, intuitive EDITING, which proved pivotal in saving me time and guesswork in my own editing process.

Robin Tatum is a multi-published writer of YA crossover fantasy and paranormal mystery novels with threads of whimsy and humor. She enjoys helping other writers on their journey.

The EDITS System is a tool I created for writers to analyze scene components. It’s the ultimate show-don’t-tell power tool!

It shows writers what’s working, what’s not working, and what’s missing.

When writers use this five-highlighter system, they see where story momentum starts and stops. Where tension starts and stops. Where the reader may start and stop.

The EDITS System helps writers find a compelling balance of emotion, dialogue, internalizations, tension, setting, description, action, senses, body language, dialogue cues, and more. They learn what works for each specific scene.

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Writers: Bring 5 pages of a work-in-progress. If possible, bring highlighters – yellow, blue, green, and pink. Bring a red pen.

We meet at the Fellowship Hall on Sept. 27 at 10 am.

Genie Bishop will speak on what not to do:

Granbury Writers’ Bloc will meet Saturday the 23rd in the Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall at 10:00 a.m.

Our speaker is Shirley Jump via Zoom.