From Spark to Story with Melanie Dobson
Melanie described how building a fire helped her think about building a story. She listed the journey, from spark to story, in eight parts:
Continue reading From Spark to Story with Melanie Dobson June 2025Melanie described how building a fire helped her think about building a story. She listed the journey, from spark to story, in eight parts:
Continue reading From Spark to Story with Melanie Dobson June 2025Our speaker on May 18th 20205 was Cindy Brown, the author of some really fun mysteries with the coolest titles – MacDeath, Sound of Murder, Oliver Twisted… She’s also a ghost writer, copywriter, scriptwriter, content writer, traditionally published, self-published with Draft 2 Digital, and more. Find her at https://www.cindybrownwriter.com/
Continue reading Do you want to be Published, with Cindy Brown (and Draft2Digital) 20250515Carolyn provided handouts containing five poems by some of her favorite authors, to heighten our awareness of the ingredients for good poetry and to inspire our own writing. The handout can be found on our website at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Carolyns-April-27-Handout.docx
Continue reading Poetry Workshop with Carolyn MartinRia Russell attended a dramedy class given by two Hollywood writers at a writing conference, and brought the experience to us all through a news article (ironically an NBC (peacock) article about a “therapy peacock” and it’s owner being refused permission to fly). We all had access to the article before the meeting and everyone had read it, so we were able to go straight into the “writers’ room” to plan our script.
Continue reading Dramedy with Ria Russell, March 2025Nora introduced our speaker, Erika Giles, who is a Writers’ Mill member and author of Becoming Hungarian, a Memoir. Amazon described this book as “a fascinating story of resilience and discovery that will inspire anyone who has struggled with their identity and tried to come to terms with the past.”
Continue reading Erika Giles on Memoir, Research, Publishing and more – Jan 2025Rudy Shur has talked with many authors and writing groups in his long career. He’s learned that lots of authors get ripped off by people they thought were going to help. And he points out, the book world is a rather large marketplace—it can be hard to know who will really help.
Continue reading Rudy Shur on PublishingLast year, someone recommended that Sheila create a template file that could be used for subsequent anthologies, so she did. It’s a Word Doc rather than a template, and she included (chapters of) instructions on how to use it, in hopes that perhaps someone will take over from her and “use” it next year! The template should also be helpful for anyone who hopes to self-publish their work in a 6×9 inch book.
Continue reading Book TemplateWe’d all love our readers to fall into our writing and not know how to get out. Walt showed a great graphic to entice us. But how do we get there?
Continue reading Help your reader get lost in your book, with Walt Socha