Category Archives: Guest Speakers

The Efficient Use of Word with Sheila Deeth

With thanks to all the members who offered advice, questions, comments and more, most people present learned something during our “efficient use of Word” meeting, so now we just have to try not to forget it all. To that end, Sheila has added (she hopes) everyone’s suggestions to the file she was working from, and uploaded the file in DOCX and PDF format to our website.

Efficient Use of WORD, word doc: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/The-Efficient-Use-of-WORD.docx

Efficient Use of WORD, PDF: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/The-Efficient-Use-of-WORD.pdf

If you want to know what we did at the meeting, and if you want to use WORD more efficiently, please follow the links and download the files. Then you’ll be able to follow through all the actions and add to your own skillset.

Historical Fiction with Maryka Biaggio

Maryka Biaggio is a Portland author of several published historical fiction novels.

Ron introduced Maryka and stated that he had enjoyed reading her novel, The Model Spy. Her topic today concerned “telling lies”to flesh out historical fiction when actual facts are not readily available. She began by saying, however, that the “lies” must be believable, fitting into known history of the period. Background research is necessary, and there is nothing that throws off a reader more than finding an “oops”—words, dialog, events, etc.—that do not fit in with historical truth.

Continue reading Historical Fiction with Maryka Biaggio

Cats on the Keyboard, with Mollie Hunt, Dec 17th 2023

Mollie Hunt currently has around 16 published titles: 11 mysteries in two cozy series, 1 standalone novel, 3 science fiction novels, 1 memoir, and 1 book of poetry! A common theme in her books is cats because…

Continue reading Cats on the Keyboard, with Mollie Hunt, Dec 17th 2023

How to Upload your Book to Amazon, from Sheila’s talk, Nov 19th 2023

Sheila had a PowerPoint presentation prepared to guide us through the upload of this year’s anthology, but Zoom and PowerPoint both crashed. Fearing the computer might crash next, she proceeded to give the talk off the cuff instead. By the end of the following day, our latest anthology was on sale at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNPQ2F92/. Get your copies soon, before the price goes up!

Continue reading How to Upload your Book to Amazon, from Sheila’s talk, Nov 19th 2023

Fulfilling That Writing Commitment: David Porter, Oct 15, 2023

David Porter started writing bad poetry at age 12 and soon progressed to good. In 1968 he was at PSU and was already being published. In the ’70s and ’80s he wrote freelance articles, poems, and short stories, getting published in the Oregon magazine and NW magazine (inside the Oregonian). Meanwhile he wrote grant proposals, newsletters, presentations, etc for nonprofits for 40 years. He’s even written Beaver Board Historical Markers! Plus many book reviews.

Continue reading Fulfilling That Writing Commitment: David Porter, Oct 15, 2023

Self-Publishing Success: What Worked, What Didn’t, & What I Would Do Differently, with Erick Mertz

Self-publishing used to be somewhat frowned on and considered less legitimate than “really” getting published, but that is changing, as Erick showed us in his presentation.

Continue reading Self-Publishing Success: What Worked, What Didn’t, & What I Would Do Differently, with Erick Mertz

Jan Underwood and Magical Realism

Summary of Jan Underwood’s presentation: Jan began writing at age six, when she wrote a story about Winnie the Pooh characters, and her father told her she could actually make up her own characters. For Jan that idea was the spark that enlightened her creative energy, and she has been writing ever since. Jan is also a Spanish teacher and loves to use flavors of foreign languages in her writing.

Continue reading Jan Underwood and Magical Realism

You too can write a novel, graphic novel, comic, memoir, mini-book, … talk with Joshua Williamson

Joshua Williamson is the author of 150 graphic novels! He works for DC Comics and Marvel, and is paid to write monthly short books (like magazines) which, when the story’s done, get compiled together into complete graphic novels. Mostly these are YA, but he’s written other non-DC books (e.g. Nailbiter) which might be aimed at a somewhat older audience.

Continue reading You too can write a novel, graphic novel, comic, memoir, mini-book, … talk with Joshua Williamson

The World Abounds in Prompts: Using Prompts to Stimulate and Deepen Your Writing by Ruth Leibowitz

Ruth loves writing prompts. She facilitates and attends several writing groups that use them, and she is a member of our group. As she pointed out, we use monthly writing prompts for our ezines. For herself, Ruth writes poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction.

Continue reading The World Abounds in Prompts: Using Prompts to Stimulate and Deepen Your Writing by Ruth Leibowitz

20 questions – writing and publishing tips

Twenty Questions

We didn’t get to all the questions in our list of twenty questions in our March 2023 meeting, so please email admin if there are more questions you really want to see covered in more depth. I’ve tried to include the conversation from the chat, as well as what went on aloud. Please let me know if I’ve missed anything important:

Continue reading 20 questions – writing and publishing tips