Get hopping: nothing hare-brained about April lit events

I’ve been writing about North Texas spring literary events at this blog since – February! What a sprig it’s been. It’s one of my favorite seasons, and the happenings (hoppenings?) just keep coming. Here’s the latest:

April 1: After the hallelujahs and chocolate bunnies, buckle down and polish your best 500 words for the last chance to enter WRiTE CLUB’s 2018 contest! It’s free, the prizes are great, but perhaps best is the chance to get immediate feedback from real live readers. See the site for details.

April 7: Dallas Book Festival, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., at the Dallas Library’s Central Branch, 1515 Young St., Dallas. It features more than 100 local, regional and national authors, including bestselling Jesse Andrews (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), Hillary Jordan (Mudbound), Lisa Wingate (Before We Were Yours), and lots, lots more. 

Additional events at the festival include writing workshops, children’s activities, and music and dance performances. Free, but of course there will be books for sale! 

The book festival is again being held in conjunction with the Dallas Festival of Ideas. This year’s theme is “The Connected City.” It’s also free, but with limited space, so please register for either morning or afternoon sessions. Can’t make it in person? Tune in to Facebook to watch the main events live.

image: pixabay

April 7: North Texas Book Festival is a chance to hang out with, and sample books by favorite Texas authors, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the Patterson-Appleton Art Center, 400 E. Hickory St., in Denton, Texas. Or stretch the fun with an 8 a.m. chuck wagon breakfast with North Texas children’s book author/illustrator duo Janet Sever Hull and Vicki Killion Guess. See the site for details and registration.

April 15: The deadline for discounted registration for Writers in the Field, a hands-on research experience for writers this coming October 13-14, featuring 13 acres of demonstrations, exhibits and displays in Mansfield, Texas. See the Writers in the Field site for prices and details. Use code “WORDfestBFF” by April 15 and save 10 percent. (You say you’ll be too busy doing income tax to register for this deal? Good news – when Tax Day falls on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday – like this year – you have until the next business day to file!)

April 20-21: North Texas Teen Book Festival, Irving Convention Center, 500 W. Las Colinas Blvd., Irving, Texas. Wait – did I miswrite that date? Isn’t the convention only a single day? No! The all-day (and free!) blast is April 21. But this year, teens can also opt for lunch with four favorite YA authors on April 20.

The lunch event is $50, which includes meal, Q&A session and book signings. Then hang on for the 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday, April 21, event. As always, books available for sale and signing, lunch concessions on site – or bring your own to eat outside. See the site  for details. 

April 28: The Writers Guild of Texas spring workshop features Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Annie Neugebauer to walk us through using our query pitches to troubleshoot problems in our novels. At the Richardson Civic Center, 411 W. Arapaho Rd., Richardson, Texas.

I blogged last summer about Neugebauer’s query pitch genius at last year’s DFW Writer’s Conference. Here’s another chance to spend a whole morning with her. See the WGT site for registration and additional details. Cost is $25 for members, $35 for nonmembers registering by April 25. The cost goes up $5 for registration at the door – if seating is available.

April 30-May 6: This year, the Houston Writers’ Guild joins Writespace for its Writefest mega literary festival. OK, so Houston isn’t exactly a northerly outpost. But with a week’s worth of writing workshops, agent meet-and-greets (and more than 20 agents and publishers to pitch to), and more – it’s worth the trek south.

Get the full week, including lunch with keynote speaker Justin Cronin (The Passage trilogy) for $525 through April 29 ($595 at the door), a three-day weekend pass for $250 through May 3 ($375 at the door), or single-day Friday or Saturday sessions (May 4-5). Pitch sessions available at all options for additional $50. See the Writefest site for details and registration.

May we have a word about WORDfest?

Walking into last Saturday’s WORDfest was like walking into a candy store for writing nerds – and this woman, who will talk serial commas and raise you an Oxford, uses the phrase “writing nerds” with the greatest respect.

The event was sponsored by WORD (Writers Organizations ‘Round Dallas), a network of North Texas writing groups, founded on the premise that writers can accomplish more together than by going it alone. Barely more than a year old, it includes over 20 groups, from screenwriters to poets, nonfiction to romance, inspirational to thrillers, editors to instructors. All those and more packed the Tarrant County Community College’s Northeast Campus in Hurst, passing out information, writing advice, and camaraderie for free.

I started collecting fliers and business cards (and signing up for emails) from the groups, determined to hit every one, but finally gave up. After all, I had to drop by a class on revision,), and listen to writers, editors, and even a local publisher discuss what makes them (and readers) love our words, and pick up tips from (among dozens of others) local mystery and thriller writers, such as:

What’s the difference between a mystery and a thriller? To paraphrase writer Brian Tracey, a mystery asks who did it? A thriller asks who’s going to stop it?

Want to make your book a page turner? End every chapter a paragraph earlier.

How to write the dreaded synopsis some literary agents demand to see? No problem. Mark your book’s 1) inciting incident, 2) the hero’s crossover into the special world, 3) the midpoint, 4) the all is lost moment, 5) the climax and 6) the denouement/epilogue. Synopsis done. (I may find the courage to try this!)

And should you find the story sagging in the midsection, try adding a stand-alone story (some of us may call this a subplot) that will propel the action.

Lights, crowds, action, at WORDfest

How do you know if you’re writing a cozy mystery? Per mystery writer Melissa Lenhardt (Sawbones, Stillwater, The Fisher King, and more) the required ingredients are an amateur sleuth, no blood, no sex, and no cussing. But no, the sleuth doesn’t have to be a quilter, baker, or a cat lady!

If only I could have cloned myself, I’d have learned more about the likes of historical fiction, finding a writerly voice, researching, finding beta readers, and more.

Or I can join some (or a lot!) of the writerly organizations, kindly color-coded at the WORD site into critique groups, program groups, discussion groups, or writing classes, not that there’s any rule against combining those categories. Check individual sites for particulars.

(Tracey’s 3-point rule of critiques: those that have the writer nodding in agreement as the critique talks, those that tell you some stuff needs to be changed, and those that make you say, no way in hell am I making that change. The last, of course, will be the change that you will find yourself making.)

Those who were there (like me!) and those who wished they were, can hope for a repeat next year, although, like WORD, it will take a little help from a lot of friends to make that happen. So I’ll add a word from WORD’s guardian angel, author/instructor Arianne “Tex” Thompson : “If you enjoyed this event and want to see more like, please vote with your dollars.”

Pony up for a one-week only deal on swag from the fest. Or feed the PayPal tip jar by emailing findyourtribe@wordwriters.org to keep WORDfest voiced and free!