DENTON WRITERS LEAGUE
FIRST EDITION
SEPTEMBER 2004 VOL. 15 NUMBER 9

DWL Home Page: http://byjoni.com/dwl

If you would like a copy of the newsletter e-mailed to you instead of through the US post, please contact George Avera or Joni Latham.

WHERE WE MEET AND WHEN

The second Saturday of every month, at the

Denton Library-North Branch - click here for map 
3020 N. Locust St (corner of Windsor St & N. Locust St)
 Denton, TX

General Meeting 10:30 a.m.

Lunch at Noon at the
 Evergreen Super Buffet - click here for map 
1006 W. University Dr
Denton, TX 76201

NEXT MEETING - ANNUAL WORKSHOP- SEPTEMBER 11, 2004
10am to 4:30pm
Denton Library-North Branch - click here for map 
3020 N. Locust St (corner of Windsor St & N. Locust St)
 Denton, TX

The annual workshop will be on Sept 11 at the North Branch of the Denton Library from 10am to 4:30pm.  This year's presenter is Lorraine Heath who will tell us the secrets of manuscripts, agents and money.  We will have a potluck this year at the library with BBQ provided by the DWL, so bring your favorite veggie, salad, dessert, etc.  There is a place on the registration form to tell what you are bringing.  Please return the attached form by Sept 4 so that we will know how much enough meat to order. (Last month, the form had a typo.  It is $25 for members and $30 for non-members.)

Guest Speakers

September - Annual Workshop with Lorraine Heath
October - Pamela Stone
November - Gloria Oliver
December - General Meeting    

GUEST SPEAKER

     Lorraine Heath is the daughter of a British beauty (her mother won second place in a beauty contest sponsored by Max Factor® during which she received a kiss from Caesar Romero) and a Texan who was stationed at Bovingdon while serving in the air force. Lorraine was born in Watford, Herts, England, but soon after moved to Texas. Her "dual" nationality has given her a love for all things British and Texan. She enjoys weaving both heritages through her stories.
     When she received her BA degree in psychology from the University of Texas, she had no idea she had gained a foundation that would help her to create believable characters -- characters that are often described as “real people.”
     At the invitation of Laura Bush when she was the First Lady of Texas, Lorraine served on a romance panel at the Texas Book Festival in 1998. She gave a presentation at the Texas Library Association Conference in 1999. She also served on a panel during RWA's 2001 Librarian Appreciation Day. She often speaks at local libraries, to writers' groups, readers' groups, and at small conferences. Visit Lorraine at http://www.lorraineheath.com/ .

AUGUST MEETING RECAP

Karen DeVinney, Managing Editor at the University of North Texas Press, began with a history of university presses.  University Presses started as academic presses, printing scholarly works, but have migrated into trade presses, printing cookbooks, memoirs, etc.

UNT Press, along with TCU and several other Texas university presses belong to a consortium headed by Texas A&M.  This arrangement helps defray the overhead costs of running a press for the member universities because A&M provides the sales staff, catalogue, and warehousing.

UNT publishes mainly paperback and hardback books but they do over e-books through the libraries using the Net-Library and E-Library databases.  Studies have found that people still prefer a print copy of the book so offering these e-books does not cut into sales of the paper copies.

Each university, depending on its location and faculty, has their own areas of subject preference (ie, all history submissions to UNT are filter through Dr Ron Marcello who's specialty is oral history especially during WWII).  UNT Press publishes books on military history, criminal justice, music, and East Texas history (TCU publishes West Texas history), as well as memoirs.  Although, there are a few success stories, most university presses rarely publish fiction.  The only fiction and poetry the UNT Press publishes are the winners of the Annual Katherine Ann Porter Prize in Short Fiction and Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry contests.  Information on both contest can be found at http://www.unt.edu/untpress .

Like any publisher, research the university presses lines and series before submitting.  Also, do you marketing research homework.  Know your audience, how big is your audience, where are they, how to reach them, and why you are the one to write this book.  Follow the guidelines as you would with any publisher.  (Hint: show your research.  List footnotes, bibliographies, etc.)

On-Line Writers resources

Author's Network-for writers about writing based in Europe, but interesting- http://www.author-network.com/
Copyright Forms- http://www.loc.gov/copyright/forms/
Dallas Sceen Writers- http://www.dallasscreenwriters.com/
Denton Public Library - http://www.cityofdenton.com/pages/library.cfm
National Association of Women Writers - http://www.naww.org
National Writers Union - http://www.nwu.org/
New Writer's Market http://hge.members.atlantic.net/
Para Publishing Website - a good writing, publishing, and promotion source - http://parapub.com/getpage.cfm?file=/homepage.html&user=#user
Preditors and Editors-a resources to check out agents and publishers http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/
Ralan's Webstravaganza-speculative fiction resource http://ralan.com/
Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators - http://www.scbwi.org/
Texas Coalition of Authors, Inc. - http://www.texasauthors.org/
Texas Writers League - http://www.writersleague.org/
The Market List-the online resource for genre fiction writers http://www.marketlist.com/
The Novelist's Workshop-essays and advice on how to publish your book- http://www.monash.com/writers.html
Writer's Exchange - http://www.writers-exchange.com/epublishing/
Writer's Market - http://www.writersmarket.com/index_ns.asp
Writers Net-source for information for writers, editors, agents, and publishers - http://www.writers.net
Writing-World.Com - http://www.writing-world.com 
The Zuzu's Petals Literary Resource Homepage-for both writers and poets- http://www.zuzu.com/

There are multitudes of writing resources available on the Internet. Go to any search engine and ask for writer's resources, writer's markets, writer's contests, writer's conferences, etc