May 9 – Laura Griffin + Websites!
“Suspense Techniques to Make Any Book a Page-Turner”
No matter what your genre, you must captivate your reader’s attention from the very first page. Romance author Laura Griffin shares suspense writing techniques that will help writers of any genre hook their reader’s attention early and keep turning the pages.
Laura Griffin started her writing career in the basement of the Vanderbilt University Student Center, where she edited the campus paper. After graduating from Vanderbilt, she took a job as a newspaper reporter in the Chicago suburbs, then moved to the Philippines, where she wrote travel articles, before returning to her native Texas. Laura grew up in West Houston, graduated from Stratford High School, and now lives in Austin, where she is a founding member of the Hula Hut Girls Book Club.
Laura’s debut novel, ONE LAST BREATH, won the 2008 Booksellers Best Award for romantic suspense. She is currently working on a romantic suspense trilogy, for Pocket Books, that will kick of this fall with the novel UNTRACEABLE.
In The Early Morning:
“Building your Web Presence: Using WordPress for your website.”
You’re a writer, and these days, you need a website. It’s a given. But it doesn’t have to be as complicated as you might think. Steph and Sarah show you that getting started isn’t all that hard with WordPress on your side.
Two versions of WordPress will be demonstrated. First, WordPress.com – the “blogging” site – is a great place to get started for the DYI’ers. Secondly, WordPress CMS – the “download” – is there when you want to make your site more complex. Oh… and did we mention that the CMS is free?
Stephanie Leary began designing websites professionally around the same time she started writing novels. Her web design work in higher education has garnered several awards, and she serves on the programming committee for the annual conference of the HighEdWeb Association.
A system administrator by day, Sarah Schroeder would rather be writing code or working on her latest romance work-in-progress. A RWA member since 1994, she received her PRO status in 2006, a delay which she blames on her college education.
In 2006, the two teamed up form Paged Media, a website development company for the literary minded and literary organizations.
Schedule for May 9th:
8:00-9:00 - Open doors - sign in/coffee plus Early Morning Bonus Session
on "Building your Web Presence" w/ Sarah Schroeder and Stephanie
Leary.
9:00 to 10:30 - Business meeting, PAL reviews & introductions
10:00 to 10:30 - Break
10:45 to 11:45 - Main Speaker Laura Griffin on "Suspense Techniques
to Make Any Book a Page-Turner"
12:00 to 12:30 - Booksigning with various authors
12:30 - Adjourn to lunch
