Top Three
For the fourth year in a row, I attended the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference last weekend and enjoyed it immensely. While this conference isn't as big as some others I've attended—the James River and the CNU conferences, for instance—it's still a worthwhile event and I always learn something new.
Friday night's speakers—Keith Ferrell ("Real Writing in a Web Writing World") and Cara Modisett ("Living the Dream, with Mud on My Shoes")—were superb. Of the sessions I attended Saturday, these were my top three favorites (in chronological order):
Maryke Barber's "Sources for Research"
I attended her session last year and learned about useful Internet sites that I hadn't previously used. This year, she demonstrated how some research sites worked, and again I learned a lot that I hadn't know before. Here are some sites that you might be able to use:
Worldcat is "the world's largest library catalogue." I've used it in the past to see which libraries have my books. Find It Virginia can come in handy if you're looking for a particular book. You need a library card number to sign in, but if you're doing research, you already have a library card, right? Other handy sites she showed us were Google Scholar (search scholarly literature), Google News (search online news sources), Google Books (search books under copyright), The Hathi Trust (a digital library), USA.gov (directory of federal and state info)., and Del.icio.us (bookmark your favorite websites and access them from any computer). My favorite is the Internet Archive, a digital library and a webpage archive. To see earlier versions of some websites—or websites that no longer exist, use the "Wayback Machine" link.
Dan Casey's "Telling Stories You Know"was delightfully entertaining. Among other things, he told the story about how he happened to learn about the mansion that evangelist Pat Robertson was building on Warm Spring Mountain. It's a long story, starting with a bed and breakfast visit and ending with the National Enquirer. You can read Casey's blog posts about "The Day Pat Robertson's Bodyguard Pulled a Gun on Me" here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. It's a darn good story to read, but it's even better when Dan tells it.
Jeanne Larsen's "Tell it Like It isn't: The Fine Art of Fiction & Other Lies" was also wonderfully entertaining. Her presentation came right after Dan's, so she was following a pretty tough act, but she kept the full room captivated. Jeanne is incredibly animated—she performs rather than lectures—and presented a lot of helpful hints for achieving verisimilitude. "Lying is a game and so is writing" is one of the many things she said that stuck with me.
This was the fourth year for the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference. Kudos to Valley Business Front editor Dan Smith for starting it and keeping it going.
Friday night's speakers—Keith Ferrell ("Real Writing in a Web Writing World") and Cara Modisett ("Living the Dream, with Mud on My Shoes")—were superb. Of the sessions I attended Saturday, these were my top three favorites (in chronological order):
Maryke Barber's "Sources for Research"
I attended her session last year and learned about useful Internet sites that I hadn't previously used. This year, she demonstrated how some research sites worked, and again I learned a lot that I hadn't know before. Here are some sites that you might be able to use:
Worldcat is "the world's largest library catalogue." I've used it in the past to see which libraries have my books. Find It Virginia can come in handy if you're looking for a particular book. You need a library card number to sign in, but if you're doing research, you already have a library card, right? Other handy sites she showed us were Google Scholar (search scholarly literature), Google News (search online news sources), Google Books (search books under copyright), The Hathi Trust (a digital library), USA.gov (directory of federal and state info)., and Del.icio.us (bookmark your favorite websites and access them from any computer). My favorite is the Internet Archive, a digital library and a webpage archive. To see earlier versions of some websites—or websites that no longer exist, use the "Wayback Machine" link.
Dan Casey's "Telling Stories You Know"was delightfully entertaining. Among other things, he told the story about how he happened to learn about the mansion that evangelist Pat Robertson was building on Warm Spring Mountain. It's a long story, starting with a bed and breakfast visit and ending with the National Enquirer. You can read Casey's blog posts about "The Day Pat Robertson's Bodyguard Pulled a Gun on Me" here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. It's a darn good story to read, but it's even better when Dan tells it.
Jeanne Larsen's "Tell it Like It isn't: The Fine Art of Fiction & Other Lies" was also wonderfully entertaining. Her presentation came right after Dan's, so she was following a pretty tough act, but she kept the full room captivated. Jeanne is incredibly animated—she performs rather than lectures—and presented a lot of helpful hints for achieving verisimilitude. "Lying is a game and so is writing" is one of the many things she said that stuck with me.
This was the fourth year for the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference. Kudos to Valley Business Front editor Dan Smith for starting it and keeping it going.
~
Labels: writing
posted by Becky Mushko | 2:56 PM
2 Comments:
Oh! I would have loved hearing Dan Casey talk! I love him! I'll check out his blog.
Jeanne Larsen has been a favorite of mine for many years. She was my professor for numerous courses when I was an undergrad at Hollins and she was always terrific. I'm glad you were able to take away good things from the conference, which I missed for the first time.
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