Janet Reid, Literary Agent: Who?

Janet Reid, Literary Agent: Who?



Karen's webpage

www.newfictionwriter.com



Hope some of you enjoy it.

Canadian Authors In Action

Canadian Authors in Action

An evening of Fiction at Mahtay Café in St. Catharines

December 12, 2012

Our Christmas event for the local writers of the Niagara Branch of the Canadian Authors Association included readings for family, friends and patrons of the trendy Mahtay Café which supports arts and culture.

Five writers provided snap shots of their current work ranging from drama to humour to family history as shown below:

Karen Gansel and Chris Paxton

Charles Schott and Laura Magalas

Ruth Troughton

Algonkian-Niagara Writers Conference

Held at the Old Stone Inn in Niagara Falls for four days in October 2011, the Algonkian-Niagara Conference was a dynamic introduction into marketing your novel. About 30 aspiring writers from across Ontario gathered to learn platform-premise-execution and to practice their best pitch for feedback from instructors and their peers. The key learning experience for me was the one-on-one session with agents and editors where writers gave their best pitch in hopes of getting published. As a writer I need to link to the agent and/or editor who most closely represents my style of mainstream fiction and to focus on my log line.

Workshops were provided by Terry Fallis, a Stephen Leacock prize winner, on the journey to publication and Barbara Kyle, a successful historical fiction writer, on the importance of story structure and the first 30 pages.  Chief Editor of Algonkian, Michael Neff provided a session on plot devices and techniques such as point-of view characters, foreshadowing, exposition, flashbacks and how to use conflict and suspense with examples from literary classics.

I enjoyed the free time with fellow writers to listen to their journeys in the practice of creative writing and their personal struggles to gain recognition and publication. I'd recommend this conference to others if the opportunity arises.

Karen's New Blog - Author and Traveller

As a fiction writer, I've decided to start a new blog to give friends and followers some background for my work. I embarked on a new career as a writer in 2004 to use dormant creative talents.  My inspiration comes from people I have known who, like me, are driven through a need for achievement and independence.  I've combined my love of fiction with travelling which gives me new places and new people to explore.  My travels have taken me through many parts of Canada and the USA, Equador and Peru, the Caribbean Islands, Italy, France, England, Ireland, Scotland, Austria, Switzerland, and New Zealand.

The most challenging was hiking the Milford Track in New Zealand where I learned that the mind may be willing but the body doesn't always want to go along. The most fun was travelling through the south of France navigating narrow roads while driving on the right and negotiating a silent standoff with a Frenchman on a one-way bridge.

Continue to read ahead to see what other adventures have inspired me in my writing.