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APW Typerider November 2025

Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving!

I am delighted to be a part of a professional writing organization with members who are so giving of their time, knowledge, and talent. Thank you!

Once you renew your membership, we have two new potential opportunities for you to shine in 2026.

Reginald Manning is the artist behind APW’s logo when we were Arizona Press Women. He was an American artist and illustrator, best known for his editorial cartoons. The Arizona Republic hired Manning as a photographer and artist in 1926. “Hats” won him the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1951. (Thanks to Cheryl Kohout for his name.)

May your words flow,

Carol Baxter, APW President

 

 

 

 

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P.S. The 2026 White Mountain Writers Conference date is July 31 (not the 3rd).

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Click on the link for the full President’s newsletter to read more including

  • Opportunities to sell your books at 2 book festivals
  • Registration opens for the Payson Book Festival
  • 11/22 Book Club selection
  • White Mountain chapter- open mic, contest, book festival and writers conference
  • NFPW Communications Contest info

 

APW Typerider October 2025

Greetings!

Third quarter! How can that be? I feel exactly like the woman riding the typewriter in our logo. Better riding the typewriter than being sucked into my computer keyboard, eh? By the way, do you know who designed the logo? I do not.

You’ll see a few emails this month. The Board just met to plan exciting things just for you in 2026: the annual conference and potentially a new adventure in marketing. More on those things later this month or early next. VP Marie Fasano will be reaching out about membership dues.

Wishing you a marvelously spooky October,

Carol Baxter, APW President
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Click on the link to find out about what’s happening!

  • Holiday Bazaar- get your book listed! #apwbookbazzar
  • Upcoming chapter events including Carol’s talk on using Kickstarter to launch a book on October 15.
  • APW Book Club selection Oct 25 – Southern Woman by Kathleen Parrish
  • Dates for APW-sponsored Book Festivals in 2026 and other White Mountain events
  • NFPW Communication Contest for works published in 2025

 

Typerider Special Edition 7-13-25

Let’s head to the Mountains!

Learn something, network with authors, and feed your hungry bookshelves.

Hello!

Is the heat dry enough for you? Looking for a getaway?

You know you want to come to Payson and support Arizona authors at the 10th Annual Payson Book Festival on July 19th, but a mere 3 weeks later, there is more joy available to grasp with your inky hands.

August 8th, I am headed to what I hope will be the cool pines of Show Low for the Take Your Writing to New Heights conference and White Mountain Festival of Books hosted by the White Mountain Chapter of APW.

Hope to see your smiling face at one or both events!

 

 

 

 

Carol Baxter, APW President

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*** Send the code: CAROLSPECIAL in your registration paperwork
to get the $50 earlybird price. ***

All the classes will be in the Main Room, and at least three will be interactive with the audience. In addition to the speakers, the last event will be a panel of all the speakers. In every swag bag will be index cards where people can write questions for any of the speakers. You can put that question on a card, and the moderator will direct it to that specific teacher or the entire panel.

One of the keynote speakers, Bing Bruce, was on NewAZ, AP News, and BizNews.

See WMFestivalBooks.org

APW Typerider – June 2025

June 2025

Click here to see this month’s issue with the recap of the winners of At-large Communications Contest. our annual State Conference and to see coming events.

APW Typerider Newsletter – December, 2024

A Joyful December to all!

We are wordsmiths, tapping out sentences not quite as fast as our brain comes up with them, as we sit alone in a room with the door closed (or maybe out somewhere, yet encased in an invisible creative bubble).

I had forgotten the synergy created in a room full of people who speak the same language, not English but AUTHOR. It’s how I felt at the World Fantasy Convention and my first NFPW conference, both nearly 20 years ago, long enough to forget. Consider joining me at our APW Conference on May 17th (in the Phoenix area).

I spent the second week in November in Las Vegas drinking from a firehose of information at a gathering of 1,100 independent authors. I am still trying to wrap my brain around the notes I took, but it is clear that human creativity and AI are here to stay. Harper Collins just made an AI training deal with Microsoft (there are many articles, here is one).

We have come a long way from writing with a piece of charcoal on a flat piece of tree bark.

Meanwhile this month, there are

  • gatherings with friends to attend (RSVP to the Rim Country for our holiday party),
  • deadlines to meet,
  • APW memberships to renew,
  • preparation for NFPW contest entries,

and for me, working on a novel.

May your keys never stick, and your pens never run out of ink,

To see the newsletter and the coming events, click here.

NOTE: If you join NFPW you also pay an extra $15 for your APW membership. If you join APW as a state-only, the dues are $30/year.

APW Typerider Newsletter – November, 2024

Arizona Professional Writers November, 2024 Typerider

Central has a speaker for their November 9 meeting you are invited!

The Holiday Bazaar is happening on the APW website from Black Friday through Christmas. Shout out to Jaimie Bruzenak for putting this online event together.

I am headed to the Author Nation Conference in Las Vegas this month. I was in a pre-event networking group and we played a game via Zoom called Bring Your Own Book. There are prompts and each person in the group has a minute or so to look up a line in a book (could be a book you wrote or not) to match the prompt. Whoever has the “best” answer wins the round. If you are interested and want to download the game cards, it’s available on Amazon.

Author Cory Doctorow has a blog I manage to read about once a month. A recent article caught my attention, Penguin Random House, AI, and writers’ rights. His language can be colorful, although not so much in this article, so be warned.

To read the rest of this issue with information on what’s happening,  click here.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Carol

President’s message October 2024

Typerider Newsletter – APW – October 2024

One of our members, Bobbie Bennett writes the award-winning Beaver Valley Newsletter. The October issue highlights Beaver Valley Days.

I have a fond memory of going to a Beaver Valley Day Pancake Breakfast. Bing Brown (he and Carol are sorely missed as APW members and human beings on the planet) was happily filling plates with pancakes and link sausages.

I don’t like my food to touch. Yeah, I am one of those people. Bing must have seen my face as the syrup he’d just ladled on my pancakes ran into my sausage and I quickly nudged my scrambled eggs to the side. He encouraged me to taste the sausage. “You’ll like it!”

You can guess how I almost always eat sausage now. (My eggs sit on a plate alone.)

I hope you make lots of fond memories this month!

If you have any writing-related announcements you would like included in an upcoming newsletter, please email them to me.

 

 

 

Carol Baxter, APW President

Read the rest of the newsletter including the date for the State Conference and chapter news  by clicking this link

President’s message September 2024

Greetings and salutations!

In the early Roman calendar, September was the seventh month. By that reckoning, I am ten months ahead instead of sprinting from two months behind, trying to catch up to a deadline.

I participated in a writing sprint contest last week with one prompt per round, then five minutes to write a story that left the reader wanting more. The genre was up to the participants. The host played electronic music in the background with a distracting beat – so much so to me that it infiltrated one of my stories. We had 90 seconds to read our stories to the group before a vote via Survey Monkey. Unused writing muscles flexed? Check. Challenge accepted. Endorphins triggered.

Participants seemed to be:

  • Extremely good at using dictation to process their authorly thoughts, or
  • Possessed nimble keyboarding skills well above 60wpm, or
  • Had programmed their AI services to write from prompts – we could/should have a discourse about AI, but I will leave that for another time.

I was the only participant who wrote a rhyme and the only one who took one of the prompts literally. Color me surprised that my rhyme-on-the-spot and taking ellipses at face value, dot dot dot, earned me unexpected entrance to the next round as a runner-up.

Whether you are sprinting to catch up to a deadline or sprinting to finish your writing project I hope you enjoy the journey and stretch a less oft’ used writing muscle along the way.

Carol Baxter, APW President

Email Carol

To read the remainder of the Typewriter, click here.

President’s message August 2024

Arizona Professional Writers
Typerider Newsletter
August 2024

Have you taken to writing in the cooler hours of this neon-hot Arizona summer? I have! And I still seem to get more done pushed against a deadline.

The 9th Annual Payson Book Festival was a success although a bit quieter than in 2023. Rim Country Chapter President Connie Cockrell and her team put hundreds of hours into making the event worthwhile for authors and the public. Cue applause!

Next up: (Click here for pdf of flyer – White Mountain Book Festival 8-3-24

SURVEY RESULTS

To the 19 out of 75 members who responded to the survey, my humble THANKS!

I hope this information will assist our chapter presidents when they seek someone to speak at chapter meetings.

If have yet to respond, kindly look for it in your email (July 17th from carol@talesofalifetime.net) take a few moments out of your busy life to do so. What you want from APW matters to me.

This email and the survey are accomplished via MailChimp, the email services company I have used for more than a decade. I assure you Mail Chimp is a safe company.

Retreats and Online Workshops

“I think of a “writing retreat” as 2-7 days of mostly undistracted writing time at a lovely location that includes a few short writing classes, and optional interaction at other times. I think of a “writing workshop” as an interactive event with classes, writing prompts, panels, etc. These might not be your definitions, but please keep them in mind as you answer the next few questions. Are you interested in an overnight writing retreat in 2026?”

12 yes*, 8 no * Note that 14 people answered the next question!

To read the rest of Carol’s August message click here for the full message.

 

Carol Baxter, APW President.

President’s message July 2024

(For the full newsletter, click here.)
A few of you may recall me as an APW member when my last name was La Valley and I was a reporter at the Payson Roundup Newspaper (2006-2008). Carol and Bing Brown were my mentors back then, and she was fond of telling me, “The ultimate inspiration is the deadline.” It’s much cooler in my office now than it was this afternoon so here I am, writing this newsletter sliding up to 10 p.m. on the final day of June.
My sincere thanks to outbound APW President Connie Cockrell for her service, both to our country and to the organization this past four years. Connie, the board members, and other helpers (Brenda Whiteside, RuthAnn Hogue, Bobbie Bennett, Marie Fasano, Jaimie Bruzenak, Jodi Sharpe, Susan Anderson, Kathleen Osborn, and Karen Lateiner are) to be commended. Each made effective contributions, making a pivot to hold Zoom meetings through COVID, so members were able to keep in touch.
Going forward, it is important to me to have your input. Mid-month I will email you a survey. I want to know how, as a member of APW, you wish to explore and embrace the future.
For now, may your word counts multiply if you are in draft mode and decrease if you are in edit mode,
Carol Baxter
APW President
To read the rest of the newsletter about what’s happening at APW, click here.