APW Central Chapter 4/13 with Elizabeth Ajamie-Boyer
Susan Anderson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: APW Central Chapter Zoom Meeting with Elizabeth Ajamie-Boyer
Date: Apr 13, 2024
Time: 10:00 AM Arizona
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Meeting ID: 852 0303 2894
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Topic: Elizabeth Ajamie-Boyer will speak a little about who she is, how she got started, how she chose historical fiction for her first books, and her process at that time.
Bio: From Phoenix, Arizona, Elizabeth Ajamie-Boyer graduated from East High School, South Mountain Community College, and Arizona State University. She writes her own books, and co-writes with her husband, TJ Boyer, primary author of The Mirror Gate Chronicles series. As a Christian, Elizabeth is called to write cozy literature. She and TJ recently co-wrote a cozy murder/mystery, also. You can find her on Amazon and on their website: mirrorgatechronicles.com/elizabeths-books-2-2/
Elizabeth and TJ have two children and three grandchildren.
APW Rim Country Chapter meeting 3/23/24
APW Rim Country Chapter March meeting
APW Central Zoom – 3/9/24 – Bart Ambrose
Susan Anderson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
TOPIC: APW Central Speaker: Historical Author Bart Ambrose talks about his inspiration and writing process.
DATE: Saturday, March 9, 2024
TIME: 10:00 AM Arizona
ZOOM: Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86810532103?pwd=OElOMkRRNEFCRkVHdEJvdzBFRzhZUT09
Meeting ID: 868 1053 2103
Passcode: 352300—
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TOPIC- Historical author Bart Ambrose talks about his inspiration and writing process.
BART AMBROSE
Arizona native Bart Ambrose grew up on an Arizona cotton farm where he spent his nights reading novels and teaching himself to play guitar. He graduated from ASU and worked as a natural resource conservationist throughout the West and the Pacific basin. A second career took him to Nashville, writing and teaching songwriting and guitar. He relocated back to Arizona to pursue his writing interests with a focus on Arizona and the Southwest.
His first two novels are historical fiction set in early to mid-twentieth-century Arizona. Both take readers on vivid journeys and adventures in a fascinating era of the state’s history. Bart and his wife live near Tucson, Arizona. His hobbies include writing haiku, travel, and the pursuit of the perfect chili relleno. More information about Bart, his books, and his music is available on his website at BartAmbrose.com.
APW Book Club 2/24/24 with Connie Cockrell
Save the date!
Connie Cockrell has graciously agreed to present her book for our review. If you are interested in presenting, send Karen an email and she will put you on the schedule.
APW Book Group with Connie Cockrell and First Encounter
Date: Saturday, February 24
Time: 10 am
Zoom link to follow
First Encounter: A SciFi, Young Adult, Post Apocalyptic Story by Connie Cockrell
Book Blurb:
It took a month of hard travel to find their first survivor community. After a cool welcome and a meager feast, Alyssa and Kyra find that the community has very restrictive roles they expect women to take. Imprisoned and starved, a young woman befriends them at great risk to herself. When the woman tells them the men of the community are bidding on Kyra to take to wife, they form a plan to escape. Weak, hungry and afraid, will Alyssa and Kyra have the strength to escape certain slavery?
Connie Cockrell Bio
Connie Cockrell
A 20-year Air Force career, time as a manager at a computer operations company, wife, mother, sister, and volunteer, provides a rich background for Connie Cockrell’s storytelling.
Cockrell grew up in upstate NY, just outside of Gloversville, NY before she joined the military at age 18. Having lived in Europe, Great Britain, and several places around the United States, she now lives in Payson, AZ with her husband hiking, gardening, and playing bunko. She writes about whatever comes into her head so her books could be in any genre. She’s published twenty books so far, has been included in five different anthologies and been published on EveryDayStories.com and FrontierTales.com. Connie’s always on the lookout for a good story idea. Beware, you may be the next one.
She can be found at ConniesRandomThoughts.com or on Facebook at: Facebook.com/ConniesRandomThoughts or on Amazon at Amazon.com/author/conniecockrell
You can purchase the book at Amazon on Kindle ($.99) or in paperback.
APW Book Club 9/23/23 with Elaine Auerbach
Karen Lateiner is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: APW Book Club: Dirty Linen: How Women Sued The Reader’s Digest and Changed History by Elaine Auerbach
Date: Saturday, September 23, 2023
Time: 10:00 AM Arizona
Zoom: The Zoom link has been sent to Book Club Members. All are invited. Email Karen at kslateiner@gmail.com for the link.
Dirty Linen: How Women Sued The Reader’s Digest and Changed History by Elaine Auerbach is the story of the landmark 1970s sexual discrimination lawsuit against the well-known magazine and publishing empire. It is a tell-all peek behind the doors of the ivy-covered tower that was home to what was then the world’s best-selling magazine. The lawsuit changed the communications industry forever. This personal tale of the fight for gender equality is both a look at how far we have come and how much there is still to do.
Elaine Auerbach
Elaine Auerbach’s broad experience includes writing for and editing books, magazines, newspapers, television and corporate communications. She spent 13 years as an editor with Reader’s Digest and more than 30 years at PepsiCo, Inc. She lives in Kingman, AZ. Elaine will talk about the process of writing and publishing her nonfiction book and the challenges of first person history.
Dirty Linen: How Women Sued the Reader’s Digest and Changed History is available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and via Amazon. Elaine has hard copies available for this group at $10 plus shipping, which is less than what Amazon charges. Contact her directly to order: elaineauerbachauthor@gmail.com
Heads up: For our October 28 meeting, we will review Both Sides of the Fire Line by Bobbie Scopa
APW Virtual Meeting 9/9/23 – Howard Gershkowitz
Susan Anderson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: APW Virtual Meeting 9/9/23 – “Time Management for Authors” with Howard Gershkowitztz
Date: Saturday, September 9, 2023
Time: 10:00 AM Arizona
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84310351286?pwd=UDNpNTBrbHkrZGh2dGcxTElFaGRtQT09
Meeting ID: 843 1035 1286
Passcode: 477873
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Meeting ID: 843 1035 1286
Passcode: 477873
In this presentation, Howard gives tips for how to make good use of our time so that we have time to do more writing and focus on the things that matter. He includes a list of resource materials (books, blogs, websites) that he has found helpful over the years, as well as copies of the forms he uses to keep track of his writing projects, submission deadlines, etc. His goal is to share what he’s learned as a writer over the last fifteen years that helped him keep himself on track.
HOWARD GERSHKOWITZ: Howard lives in Arizona, though he hails from New York City. A Graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey, he moved to Phoenix in 1981 to become a financial advisor. He enjoys volunteering in the community, traveling with his wife, Lisa, and watching his two grandchildren grow up.
He’s kept a journal for nearly forty years, accumulating a lifetime of material for fiction and poetry. He began submitting and publishing his work 12 years ago, and to date, more than three dozen poems and eight short stories have appeared in print or in online e-zines. His debut novel, The Operator, was published in 2018 by All Things That Matter Press. His second novel, Not on My Watch, was published in 2021, by the same publisher. Most recently, he was awarded first prize in the Tempe Library/ASU Creative Writing contest for his short story, ‘The Painting.” His poetry chapbook, “Observations and Distractions,” is available for a limited time by contacting Howard at gershwriter@cox.net.
APW Book Club – 4/27/23 with RuthAnn Hogue
Date: May 27, 2023
Zoom Meeting link has been sent to members. If you’d like to attend, contact Karen Lateiner kslateiner@gmail.com for the link. Guests are welcome.
APW Virtual Meeting 4/19/23 – How to do audiobooks
Connie Cockrell is inviting you to Rim Country Chapter’s Virtual Meeting on April 12. The topic will be “How to do audiobooks” with author Karen Randau. The Zoom link is posted below.
Topic: How to do Audiobooks with Karen Randau
Date: Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Time: 1 pm Arizona Time
Zoom link: Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us j/82494669743?pwd=YWFpNU9BNTVRNFpraWQ4dWN0cFd3UT09
Meeting ID: 824 9466 9743
Passcode: 965559
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdBJdsj0a
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Karen Randau is a lifelong writer—for as long as she can remember, she’s processed all of her major life events by writing about them. She earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas, but one semester on the school newspaper convinced her she didn’t want to be a journalist. Instead, she worked in marketing communications, first in the high-tech industry and then for 27 years for an international non-profit that helps people in developing countries pull themselves from poverty.
She began writing novels after she confessed a particularly strange thought to a co-worker and asked if the co-worker thought Karen was going crazy. The co-worker said, “No, I think you have a novel in you that is screaming to get out.”
Her first five books were published by Short On Time Books in Karen’s Rim Country Mystery series. She decided to go indie for the next three series and now has 13 published books. The most recent is From Chaos, book 2 in the Peach Blossom Romantic Suspense series, which reached an overall rating on Amazon of just under 2,800 and was in the top 10 in several categories. She worked with a producer through ACX to develop an audiobook for book 1 in that series, Into the Fog. That book is a current finalist for a Selah award.
For audiobooks, she’s tried everything from letting her publisher handle the whole process, to trying to narrate and produce it herself, to working with a professional narrator. She learned a lot along the way about production, distribution, and marketing audiobooks, which she’ll share with us on April 19.
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- Karen Randau
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- Kayla Walsh Mystery Suspense Trilogy
January APW virtual meeting: 1-14-23 Dr. Kixx Goldman
Let’s start the year 2023 right. We invite all APW members to come to our January meeting!
Susan Claire Anderson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Arizona Professional Writers Meeting- Creating Character from My Heart with Dr. Kixx Goldman
Date: January 14, 2023
Time: 10:00 AM Arizona
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88985850285?pwd=VHh3Z3lKclFjbDBjRml4NEs1QmhHZz09
Creating Character from my Heart: Blessings and Therapeutic Outcomes
I’m excited and delighted to be speaking with you at your January meeting. I’d love to share thoughts about my writing process. I want to tell you how I create characters and some unexpected therapeutic outcomes, like healing from a traumatic memory. Let’s leave a little time for questions and chat.
Bio
Dr. Kixx Goldman, author, therapist, and storyteller, has a passion for writing fiction. Her recently published debut collection, Speak from Your Heart and Be Heard: Stories of Courage and Healing, is a tribute to human resilience. The characters in the stories show us how we can follow our intuition and find the courage to speak our truth, overcome challenges, heal and grow.
Please download and print the 4 handouts before the meeting.
- Handout 1 -Emotions, Telling the Story your Plot Doesn’t – fr. Donald Maass
- Handout 2 – Dimensions of Character
- Handout 3 – Aspects of Character handout
- Handout 4 – Windy on Character handout
Guests are welcome. Use the above Zoom link to join.
APW Book Group – 10/22/22 – Kathleen Parrish
Karen Lateiner is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
TOPIC: APW Book Group -Author Kathleen Parrish –Second Son
DATE: October 22, 2022
TIME: 10:00 AM Arizona
ZOOM: The link has been sent to Book Club members. If you’d like to join, contact Karen at kslateiner@gmail.com for the link.
ABOUT SECOND SON
Second Son: A Novel about the Deep South by Hermann Willis Logan, continued by Kathleen Parrish is available on Amazon.
The debut novel from Herman Willis Logan, continued by Kathleen Parrish, is filled with beautifully flawed characters struggling to survive the last years of the Great Depression and the epic panorama of World War II.
Trapped on a tenant farm in 1938 Mississippi, young Towanna Whitaker longs to get his education and “be somebody.” But the cotton harvest comes first, and his pa thinks an eighth-grade education is plenty for a cotton farmer. When his troubled mother abandons the family, Towanna must choose between his dreams of an education and helping his pa hold the family together. He gives up his education to care for the house and his baby sister, only to lose her in a tragic accident—one he might have prevented. Grief and self-loathing slowly give way to his family’s stubborn love and the shy overtures of Kathy, a local girl, but World War II arrives all too soon to tear them apart. Drafted into the army and deployed to Europe, Towanna must face death, loss, and his deepest fears if he’s to survive the war and find his way home.
“Second Son is an enthralling depiction of life in the Deep South during the final years of the Great Depression, and the hardships of World War II … fresh and deeply personal.” —Rick Adelmann, Best-Selling Author of the MG&M Detective Agency Mysteries
Arizona Professional Writers 