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Effective November 22, 2019, the St. Petersburg Writers Group is inactive. We hope meet again sometime in 2020.
Thank you for your interest.





Saturday, June 6, 2009

James O'Neal Book Signing

Hi all!

Just a quick review of James O'Neal's book signing at Haslam's on Thursday. I went for two reasons. One, I was on vacation for my daughter's high school graduation, and she took an afternoon nap because she was exhausted from the excitement and early ceremony! So I had a window of time. Second, the author is more commonly known as James O. Born, mystery writer and one of the keynote speakers at our October conference. I wanted to meet him before the conference. Wait, there's a third reason. I haven't been to many book signings in the past. Actually probably none. So I wanted to see how it went. You know, for when I get to do one! (As most of us will, right? Right???)

Anyway, I also got to meet Ray, who I think is the owner of Haslam's. He's a really nice guy. His son was there, too, though I didn't personally meet him. But if you are going to sign books at a place, it helps to know the owner! (At least, I think it does.) Also, Haslam's is independent, and I like to support our independent booksellers.

I know what Jim will talk about at the FWA conference (sorry, can't reveal it!), and learned some interesting things about his work, his publishers, his agent. He's very friendly and I know that if you go to the conference in October, you're sure to enjoy his speech.

I also saw two other FWA members, one who has been out of town since, well, forever, to me. She was one of our winners in last year's RPLA contest, and it was great to meet her, too. Jackie Minniti is her name, and I'll be sending her some information for the newspaper she works for. The other, Vicki Morgan, (one of our newer members who has been writing for quite awhile and is also a member of PINAWOR), brought along a friend, Kathy, who does 'artistic expression' if I recall correctly. This involves writing, painting, music. They have a group that meets monthly and she mentioned there are several writers in it. I told her that might make a neat topic for one of our meetings, as it sounded like it could help stimulate creativity and imagination. I hope to hear from her soon.

Back to Ray, the Haslam's guy. He doesn't do presentations any more, but would be open to a Q&A session, informal. I then wondered, what if we had a panel of independent booksellers? Would you like to pepper them with questions? (I won't try to come up with a sentence with salt in it!) Might make another interesting topic for the future. Sometimes I wish we could meet more often, as there are so many interesting things to learn!

Speaking of learning, I picked up Kaplan's Revision. (A book on revising and editing, naturally.) I had heard it recommended, I believe by our August speaker, Lorin Oberweger (editor and sponsor of the Donald Maass workshops), or by Donald Maass himself, I don't remember. (But don't mind dropping names!!!) If you follow the link I put for the book, you'll find an opportunity to get published (no payment) in the short literary fiction and crime/noir genre. The editor includes brief reviews of five books on editing, including The First 5 Pages, which I have and is one of my favorites.

Happy writing!
John

1 comment:

Sam said...

I've had the pleasure of chatting with James Born at two Sleuthfests and yesterday at Mystery Florida. He's a very friendly guy and a highly entertaining speaker. I can hardly wait to see him at the October conference.