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Please take time to sign our
ORA BLOG
Meetings
The first Saturday of every
month.
Where
The Library Station
Frisco Room on
N. Kansas Expressway
Springfield, MO
When
Critique 10:00 a.m.
Lunch 12:00 p.m.
Speaker 1:00 p.m.
Business meeting follows
Bring up to 10 pages to the
10:00 a.m. critique.
Visitors Welcome
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judges Only |
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2010 Speakers
| January:
Tessa McDermid on, Prepare Those Pages for
Submission
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Hurrah! You completed a manuscript during NaNo. Or over the
summer. Or last week.
What happens next? Come to the Saturday, January 2, 2010 meeting
of ORA and hear tips that can help you prepare those pages for
submission. No matter how long - or short - you've been writing,
revising is a necessary step on the writing journey. If you can
learn to self-edit your own writing, you can better present a
professional looking manuscript to an editor or agent.
Terry
McDermid, also writing as Tessa McDermid, will share ideas she's
used to publish seven novels, two resource texts, and hundreds
of articles and short stories.
www.tessamcdermid.com
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February: Shirley McCann on, Short Story Markets and
How to Find Them.
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Do you write short stories? If so, you don't want to miss our
February speaker. If anyone knows about Short Story Markets it's
Shirley.
Raised in Clever, Missouri, Shirley McCann
now resides in Springfield, Missouri with her husband, Rick. She has two
children and one grandchild.
Her fiction has appeared in Woman’s World Magazine, several of the
Confession Magazines, Nefarious, Orchard Press Mysteries, Monarch
Mysteries, and The Forensic Examiner.
A member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and The
Romance Writers of America, Shirley is also a co-founder of Sleuths’
Ink, a mystery writers group in Springfield, Missouri.
She maintains a website
Shirley McCann,
and don't forget to visit her blog,
Clever
Chronicles.
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Thanks to member Kathy Garnsey for stepping in for our March speaker. She
spoke on Point of View.
| April: Dusty Richards on,
Why are my manuscripts getting passed by
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After graduating from
Arizona State University in 1960, he came to
northwest Arkansas,
ranched, auctioneered, announced rodeo, worked
32 years for Tyson Food in management, anchored
TV news and struggled to get a book of his own
sold. The three earlier books on the list were
published without his knowledge and only
discovered a year ago as even existing.
In 1992, his first novel, Noble's Way
was published. In 2003, his novel
The Natural won the Oklahoma Writer's
Federation Fiction Book of the Year Award. In
2004,
The
Abilene Trail won the same award. Dusty invests a lot of his time helping
others who want to learn how to write by
speaking at seminars and conferences all over
the United States.
There is no difference in writing any kind of
fiction. In Dusty's words, "You simply change
the sets, costumes and dialect."
He serves on the board of
Ozark Creative Writers Conference held
annually in
Eureka Springs, Arkansas, as well as on the
boards of the Ozarks Writers League in Branson,
Missouri, and the Oklahoma Writers Federation.
He also serves on the board of his local
electric co-op, and of the Springdale,
Arkansas PRCA rodeo. He is a past board member
of the
Western Writers of America. In 2004 he was
inducted into the Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame.
This year, his 65th book will have been
published under his own name and pseudonyms.
That does not count his five dozen plus short
stories and hundreds of articles and columns.
Dusty and his wife, Pat, reside next to
Beaver Lake east of Springdale, Arkansas, that
is whenever they aren't off at speaking
engagements or writing conferences, announcing
rodeos or chuckwagon racing, or researching for
western novels. He and his wife have two
wonderful daughters, Ann and Rhonda, two great
son in laws, and four super grand kids from ages
12 to 20.
If he can steal time to do it, Dusty
likes to fish for trout on the
White River in Arkansas.
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May: Diana Botsford on,
Screenplay Writing and Other Visual Venues
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Diana
Botsford's
degrees
include Screenwriting
& Producing from Boston
University, and Creative
Writing from Seton Hill
University. Prior to
joining Missouri State
University, she spent 12
years in Los Angeles in the
television and film
industry, followed by 5
years developing streaming
media content and
community-driven websites
for Microsoft.
Her
production credits include
writing, producing, and
directing for a wide variety
of series and films. Her
screenwriting credits
include Star Trek: The
Next Generation,
Spiral Zone, and a
variety of children’s series
for CBS, NBC and independent
networks. As a visual
effects director Botsford
has enjoyed the opportunity
to play techno junkie while
telling people like George
Clooney how to stand in
front of a bluescreen. She
has produced multiple series
for television such as the
CBS series Harts of the
West and Nightgames.
Her theatrical credits
include visual effects
directing and supervision
for a wide variety of films
including Nightmare of
Elm Street VI, Tank Girl,
From Dusk Til Dawn,
Terminator 2 and many
independent films. As
Associate Producer for D.I.C.
Enterprises and then later
as VP of Family Programming
for Kushner-Locke, she
produced over 1,000 hours of
animation for shows that
included Inspector
Gadget, Heathcliff, M*A*S*K
Force, Spiral Zone, and
the Columbia/Tristar film
Pound Puppies & the
Legend of Big Paw.
Most recently, Botsford
served as Executive Producer
on the Missouri State
University Electronic Arts
SF short Apollo
which was a recent selection
at the Athens, Greece
International Science
Fiction Film Festival.
Her
primary writing focus is on
science fiction for a
variety of mediums including
books, film, television,
theatre and comics. In
addition to Botsford's
Stargate: SG-1 novel
The Four Dragons
(set for release in June
2010), her recently
completed written work
includes the SF novel
Critical Past and the
comic book series The
Fracture. Botsford is
oftentimes a speaker or
workshop leader at various
writers conferences and
science fiction conventions.
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| June Speaker:
Allan Young on
TRAVEL WRITING
A lucrative field for freelance
writers
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Allan Young says he is not a
WRITER. He is/was a teacher,
engineer, consultant,
manufacturing and publishing
executive, pilot, riverboat
captain, farmer, rancher,
baseball player, hunter,
fisherman, and livestock
judge WHO WRITES, in many
genres. He teaches writing
classes in Continuing
Education at a college,
while cranking out about one
book and several magazine
articles each year.
Author of
over ninety published books
in all genres, including
seven engineering reference
and college textbooks, plus
thousands of articles for
periodicals. Member of
American Society of Business
Press Editors, American
Business Media, Ozarks
Writers’ League, Springfield
Writers’ Guild, Sleuths’
Ink, Ozarks Romance Authors,
Douglas County Writers’
Group, College of Fellows of
SME.
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| July: Romancing the
Ozarks Conference
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Members Registration Fees:
Pre-registration before July 1, 2010
$40.00
Registration after July 1, 2010
and at the door
$45.00
Non-Members
Registration Fees:
Pre-registration before July 1, 2010
$45.00
Registration after July 1, 2010
and at the door
$50.00
Pitch your magazine article to Editor Ginger Kolbaba.
For more details please visit our
Conference page.
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| August: Brenda Minton on, Researching Agents and
Publishers
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I'm Brenda Minton, wife, mother and author
for Steeple Hill Love Inspired.
I live in the Ozarks with my husband and three children, a few dogs and
one insane cat. What I say about myself probably isn't as important as
what others would say. My daughter says I'm 'coffee crazy.' She isn't
afraid to share that news with complete strangers. I've been married
twenty-three years, and my husband still likes me. We actually have fun
together. Our favorite past-time: embarrassing our kids. My middle son
thinks that I'm really embarrassing when I wear fuzzy pink slippers to
pick him up at school. My oldest son doesn't comment. Pretty smart kid.
I'm a country girl who loves to
travel. My dream home is on the beach, waves crashing against the shore
and a deck where I could have coffee and watch the sun come up. What do
I do when I'm not writing? My kids say I talk on the phone a lot. That's
probably true, and I'm looking into a 12 Step Program. Unfortunately I
have a lot of enablers who also like to talk on the phone.
When not talking on the phone, I
love to canoe, hike, and shop.
Visit her website
Brenda Minton |
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September:
David L. Harrison
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David Harrison's first book for children
(The Boy With a Drum), was released in 1969 and eventually
sold over two million copies. In 1972, David won national
recognition when he received the Christopher Award for The
Book of Giant Stories. Since then David has published
seventy-seven original titles that have sold more than
fifteen million copies and earned numerous honors.
He has been anthologized in more than one hundred books and
appeared in dozens of magazines and professional journals.
His work has been translated into twelve languages and
presented on television, radio, cassette, and CD-ROM.
His poetry inspired Sandy Asher's school play, Somebody
Catch My Homework, which has been produced in the United
States and abroad. Jesse and Grace, a fourth-grade best
friends? play in poetry, has been praised for its ?honesty
of characters and use of art and music.?
David's SKY HIGH ON READING program was the International
Reading Association's nationwide winner in 2001. The
Missouri Librarian Association presented him with its 2007
Literacy Award for the body of his work.
Among David's professional books are:
- Easy Poetry Lessons That Dazzle and
Delight, with Bernice Cullinan (Scholastic);
- Using the Power of Poetry to Teach
Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, and More, with
Kathy Holderith (Scholastic);
- ?Yes, Poetry Can,? the poetry chapter
for Children?s Literature in the Reading Program (3rd
Edition, edited by Deborah Wooten and Bernice Cullinan;
7/09, IRA);
- Partner Poems for Building Fluency:
40 Engaging Poems for Two Voices With Motivating
Activities That Help Students Improve Their Fluency and
Comprehension, with Tim Rasinski and Gay Fawcett,
(Scholastic, 8/09);
- Phonemic Awareness through Poetry
Play, with Mary Jo Fresch, (in progress, IRA).
In the last fifteen years David has been a keynote speaker,
banquet speaker, featured speaker, featured author, or
presenter at eighty state, regional, and national
conferences in twenty-seven states.
David holds science degrees from Drury and Emory
universities and honorary doctorate of letters degrees from
Missouri State University and Drury University. He has an
elementary school named for him and is poet laureate of
Drury. He lives in Springfield, Missouri with his wife
Sandy, a retired guidance counselor. |
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| October: |
| February Speaker: Shirley McCann on, Short Story Markets and
How to Find Them.
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Do you write short stories? If so, you don't want to miss our
February speaker. If anyone knows about Short Story Markets it's
Shirley.
Raised in Clever, Missouri, Shirley McCann
now resides in Springfield, Missouri with her husband, Rick. She has two
children and one grandchild.
Her fiction has appeared in Woman’s World Magazine, several of the
Confession Magazines, Nefarious, Orchard Press Mysteries, Monarch
Mysteries, and The Forensic Examiner.
A member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and The
Romance Writers of America, Shirley is also a co-founder of Sleuths’
Ink, a mystery writers group in Springfield, Missouri.
She maintains a website
Shirley McCann,
and don't forget to visit her blog,
Clever
Chronicles.
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