Below please find links to the stories and notes for the upcoming workshop to be conducted by Barbara Parker on June 6th. Also please find a letter to the workshop participants from Barbara.
Reminder: The workshop begins at 6:30. Please see the previous post for more details.
Click on the following links to bring up the files, which are formatted as traditional MS Word Documents.
June Workshop - Barbara Parker
Wednesday June 6, 2007 - Selby Library Conference Room
Barbara started practicing law in 1977, when she graduated from the University of Miami and joined the State Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor. But she didn’t feel suited for the job and took the leap toward making up stories for a living.
In the mid-1980s, she wrote a short story for her son, and it turned her life upside down. She didn’t know it at the time; Barbara thought that this would just be a great hobby.
Being from the South, Barbara grew up in a narrative tradition. Her parents read to her, books were all over the house, and she had a library card at an early age. Later on in college at the University of South Florida (Tampa), Barbara studied theater, which gave her a sense of dramatic form. She then went on to law school with its emphasis on clarity and logic, and after that, a parade of clients, each of whom had a story to tell. The foundation for writing fell into place.
Barbara has written twelve books, most of them in the “Suspicion” series featuring Miami lawyers Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana. She’s now taking a little break from the series by writing another stand-alone, The Perfect Fake, for which she learned how to forge a 1511 Italian Renaissance map.
There are two parts of book-writing that Barbara really likes. The first is research, when people from all sorts of backgrounds let her into their lives. She has vicarious adventures, and sometimes real adventures, like traveling to Cuba with contraband books for dissidents operating a library in their home (Suspicion of Rage) or touring Florida’s Death Row (Suspicion of Vengeance). The other best part of writing for Barbara is when the thing is published and she goes on a tour. She meets the readers, talks about the book with them, and shares what she’s learned. For more info about this best selling author, visit www.barbaraparker.com
For the workshop, Barbara received ten partial samples from SFW members, but she’ll only have time to do four of them. She has chosen works that represent different kinds of writing and that illustrate various topics that we can talk about, such as point of view, structure, motivation, character development, and so on. There will be no lectures. Each person attending the workshop will have read all four submissions, and everyone present will be able to comment intelligently and make suggestions. At least, that’s the plan. So if you’re attending, be sure you let Patrick Gray know about it patrickgray1@msn.com so he can send you the chapters by email and you can print them out. If you don’t do that in advance, you won’t know what’s going on.
Congratulations and Thank You!
With a unanimous voice vote the following individuals have accepted their nominations to the following posts.
President: Dona Lee Gould
President Elect (VP): Volunteer Needed
Co-Secretary Publicity: Susan Klaus
Co-Secretary Newsletter: Joanne Lally
Treasurer: Bill Carrigan
Workshop Leader: Andrea Hagner
Contest Coordinator: Joanne Lally
Thanks to all of you for your dedication and commitment.
