My Country Trumps Your Friendship
My Country Trumps Your Friendship
My two cents about this meme message circulating out here in social media land. I’ve seen it before but yesterday, I scrolled by it and noticed ...
Cooking For Kamala: America’s Celebrated Chefs Stand Behind Kamala & Tim
Cooking For Kamala: America's Celebrated Chefs Stand Behind Kamala & Tim
In a recent ZOOM, dozens of America's premiere chefs, restaurateurs and food writers gathered in their kitchens across this country ...
Writersmama and My Platform Building Ways
Writersmama and MY Platform Building Ways
I wrote this piece a few years ago and after listening to bestselling author Joe Ide's keynote at Southern California Writers Conference. Ide's was an ...
Book Promotion: Takeaway Tips from SBWC Authors’ Panel
Viewer alert: The videos of Diana Raab and Max Talley may come on automatically so please go to each video and turn off and when you are ready to listen, ...
The Value of Writing Conferences: Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater
The Value of Writing Conferences: Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater
JUN 09, 2024
We are in the era of internet writers. Those who have stories to tell, write them ...
The Messiness of Midlife
The Messiness of Midlife
Ten years before Jada Pinkett split with Will Smith and remained living with him, I did the same with my former. I had my reasons for residing ...
The Writing Life, Mental Health and Mental Illness
The Writing Life, Mental Health and Mental Illness
Before I shifted careers, I was an RN, MSN and my specialty was psychiatric nursing. For two decades I practiced exclusively on psychiatric ...
Authors & Book Promotion Interviews, 21st Century Style
Authors & Book Promotion Interviews, 21st Century Style
WHO: Marla Miller, host of Authors & Book Promotion Interviews, 21st Century Style conducted on ZOOM
WHAT:
ZOOM Interviews with 21st century published authors ...
Nora Ephron’s ‘Everything Is Copy’ Inspired My Novel
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Nora Ephron's 'Everything Is Copy' Inspired My Novel
On the day of Taylor Swift's ‘Tortured Poets Department’ debut, I found this reel. Until I did, I did not know that like ...
Romanticism and the Writing Life
December 29, 2022
I know this mantra
We hear it from our elders who quote versions of it in workshops they teach and craft books they write. We share it with writers ...
Dorothy Allison Talks About Writing at SBWC
Dorothy Allison talks about writing at SBWC.
NOW: This is my 2024 revision of this post I wrote a few years ago.
As I prepare for publication date of SweetSpot: Now and ...
AUTHORS & BOOK PROMOTION 21st Century Style Interview w/ Jennifer S Redmond-MEMOIR
AUTHORS & BOOK PROMOTION 21st Century Style Interview w/ Jennifer S Redmond-MEMOIR
Jennifer Silva Redmond, author of Honeymoon at Sea, her memoir chronicling her love affair with her husband Russell over ...
AUTHORS and BOOK PROMOTION, 21st Century Style
Gayle Carline is the author of 15 suspense novels (mostly) and 14 are self published. Since the early days of self publishing, early to mid -2000's, she embraced this avenue ...
Eudora Welty, Award Winning Writer, 1909-2001, Discussing the Roots of Her Storytelling
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GMFA8ZSGanE
Eudora Welty, Award Winning Writer, 1909-2001, Discussing the Roots of Her Storytelling
Eudora Welty, Pulitzer Prize / Fiction winner became known to me through my association with the Santa Barbara Writers ...
WritersMama Services: ZOOM Read and Critique plus Finding Literary Agents
WritersMama Services:
Zoom Read and Critique plus Finding Literary Agents
NEW Zoom Read & Critique Workshop
When the Southern California Writers Conference's FEB 2023 winter conference ends, I will launch a new ZOOM ...
Changing Times: Talk Truth to Publishing
Changing Times: Talk Truth to Publishing
Talk Truth to Publishing
I came to the writing life after a career in the mental health profession. Back in the mid to late 1990's our ...
Barnaby Conrad Keynotes at SBCC Writers Workshop
Barnaby Conrad Keynotes at SBCC Writers Workshop
Next week, I'll be teaching at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference where Barnaby Conrad could always be found mentoring writers. He loved it and ...
@Writersmama Zoom Workshops Expand & SCWC 2021 Update
Fall, 2021
Dear Subscribers,
I launched WritersMama ZOOM Read & Critique Workshop on April 3rd, 2020. Sixteen months later, this group still meets twice/week. Three of our writers are reading novel #2 ...
Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing
(I had the pleasure of hanging out with Mr. Leonard whose friends called him 'Dutch'. Barnaby Conrad, founder of SBWC, was one and often Dutch made an appearance at the ...
WritersMama Read & Critique ZOOM Workshops-JOIN US!
Covid19 Be Damned! WritersMama Read & Critique ZOOM Workshops-JOIN US!
Let's Workshop Together...Apart
April 4, 2020
Opening 5 Pages:
WritersMama Read & Critique Workshop via ZOOM
Okay, so this sucks and we all know it ...
An Editor’s Worth: Max Perkins
An Editor's Worth: Max Perkins
For the ultimate appreciation of an editor's worth, I encourage you all to read A. Scott Berg's Max Perkins: Editor of Genius. My view of literary life ...
Have Black Voices Mattered in Publishing?
Have Black Voices Mattered in Publishing?
A while ago, I attended a one-day workshop at a Southern California library intended for writers of color. The room semi-filled with nonwhite attendees, a ...
How To Write Like Joan Didion
How To Write Like Joan Didion
For every long sentence, you have to drop an anchor and slow down the pace.
In the same vein, build up a certain tone, then knock it ...
SCWC Workshop: Hooking Readers
In this MarketingtheMuse workshop I consistently offer via writers conferences, writers read the first two pages of their work in progress and we, the audience, let them know if we ...
Quick Query Letter Critique Videos-FREE for Viewing!
Marla Miller's MarketingtheMuse has over 200 Quick Query Letter Critique videos published on YouTube. All now organized into genres so subscribers can study critiques specific to your genre. We hope the ongoing ...
DISCUSSING RACE RELATIONS: WHERE DO WE BEGIN?
I wrote this in 2008 and not much has changed. We’re still not talking to each other.
Discussing Race Relations: Where DO We Begin?
In this time when an African American male ...
T. Jefferson Parker Talks Writing at S.C.W.C.
T. Jefferson Parker Talks Writing at S.C.W.C. Revising in 2017 and one week after the ALWAYS fabulous Southern California Writers Conference was held at the Crown Plaza Hotel, our San Diego muse ...
Sol Stein, Characterization and Novel Writing
Sol Stein, Characterization and Novel Writing
Sol Stein's Take on Novel Writing and Character Development
When you've been studying craft as long as moi , you collect lots of notes. Foraging ...
SCWC: Birth of The Pitch Witch Workshop
SCWC: Birth of The Pitch Witch Workshop. We first taught this workshop at the So California Writers Conference in 2010. Given the response, we knew the Pitch Witch Workshop was needed and ...
Premature Hiring of Editors-DON’T!
Premature Hiring of Editors-DON'T!
I've blogged about this topic a few times but it's worth repeating. Some writers seek editorial input prematurely. Unless you hope to work with an editor over ...
40 Minute FREE Query Letter Workshop!
Query Letters: I have written many query letters. For many years, most of my query letters were rejected. I kept pitching until my query letters began garnering attention. My rejections turned ...
Pitch Witch Writers Workshop
Pitch Witch Writers Workshop
Screenwriters call it the 'elevator pitch' - no matter the name, the goal is the same: Should you meet a publishing professional in an elevator who you ...
Immersion Into Writers Conferences Is Humbling…
and that’s a good thing.
Recently and while immersed at a writers’ conference for 6 days, I taught what I know about the craft and business of writing to writers at ...
How One Critique of My Sex Scene Stopped Me
How a Critique of My Sex Scene Stopped Me
The sex scene this writer is referring to happens right before the climax, pardon the pun, of Deadly Little Secrets, a medical ...
Bestselling Author Joe Ide: Facts and Fantasies of ‘Bestselling’
Bestselling Author Joe Ide: Facts and Fantasy of ‘Bestselling’
L.A. author Joe Ide, frequent keynote speaker and workshop leader at the Southern California Writers Conference, is delighted with the success ...