C.S. Lewis Southwest Regional Retreat Writers Workshop

Joy - Wants to remind writers attending her sessions that they will be part lecture and part interactive. You are coming to write?

Fiction vs. Nonfiction Track?

• I’ve asked that y’all reply to me about which track you are planning to attend.
• This was only to gauge approximate numbers for Joy’s & Frank’s workshops.
• You are free to choose each session individually as you like.
• You will note that there are a couple times where there is only session.

In that vein Terry says, “I noticed that my talk was, until recently, listed in the schedule as part of the fiction track. Just wanted to remind you that it is really more geared to non-fiction than fiction, though parts are applicable to both. Anyone who wants to write for publication should find it practical and helpful, but it is more focused on non-fiction.”

If you are not staying for the retreat you can order Diana’s lectures.

Bag End Thursday Night

This gathering after hours is a time of sharing, asking questions, and reading your stuff. The time is limited, there will be sleepyheads, and Friday is an early morning, so . . .

If you want to do a reading, choose something BRIEF, please. There will be a time limit. Just like in your writing-less is more. Be thrifty with your words. Remember if you want more substantial feedback, Lael Arrington and Kay Wood are available. Inquire at the registration table.

Of Interest on Conferences

There’s an article in October Writer’s Digest - “How Even a Bad Conference Can Make You a Better Writer,” giving the reader 18 lessons they can learn from any writing conference. Well, ours is going to be a really GOOD CONFERENCE, but their “More Tips for Making the Most of Any Conference” is informative and is most of what I’ve already imparted to y’all. I’ll include the list in your packet.

Also there are two articles in the Christian Communicator: September & October. I will include those also in your packet.

. . . I may have more so keep checking . . . Nan

This week on Nan’s blog . . . for “Retreaters” & Writers:

Areas of interest: The Important “Ps”

PRONOUNCEMENT - What to read before you come.

PREPARATION - What do you need to do to prepare?

PURPOSE - Why you’re attending.

PLAN - What you hope to accomplish.

PRESENTATION - Making a good impression.

PREPARING & PRACTICING your PITCH - To our editor and agent.

PERFORMANCE - Do you want feedback/critique of your work?

PARTICIPATION - Are you looking forward to networking with other writers?

PARTICULARS & PRACTICALITIES - Hopefully, all your questions will be answered.

I’m imparting the following information in hopes it will be helpful. Actually, I know it will be because it has worked for me and for others. I’ve attended many writers’ conferences and directed them too. What I will share is taken from a presentation I give to my writer’s group, Panhandle Professional Writers in Amarillo, to prepare them for our annual conference, Frontiers in Writing. If you’ve done this before or are an old hand at it, you will find the advice familiar. If this is your first time or you still consider yourself new at this, you will find it beneficial. I was brand new once and had no idea what I was doing, or that I should or could prepare. Read the rest

Review of Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual Legacy of C.S. Lewis by Terry Glaspey, Editor, Harvest House

Review by Nan Rinella

NOT A TAME LION is a book about a hero. Not as the world sees, but as God sees, and men of God desire to learn from and emulate. A lion of a man with a voice heard round the world, turning men to God.

It’s a small book as books about Lewis go, but it’s brimming with Lewis’s wisdom and dramatized scenes of his life. Terry Glaspey uses elements of creative nonfiction with fleshed out scenes that touch the senses and transport you into Lewis’s life.

The book begins on a cold foggy morning with “Jack” Lewis sitting in the sidecar of his brother Warren’s motorcycle on a trip from Oxford to Whipsnade Zoo. “When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” wrote Lewis in his autobiography, “and when we reached the zoo I did.”

As a boy of nine, Lewis lost his mother and turned from God. He would be a poet but went to war and was wounded. It is through his deep respect for logic that he returns to God via his intellect.

Terry met Lewis-not in person-but in the pages of his books. He was captivated by “the winsome, creative, intelligent personality that radiated between the lines of his writing. If such a man could wholeheartedly embrace Christianity, then perhaps it deserved a more careful look . . . Here was a God who did not fit into my comfortable preconceptions or a denominational box, a God upon whom I could not press my personal agendas. For as one of the characters [of Narnia] says of him, ‘He is not a tame lion.’ Neither was Lewis a ‘tame lion.’” Read the rest