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It’s that time of the year again – when San Francisco, CA., hosts one of the best writers conferences in the industry- The San Francisco Writers Conference. It will be held in the beautiful Mark Hopkins Hotel on February 12- 14 and our editor-in-chief, Patricia V. Davis, will be one of the fabulous line up of exciting guest speakers. Her session is titled, Bestseller! What You Need to Know for a Knock-Out Writing Career.
Lots of important information will be covered in this session, including working with retail booksellers, getting attendance at your events, how to blog to raise book sales, bad agents vs. good agents, behind the scenes facts about the industry that you must keep up with in order to make decisions about your career, and more.
Patricia is joined by a myriad of other talented speakers including bestselling authors Jacqueline Mitchard, Steve Berry, Tamin Ansary, Kemble Scott, Ransom Stephens, Wendy Nelson Tokunaga and more! The lists of editors and agents is phenomenal, and the workshops/seminars/keynotes are spectacular! All of this surrounded by the beautiful romantic city of San Francisco, on Valentine’s Day weekend no less!
…and Here’s More!
The San Francisco Writers Conference has added a Pre-Conference Day – February 11
These smaller class sizes, and in-depth topics taught by top-rated presenters allow writers to learn even more at one of the Country’s Best Writers Conference!
If you want to start attending the SFWC a day early (or for those who can’t attend the full 3-day main conference), the San Francisco Writers Conference has launched a full day of sessions on the day BEFORE the conference officially starts. For details and online registration: www.SFWriters.org
In honor of this spectacular conference (and our editor-in-chief’s inclusion in the line-up of speakers) HS Radio is rebroadcasting from the home page our June 2008 interview with the hosts of this wonderful conference, literary agents Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada.
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The Michael Larsen-Elizabeth Pomada Literary Agents is housed in one of San Francisco’s beautiful Victorian homes, called “Painted Ladies.”
If you are interested in learning more about Elizabeth and Michael’s literary agency click here.
If you are interested in learning more about San Francisco’s famous “Painted Ladies,” click on the image below:
Being a writer takes hard work and dedication. But Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen, owners of the oldest literary agency in San Francisco, talk about what a tremendous effect a writer can have on society and politics.
Each year they host the San Francisco Writing for Change Conference, a conference dedicated to activists who seek to change the world, one pen at a time.
For more information about this conference, or Michael and Elizabeth’s San Francisco Writers Conference please view their Guest Writer page by clicking HERE
Books Can Still Change the World
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Browse previous Podcasts by Patricia Volonakis Davis
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Dear FRE: As a fifty-something divorced woman, I’ve kept myself in great shape, and admit to being flattered when younger men find me attractive and come on to me. And though I would never actually date anyone significantly younger than I am, I am not at all bothered when I see older women with younger men, even if the men are much younger than they are.
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But here’s my problem: I have a twenty-year old daughter who is dating a man who is 24 years older than she is. And though she is very intelligent and mature for her age, I worry that he’s taking advantage of her comparative inexperience. I married young, chose poorly, and missed a lot of opportunities as a result. I don’t want my daughter to make the same mistake. And I sense that this man is very serious about my daughter, and may be pressuring her into marriage. But every time I try to bring this up to her, she counter argues with, “Why is it okay for some of your friends to date younger men, then?” and I am stymied. Once, she even accused me of perhaps wanting this man for myself, which I promise you is not the case. I love my daughter very much, and do not see her as any kind of ‘competition’ or suffer from jealousy, as a number of my friends occasionally do over their grown daughters’ lives. I just want her to be careful, and I’m so upset and worried that she’s not listening to me.
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Signed,
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Want-to-Shoot-the-Man-Cougar
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From Natural History Magazine, April 2007
"Moon Halo" by Miles Ranno
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“Of all the sciences cultivated by mankind, Astronomy is acknowledged to be, and undoubtedly is, the most sublime, the most interesting, and the most useful. For, by knowledge derived from this science, not only the bulk of the Earth is discovered . . . ; but our very faculties are enlarged with the grandeur of the ideas it conveys, our minds exalted above [their] low contracted prejudices.”
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— James Ferguson, Astronomy Explained Upon Sir Isaac Newton’s Principles, And Made Easy To Those Who Have Not Studied Mathematics (1757)
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Long before anyone knew that the universe had a beginning, before we knew that the nearest large galaxy lies two and a half million light-years from Earth, before we knew how stars work or whether atoms exist, James Ferguson’s enthusiastic introduction to his favorite science rang true. Yet his words, apart from their eighteenth-century flourish, could have been written yesterday…
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Read the rest of this article here…
"Martian moons, Deimos and Phobos, courtesy of NASA "
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Even the stars collect in families.
No body is alone in space.
Astral pearls of light -
strings of sisters – glow,
Father the brilliant medallion
marks the mouth of a black hole,
A hydrogen web Mother spins
and weaves her nebulous net,
the Old red ancestors fade
but never defect…
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Read the rest of this poem here…
Photo by Lucy Simpson
by Lucy Simpson
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“I am perception and knowledge, uttering a Voice by means of thought. I am the real Voice. I cry out in everyone, and they recognize it (the voice), since a seed dwells in them.”
─ Nag Hammadi Library, Trimorphic Protennoia, translated by John D. Turner
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Back in the garden of eden
when leaves were holy
every vein a beatitude
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everything was possible
for these monkeys
for these little Hanumans
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Read the rest of this article here…
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Most of us are busy with work, family, taking care of others and all of life’s other responsibilities. Then it shouldn’t be too surprising that setting aside an hour or two a few days a week to workout is almost impossible.
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I mean really, how many of us have the time to get ready to go out, drive to the gym, work out, and drive home? Time is valuable and every minute counts! I personally don’t want to spend a good chunk of my free time at the gym every week.
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So, ideally, we need something that is very effective and can be done quickly. Besides, there are more important things in life than stressing about getting in an effective workout. This is one of the main reasons why I love to workout at home and utilize bodyweight workouts…
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The return of the space shuttle Endeavour on July 31 marked a great leap forward in the history of underpants. Returning to Earth was Astronaut Koichi Wakata of the Japanese space agency, JAXA, who had secretly been testing super jocks during his four months on the International Space Station.
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According to this daring astronaut, he had been wearing the high-tech undies for 30 days without a let up, and with no complaints from his fellow travellers. But, I’m not sure that this rates as scientifically proven. Perhaps his compatriots were simply too polite to say anything, and were always grateful when the chance came along to take a space walk…
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by Tom Hames
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My youngest son is a space enthusiast. His bedroom is decorated with posters of the planets and the space shuttle. There are those glow-in-the-dark stars plastered all over his ceiling, and mounted directly above his bed is a working replica of the solar system.
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In February 2008, when he was twelve-years-old, he found out there was going to be a lunar eclipse visible in our area. He was so excited about it that he posted a note on the main entrance to our house so we wouldn’t forget. He eagerly waited for the day to come, and was extremely upset when that day finally arrived and it was cloudy and rainy. Thankfully, it cleared up that evening just in time to watch the eclipse. He laid out in the yard for over an hour with his cousin, and documented the progress of the eclipse with our video camera. He was so excited that it was all he could talk about when I put him to bed that night…
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Read the rest of this article here…
Photo by Tiago Ribeiro
by Con Carlyon
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I’m 70 now. That is a time of life when one reflects on this miraculous journey that we take, and, hopefully, comes to some informed conclusions about what it is all about. I recall many years ago reading the late Dag Hammarskjold’s “Markings”, in which he jotted down his thoughts on this life. I’m not nearly as original as he was, so have to rely on the thoughts of others for my markings to guide me along the rocky road of life. One such marking that has had a marked impact on me is this one from Albert Einstein:
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“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. (My emphasis) Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
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"Bridge" by Amber Burke
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“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” – Carl Sagan
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Books are my drug of choice. If I go days without reading, I get jittery and weird…er than normal. My sense of well-being gets slurry. So it’s lucky that I have my own library of about 1000 books, where I can go to in order to get my fix – of mysteries, random fiction, random non-fiction, fantasy, and, of course, science fiction.
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When I started reading science fiction around age 10, I’d been going through all the usual reading phases: books about horses, books about dogs, fairy tales, ‘tweeny’ mysteries, starter fantasies, etc. But when I hit upon sci-fi, it felt like I’d found my own personal secret cave of delights – my place to go to escape to worlds which did not remotely resemble my world, which at that time, had turned tumultuous with my parents’ divorce. The only thing I wanted to do was run away and have grand adventures.
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Note from editors: Every since our editor-in-chief’s book, Harlots Sauce, was published, she has been receiving dozens of emails and Facebook messages each week from people seeking her advice on their life and love problems. About this she has said, “People seem to feel comfortable asking my opinion, even if they haven’t met me. Maybe [...]
Read the rest of this article»Note from editors: Every since our editor-in-chief’s book, Harlots Sauce, was published, she has been receiving dozens of emails and Facebook messages each week from people seeking her advice on their life and love problems. About this she has said, “People seem to feel comfortable asking my opinion, even if they haven’t met me. Maybe [...]
Read the rest of this article»
Most of us are busy with work, family, taking care of others and all of life’s other responsibilities. Then it shouldn’t be too surprising that setting aside an hour or two a few days a week to workout is almost impossible.
I mean really, how many of us have the time to get ready to go [...]
The return of the space shuttle Endeavour on July 31 marked a great leap forward in the history of underpants. Returning to Earth was Astronaut Koichi Wakata of the Japanese space agency, JAXA, who had secretly been testing super jocks during his four months on the International Space Station.
According to this daring astronaut, he had [...]
My youngest son is a space enthusiast. His bedroom is decorated with posters of the planets and the space shuttle. There are those glow-in-the-dark stars plastered all over his ceiling, and mounted directly above his bed is a working replica of the solar system.
In February 2008, when he was twelve-years-old, he found out there was [...]
Note from editors: Every since our editor-in-chief’s book, Harlots Sauce, was published, she has been receiving dozens of emails and Facebook messages each week from people seeking her advice on their life and love problems. About this she has said, “People seem to feel comfortable asking my opinion, even if they haven’t met me. Maybe [...]
Read the rest of this article»
“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. “ – Carl Sagan
Books are my drug of choice. If I go days without reading, I get jittery and weird…er than normal. My sense of well-being gets slurry. So it’s lucky that I [...]
I’m 70 now. That is a time of life when one reflects on this miraculous journey that we take, and, hopefully, comes to some informed conclusions about what it is all about. I recall many years ago reading the late Dag Hammarskjold’s “Markings”, in which he jotted down his thoughts on this life. I’m not [...]
Read the rest of this article»Universe: The 100th Essay
by Neil deGrasse Tyson
From Natural History Magazine, April 2007
“Of all the sciences cultivated by mankind, Astronomy is acknowledged to be, and undoubtedly is, the most sublime, the most interesting, and the most useful. For, by knowledge derived from this science, not only the bulk of the Earth is discovered . . . [...]
Read the rest of this article»
A Scientific Exposition/Rebuttal by Dr. James Dewey Watson,
Nobel Prize Winner 1962, Physiology or Medicine
(A Satire)
Ladies and Gentlemen, Esteemed Colleagues, Students of Genetics and Medicine:
As many of you already know, I received the Nobel Prize for my co-discovery of the structure of DNA. I’ve been the chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the United [...]
Hollywood, in general though not in total, seems to be rallying to the defense of Roman Polanski, admitted child-rapist. This includes the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Whoopie Goldberg, and Peter Fonda, to name a few.
Whoopie, for example, says it wasn’t “rape-rape.” Apparently, there’s rape, and then there’s rape, and a 43-year-old man drugging, [...]
Congratulations to Vicola!
Below is a little bit about her:
I’m Vicola, a proud Northerner from the UK, with very little tolerance and even less patience.
I got started writing an online diary in a rather weird way. My cousin married a conman with a personality disorder, and after wreaking havoc and ‘appropriating’ a chunk of my uncle’s [...]
A February chill rushed through the air as Henry watched two regiments of men mount their horses and ride off. If the plan worked, they would make contact with the Union army and draw them back to the fortified battle line where the remaining Confederate soldiers waited. With Ocean Pond to the north, heavy swampland [...]
Read the rest of this article»
On the delivery of powerful imagery and perceptions of what our lives either should be or actually are, television has done a wonderful job as a messenger, so far.
From the far heights of the Hollywood hills to the shores of the Greek islands, television shows have set the standard on what we westerners all wish [...]
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Midori by Moonlight by Wendy Nelson Tokunaga
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Midori by Moonlight
Author: Wendy Nelson Tokunaga
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
ISBN: 978-0312372613
Reviewer: Patricia Volonakis Davis
Though Midori by Moonlight was published in 2007, I only just discovered this book a few months ago. And I’m delighted that I did.
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