WRITE NOW: A Free Writing Group for Women Who Live With Cancer

by Dr. Natalie Mariano

Writing about something that upsets you can make you feel better. Whether it's an email to your best friend complaining about your boss, or a six-page entry into your journal about how frightened you are about having cancer, once the words are on the page, you feel a sense of relief just to have given words to your feelings. I've known this for years.

When I began my practice in primary care, I wrote about what it felt like to lose a patient. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, several years ago, I wrote about what it felt like to be a patient. Writing has helped me get through the most difficult times of my life.

Studies have proven that I'm not the only one writing has helped. When patients with cancer have been given a chance to write, they have an improved sense of well-being and a better attitude toward their disease …

WRITE NOW

A free writing class for women whose lives have been touched by cancer

Each ten-week session meets for two hours. During each session, you'll be given simple prompts that will trigger you to write.

Your words don't have to be elaborate. They just have to be your own. Sharing your stories is optional.

Wednesday from 2-4pm
September 17 through November 19, 2014
At Mashpee Public Library

To sign up or ask questions, please contact natalie.mariano@gmail.com

or call 508-274-4268

Tick, Tock…It's Later Than You Think

by Mary-Elizabeth Briscoe

If not now, when? If not me, who?

These and other well-known phrases repeated in my head, growing louder and more insistent, like demanding toddlers begging for attention. The pages of the rough draft of my manuscript, yellowed and curling at the edges, languished on the dusty desk I'd searched for months to find.

At the time, I'd been decorating my office with very specific, sought-after items, certain to entice me to write. It was part of the writing process, I told myself. Instead, it distracted me and kept me from putting pen to paper.

I've played that game with myself for a lifetime, ignoring my passion for writing and only allowing myself to dabble now and then, as if it were some exotic indulgence.

Until, that is, last winter found me thumbing through the pages of my manuscript. It was a cold, Vermont winter, blowing my 50th birthday ever closer. My sister, Christine, was on the phone, telling me about the editor she'd met…

Join us at Hycove Manor
for the following events:

Social Media Bootcamp
October 25 & 26

Set up your own Website and
Social Media Network

Learn To Write & Publish Your Book
In Just 4 Weeks
November 15 & 16

With Kathleen O'Keefe Kanavos
& Lori Boyle

Click HERE For full event details

Call 310 686 1633
Or email LoriBoyle@RocketMail.com

Support your local authors on our CWO Bookshelf

Click HERE to register YOUR title!

Perils and Possibilities: Entering a Playwriting Competition

by Joan Graham

I went to Toronto in May and asked a New York friend if I could stay with her one night on the way up and one night on the way back. She agreed and said that, coincidentally, when I returned she would have a houseguest from Toronto, a transgender woman who had "breasts she loved but still had balls." Would I be okay sharing the living room, which had a couch and a daybed? Yes.

The Torontonian, a photographer, was having an opening when I arrived. I went, thinking it would be fun to meet my soon-to-be New York roommate in Toronto. So cosmopolitan!

A few days later, on the way back to New York, I thought a lot about what it must be like to know in your heart that you are in the wrong body. Mine might be wanting in some respects, but it's always felt like home. While traveling and musing, I receive an email announcing the annual Eventide Theater full length playwriting competition. Like two magnets clicking together, the idea of writing a play about a transgender woman is born…

Available at Amazon.com

The Write Way: Query Letters: First Impressions Count

by Katie O'Sullivan

A query letter is like your first introduction at a cocktail party. You want to make a good impression – you know, smile, make eye contact and have a firm handshake. At the same time, you don't want to be too forward, nor do you want to sound like you don't know what you're talking about.

Query letters are part of the publishing business, the key word being business. The agents and publishers on the receiving end are actively seeking manuscripts to get excited about – it's what they do for a living.

Agents and editors want to like you. They aren't in the business of rejection – they're in the business of finding their next big book.

Your letter is your first contact to get them excited about your project

Each agent and editor has a submission process that they like to follow – you will need to do a little research to figure out just what each one wants to see from you. But almost everyone wants a query letter as part of this process. …

Available at Amazon.com