Public Speaking
Upcoming Events:
|
What
"Getting the Facts Right: Using Research to Add Credibility to Your Fiction" |
Where
Picayune Writers Group Symposium Picayune, MS |
When
Saturday September 30, 2017 |
Previous Events:
What"The Power of Story"
(Using good storytelling to make a lasting impression.) "The Power of Story" (Using good storytelling to make a lasting impression.) Sessions & Signing Books at the Business of Writing International Summit Signing Books at the Business of Writing International Summit "The Power of Story" (Using good storytelling to make a lasting impression) A Writers' Workshop "Stand for Life" (Abortion & the Pro-Life Movement) Presentation & Book-signing "Sharing God's Word via Story" Presentation & Book-signing "Sharing God's Word via Story" Presentation & Book-signing |
Where
Gulf Coast Writers Association Pass Christian Library 111 Hiern Ave. Pass Christian, MS Picayune Writers Group Symposium Picayune, MS Indiana Wesleyan University's Louisville Conference Center 1500 Alliant Avenue, Louisville, KY 40299 Indiana Wesleyan University's Louisville Conference Center 1500 Alliant Avenue, Louisville, KY 40299 Calloway County Public Library 710 Main St. Murray, KY Western Kentucky Tea Party Calloway County Public Library 710 Main St., Murray, KY New Life Christian Bookstore 5th & Main St., Murray, KY A Touch of Grace (Bookstore) 508 West Market St., Princeton, KY |
When
Saturday August 27, 2015 September 26, 2015 Friday & Saturday August 1-2, 2014 Friday & Saturday August 2 - 3, 2013 Saturday, June 15, 2013 10:00 - 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 25th, 6:00 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2, 4:30-7:00 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9, 1:00-3:00 p.m. |
Topics include...
Thirteen years of teaching in college and university taught me that I am at my best when 1) I am speaking on a topic about which I am passionate, and 2) I can use the opportunity to speak to begin a meaningful discussion with my audience. While I do enjoy research and preparation, it is the engagement with the audience that makes it all worthwhile, so whether the topic is storytelling, writing, puppetry, or life, for me "public speaking" means "leading the discussion" or simply "let's talk."
...storytelling:
I love the above picture. It was taken just outside of the village of Glin, in County Limerick, Ireland, back in late March of 2008, while I was traveling there with my parents, who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. It was an absolutely beautiful, if chilly, day for our first long walk in Ireland, though as I am sure you can guess by this photograph, we got soaked by that incoming storm only a few minutes after this snapshot was taken!
So there is a "story" behind this picture, one which my parents and I enjoy remembering every time we see it. But even without that "background" story, what makes this photograph a particular favorite of mine is the drama of the moment. There is sunshine and light threatened by gloom and darkness. What more could anyone want or need to set the imagination free? This single moment in time is a story just waiting to be told.
Shall we tell that story with a short story? A novel? A play? A puppet show? A song? Who is the audience? What is the message? Are we trying to entertain? To change hearts? To get people to think outside the box? The "why" of the story may very well be as important as the "what," though in fact there may be no "why" other than the need to tell the story...
...writing:
"Why do you write what you write?" This is a question most writers hear on occasion, I think. For me, I write the stories I write, because the characters in my head demand that I write them. Most, if not all, of my characters begin in my dreams; I awaken following a particularly lucid dream, from a scene in which the characters are as real to me in the moment I awaken as the people I have known all my life. And as I return to them night after night, I experience more and more scenes, until I finally have to tell the characters' story. In fact, I only know a story is finished, when the characters are no longer in my head.
My own stories almost always start with the characters. They have to be people I want to know (and live with for the weeks or months it takes to write the book) whose background, both the good and the bad, has made them interesting people. While plot is certainly essential, too, if the characters don't grab me, I won't finish reading or writing a book. I have been known to finish reading a boring plot, if I like the characters, but I will put down even an exciting plot, if I don't like the characters. And when I'm writing, I have been known to try placing one or more of my own characters, whom I find I really like, into a number of different settings until I find a plot worthy of them.
There is more than just telling the story, though. It doesn't matter how many, or how good, the stories you have inside you are, unless you can communicate them well, because if you cannot do this, no one will read them. Learn how to write, first! Learn the rules of the language you use. Yes, all writers break the rules on occasion, but there is a difference between breaking the rules of grammar and syntax for literary effect and doing so only because you don't know what the rules are in the first place. Read, read, read! You cannot learn to write well, if you don't read. And by reading, you will soon learn to recognize the difference between a bad writer and a really good one. You may or may not know exactly what makes the writing good or bad, but as a reader, you will recognize good writing by how well it flows and by how well it keeps you reading.
...puppetry:
I am a puppeteer to my toes! I love puppet theatre in all its facets, from simple library story-time productions to the best of Industrial Light & Magic. (Think The Three Little Pigs done with finger puppets for a group of children vs. Jabba the Hut in the original Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.) Storytelling with puppets is the ultimate "high" for me, and sharing puppets with an audience is about the most fun thing I ever do. Visit my Theatre Arts link to see more...
...life:
Looking back through the fiction I have written over the last 20+ years, I find two things to be true: 1) I love romance, and 2) I often write morality plays.
Romance: The dynamic story line of "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back" has been around since Adam met Eve, so it is not all that surprising that it appears in so much of our literature. The fact is, when interesting people meet and interact, interesting things happen. And while "Romance" as a genre is rarely given its due (Romance Writers of America can give you the abysmal statistics on how rarely it is reviewed by The New York Times, for example, in spite of how often these shunned titles appear on the best-sellers lists), it does, nevertheless, give readers what they want: an entertaining story with strong characters interacting in sometimes heroic fashion and ending in happily-ever-after. These are the stories I like to read, so these are the stories I write! Contemporary, science fiction, paranormal, comedy, drama...whatever, the genre, somehow my stories always seem to have a thread of romance running through.
Morality Plays: Don't panic! No, my stories do not preach! A good story always comes first! By morality plays, I only mean stories that go beyond the action and romance to embody "something important to think about." For example, A Chance for Life is, at its heart, a pro-life story. The novel I am working on now, Unconditional Love (working title), has animal and child abuse and neglect as a central issue. Now, did I set out to write a pro-life story? An child abuse story? No, in both cases. But a significant issue can provide powerful conflict for the plot and become the catalyst that brings the heroine and hero together. Would they meet otherwise? Perhaps, but by putting such an important issue into the center of the story, not only do my characters interact on a deeper emotional level than they might otherwise, my readers can have a more meaningful interaction with them, too. Sometimes, as in my science fiction novel, The Stars of Dreams, the "morality play" is as simple as "the evil bad guys vs. the heroic good guys," but sometimes, as in A Chance for Life, it is far more complex.
...storytelling:
I love the above picture. It was taken just outside of the village of Glin, in County Limerick, Ireland, back in late March of 2008, while I was traveling there with my parents, who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. It was an absolutely beautiful, if chilly, day for our first long walk in Ireland, though as I am sure you can guess by this photograph, we got soaked by that incoming storm only a few minutes after this snapshot was taken!
So there is a "story" behind this picture, one which my parents and I enjoy remembering every time we see it. But even without that "background" story, what makes this photograph a particular favorite of mine is the drama of the moment. There is sunshine and light threatened by gloom and darkness. What more could anyone want or need to set the imagination free? This single moment in time is a story just waiting to be told.
Shall we tell that story with a short story? A novel? A play? A puppet show? A song? Who is the audience? What is the message? Are we trying to entertain? To change hearts? To get people to think outside the box? The "why" of the story may very well be as important as the "what," though in fact there may be no "why" other than the need to tell the story...
...writing:
"Why do you write what you write?" This is a question most writers hear on occasion, I think. For me, I write the stories I write, because the characters in my head demand that I write them. Most, if not all, of my characters begin in my dreams; I awaken following a particularly lucid dream, from a scene in which the characters are as real to me in the moment I awaken as the people I have known all my life. And as I return to them night after night, I experience more and more scenes, until I finally have to tell the characters' story. In fact, I only know a story is finished, when the characters are no longer in my head.
My own stories almost always start with the characters. They have to be people I want to know (and live with for the weeks or months it takes to write the book) whose background, both the good and the bad, has made them interesting people. While plot is certainly essential, too, if the characters don't grab me, I won't finish reading or writing a book. I have been known to finish reading a boring plot, if I like the characters, but I will put down even an exciting plot, if I don't like the characters. And when I'm writing, I have been known to try placing one or more of my own characters, whom I find I really like, into a number of different settings until I find a plot worthy of them.
There is more than just telling the story, though. It doesn't matter how many, or how good, the stories you have inside you are, unless you can communicate them well, because if you cannot do this, no one will read them. Learn how to write, first! Learn the rules of the language you use. Yes, all writers break the rules on occasion, but there is a difference between breaking the rules of grammar and syntax for literary effect and doing so only because you don't know what the rules are in the first place. Read, read, read! You cannot learn to write well, if you don't read. And by reading, you will soon learn to recognize the difference between a bad writer and a really good one. You may or may not know exactly what makes the writing good or bad, but as a reader, you will recognize good writing by how well it flows and by how well it keeps you reading.
...puppetry:
I am a puppeteer to my toes! I love puppet theatre in all its facets, from simple library story-time productions to the best of Industrial Light & Magic. (Think The Three Little Pigs done with finger puppets for a group of children vs. Jabba the Hut in the original Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.) Storytelling with puppets is the ultimate "high" for me, and sharing puppets with an audience is about the most fun thing I ever do. Visit my Theatre Arts link to see more...
...life:
Looking back through the fiction I have written over the last 20+ years, I find two things to be true: 1) I love romance, and 2) I often write morality plays.
Romance: The dynamic story line of "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back" has been around since Adam met Eve, so it is not all that surprising that it appears in so much of our literature. The fact is, when interesting people meet and interact, interesting things happen. And while "Romance" as a genre is rarely given its due (Romance Writers of America can give you the abysmal statistics on how rarely it is reviewed by The New York Times, for example, in spite of how often these shunned titles appear on the best-sellers lists), it does, nevertheless, give readers what they want: an entertaining story with strong characters interacting in sometimes heroic fashion and ending in happily-ever-after. These are the stories I like to read, so these are the stories I write! Contemporary, science fiction, paranormal, comedy, drama...whatever, the genre, somehow my stories always seem to have a thread of romance running through.
Morality Plays: Don't panic! No, my stories do not preach! A good story always comes first! By morality plays, I only mean stories that go beyond the action and romance to embody "something important to think about." For example, A Chance for Life is, at its heart, a pro-life story. The novel I am working on now, Unconditional Love (working title), has animal and child abuse and neglect as a central issue. Now, did I set out to write a pro-life story? An child abuse story? No, in both cases. But a significant issue can provide powerful conflict for the plot and become the catalyst that brings the heroine and hero together. Would they meet otherwise? Perhaps, but by putting such an important issue into the center of the story, not only do my characters interact on a deeper emotional level than they might otherwise, my readers can have a more meaningful interaction with them, too. Sometimes, as in my science fiction novel, The Stars of Dreams, the "morality play" is as simple as "the evil bad guys vs. the heroic good guys," but sometimes, as in A Chance for Life, it is far more complex.
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