August 21, 2022 Meeting – DRIVE Your Plot–Don’t Let it Drive You! with Shirley Jump

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Our August 21, 2022 monthly meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. with a workshop presented by best-selling author Shirley Jump on DRIVE Your Plot–Don’t Let It Drive You!, which will be followed by our monthly business and social meeting. Not a NERW member but want to attend the workshop? Join NERW now and receive access to our monthly workshops, private email forum, and Facebook group!
Headshot of author Shirley JumpWorkshop Description: Is your plot stuck in the murky middle? Feeling episodic? Falling flat with your readers? This workshop talks about the five most common plot problems that DRIVE an otherwise great story into the ground. Learn how to become the driver of your book and create emotional impact with your readers, with New York Times bestselling author and book coach Shirley Jump.
Bio: Shirley Jump is an award-winning, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and USA Today bestselling author who has published more than 80 books in 24 countries. As the owner of JumpStart Creative Solutions, Shirley also does book building, content editing, ghostwriting, and author coaching. She has worked with celebrities from The Today Show, White House advisors, and former NFL players to craft their stories in a unique and compelling way. She has spoken all over the world about the power of narrative and how to create compelling books. A former reporter and communications director for a marketing agency, she uses her diverse background to help clients create impactful content that opens up new revenue streams.

June 12, 2022 Meeting – Banking On Your Backlist with Elana Johnson

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Our June 12, 2022 monthly meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. with a workshop presented by best-selling author Elana Johnson on Banking On Your Backlist, which will be followed by our monthly business and social meeting. Not a NERW member but want to attend the workshop? Join NERW now and receive access to our monthly workshops, private email forum, and Facebook group!
Headshot of author elana johnsonWorkshop Description: Join 7 figure bestselling romance author Elana Johnson to learn how to make your backlist work harder for you! Don’t miss out on the hidden potential of your already-released books. This workshop will unlock a path to make more money from the words you’ve already written, with a few creative strategies and solid marketing tactics that can turn oldies into goldies. Elana will also share her experiences and advice with choosing whether and when to distribute her books in KU, or to go wide.
Bio: Elana Johnson is a 7-figure USA Today bestselling and Amazon Kindle All-Star Author of clean and wholesome contemporary romance. She is well-known for her young adult dystopian romance series Possession, Surrender, Abandon, and Regret, published by Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster), as well as for her multiple clean beach romance series. She also writes inspirational western romances under the USA Today bestselling pen name of Liz Isaacson.
Elana is the force behind Indie Inspiration, and has published books for writers including Writing and Releasing Rapidly and Writing Killer Cover Copy. She also runs a personal blog on publishing and is a founding author of a number of writing blogs and organizations.

April 24, 2022 Meeting – All Things Book Marketing with Pamela Kelley

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Our April 24, 2022 monthly meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. with a workshop presented by best-selling author Pamela Kelley on All Things Book Marketing, which will be followed by our monthly business and social meeting. Not a NERW member but want to attend the workshop? Join NERW now and receive access to our monthly workshops, private email forum, and Facebook group!
Headshot of author Pamela KelleyWorkshop Description: Bestselling author Pamela Kelley will discuss all things book marketing. She will share what she does for every book launch to give it the best chance to succeed. She will show the best way to find the most effective advertising targets. She’ll also share some things you can do that are super effective when you have more time than money–even if your budget is as low as $50. She’ll also answer as many questions as possible.
Bio: Pamela M. Kelley is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of women’s fiction, family sagas, and suspense. Readers often describe her books as feel-good reads with people you’d want as friends. She lives in a historic seaside town near Cape Cod and just south of Boston. She has always been an avid reader of women’s fiction, romance, mysteries, thrillers and cook books. There’s also a good chance you might get hungry when you read her books as she is a foodie, and occasionally shares a recipe or two.

March 20, 2022 Meeting – Adding Tension to your Romance with Victorine Lieske

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Our March 20, 2022 monthly meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. with a workshop presented by New York Times best-selling author Victorine Lieske on Adding Tension to your Romance, which will be followed by our monthly business and social meeting.
Headshot of author Victorine LieskeWorkshop Description: Tension is one of the most important things in a romance novel. Agents and genre experts often say lack of tension is the number one reason why a book is rejected. In this class we will talk about how to increase the tension in your stories. With easy to understand examples we will explore how to keep readers hanging on every word.
Bio: Victorine Lieske self-published her first book, Not What She Seems, in April of 2010. In March of 2011, Not What She Seems began its 6-week run on the New York Times best selling eBook list. By May 2011 she had sold over 100,000 copies. Victorine’s first romantic comedy novel hit the USA Today bestselling books list in January 2015. Victorine and her husband live in Nebraska with their four children and two cats. She loves all things romance and watches While You Were Sleeping about once every six months. When she’s not writing, she’s designing book covers for authors or making something with her extensive yarn collection. Victorine and her husband have raised their four children in Nebraska. Victorine also does graphic design work in the publishing industry.

February 20, 2022 Meeting – Story Structure Influenced by TV with Ines Johnson

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Our February 20, 2022 monthly meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. with a workshop presented by author and television writer Ines Johnson on Story Structure Influenced by TV, which will be followed by our monthly business and social meeting.
Headshot of author Ines JohnsonWorkshop Description: Traditional episodic television writers are skilled in keeping viewers in their seats during commercial breaks. They’re also adept at keeping viewers talking and guessing in the seven days between each episode. Learn the tips and tricks show runners use to hold tension and attention so that you can keep readers in their seats as you write your novel or serial! Let veteran television writer, Ines Johnson teach you her twelve-point method to structure each episode of your serial, or chapter of your novel as well as techniques to tease, lead, and hook readers.
Bio: Lover of fairytales, folklore, and mythology, Ines Johnson spends her days reimagining the stories of old in a modern world. She writes books where damsels cause the distress, princesses wield swords, and moms save the world.
Ines writes books for strong women who suck at love. If you rocked out to the twisted triangle of Jem, Jericha, and Rio as a girl; if you were slayed by vampires with souls alongside Buffy; if you need your scandalous fix from Olivia Pope each week, then you’ll love her books! Aside from being a writer, professional reader, and teacher, Ines is a very bad Buddhist. She sits in sangha each week, and while others are meditating and getting their zen on, she’s contemplating how to use the teachings to strengthen her plots and character motivations. Ines lives outside Washington, DC with her two little sidekicks who are growing up way too fast.

January 23, 2022 Meeting – Writing The Diaspora: Create Diverse Characters with History and Depth with Adriana Herrera

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Our January 23, 2022 monthly meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. with a workshop presented by author Adriana Herrera on Writing The Diaspora: Create Diverse Characters with History and Depth, which will be followed by our first monthly business and social meeting of the year.
Headshot of Adriana Herrera wearing a yellow shirt and a denim jacketWorkshop Description: In this workshop participants will gain useful some insight on their own blind spots as well perspectives to consider when they set out to write characters outside of their lived experiences. Participants will also hear about what to consider when looking to write about immigrant communities and what steps to take to execute this with sensitivity and in a manner that is respectful of the characters they aim to bring to life in their stories.
Bio: Adriana Herrera was born and raised in the Caribbean, but for the last fifteen years has let her job (and her spouse) take her all over the world. She loves writing stories about people who look and sound like her people, getting unapologetic happy endings. When she’s not dreaming up love stories, planning logistically complex vacations with her family or hunting for discount Broadway tickets, she’s a trauma therapist in New York City, working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Her Dreamers series has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist and has been featured in The TODAY Show on NBC, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Library Journal and The Washington Post. Her debut, American Dreamer, was selected as one of Booklist’s Best Romance Debuts of 2019, and one of the Top 10 Romances of 2019 by Entertainment Weekly. Her third novel, American Love Story, was one of the winners in the first annual Ripped Bodice Award for Excellence in Romantic Fiction. Adriana is an outspoken advocate for diversity in romance and has written for Remezcla and Bustle about Own Voices in the genre. She’s one of the co-creators of the Queer Romance PoC Collective.

November 21, 2021 Meeting – Avengers Assemble! What the Marvel Universe Can Teach Us About Writing a Series with Corrina Lawson

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Our November 21st monthly meeting will start at 1:00 P.M. with a workshop presented by author Corrina Lawson on Avengers Assemble! What the Marvel Universe Can Teach Us About Writing a Series, which will be followed by our final monthly business and social meeting of the year.
Author Corrina Lawson wearing a black and red batwoman costume and a black maskWorkshop Description: The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a sprawling storyworld of movies and television shows but, somehow, they’ve layered in incredible and consistent characterization and worldbuilding. Learn how they did it and how those lessons can apply to your series work.
Bio: Corrina Lawson is an award-winning author of over ten books, including two steampunk detectives books, a paranormal superhero series, and an alternate history series. She’s also a certified geek and can tell you how many different Captain Marvels exist. (It’s at least seven, by last count.)

October 17, 2021 Meeting – Q & A with Suleikha Snyder

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Our October 17th monthly meeting will start with a Q & A with author Suleikha Snyder. The workshop will be followed by our monthly business and social meeting.
Head shot of author Suleikha Snyder looking over her shoulder at the cameraWorkshop Description: Suleikha Snyder is an author with deep experience in genre writing with indie and traditional publishing. Join us for a session that answers your most burning questions about craft (short and long form), genre (PNR and R), and all things in between. Bio: Suleikha Snyder is a best-selling and award-winning author of contemporary and erotic romance, whose works have been showcased in Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, The Times of India, and NPR. An editor, writer, American desi and lifelong geek, she is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusivity in media of all kinds. Suleikha has lived in big cities like New York and Chicago but her true home is the internet. Visit her online at www.suleikhasnyder.com and follow her on Twitter @suleikhasnyder.

September 19, 2021 Meeting – The Pandemonium of a Pantser, Making the Manuscript out of the Madness with Lydia Stevens

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Our September 19th monthly meeting will start with a workshop titled “The Pandemonium of a Pantser, Making the Manuscript out of the Madness” which will be presented by author Lydia Stevens. The workshop will be followed by a Special Meeting of the Members to vote on amendments to NERW’s Articles of Organization and our monthly business and social meeting.
Headshot of author Lydia Stevens wearing a bright blue shirt outdoors on a sunny dayWorkshop Description: The Pandemonium of a Pantser, Making the Manuscript out of the Madness is a workshop teaching about the writing style of a panster, someone who writes by the seat of their pants! With so many workshops exploring the craft of plotting, this workshop is designed to provide insight into how a writer who doesn’t plot their stories, can make sense of the story they are building on the fly. With tips on how to edit a free-written story and how to overcome pitfalls and plot-blocks, The Pandemonium of a Pantser, Making the Manuscript out of the Madness will take you on a wild ride where the destination, a finished manuscript is still the same, but with no pre-planning on how to get there!
Bio: Lydia Stevens is a full-time freelance Developmental Editor and award-winning Author. Having completed her Bachelor and Master’s Degrees in Creative Writing and English, she then pursued an internship with a literary agency, Creative Media Agency and Anthem Press, an academic press based in London. Lydia has a passion for genre fiction-specifically fantasy and paranormal but enjoys working with a broad array of genres including romance, mystery, horror, science fiction, thriller, children’s books, YA, and speculative fiction. For nonfiction, she enjoys working on memoirs and inspirational novels. She is the Vice President of Programs of the Maine Romance Writers, The Horror Writers of Maine, The New England Horror Writers, The Fantasy Writers of Maine, Fans of Urban Fantasy Group, Fantasy Writers Forever Group, YA Fantasy Writers Group, and Urban Fantasy Writers Group, The Maine Women Authors, The Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, Sigma Alpha Pi’s, National Society of Leadership and Success, and Sigma Tau Delta’s, International English Honor Society. She’s the author of a paranormal/humor trilogy, The Ginger Davenport Escapades. She is the co-host of the writing podcast, The REDink Writers, a podcast about the craft of writing; put on by writers, for writers. When Lydia is not working on projects in the publishing industry, she enjoys spending time in her home taking care of her two “children,” her nine-year-old son, and her 86-year-old grandmother; along with her two cats, Sherlock Holmes, and Sirius Black and the newest addition to her family, her border collie mix, Savior.

August 15, 2021 Meeting – The 45-Minute MFA with Nisha Sharma

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Our August 15th monthly meeting will start with a workshop titled “The 45-Minute MFA” which will be presented by author Nisha Sharma. The workshop will be followed by our monthly business and social meeting.
Head shot of author Nisha Sharma holding a cup of cappucinoWorkshop Description: A master in fine arts degree is one of the most popular education tracks for those interested in a creative writing career. However, not everyone can commit to three years of formalized education. In this workshop, writers will learn about the major principles that are taught in an MFA program such as accessing creative writing resources, networking techniques, reading outside your genre, managing deadlines, and creating a brand. The workshop is suitable for attendees at all skill levels.
Bio: Nisha Sharma is the author of the critically acclaimed YA novel My So-Called Bollywood Life and the follow up, Radha and Jai’s Recipe for Romance. She also writes adult contemporary romances including The Singh Family trilogy and If Shakespeare Was An Aunty trilogy (launching March 2022). Her writing has been praised by NPR, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Teen Vogue, Buzzfeed, Hypable and more. Nisha credits her father for her multiple graduate degrees, and her mother for her love of Shah Rukh Khan and Jane Austen. She lives in New Jersey with her Alaskan husband, her cat Lizzie Bennett and her dog Nancy Drew. You can find her online at Nisha-sharma.com or on Twitter and Instagram @nishawrites.