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By Glenna Jarvis - The Madera Tribune

Higgins-Clark

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Booth

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Hern Hill

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Searles

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Wathen

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A host of speakers possessing a wealth of knowledge on the publishing industry will educate California writers during the Yosemite Writer's Conference, scheduled for Aug. 27 through 29.

Among those scheduled to speak is Doris Booth, who created a unique platform for writers, editors and agents. She calls her business, Authorlink.com, a "marketplace for editors agents and writers" where writers find agent representation, contracts signed and books are published.

"We know the editors and agents are coming to our site," Booth said. "They come for the news, for the interviews and to look for submissions."

Writers who join the group submit a query letter, and agents and editors review the letter. Then, they decide if they want to see the manuscript.

More than a million people visit the site each year. In the last four years, about 400 writers have signed on with agents and 87 sales have been made.

The reason for this success, Booth said, is the aggressive marketing the site offers, as well as the personal relationships with editors and agents she has built up over the years. In addition to the marketing side of Authorlink.com, Booth offers her own literary agency, which offers full, standard representation.

"I think we offer the widest exposure of just about anywhere," Booth said.

Booth focuses her attention on agents and editors in New York. It is there, she said, that about 80 percent of traditional publishing takes place.

One of Authorlink.com's most recent success stories is a children's author from New Mexico. One week after he came on board with Authorlink.com, a New York agent saw his material, and soon after worked a six-figure deal with Harper Collins for a two-book contract.

"That tells you that the site is working," Booth said. "It doesn't work for everybody, just like the slush piles don't work for everybody. But it is an effective tool."

Above all else, she added, the writing has to be good.

"You have to have a good way to market your work," she said, "and that is what Authorlink is all about."

The reason for Authorlink.com's success, Booth said, is because of the personal relationships she has nurtured.

"I go to New York several times a year, and each time I see 18 to 25 editors and agents face to face," she explained. "That's more than you would see at the largest conference in the country."

Membership fees vary, she said, depending on the level the writers wants. Writers joining Authorlink.com can post a brief synopsis of their work, exerts from their work, and a resume. The full manuscript is also submitted, and this is evaluated and screened by Booth for placement on the site.

"It's all those sort of tools and resources that makes the site valuable, beyond finding an agent or editor," she said.

Booth and her colleague, Anne Hawkins, will present a two-part session, Avoiding the Top 10 Editorial Mistakes, during the conference.

Keynote speaker for the conference is suspense writer Carol Higgins Clark.

Clark has authored six best-selling mystery novels, co-authored two suspense novels with her mother, Mary Higgins Clark, and is currently working on her seventh in the Regan Reilly mystery series.

A native New Yorker, Clark has appeared in several film productions, including a television movie based on her mother's novel, A Cry in the Night.

She has recorded several works by her mother, including The Cradle Will Fall, All through the Night, and the stories Death on the Cape, That's the Ticket, Voices in the Coal Bin, and The Body in the Closet.

Of her own works, she has recorded Snagged, Iced, Twanged, Fleeced, and Jinxed, all books in her Regan Reilly mystery series.

Teacher and writer Bonnie Hearn Hill will hold sessions on a one-on-one basis with writers to help hone their first 20 pages, and will offer a session with Kathleen Anderson on writing thrillers.

The conference will also feature Valley writers Cindy Wathen, Hazel Dixon-Cooper, Bob Brown, Sheree Petree, Jean Raylaury, Gary Hill, Wendy Revell, and Mary Wittee. All of these are members of Tuesday Night Writers, and students of Hill.

Hill is a full-time novelist who has recently signed a six-book contract with Mira Books, a division of Harlequin. Her newest book, Killer Body, is a thriller set in the weight loss industry, and was an editor's pick novel for March.

Hill also teaches online workshops for Writer's Digest.

"I have students coming from all over the world to meet me (at the Yosemite conference)," Hill said. These students are coming from Scotland, Alabama, Thailand, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Georgia and Mississippi.

One of Hill's online students recently signed on with a literary agent, and another won the Southwest Writer's Workshop award for best mystery novel.

Wathen recently published Remembering Cesar: The Legacy of Cesar Chavez, the first book to be endorsed by the Cesar Chavez Foundation. The publication also won the Valley Independent Publishers gold medal award in the history category.

Wathen has worked as an acquisitions coordinator for McGraw-Hill and as senior editor and publicist for Quill Driver Books. She was also assistant acquisitions editor and art researcher for the University of California Press, where she helped develop the California Natural History Guide program, the New California Poetry series and the Mark Twain Papers.

In addition, she has worked for KMPH channel 26, KFSR radio, Pollstar magazine, and is an active member of the National Writers Union, the California Writers Club and the Bay Area Editors' Forum.

Wathen will be moderator for a panel discussion, The Down-and-Dirty How to Pitch Us, where editors and agents will share the best way to pitch material and offer tips in presentation.

Hazel Dixon-Cooper, a secretary at Saint Agnus Hospital in Fresno, writes humorous astrology, and recently signed a six-figure, two-book contract with Simon and Schuster. She also writes the astrology column for Cosmopolitan magazine.

Bob Brown writes and publishes cowboy poetry. Sheree Petree is author of the Ma Bell Mysteries set in the 1960s. She won the Dark Oak Award from Oak Tree Press, and recently signed with a New York agent.

Raylaury is an internationally known quilting artist, and is now working on a quilting mystery.

"She was my role model growing up," Hill said of Raylaury. "To think she now wants to study with me just thrills me."

Gary Hill drives two hours each week from Bakersfield to attend Hearn Hill's Tuesday night sessions. Hill said he is one of the "five or six most talented people I've ever met."

Gary Hill recently won the Hackney Literary Award for short fiction.

Wittee is the author of Redneck Haiku, published by Santa Monica Press and released last year.

Also attending the conference will be Joanna Hoppes, granddaughter of Jimmy Dolittle who flew his 'Dolittle Raiders' into Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

"She's not a student," Hill said, "but we're very connected."

"I'm so lucky I'm surrounded by this kind of success," Hill said. "That's the kind of energy that I live with, and that's the kind of energy that's going to be at this conference."

Others speaking at the conference include Kathleen Anderson, president of Anderson Grinberg Literary management in New York; Robert Brown, co-founder of the Wylie-Merrick Literary Agency; Julie Burton, director of publicity for MacAdam/Cage; Esmond Harmsworth, founding partner of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency in Boston; Anne Hawkins, agent with John Hawkins and Associates, Inc.; Julie Hill, president of Hill Media; Sharene Martin, co-founder of Wylie-Merrick Literary Agency; Robert McDowell, poet and editor of Poetry After Modernism; Stephen Blake Mettee, president and publisher of Quill Driver Books/Word Dancer Press, Inc.; Carol Woods, senior editor at Timberwolf Press; magazine editors Jack Clemens, Writer's Digest, Peter Fish, Sunset, Marcia Preston, Byline, John Searles, author and deputy editor of Cosmopolitan, and Linda Swanson-Davies, Glimmer Train.

For more information on the conference or to register, go to www.yosemitewriters.com.

Glenna Jarvis For the Madera Tribune The Madera Tribune The Madera Tribune online subscription To subscribe or log on, CLICK HERE. For more information first, CLICK HERE.