Simone DaCosta's Blog: Depicting The Writer in You, page 5

Ann Fields

Writer, author of quality literature

Ann Fields began her writing career in 1996 with the publication of her first romance novel, After Hours. Since then, Fields has published three additional romance novels, Second Time Around, Love Everlasting and Give and Take. Fuller’s Curse is her debut in the horror genre.

Fields also has published in non-fiction, authoring the book Stop Stalling and Write as well asnumerous articles which have appeared in Teen Graffiti, Basic and other magazines.

Her...

Lana Swearingen and Christa Hedrick

Authors and writers

Lana was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. I was raised in Clear Lake Shores, a small town on the Texas Gulf Coast. When we met in 1975 we had little in common other than our status as military dependents living in a foreign country. With no conscious effort we were seamlessly melded into a friendship with two other women that not only became our greatest source of comfort at that time and place, but has continued to connect us throughout the years.

We both went on,...

Janet Williams

Award-winning author

Janet is the award-winning author of the children’s picture book, What I See, I Can Be: A Guided Yoga Flow for Children.Concerned about the increasing amount of sedentary activities that both adults and children engage in, and the fact that the upcoming generation is expected to have a shorter life expectancy due to obesity related issues, she decided to take action.She has taught thousands of parents, teachers and children how to do safe, fun and age-appropriate yoga.

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Can you refer me to a legit source that can review my manuscript?

Joining a local writing group will be an excellent place to start as existing members’ opinions are just as valid as any ‘expert’ point of view.

But before an author lays himself open to a critique, I would advise all writers to place their manuscript in a drawer and not return to it for several weeks. That self-imposed separation will enable the author to see for himself mistakes in plot, structure, grammar, punctuation and spelling before anybody else.

-Martin Baum
Contributor on Simone's Blog (www.simonesblog.net)

Book Reviews

Pressure to Sing

Pressure To Sing
PRESSURE TO SING (poetry collection)
Brandon Pitts
In Our Words, Inc., 2011
80 pages, $17.95

Brandon Pitts is a contemporary poet whose unique work defies labels. Impressionist, abstract, emotional, existential, self-aware? -- yes, all of the above. Overall his poetry is personal and experiential and often confessional. Illustrating only a few of these descriptors, the first section of the book (on poets and poetry) opens with Writer:
“We sit here starving
because I’m a writer
and believe in myself
“She wants certainty
I want life
God, I’m hungry”

Revealing his inner self throughout, Pitts is by turns vulnerable, cynical, straightforward, ironic and humourous. He simply writes to his inspiration, and the resulting lines manifest the feeling, tone, and subject. This produces a deep and powerful authenticity (which is well worth the by-product, some inevitable flights of self-indulgence). His creative vocabulary is expressive and original, and seldom pretentious; but the reader may be challenged by some of his many historical, mythical, and geographical allusions.

Most of these pieces are carefully formatted on the page to show their reading rhythm. The poet demonstrates a good command of structure but is not bound by formality or rhyme. Nor is length any constraint to his inventiveness: Without You has only four lines:
“Like pH balance
Or equilibrium
Without you
I cannot sleep”;

at the other extreme, Lot runs to some 200 lines in five parts.

Pitts’ first published collection, this slim volume contains 35 poems and is illustrated with the writer’s own artistic black-and-white photographs from his world travels. The cover bears a reproduction of David Campbell Wilson’s painting, Woman (which is dramatic but takes some getting used to).

Brandon Pitts is not old in years but is assuredly mature at his craft. He is a writer to read (or better, hear) now, and to watch for in the future.

Review by John Ambury, ATSC, forrmer Communications Coordinator: Writers and Editors Network, and Member Canadian Federation of Poets, League of Canadian Poets (A), The Ontario Poetry Society.

If my book targets a primary market, how do I go about promoting it to others?

When marketing a book the writer effectively becomes his own publicist and this is where publications like the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook become an essential tool for giving all writers contact names, phone numbers and emails.

The internet also allows a writer to get the message out there to every social group including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Google+.

However, it would be wise to exercise caution because marketing, like writing, must be planned in a structured way. A scatter-gun approach is of little use and could be the difference between a press release being read or deleted.

Zohra Zoberi

Poet & writer

Winner of the 2011 Literary Arts Award from the Mississauga Arts Council, Zohra writes prose and poetry in English and Urdu.Founder and Artistic Director of Bridging the Gap Productions with a mission of “Enlightenment Through Entertainment,”she has received recognition awards from Governments of Canada and Ontario for raising awareness of social issues through her award winning theatre productions.

Her latest achievement is the publication of her prose poems in the compilatio...

Lloyd Constantine

Poet & writer

I was born in Bamboo, St. Ann, on the beautiful Caribbean island of Jamaica. With the warm climate, abundance of places for frolic and fun, five sisters and an unending supply of tropical fruits, game birds and river fish, I completed my early education and, with the help of a scholarship, Engineering College, without even knowing that my family was poor.

After Mechanical Engineering and Life Insurance careers, I moved to Canada, where I spent two decades with a transit compan...

Judie Oron

Award-winning author & writer

Judie Oron is a Canadian/Israeli journalist who was born in Montreal , moved to Israel in 1967 and returned to Canada in 2004. Judie worked as a weekly columnist and feature writer at the Israeli, English-language newspaper, ‘The Jerusalem Post.’ During that period, she was appointed Director of the newspaper’s four charitable Funds, including ‘Operation Homecoming,’ for Ethiopian Jewish immigrants arriving in Israel after a secret airlift from Sudan, code–name...

David Tucker

Award-winning television writer, producer, director & author

David L. Tucker is an award-winning television writer, producer and director. He holds a terminal degree in Fine Arts and is a professor of media at Ryerson University in Toronto. A former chair and associate dean at Toronto’s Ryerson University and Oakville’s Sheridan College respectively, Tucker was a recent Writer-in-Residence with Open Book Toronto and is a frequent guest speaker at internationalarts and media conferences. H...