In this edition…
Where to connect with us this fall;
Back-to-school thoughts from our authors;
Watch for these titles;
Events
I just sent my daughter off to begin her sophomore year in high school. The week before that, the air cooled subtly and the slant of light changed. Now I’m dreaming about apples, and cider, and tea, and soup. And fall book festivals. (And voting, of course). Are you as ready for this season change as we are? Why is it that the season of harvest before the quiet winter months seems so invigorating? Let’s discuss over a nice mug of tea this fall, yeah?
I love that certain people (looking at you, Denise Kiernan) continue to hew to the rhythm of the school year by getting back-to-school bags, pens, notebooks, or clothes this time of year. Personally, I love a syllabus. All that potential! All those recommended books or essays or short stories! So, I asked our authors to provide a few syllabatic (yes, I believe I invented that word) thoughts to share with you all. It’s a fun batch of writerly advice and readings. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
I also loved this roundup of writing advice from previous winners of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, if you need a little more.
Seriously, we do hope to see some of you this season. Below, you’ll find a few places to connect with us as we move about the literary ecosystem. Let us know if we’ll get a chance to see you!
As always, if there is anything we can do for you, or to support you, please reach out. Thanks for reading!
—Lauren
Let’s Connect!
We’ll be attending the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival in Burnsville, NC this month. Catch us on Friday, September 6th and Saturday, September 7th in this gorgeous small mountain town. We might be at one of the many incredible presentations, checking out the books at the Malaprop’s table, or drooling over the selection at Plott Hound Books.
Later in the month, Lauren will be part of the very first Punch Bucket Lit Festival in Asheville! She’ll be talking about artistic community with Maggie Marshall of The Flatiron Writers Room, Stephanie Hickling Beckman of Different Strokes Performing Arts Collective, and Lockie Hunter of Juniper Bends Reading Series and WordPlay Radio. Saturday, September 21 at 8:30am. Renaissance Hotel Top of the Plaza. Get your tickets here!
The North Carolina Writers Network Fall Conference is back in Asheville and Lauren and Caroline are on the faculty! Join us for “Author Events: Getting the Most Out of a Tour or One-Off” on Saturday, November 2nd at 9am. Gold Leaf authors Lauren Yero, Jennifer McGaha, Heather Newton, and Zackary Vernon are all teaching, too. Get the full schedule here.
Back-to-School for Writers
Sources
“When writing nonfiction, you can’t top primary sources. When I was writing a picture book biography about Wilma Dykeman, Lauren introduced me to Wilma’s son, Jim Stokely. He not only read the manuscript to check my research but suggested some additions to the Author’s Note.”
—Shannon Hitchcock, author of Of Words & Water
Switchback Scenes
“I recently attended a writing conference in Portland, Oregon, where self-described ‘Book Coach’ Abigail Raeke discussed what she called her Switchback Scene technique. All good scenes, she argued, are about change. Something happens in the exterior world that affects your character interiorly. Within each scene are five core beats, each switching back and forth from a place of indecision/inaction to a place of resolution/action.
Scenes begin by grounding the character—and the reader—in place. Then the second beat ‘switches’ the scene—there is an initial drive that disrupts where the character is, physically or mentally. That sets the character off on a new course of action, but, in the third beat, something happens to block the character from achieving that goal. The ‘but’ moment is the scene’s core conflict. Once the challenge has been revealed, the character makes a decision to act—or to not act.
Inside, they may be processing the decision, or reasoning it out, or even going through a flashback that applies to the situation. More ‘but’ moments and subsequent decisions to act can be added to lengthen a scene. When the character has made their final decision to act, the scene enters its final beat—the shift. The character—and the story—move forward in a new direction. A new scene then begins, with a whole new series of switchbacks, which lead to the next course of action.
Raeke has an online class at her website that explains this much better than I have. I haven’t used this technique yet, but I’m interested to try it out the next time I’m writing a first draft!”
—Alan Gratz, author of Heroes
Recommended Reading
“I’d recommend Elements of the Writing Craft by Robert Olmstead. It’s a great book of writing exercises and one thing I really liked about it is it brings in excerpts with an analysis, to excavate craft ideas.”
—Andrew K. Clark, author of Where Dark Things Grow“Craft books abound, but the one I take down from the shelf repeatedly is James Wood’s How Fiction Works, which more than lives up to its title. If you want insights into the tricky ins and outs of Point of View, read Wood.
For Substack followers, check out George Sander’s Story Club. For a measly $6 a month, you can audit a master teacher’s fiction class, as he dissects short stories and offers encouragement to new writers.”
—Dale Neal, author of Kings of Coweetsee and The Woman with the Stone Knife“I just re-read Stephen King’s On Writing after many years, and found it still as inspiring as the first time I read it. Over the years I’ve heard a lot of people say that they don’t care for it. I suspect that they were expecting a more practical guide to writing, and this isn’t it. It’s really an account of his journey as a writer.
I am also re-reading Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write, which I would also place in the inspirational not practical camp.
Next up, I may re-read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. I can’t recall anything about that book except that I liked it at the time I read it.”
—Joseph D’Agnese, author of Sorceress Kringle
“I’ve been working on a memoir on and off for a while now. I was hesitant to use Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing about Grief and Loss by Jessica Handler because I’m married to the author. Then I figured why not? And it really helped me understand how to structure my memoir.”
—Mickey Dubrow, author of Bulletproof
Writing Your Way to Understanding
“Some of the best writing advice I have ever gotten came from Robert Olen Butler’s From Where You Dream, a compilation of Butler’s MFA lectures (edited by Janet Burroway). The book is intended for fiction writers, but so much of what Butler says is applicable to memoir writers as well.
For example, Butler says readers should understand what the main character most wants (the deepest ‘yearning’) early in a work and that this yearning should not only be present throughout the work but should also drive the narrative. Butler also says that any work he has read that is not compelling is lacking this key element. I first read Butler’s book in a Great Smokies Writing Program workshop with author Tommy Hays, and it struck me as one of those things that, as a reader, I intuitively understood but that, as a writer, I needed practice developing.
In memoir writing, when the main character is often the writer, it can be hard to know what the deepest yearning is (after all, those longings are often hidden, even from ourselves). This is why I try to remember that sometimes I need to write my way through my stories until that deeper yearning, the one that is there in my subconscious, reveals itself. This single piece of advice (and from a guy who’s pretty critical of memoir writing, in fact!) has dramatically changed the way I approach both writing and revision—and it reminds me how much writers across genres have to teach one another.”
—Jennifer McGaha, author of Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out
*A note about our links: we love to support independent booksellers of new and used books, so you’ll find that the links we include here, and in our other newsletters, bring you to places like Malaprop’s, our home bookstore, or Bookshop.org or Biblio.com, which support indie stores. Our back-to-school recommendation? Make sure your web site links to your favorite indie, or one of these larger consortiums of indie stores, to help people remember that we always have options!
October Titles
The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape
by Terry Roberts
“If Hercule Poirot had been born in Appalachia instead of in Belgium, he would be Stephen Robbins.”
—Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and This Isn’t Going to End Well
Coming October 1, 2024
Edgar
by David Allen Voyles
What if Edgar Allan Poe’s scariest stories were inspired by actual supernatural events that took place when he was a boy?
Coming October 1, 2024
The Woman with the Stone Knife
by Dale Neal
An exhibit at the Museum of the Cherokee People stoked Neal’s imagination, leading to this second title publishing this year. Based on a historical figure, this novel travels from Cherokee lands in WNC to Georgian England.
Coming October 8, 2024
For She is Wrath
by Emily Varga
This gender-swapped, Pakistani Count of Monte Cristo retelling is “a fresh, riveting fantasy,” according to Susan Dennard, author of The Luminaries.
Coming October 29, 2024
Upcoming Events
All times are Eastern, and all events free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.
Denise Kiernan’s CRAFT: Authors in Conversation featuring André Darlington
Little Jumbo, Asheville, NC
Sunday, September 8 @ 4:30pm
Andrew Clark’s Where Dark Things Grow launch!
In conversation with Meagan Lucas
Malaprop’s, Asheville, NC
Tuesday, September 10 @ 6pm
Andrew Clark in conversation with Maris Lawyer
M. Judson Booksellers, Greenville, SC
Thursday, September 12 @ 5:30pm
Dale Neal in conversation with Marjorie Hudson
McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro, NC
Saturday, September 14 @ 11am
Andrew Clark in conversation with Robert Gwaltney
FoxTale Book Shoppe, Woodstock, GA
Sunday, September 15 @ 2pm
Mickey Dubrow in conversation with Jessica Handler
Little Jumbo, Asheville, NC
Sunday, September 15 @ 5pm
Alan Gratz Virtual School Visit
Crowdcast, join from anywhere!
Tuesday, September 24 @ 1pm
Andrew Clark in conversation with Katherine Oxnard Ellis
The Learning Center, Savannah, GA
Wednesday, September 25 @ 12pm
*registration is required, cost is $15
Andrew Clark and Nathan Ballingrud
City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, NC
Saturday, October 5 @ 3pm
Terry Roberts’ The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape launch!
Citizen Vinyl, Asheville, NC
Tuesday, October 8 @ time tba
*free, but registration required (keep an eye on our socials for links!)
Dale Neal reading
City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, NC
Thursday, October 17 @ 6pm
Terry Roberts reading
City Lights Bookstore, Sylva, NC
Saturday, October 19 @ 3pm
As always, please feel free to share this with anyone you think would enjoy it. We appreciate you and our lush literary ecosystem so much!
Connect with us on social media! @goldleafliterary
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” —Robert Louis Stevenson