Anna DeStefano Workshop Summary

ANNA DESTEFANO NATIONALLY BEST SELLING AUTHOR AND SPEAKER Anna DeStefano is the nationally best selling author of classic romance for Harlequin and Silhouette, and contemporary paranormal suspense and fantasy for Dorchester publishing.

She's a two-time Romantic Times Award winner, a Golden Heart winner, and she's won the Gale Wilson Award of Excellence, the Maggie Award for Excellence, and has been a finalist in numerous other awards, including the National Readers Choice awards, the Holt Medallion, and the Book Buyers Best Award.

Past President Advisor of Georgia Romance Writers (GRW), a group of over 200 published authors and aspiring writers that meets monthly in Atlanta, Anna is a GA Tech honors graduate with 10 years of experience working in Corporate IT. A Senior Tech Writer, she applies the more analytical side of her personality to studying the craft of storytelling. But her imagination rules when it's time to let the planning go and write. The result: thirteen award-winning novels published since 2004, with the second book of her paranormal suspense (Legacy) series to be released in 2011. Nearly half a million copies of her novels are in print internationally, translated into over 6 different languages.

Anna has taught for years as a technical trainer and as an adult educator in the fields of grief recovery and crisis care. She's presented her interactive writing workshops to standing roomonly crowds at over 60 conferences and events, including the Harriette Austin Writer's Conference at the University of Georgia, the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference, the Surrey International Writers Conference, and all-day and weekend retreats for smaller groups.

For more information, visit www.annawrites.com.

For detailed outlines and workshop handouts send queries to anna@annawrites.com.

Note: Several of the following workshops can be presented with literary agent Michelle Grajkowski, of 3 Seas Literary Agency (www.threeseaslit.com). Michelle has successfully sold more than 200 titles to major publishing houses including Harlequin, NAL, Berkley, Dorchester, Kensington, Avon, Pocket, Random House (both here and in the UK), Knopf, Andrews McMeel, Warner and HarperCollins. Michelle focuses on romance, women's fiction, Chick-Lit young adult and middle grade fiction.

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Craft Workshops and Seminars (1 Hour Presentations, unless otherwise noted)

Planning Through Character: Meet Your Characters First--They're your story. Plan your next novel by researching and plotting character growth--BEFORE you write the first word. An effective process is presented for planning story arc by researching your character's emotional development from the past, through the beginning, middle and end of your novel.

Once you've detailed this emotional journey, your writing is freed to find the exciting and unique plot points you'll need to show the character growth readers will identify with and keep turning the page to enjoy.

Draft Writing: Improvisation--Twelve steps to putting your planning to work and letting your creativity thrive. Draft writing requires you to trust your training, your planning and your writing, then letting yourself let go and play. Your character and story creativity are never purer than during the rough draft stage. This workshop discusses the difficult process of writing through the end of your story, without stalling your creativity by chronically replanning or indulging in rewriting before the draft is done.

Revision: Learn to Rewrite--Finishing the manuscript is just the beginning: Tools and techniques for navigating the editorial revisions necessary to sell your next manuscript.

Publishing is a team sport. The better your personal revision process is before you submit your work, and the better you can work with an editor's feedback and revision rewriting requests, the more likely your chances of becoming a prolific published author. Revision fear is discussed, along with self-editing and editorial revision techniques and guidelines.

The Secret to Stumbling Across Your Plot and Character-- This fourth and final workshop in Anna's popular writing craft series delves into the psychology and the skill sets required to produce a complete, complex manuscript that's destined to sell. This workshop highlights the executive, "softer" skills a writer needs to become and stay published in a challenging market: Inspiration, Passion, Joy and Determination. Without these, the rest is just busy work.

Process-Oriented Writing: You Control the Writing--Focus on what you control, because results beyond submitting the work for consideration are out of your hands. A small-step approach for sticking with the writing, while the publishing world spins at full-tilt around you.

Anna DeStefano

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anna@annawrites.com

Craft Workshops and Seminars, cont.

(1 Hour Presentations, unless otherwise noted)

Half-day Craft Seminar: Planning and Rewriting--Illustrating the critical connection between two writing extremes that work hand-in-hand. Students are encouraged to bring their works-in-progress so they can apply the principles taught and illustrated throughout the seminar. The author uses specific examples from her own planning, and rewriting documents to augment the curriculum (an interactive, intensive workshop, 3 hours).

All-day Craft Seminar: Your Creative Process from Beginning to End—A comprehensive course teaching the integration of character planning, improvisation and rewriting techniques into your writing process. Students are encouraged to bring their worksin-progress so they can apply the principles taught and illustrated throughout the seminar.

The author uses specific examples from her own planning, drafting and rewriting documents to augment the curriculum (an interactive, intensive workshop, 5 hours).

Anna DeStefano

www.annawrites.com Page 3 of 5

anna@annawrites.com

Communication Workshops and Seminars (1 Hour Presentations, unless otherwise noted)

Speak Up: Communication Skills That Can Make Or Break Your Career—An introduction to the listening skills, assertiveness and boundary techniques essential to building lasting professional relationships in the fast-paced, team-oriented world of professional publishing She Said, She Said: Communication Skills That Can Make or Break Your Career-An introduction to the listening skills, assertiveness and boundary techniques essential to building lasting professional relationships in the fast-paced, team-oriented world of professional publishing (an interactive workshop, taught with literary agent Michelle Grajkowski, 3 Seas Literary Agency).

Talk To Yourself: Recognizing and Maintaining Career-Making Boundaries—An intensive presentation of the techniques used to set professional boundaries and maintain relationships with those whose communication styles differ from yours (can be presented solo, or with literary agent Michelle Grajkowski, 3 Seas Literary Agency).

Turn Your Proposal Into an 'I Do'-- before you sell, often a LONG time before you sell, you must learn to navigate key professional and personal relationships that will make or break your career. The key to surviving this courtship phase? Developing business, communication and people skills that can be challenging for creative personalities to embrace. Don't be jilted at the alter. Learn how to sell your proposal and yourself to the agents and editors who want to say I Do (can be presented with literary agent Michelle Grajkowski, 3 Seas Literary Agency).

Half-day Communication Seminar: Communication Skills, Assertiveness and Boundary-setting Techniques--A comprehensive presentation of the above material, focusing on building and maintaining relationships within publishing (can be an interactive seminar, when presented with literary agent Michelle Grajkowski, 3 hours).

Anna DeStefano

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anna@annawrites.com

Publishing Career Workshops and Seminars (1 Hour Presentations, unless otherwise noted)

So You Want to Sign with an Agent Before You Sell: A Discussion of the Unpublished Author/Agent Dynamic--A myth-busting workshop that discusses how to handle your business and target your writing so you have the best chance to acquire an agent who can help secure your first publishing contract (can be presented with literary agent Michelle Grajkowski, 3 Seas Literary Agency).

Going to Market: Finding Your Publishing Home--Take the time to shop around before making decisions about your career. Everyone wants a great book deal, but how do know which deal is right for you? This presentation includes instruction on researching your voice, genre, and potential publishers so you know where your work fits; watching trends without chasing them; planning for market changes by evaluating where your work is most flexible; avoiding snap-decisions when an opportunity seems too good to be true; and knowing when it's time to make a move from what's safe, and risk taking your career to the next level.

Breaking Into Romance... What Exactly Does That Mean? A discussion of current romance genres and cross-genre opportunities in the largest segement of fiction publishing.

Includes supporting statistics and industry tips and trends to help writers find their place in this over a billion dollar a year industry.

After the Show... Key Things Everyone Should Do After a Writing Conference--So, you packed and prepared and practiced you book pitch, and you lived la vida loca at the writing conference to end all writing conferences, and you enjoyed a few blissful moments of supreme success that were THE BEST MOMENTS EVER of your writing life... But now that you're back home, how do you make the most of the time and energy and money you invested to go?

Pitch Seminar: An interactive workshop covering planning, prepping for and presenting your manuscript pitch to an editor or agent--Students are encouraged to bring their story pitch, pitch to the group, modify the pitch based on seminar instruction and group feedback, then to pitch to the group again at the conclusion of the class (2-3 hours, depending on the size of the group).

Anna DeStefano

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anna@annawrites.com