Sola Writers January speaker is Shirley Jump.

Come and visit Sola's next author speaker on January 15th 2011 @ 10am:





New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shirley Jump spends her days writing women’s fiction and romantic comedies (Vegas Pregnancy Surprise, July 2010) to feed her shoe addiction and avoid cleaning the toilets. As AJ Whitten (www.ajwhitten.com), she also writes horror young adult novels for Houghton Mifflin’s Graphia imprint with her daughter (The Well, September 2009). She cleverly finds writing time by feeding her kids junk food, allowing them to dress in the clothes they find on the floor and encouraging the dogs to double as vacuum cleaners. Visit her website at www.shirleyjump.com or read recipes and life adventures at www.shirleyjump.blogspot.com.

For info on location please visit: www.solawriters.org

Thanks and I hope to see you there.
Dawn Chartier
www.dawnchartier.com

Sola Writers Meeting - 9-18-10

For information about the Sola's September writers meeting on Saturday please visit www.solawriters.org ---- Hope to see you there....

Thanks,
Dawn Chartier
NOT AN ANGEL, OUT NOW!
WWW.DAWNCHARTIER.COM

April 17th - Agent Pamela Ahearn will be the presenter at Sola-RWA group

For the April meeting Agent, Pamela Ahearn will discuss common mistakes writers make.

Ahearn was born in Cincinnati and raised on Long Island, she holds an MA from University of Chicago in Comparative Literature, and an AB from Brown University in Comp. Lit/German. She worked at Bantam Books, Dell Books and Richard Curtis Agency before moving to New Orleans, where she was with Southern Writers Agency for eight years. In l992 she founded The Ahearn Agency, Inc., which currently represents between 30-35 authors with a specialization in romance and suspense. She has represented several New York Times, USA-Today and Walden’s Bestselling authors as well as RITA, Anthony and Agatha Award winners/nominees, including Steve Berry, Grant Blackwood, S.W. Hubbard, Wendy Lindstrom, Sabrina Jeffries, Meagan McKinney, Laura Joh Rowland, Carlene Thompson and Allan Topol. She is the author of one historical romance, and lives with her husband Barry and son Thomas in New Orleans.

Come by and visit us at this months meeting.
Dawn Chartier
www.dawnchartier.com
NOT AN ANGEL, coming May 12, 2010
www.thewildrosepress.com

Sola Writers - March Presentation by Mary Lou Widmer "Researching The Historical Romance"

Speaker for Sola-Writers March 20th meeting is Mary Lou Widmer.....

Mary Lou Widmer is a native of New Orleans, a former teacher, historian, and twelve-times published author. She taught in the high schools of New Orleans for 16 years and worked in the business world before retiring to devote herself to writing.
Her first romantic historical novel,Night Jasmine, published by Dell in 1980, is still popular today. It has been on summer reading lists of several girls high schools for years. Her screenplay of this novel has twice been optioned for movie rights and is presently under consideration by a local producer.
Taking a course at UNO in the history of New Orleans, she met and formed a partnership with the teacher Joan Garvey, with whom she co-authored Beautiful Crescent, A History of New Orleans,
an ongoing best-seller in bookstores for 25 years, a textbook in local Metro Colleges and the Cabildo tour guide classes. The two teacher/historians also co-authored Louisiana, the First 300 Years.
In 1985, Berkley published her second romantic historical novel, Lace Curtain, about the Irish coming to New Orleans to dig a six-mile canal, 20, 000 of whom perished with Yellow Fever.
In 1989, Widmer wrote a hard-cover illustrated coffee-table book entitled New Orleans in the Thirties. Pelican released it and asked her to write a second nostalgia book about the Forties, then the Fifties, and thus a retrospective series was born. In the six-book series, the reader finds a panoramic view of life in New Orleans in the 20th century.
Widmer’s latest release is a hard-cover historical romance called The View from Rampart Street set in New Orleans in the 1840s, dealing with a system called placage, in which beautiful young quadroons were trained all their lives to be mistresses to white Creole gentlemen. It is presently available at bookstores, on Amazon.com. and on her web.
Widmer, an avid genealogist, has traced her ancestry back to a soldier who fought in the Battle of New Orleans. She is a member of The Daughters of 1812 and the Louisiana Colonials. She is also a former president of SOLA.
Mary Lou lives in the Lakeview section of New Orleans with her husband Al. She is the mother of two and the grandmother of four.

We hope to see you there,
Dawn Chartier

SOLA'S WRITERS MEETING - JANUARY 2010 - BARBARA COLLEY

I hope everyone had a great holiday and New Year! I know I did, but I'm sure glad it's done with. Now the kids are back in school and I can write again. Yippie...

Now on to the purpose of my blog....I'd like to invite those in the New Orleans area to come to Sola's January meeting. We have the talented author, Barbara Colley doing a presentation on writing. So bring your questions and she'll answer them.

Here's Barbara's bio and I hope to see you Saturday, January 16th, at the East Bank Regional Library. 10am....

Barbara Colley, a native of Louisiana , is an award-winning, best-selling author of sixteen novels. Her books have been published in over seventeen foreign languages. In addition to her romantic suspense novels, she is also the author of the widely acclaimed Charlotte LaRue mystery series that's set in the New Orleans Garden District and features a maid who not only cleans Garden District mansions, but solves murders as well.

Barbara has won many awards as a published writer including: a nomination by Romantic Times BookClub for the 2003 Reviewer's Choice Award for Maid For Murder, her first Charlotte LaRue mystery, and the 1996 Distinguished Artist Award (for her outstanding contributions to the literary arts in Louisiana ). In March 2005, Barbara was named "Leading Business Woman of the Week" in the metro New Orleans area by Magic 101.9 radio station.

Writing under her pseudonym Anne Logan, her romantic suspense novel, Gulf Breezes, won the 1992 Oklahoma RWA National Reader's Choice Award. Gulf Breezes also garnered the 1992 RWA Published Author Network ARTemis Award for it’s outstanding cover art.

A sought-after speaker, Barbara has lectured writing classes at Louisiana State University , has taught a writing course with the St. Charles Parish Continuing Education Program, and has been the guest speaker for many writers’ conferences.

Dusted to Death, book number eight of her Charlotte LaRue mystery series, is available now in most bookstores or can be ordered on-line.

For more about Barbara and her books, go to her web site: www.barbaracolley.com

"Keep it Clean!"Barbara Colleywww.barbaracolley.comAvailable NOW -- Dusted to Death


Hope to see you at our first meeting of 2010. If you are serious about writing, why not join others who know exactly how you feel......

Dawn Chartier
www.dawnchartier.com
NOT AN ANGEL, coming soon from The Wild Rose Press
www.thewildrosepress.com

SEPTEMBER SOLA-RWA SPEAKER - STEVEN SCAFFIDI

Join Sola on Saturday the 19th at 11:00am for a presentation by Steven Scaffidi. The focus of the presentation will be on screen writing. The information below is from his website. Hope to see you there!!! (p.s. The meeting will be back at the library on West Napoleon)

Ghost Rider Pictures was established in 1990, with a singular vision of producing thought-provoking and entertaining films and television programs. Early on, Ghost Rider established itself as one of the leading production companies in the South, producing films for The United States Marine Corps, Pioneer Entertainment, General Motors, Monsanto Agricultural Company, Exxon, Chevron, Pan American Life and banks across America..

Company founder, Steven Scaffidi, is known for producing, directing, and shooting many award-winning films and documentaries, most recently, his documentary feature, FORGOTTEN ON THE BAYOU: Rockey’s Mission to the White House www.forgottenonthebayou.com. The film received the prestigious Humanitarian Vision Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival and won for Best Documentary Feature Film at the Moondance International Film Festival in Hollywood, the First Glance Philadelphia Film Festival and the Ozone Film Festival and was a finalist at the Palm Beach Film Festival. Steven has been represented out of Los Angeles by Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and has created and sold original programs to New Line and Atlas Enterprises.

His latest project is currently with Rebel Entertainment and in development with Emmy Award-Winning Producer Scott Messick who is one of the original producers of Survivor.Ghost Rider Pictures also produced the award-winning documentary, THE PEOPLE'S STORY: The Devastation of Central America, and was the first U.S. production company to land in Honduras following Hurricane Mitch. The film was recognized as a winner at the New York, Houston and Telluride Independent Film Festivals and was a finalist in the 2000 Academy Awards.

Steven has unique flair for storytelling and has extensive experience working with actors and real people. His latest dramatic feature film stars a real warden and a real death row inmate that pushes the envelope in casting. EXECUTION www.executionfilm.com is based on his original screenplay which follows the final seven days of a condemned man’s life on death row.

This is an extraordinary and haunting film that puts the audience closer to an actual execution by electric chair than any film ever made.

(Come join us Saturday, met Steven and learn more on screen writing....)

Dawn Chartier

Diana Rowland Book Signing in Mandeville, LA - Sola Member

On Saturday June 27, SOLA member Diana Rowland will be signing her break out novel, Mark of the Demon, at Barnes and Noble in Mandeville from 2 to 4pm.

Excerpt:

When Homicide Detective Kara Gillian finds traces of arcane power on a body, she quickly realizes that this is no ordinary murder. The serial killer known as the Symbol Man is a nightmare that Beaulac, Louisiana thought had ended three years ago, but now he's back for an encore and leaving every indication on the flesh of his victims that he is well-versed in demonic lore.

However, Kara is a Summoner of Demons, and may be the only cop on the city's small force who can stop the killer. Able to see and interact with a world most people can't, Kara must draw on her skills as a police officer and master of the arcane to stop the Symbol Man from killing again and possibly summoning something even she can't control.

But with a demonic lord of unearthly beauty and power haunting her dreams, and a handsome yet disapproving FBI agent dogging her waking footsteps, she may be in way over her head....
Learn more about Diana on her website at http://www.dianarowland.com/index.html

I can't wait to get my hands on this book, been waiting a long time...

Dawn

Sola's Writers May Meeting - Kathy Love and Erin McCarthy

Just wanted to thank Kathy and Erin for coming to New Orleans for the Sola writers May meeting. We all enjoyed getting to know our characters on a deeper level!

Come back and visit us soon.......

Dawn

SOLA PRESENTS ERIN MCCARTHY AND KATHY LOVE!

On May 16th Sola-RWA local chapter presents authors, Erin McCarthy and Kathy Love. They are giving authors/writers advice on writing techniques. (I'll post more about them and the class in about a week, check back soon)....

This writers meeting is free to visitors (two free visits only). If you are a writer searching for a place to learn more about the craft, Sola is the place to be. Visit Solawriters.org for more information.

Thanks and hope to see you soon.
Dawn

Author Deborah LeBlanc is speaking at Sola's writers meeting on 4/18/09

On April 18th @ 11am at our Sola-RWA meeting our speaker will be the award-winning and best-selling author, Deborah LeBlanc.



Deborah is a business owner, a licensed death scene investigator, and an active member of two national paranormal investigation teams. She's the President of the Horror Writers Association, Mystery Writers of America's Southwest Chapter, and theWriters' Guild of Acadiana. Deborah is also the creator of the LeBlanc Literacy Challenge, an annual, national campaign designed to encourage more people to read and Literacy Inc., a non-profit organization with a mission to fight illiteracy in America's teens. Her latest book is WATER WITCH. For more information go to http://www.deborahleblanc.com/ and http://www.literacyinc.com/



If you need inspiration to write, submit, or whatever it is, she is it!



Come join us at 4747 W. Napoleon in Metairie, LA (East Bank Library).

(Visitors are welcome for free)



Dawn Chartier

http://www.dawnchartier.com/