whats up CWG – Catholic Writers Guild

Tag Archive for: whats up CWG

Catholic Writers Conference, July 29-August 1, 2014

July 22, 2014/7 Comments/in Catholic Writers Conference Live, Catholic Writers Guild, Catholic Writing and Publishing, CWG member benefits, CWG Needs Volunteers, Encouragement for Writers, Marketing Your Work, Networking, The Writing Life/by Leslie Lynch

EWTN Bookmark interviews at the CWG Booth

Headed for Catholic Writers Conference next week? Are you excited? You should be! Take a look at this photo to get a sense of the energy and opportunities that await! What an opportunity to rub shoulders with industry professionals, to put names and personalities to folks you’ve met online, to renew friendships, and to network. This is a once in a lifetime experience; make the most of it. There will never be another gathering of exactly the same people at this point in their faith and writing journeys. Truly you are in Chicago, Illinois, because God has called you to be there!

Each of you has a specific reason for attending, a goal you hope to accomplish. If this is your first conference experience, the coming days are likely to be a roller coaster of euphoria juxtaposed with self doubt. Be assured that you are not the only one grappling with these feelings. I hope this knowledge translates into a greater sense of ease in a new and sometimes intimidating environment. Here are some words of advice (of wisdom, too, hopefully!) for both newbies and veterans, for authors, for agents, and for editors, geared toward making this conference the best it can be for everyone:

1) Everyone’s goals are the same, ultimately. Editors want to find the next diamond of a manuscript to publish. Agents want to discover the next author whose career they can guide to new heights. Authors want to find a publisher and/or agent to promote their awesome work. And in this particular setting, all of these people want to serve God with their talents and gifts in the way that pleases Him the most.

When viewed through that prism, competition loses the edge of greed and rejection loses its sting. We’re all on the same side, and God’s looking out for the good of each person’s life and career. This doesn’t mean you should fail to promote your product, just that there is no need for fear. Which brings us to the next point.

2) Be confident. You have something no one else does: your voice, and your work. These are gifts that God has given you, gifts that you have honed with hard work and prayer. No one can duplicate your contribution. Take heart in that fact, and know that your work will find its home. Maybe through this conference; maybe not – which leads to…

3) Don’t take rejection personally. Sometimes it just isn’t a good fit for the publisher or agent. Imagine a library with thousands of books. You have three days to find the best two. You will have to create a system to sort and discard the ones that aren’t suitable for your purpose. Do you see that many wonderful, deserving books will be overlooked? This does not reflect on the worthiness of each one, the same way it does not reflect on your particular project. And in today’s climate, many options are available. So…

4) Be open. There are many possibilities that we may not recognize in our limited, human view. Be open to new ideas, new directions, new options. You may discover a brand new path, or even a calling! You may discover it through…

5) Networking. This is the whole purpose of a conference. Meet people! Ask them what they write, who they want to represent, what they want to publish. Have a brief answer ready when others ask you these questions. (I write ____ and my current project is about ____.)

This is a remarkably small community, and the contacts you make in the next few days will serve you for your entire career. Do not discount the importance of these interactions. They are crucial for your success. But remember…

6) Be nice. This should go without saying, especially in this setting, but we are human and sometimes we need to be reminded. Keep your comments positive; you never know who might overhear or repeat something you said in a frustrated or disappointed moment. Again, this is a remarkably small community even though it may not seem that way.

Also, restrict your interactions to appropriate venues. Don’t try to pitch to an agent or publisher in the restroom, or shove your manuscript under the door of the stall. I have seen the first and have heard of the second, so these are not as far-fetched as they seem. Be considerate of folks. If the target of your interest has a headache or gets a pained look on their face when you approach, be brief. Introduce yourself and say you’d like to send them a query if that is acceptable; believe me, they will remember and appreciate your kindness. And that goes a long way. Which leads to the last point…

7) Be yourself. This may call for leaving your comfort zone, though. If you tend to be shy (many writers are!) push yourself to be more sociable. It’s not hard; smile and ask people around you about themselves. You’ll be glad you did. If you are an extrovert, recognize your tendency to overshadow the more timid among us and let them shine, too.

8) Use social media to keep the non-conference-goers among us updated! There’s the CWG Facebook page and your personal Facebook/Twitter, etc. accounts. The ripple effect can be unlimited. Share the love!

I hope each one of you has a wonderful experience at the Catholic Writers Conference! And… Oops! I forgot the most important words of advice! HAVE FUN!

What’s Up, CWG? (September 2011)

September 23, 2011/0 Comments/in CWG Needs Volunteers/by Karina Fabian

After a break for the summer (though we did meet), the officers are up and Skyping again, catching up on the past and prepping for the future. First thing we want you to know:

Officer Elections are in November! We discussed it and we will stay on as your officer cadre if you wish (though Karina would like to be committee coordinator and Dave would be secretary). However, that’s if no one else wants to run. Check out the forums for a list of duties and to nominate yourself or others.

We only have a couple more days to get registrants for the retreat. We have 12 so far. Register by September 26 (Monday). This is a terrific opportunity and a great price. All members and CWG website guests got an e-mail about this Wednesday; for anyone else interested, check out the press release on the homepage, http://catholicwritersguild.com

Ann Lewis, our intrepid Madame President, met with our advisors at the Archdiocese of Indianapolis about how they want to be involved. They’ll attend our annual board meeting and keep an eye on our doings via the minutes. Monsignor Schaedel also wants to help out with the Seal of Approval and blog once a month. What a treat! They’ll also send out notices of CWG events to the Catholic education heads in the diocese.

We have about $950 for the website–half our goal–and have sent out the spec documents, and will let you know more about the website rebuild as the bids come in.

We have hired a new treasurer. Diane Guay was a great help to us for the first six months of incorporation, but she’s moving on, and we are hiring Mark Rhodes of Indiana. He came recommended by the Archdiocese and has already given us some great advice on simplifying the accounting–a real relief for us non-financial types!

We’re gearing up for the online conference! Anne McNesby will be working to get our awesome presenters, and Laura Lowder our much-needed and appreciated volunteers. More on this later!

We may be changing the date and location of the live conference. The Catholic Marketing Network gives us the conference space, so we follow them, and they are looking at Dallas and later in August. Thanks to those who took the survey on the dates. (We have no input on place, though we recommended Indianapolis.) We’ll let you know.

Our publicity committee has been doing an awesome job. Thanks.

We have a new Sunday Chats Coordinator. Susi Pittman is taking over this month and will be working to line up some terrific folks to chat with us. We have a guest chat once a month; the rest are open chats. Theresa Henderson and Lisa Mladinich will stay on to help. Welcome, Susi!

Sarah Reinhard has a new right hand for the Seal of Approval. Welcome Carol Ann Chybrowski, and thanks for stepping up!

Michelle Buckman will take over the Catholic Arts and Letters Awards Committee. We still need more volunteers to help with this, but thanks to Sharon Pickrel, Carol Ann, and Bobbi Sheahan for volunteering!

We toyed with the idea of a facebook group, but decided to stay as a fan page.

We are moving slowly with the CWG essay contest. Maria Rivera now had two volunteers to help (Joan Kelly and Ann Costa), and needs to coordinate with them on everything from rules to judging. We had a pro-life group offer to help judge and had suggestions for a couple of others, so stay tuned for further details!

Karina has at long last gotten all the minutes loaded onto the member forums, so if you are a member and deathly curious about the minutia of an officer’s meeting, check them out.

That’s the highlights of the summer. Thanks to all who are pitching in to make the Guild a terrific organization. We can’t do it without you!

Blessings,
Karina Fabian
Secretary

What’s Up, CWG? (June 2011)

June 24, 2011/0 Comments/in CWG Needs Volunteers/by Karina Fabian

Posted by CWG Secretary

Hi, Everybody!

How’s your summer going? It’s a busy one for the CWG, with preparations for the conference, the retreat, the Catholic Arts and Letters Awards and more! Read on for important updates and discussions of the June Officer Meeting:

1. Catholic Writers’ Retreat. You should have heard about this from now; if not, check out our blog post for details. We have the registration details set up and the retreat center has made us brochures for handing out at the Catholic Writers Conference Live in August. We’re looking into sending a press release via ChristianNewsWire, once we see if we get results from the press release we sent them for the CWCL. (It’s $65, and we want to be sure it’s an effective investment.) We purposely kept the price of the retreat low, but should there be any profits, they will be split between the three sponsors: the retreat center, Faith Publishing and the CWG.

2. Did you know the Guild has a Spiritual Director? Ann Lewis plans to meet with Monsignor Schaedel next month to brief him on the Guild and find out how active he wants to be in our activities. He was Ann’s pastor, but is moving parishes. We also have a representative for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Dr. Harry Plummer. The Archdiocese is our sponsor within the Church; for more on its role, check the bylaws.

3. We have $630 in donations toward our website. Thanks so much! The spec document should be going out in a couple of weeks to all those interested in bidding on building our new website. We’ll be putting this money in savings until we’re ready to go on with the project.

4. It was suggested in CWG Chat that we sell ad space to our website. We are making provisions for that in the upgrade, though we will probably sell the space for all three of our sites: the CWG Website, the CWG blog and the Conference Website. We will probably need some volunteers when this happens to make sure our ads are only for people or groups that conform to the Magesterium.

5. We are going to increase dues in January 2012 to $30 a year. As we’ve grown, so have our expenses; our analysis by accountant Diane Embry shows this should meet our needs.

6. Speaking of, Diane is stepping down as Guild accountant. We have a couple of bids for a new accountant and will be hiring someone in the next couple of weeks.

7. Every now and then, we have an author who disputes a decision by the Seal of Approval Committee or the Booth Committee on approving a book. (Primarily on whether we think it doesn’t conform to Catholic belief and traditions or if we do not feel comfortable recommending it to a Catholic Bookstore.) The thought of an appeals committee was discussed, but rejected for several reasons: We already have several readers making the decision, and when there is any doubt, we take it to a trusted readers’ group when the first run readers have doubts; we would be complicating a process that already overwhelms our coordinators at times; we tend to give books the benefit of a doubt, anyway; and our decisions do not carry the weight of an Imprimatur, but are a discretionary process to keep the CWG in conformity with the Magesterium. Therefore, decisions will be final, although we will consider rewrites.

8. We know that Guild members would like to have more intercommunication. Please remember that we have Facebook, and you are welcome to post there. We also have Larissa Hoffman who posts member news on the blog (see the sidebar). We have put into the website spec the provision to create a Yahoo-type e-mail chat group.

9. Dave will be writing up the committee news later, but a few highlights:

* The PR group has been doing an awesome job. Thanks so much!
* We only have ten folks signed up for the Live Conference in August. Please tell your friends. You can use the info on the press release here.
* We Need Conference Volunteers (you get free admission!) Contact laura.lowder(at)gmail.com
* We Need Some Volunteers for the CWG Chat Committee! Contact me (karina(at)fabianspace.com)
* We Need to Rebuild our Catholic Arts and Letters Committee! Contact me (karina(at)fabianspace.com)
* We Need Volunteers to Build the Catholic Writers Wiki! Right now, it’s simple clean up and uploading photos. Contact davealaw(at)shaw.ca.

Blessings,
Karina Fabian
CWG Secretary

What’s Up, CWG? (May 2011)

May 18, 2011/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Karina Fabian

Hi, Members! Karina Fabian here with the behind-the-scenes scoop on the happenings in the Guild (or at least in “officer country”):

* We are having an essay contest! We’re still working out some of the details with the coordinator, Maria Rivera, but I can tell you the topic is “How to Create a Prolife Culture” and the deadline for submissions will be December or January. Start thinking, but DON’T SEND ANYTHING until we get the rules out. We’ll publicize, promise! This will be open to non-members, too.

* We’re still hashing out some details on the October Writer’s Retreat. This is different from a conference in that it will be smaller, more intense, and more writing focused. I can tell you it’s in Michigan, and that we’ve got shuttle service from the airport to the retreat center. More later!

* We’re talking about increasing dues, but “grandfathering” everyone who is a current member on the subscription program, meaning those members will stay on the the current rate of $24 a year. We’re going to ask our accountant (Diane Embry, the Detail Diva) do an analysis of the Guild expenses to see how much/how little we need to raise it. We have a lot of expenses, and with the increase in activities, we expect more.

* Speaking of activities, we have a lot of great stuff going on. The newest development is the Catholic Writers Guild Wiki, which will be a special showcase just for Catholic writers. Dave Law is going to get the coding worked out in the next couple of weeks and import as many Catholic writers as he can from Wikipedia. Then he’ll start adding other authors.

* The volunteer drive has been a success so far, and has taken the pressure off some very busy committees. However, we still need some help. Here are the most urgent needs:

–We need someone with some basic knowledge of HTML or BBC code to code the Inside the CWG newsletter.
–We need writers for the CWG newsletter.
–We will need editors and helpers with the Catholic Writers Wiki, a project which should start up in a couple of weeks.
–We may some assistants with the Essay Contest
–The Live Conference needs helpers

That’s the gist for this month. Stay tuned for more exciting news from your Guild.

Blessings,
Karina

What’s Up, CWG?

April 15, 2011/2 Comments/in Catholic Writers Guild, CWG Needs Volunteers/by Karina Fabian

Happy Friday! I am so looking forward to the weekend, but there’s always so much to do–and it starts with telling all of you about the exciting stuff going on with CWG!

We had our officer’s meeting last night–what a crazy thing that was! You’d think getting 5 people together would be easy, but not with our schedules! Here’s what kept some of us going until nearly midnight:

We are hosting a Catholic Writers’ Retreat October 5-9 in DeWitt, Michigan. We’re still working the price with the St. Francis Retreat Center, but we have a draft program set up. Pat Gohn, Claudia Volkman, Father Charlie Irvin, Fr. Joe Krupp, and Father David Bosenberg will have workshops on faith in writing, and how faith inspires writing. There will be ample time to write and regular critique sessions. This is an intense workshop with limited attendance. We’ll be sending out a notice when we get things finalized, but in the meantime, mark the dates!

We are working on a Members-Only page for the website where we will post such things as useful mailing lists, copies of the newsletter Funds for Writers, and other goodies just for Guildies!

Incidentally, as many of you have noted, our website is difficult to navigate. We want to hire a professional company to revamp it, but that takes money. We’ve decided to start by asking for donations. We’ll let you know when we get that set up. We’ll also be doing some raffles and other fundraisers. We figure we need at least $2000 to get a really rocking site that will be easy for members to navigate–and take some of the pressure off those working the back-end.

We’re planning an essay contest! Guildie Maria Rivera has wanted to do this for a long time. The topic is “How to promote a Pro-Life culture” and it will have a $10 entry fee, but pay prizes to the top three winners–plus up to seven will be in an e-book the Guild will publish. We’re just working details now, and plan to start the contest around August, so get your ideas brewing. If you would like to help judge, please comment on this blog.

We want to recognize Jennifer Fitz and Sarah Reinhard for starting this amazing blog! KUDOS!

The Catholic Arts and Letters Award for 2011 is in the judging stage. Thanks to the amazing folks who made this happen!

The Seal of Approval program has been going well, but we’ve also learned a lot in the process. We made a couple of changes to the judging criteria, and have decided to make a couple of standards a little more stringent as well. Stay tuned and be sure to check out the website for current guidelines when submitting.

Finally, the topic dearest to my heart. We do a lot in this guild, and want to do more, but we need more helpers. Right now, about 15 people are handling a dozen projects of national scope–and usually are involved in several. We need some leaders, but we also need some worker-bees: folks who will read a book, do a mail-out, contact an individual, write a short article or press release… If we get more folks doing just one task a week–a month!–we would relieve some pressure. I’ll do a separate blog on this next week, but if you want to help, just comment below!

Our meetings always begin and end with a prayer. Please know that we pray for all of you–for your writing successes and that you may always stay close to God the Inspirer.

Blessings,
Karina

Tag Archive for: whats up CWG

What’s Up, CWG? (September 2011)

What’s Up, CWG? (June 2011)

What’s Up, CWG? (May 2011)

What’s Up, CWG?

Stay in the Know

Join Our Newsletter

Pray with Us