Your North Island Writers Conference committee is pleased to present the third mid-conference session event titled: “From Private to Public – How to Read Your Work”. It will be held on Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 7 p.m. via Zoom.

In order to promote their books, authors need to be prepared to read from their work in front of an audience. This is not always an easy thing to do and takes lots of practice.  In this presentation, our guest speaker, Richard Brown, will describe why public speaking is a learned skill and will provide insight in how to acquire this skill.

Richard’s forty-year career in Information Technology put him in front of many different audiences, for purposes of training, leading and managing expectations. Eventually, this led him into working as an Adult Instructor with High School students, and later, joining Toastmasters.

There will time for questions at the end.

To register for From Private to Public – How to Read Your Work, please fill out the form under the “Registration” tab by November 3rd. Once you have registered, look for your Zoom invitation for this event to arrive in your Inbox and save it to your calendar. (Check your “Spam” folder if you do not see the Zoom invitation.)

This event is for CVWS members only.

If you have any questions, please contact Joline at [email protected]. (It is listed in the drop-down Contacts box on the Contact page.) If you do not see your Zoom invitation, please contact [email protected]…also in the drop-down Contacts box)

Your North Island Writers Conference committee is excited to launch the second mid-conference session event titled: “Marketing Your Book in a Time of COVID and Beyond”. It will be held on Thursday, May 13, 2021 at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Three panel members – Terry James, Marlet Ashley and Teresa Hedley – (all CVWS members) will answer questions from the moderator and the attendees.

The aim of the Q & A panel session is to find solutions that can be applied during this restrictive atmosphere to form a supportive network for authors to continue their work into the future.

This event is for CVWS members only. Time being limited, each member may only ask one question of the panel which is pertinent to marketing a book. Please write out your question in the box provided on the registration form. In case someone has already asked the same question, please write out your secondary question in the space provided.

To register for Marketing Your Book in a Time of COVID and Beyond, please fill out the form under the “Registration” tab by May 9th. Once you have registered, look for your Zoom invitation for this event to arrive in your Inbox on May 10th.

If you have any questions, please contact Joline at [email protected]. (It is listed in the drop-down Contacts box on the Contact page.)

Terrance James
Terrance James earned BA and MEd degrees at UVIC and a PhD from the Rehabilitation Studies Department at the University of Calgary. He is a career educator having taught at elementary, secondary, college and university levels.

Writing has been a life-long interest. He has written: travelogues, poetry, professional journal articles, manuals and books. He has been published by a traditional publisher, and has self-published. He has worked as a proof-reader for an international organization and associate editor for an academic journal.

In retirement he and his wife operate Poplar Publishing, a small home-based business that publishes niche market books for first time authors in the Comox Valley. Most of these are books of memoir, family history, or autobiography written by seniors.

Marlet Ashley, B.A., B.Ed., M.A.
Marlet began her career as a T.A. in psychology at the University of Windsor and an instructor of psychology at St. Clair College of Applied Arts and Technology, Windsor, Ontario. After earning an M.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing at the U. of Windsor, she taught creative writing there as a sessional instructor. Moving to Vancouver, B.C., she was a tenured instructor of literature and composition at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, B.C.

Her first novel is The Right Kind of Crazy (2018). Along with the children’s books series Revelry on the Estuary—The Interlopers, Trumpeters’ Tribulations, Penelope Piper’s Great Adventure, Henri Sings the Blues, and A Pirate’s Life for Gabby—as well as a children’s Christmas book—Must Be Christmas—and Robin and Ruthie Ride the Bus, her short stories and poetry have been included in a variety of literary and university publications including Generation, Wayzgoose, Taproot, and others. She is the author of the Canadian edition of Literature and the Writing Process, Pearson Prentice Hall, Toronto.

She is a member of the Federation of BC Writers and the Comox Valley Writers Society under whose auspices she facilitates a fiction writing group. Marlet has been a guest lecturer at Elder College at North Island College. She has also conducted workshops for the Comox Valley Writers Society’s conference at North Island College (2018, 2019, 2020). One of three finalists for the 2012 John Kenneth Galbraith Literary Award, she was also the recipient of an honourable mention in the Lorian Hemmingway 2018 Short Story Competition and the 2020 Writers’ Digest Literary Short Fiction Contest. Marlet lives in Comox, BC. Visit her blog at https://marletswords.wordpress.com.

Teresa Hedley
Teresa Hedley is the author of What’s Not Allowed? A Family Journey with Autism (Wintertickle Press, 2020), a memoir which offers an uplifting approach to mining the best version of each of us, autism or not. Teresa is also a parent, an educator and a curriculum designer. Teaching stints in Canada, Japan, Greece, Spain and Germany have shaped her perspective. As an armed forces family, the Hedleys lived coast to coast in Canada. Teresa and son Erik co-wrote a twenty-article series for Autism Matters magazine, “I Have Autism and I Need Your Help.” Additionally, Teresa worked with families and school boards in Ottawa as an autism consultant and advocate. She and her family returned to the Comox Valley in 2019 and are happy to be back beside the ocean.

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