preamble

Course Schedule



Thursday, March 29, 2012


7:00      Registration/Continental Breakfast

8:00      Introduction/Welcome      Julie Silver, MD

8:30      Understanding the Publishing Industry      Julie Silver, MD

9:00      Writing a Nonfiction Book Proposal      Julie Silver, MD

10:00      Break

10:30      Supporting Your Healing Mission through Publishing      Lillie Shockney, RN, BS, MAS

11:30      Book Signing Lillie Shockney and Lunch (on your own)

1:30      Publishing Procedures & Protocols (Panel Discussion with Literary Agents & Editors)     (Julie Silver, MD, Moderator)

2:30      Perfectionism and the Writing Process      Jeff Szymanski, PhD

3:15      A New Author's Odyssey      Julia Edelman, MD

4:00      Book Signing Jeff Szymanski/Julia Edelman and Dinner (on your own)

6:00      Book Pitches Workshop      Julie Silver, MD

7:00-8:45      Writers' Workshop



Friday, March 30, 2012


7:00      Continental Breakfast

8:00      Trends in Publishing: Effective Ways to Connect the Public with Health Information      Julie Silver, MD

9:00      Creating a Powerful Memoir      Leah Hager Cohen

10:00      The Art and Science of Telling a Story:Writing Compelling Narrative Nonfiction      Adam Wolfberg, MD, MPH

10:45      Book Signing Katherine Russell Rich, Adam Wolfberg and Break

11:00      Narrative Writing in Healing:The Power of Stories      Elizabeth Rider, MD, MSW

11:45      Lunch (on your own)

1:00      The Merging of Memoir, Narrative and Self-Help Books      Julie Silver, MD

1:45      Making English Move      Susan Aiello

2:30      Break

3:00      Book Pitches      Julie Silver, MD, Moderator

4:45      Reaching Patients and Readers through Social Media      Rusty Shelton

5:30      Dinner (on your own)

7:00-8:45      Writers' Workshops



Saturday, March 31, 2012


7:00      Continental Breakfast

8:00      Book Pitches      Julie Silver, MD, Moderator

9:00      Working Ethically with the Media to Disseminate Your Message      Rusty Shelton

9:45      Creating a Literary Life in Medicine: Books,Talks & Your Message      Jeffrey Brown, PsyD

10:30      Book Signing Jeff Brown and Break

10:45      Publishing is Changing the Way Medicine is Practiced      Julie Silver, MD

11:15      Self-coaching Strategies for the Productive and Organized Writer      Margaret Moore, MBA

12:00      A Plan to Get Published this Year      Julie Silver, MD

12:30      Book Signing Margaret Moore and Lunch (on your own)

2:00-5:00      Advanced Workshops**
(Limited to 25 registrants per workshop; attendees can only sign up for one of these 3-hour workshops.)

     •  Reaching Patients Through Social Media       Rusty Shelton
This workshop will focus on empowering attendees to build a larger audience for their work online. Beginning with an online brand audit, continuing through the creation of a smart social media presence and working toward rolling out a social media strategy to impact patients and readers with important health-related information, this workshop will lead attendees toward a larger overall readership.

At the conclusion of this workshop, attendees will be able to:
 • Define the right social media sites for their message
 • Evaluate the best way to use an online presence to disseminate information
 • Use social media sites to grow a readership
 • Utilize an online presence to impact patients and readers



     •  Writing a Book Proposal       Julie Silver, MD
This workshop focuses on transforming book proposals from good to great. Attendees of this workshop are expected to know the different components of a book proposal, which are covered in the main part of the course.

At the conclusion of this workshop, attendees will be able to:
 • Capture an editor's attention in the first few lines
 • Recognize and highlight important content
 • Determine the right length of a proposal
 • Find your voice



     •  Maximizing Creativity and Writing Productively      Shelley Carson, PhD
Writing is a multi-faceted – sometimes fickle - process that depends in part on your ability to access the correct brain state for the task at hand. Neuroscience research indicates that your brain activation state affects your perception, memory, mood, motivation, performance, and, yes, the availability of your “muse.” In this three-hour workshop, you will practice tailoring your brain activation state to specific stages of the writing process, including generating ideas and getting those ideas down in black and white.

At the conclusion of this workshop, attendees will be able to:
 • identify specific brain activation states that are associated with stages of the writing process
 •  perform exercises that facilitate entry into different brain states
 •  utilize knowledge of brain states to improve writing productivity and efficiency
 •  list specific strategies for dealing with writer's block
 •  use cognitive-behavioral techniques to reinforce good writing habits



     •  Memoir Writing       Leah Hager Cohen

Everyone's got a story, but not everyone knows how to tell it. In the advanced workshop on memoir, writing instructor and award-winning writer, Katherine Russell Rich, the author of two memoirs, will discuss techniques that can make your personal narrative stand out and make an agent take a second look.

At the conclusion of this workshop, attendees will be able to:
Discuss techniques that can make your personal narrative stand out and make an agent take a second look, including:
 • the construction and value of narrative voice
 • the five essential ingredients of the first-person essay
 • how to read your own work as an editor would
 • how research can bolster your writing



     •  Writing for Your Reader       Lisa Tener and Martha Murphy
The focus of this workshop is on compelling writing. Attendees will learn how to transform their writing into compelling narrative that will appeal to readers. The workshop will cover blogs, essays, magazine articles and book chapters with a focus on how writers can provide an excellent translation of important information for their intended audience.

At the conclusion of this workshop, attendees will be able to:
 • Describe 5 specific techniques that may be used to improve narrative writing.
 • Cite counter-intuitive information in a compelling manner, using research studies, statistics and other information that will grab the attention of the target audience, motivate the reader to action, and improve public health and health literacy.
 •  Identify obstacles faced by the target audience when accessing health information in a book or other printed material.
 • Learn to effectively and ethically use real stories in narrative writing.
 • Evaluate the best way to organize a book's information to make the material accessible and engaging so that the reader will (1) read the entire book; (2) obtain knowledge; and (3) be motivated to take action (change a behavior, etc.).



     •  The Craft of Writing       Susan Aiello
Both novice and experienced writers sometimes seem stymied by wanting to write things “correctly” but not knowing exactly what that means or having the confidence to know when it's OK, or even preferable, not to follow an oft-cited rule. This workshop will focus on the nuts and bolts of sentence construction, stressing effective writing techniques with an eye toward building and reinforcing clear expression.
 •  Describe how word choice affects precision in writing, and cite three examples of commonly misused words
 •  Distinguish between commonly cited rules of sentence structure that can be overlooked versus those that cannot
 •  Improve the clarity of writing by identifying and correcting jargon, obfuscation, and verbosity



**Separate fee required. Please see registration page for more details.
*Please Note: Program changes/substitutions may be made without notice.

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Last update 02.04.2012