Award-winning fiction author Clifford Garstang will be discussing his work at the first meeting of the Charlotte Writers' Club 2014-2015 programming year. Join us on Tuesday, September 16 at 7:00 p.m. at Providence United Methodist Church for an exciting conversation on "Approaches to Fictional Writing."

Garstang began writing fiction after a career in international law with one of the world's largest law firms and with the World Bank in Washington, DC. His first book, the story collection In an Uncharted Country (Press 53, 2009), has been described as "impeccably written, sumptuously imagined, and completely enchanting," and his second book, the novel in stories What the Zhang Boys Know (Press 53, 2012), which won the 2013 Library of Virginia Award in Fiction, was called "a wonderful and haunting book." 

In addition to degrees in Philosophy, English, Law, and Public Administration, he holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. He is the co-founder and editor of Prime Number Magazine and currently lives near Staunton, Virginia. For more information about his writing and accomplishments, click here.

Gretchen Hummel is 60 years young and lives in Davidson, NC. She is originally from Denver, CO and has an MFA degree in Creative Writing and an MS degree in Psychiatric Nursing. She is currently writing full-time on a speculative fiction trilogy. Catch more of her work at www.gretchenhummel.com or dreamersisland.com.

I write speculative fiction novels. I am currently finishing the second book of a trilogy, the first book is titled, Dreamer's Island. I have also written, and happily published, short stories in literary magazines. As far as what comes naturally and what doesn't, I will avoid the blank page if I can; I must have a fear of white space. But I have found the best solution for me is to never get too far away from the writing. I try to write everyday. The longer the time between writing sessions, the harder it is for me to re-engage. Once I'm engaged, sitting down, and have read over what I wrote the day before, the writing will usually come.

Reading has been my greatest inspiration and I believe it was my impetus to write in the first place - adoring what other writers had accomplished and thinking how wonderful it might be to be able to do the same. I also follow Julia Cameron's advice to write morning pages (3 pages of free writing) as well as her suggestion to take your artist on a weekly artist date (a date with yourself to feed your artist, such as going to a movie, a gallery, an antique store, anything artistically stimulating for you). I also believe reading books about writing can be very inspiring. Books on writing by A. Dillard, D. Brande, and A. Lamott are all very good.

Writing is a lonely job and for me the best cure for that is rubbing shoulders with other writers and talking shop. CWC provides an invaluable service in just providing the venue for writers to get together. I also value the wide variety of programs they have presented. In addition, while I'm not in a writing critique group at the moment, I have been in many in the past and know how valuable they can be. CWC provides a great service in helping to organize these and I'm happy to know where to direct other writers when they ask me about writing groups.

My advice to writers would be first of all to take some writing courses early so you don't get into bad habits that are later hard to break, to join a good critique group, to write everyday, and to read voraciously. For writers that are feeling stuck with their progress, I highly recommend Julia Cameron's The Artist Way series of books.

I am pleased that the first book of my speculative fiction trilogy, Dreamer's Island, has won several awards. It won Honorable Mention in the 21st Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Awards for genre fiction, an award I am quite pleased about as it was competing with all genres of fiction. It was also a finalist for two USA Best Book Awards in New Age and Visionary Fiction categories. Dreamer's Island is available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, iBooks, Powells.com, and others.

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In This Issue

Grace Ocasio's first full-length poetry collection, The Speed of Our Lives, has been published and is available at Park Road Books.

Writer's Digest, July/August 2014 issue, p. 28