Contact: words@samcraw.com

Topics:

Crafting the Short Story - Learn how to blend plot, characters, point of view, setting, voice and style to write a short story that sparkles.
Be Your Own Personal Editor and Create a Better Story - Find out what an editor does to improve your story; then learn how you can edit and rewrite your manuscript so that it sparkles. For short stories, articles, and creative non-fiction.
Interviewing Techniques 101 - Catching the subject and getting the goods from him or her. Covers easy interviews to difficult interviews.
Like Your Family Before You - Crafting the Personal Memoir - the research including getting family to talk, putting it all together, truth-telling versus make-believe.
Query! Query! Query! - From story idea to story assignment. Hooking the editor and landing a writing gig.
Stuck in the Middle- What to do when you novel loses steam in the middle.
Both Sides of the Fence - the bs (bizarre and serious) of the author/editor relationship

How to find the right editor for your manuscript, the different types of editing and which is best for your manuscript, pitfalls that can arise in the author/editor relationship, what the editor will and won't do, contracts and fees.

Length of presentation: Varies: One-two hour presentations to multi-day workshops

Audio/visual material: books and handouts

Fee: Negotiable

Currently Writer in Residence for the Canadian Authors Association Toronto Branch, Sharon Crawford is known for making words - yours or hers - sparkle. She blends humour, experience, common sense and out-of-the-box ideas to motivate individuals to kick-start their writing, get out of stall mode or fix their writing snafus. She's taught journalism, creative writing, rewriting and copyediting for such diverse organizations as the Canadian Authors Association and George Brown College and has lectured and participated on panels for the Professional Writers Association of Canada, Editors' Association of Canada, Canadian Authors Association, Richvale Writers Club, and The East End Writers' Group, which she founded. Sharon has read her stories in pubs, bookstores and other writerly meeting places. She's also a book editor and has learned to walk both sides of the writing/editing fence.