Historical Novel Society, St. Petersburg, 2013

Lady Joan, Gillian Bagwell

 Historical Novel Society, St. Petersburg, Florida, 2013

I looked forward to this conference from the moment I heard of this group. The North American association of writers of historical fiction gather every two years to enjoy the camaraderie of others of common interest as well as take seminars and meet editors and agents. The organization was begun by Richard Lee, a Brit, and every other year a meeting is held in London.

Though the British HNS has a paid staff, the North American chapter operates solely with volunteers.


Gillian Bagwell, author of The King's Mistress and The Darling Strumpet joined us for supper in character the night of the costume event. This talented woman wrote the script for the event incorporating the costumes participants chose to wear. It was hilarious!

Margaret George reading a sex scene from her novel.

Diana Gabaldon: Moderator of Sex Scene readings at the Historical Novel Society Meeting

Mary Burns,  Webmaster and Program Co-ordinator,
and Sharman Ramsey

 I had the pleasure of visiting with keynote speaker, Anne Perry, for about 30 minutes and found her to be a delightful conversationalist. Not knowing who she was, I invited her to join a group of us who were visiting in the lobby. She did.

Diana Gabaldon, one of my favorite writers, surprised me by being even more lovely than her pictures.

I volunteered to help and wound up ushering those who had signed up to their interviews with agents. In the process I met Jill Marr, Deni Dietz (who also has a company that publishes mysteries), and Natalia Aponte. Other agents in attendance were Helen Heller, Jean Huets, Greg Johnson, Kevan Lyon, Nephtele Tempest, Irene Goodman and Diana Fox.

Jodi Daynard and Ann Weisgarber, fellow panelists on Writing the American Experience, took sharing their writing experience seriously and regardless of the 8:00 hour on Sunday morning our panel held forth in an entertaining and enlightening manner. 

As a first time participant, I was impressed with the egalitarianism of the Historical Novel Society. The most successful enjoy the events along with novice writers.

Mary Burns, Marion and Gene Fox, Meredith West and Ann Chamberlin became friends before the conference ended. I now want to attend the conference to be held in 2014 just to see them all again.

Schedule

Been lots of places in the past year! Going lots more with a new book! Hope to see you there!!!!!!
SIBA	Panel by Invitation	September 6 - 9, 2012
Book Launch for Swimming with Serpents	Speaker	4-Oct
Ladies Auxilliary St. Andrews Bay Yacht Club	Speaker	Noon October 11
Books Alive Local Authors	Keynote	13-Oct
Public Radio	Guest	Oct. 17 4:00
PC Writers Guild	Speaker	Nov. 20
Supply Store U of A Auburn/Alabama	Book Signing	24-Nov
Beach Library Bag Lunch Author event	Speaker	Dec. 7
Hub city Books	Book Signing	10-Dec
Fiction Addiction	Speaker	11-Dec
Blue Bicycle	Book Signing	13-Dec
Something's Cookin'	Book Signing	21-Dec
Bay Point Woman's Club	Speaker	8-Jan
Wilcox County Historical Society	Speaker	12-Jan
Panama City Genealogical society	Speaker	Jan. 19, Saturday 2013
Chatauqua	Speaker	1/24/2012- 1/27 2013
Litchfield Books	Speaker	1-Mar
Alabama Historical Society	Member	April 5-7
Daughters of the American Revolution	Speaker	24-Apr
Amelia Island Book Festival	Panel by Invitation, Author in School	30-Apr
South Carolina Book Festival	Panel by Invitation	5/17/2012- May 19, 2013
Historic Chattahoochee Commission	speaker	18-Jun
Historical Novel Society	Panel by Invitation	June 21 - 24
Decatur Book Festival	Speaker and Panel by Invitation	30-Aug
In Pursuit Released	Events to be announced	September
Southern Independent Booksellers Association	Movable Feast	Sept. 20-22
Florida Heritage Book Festival	Florida Heritage Book Festival	September 27-29
Nashville Book Festival	Nashville Festival of the book	October 11-13, 2013
Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend	Pulpwood Queens Book Club	January 16-19, 2014

Blurb for In Pursuit in Mercer University catalog

This will go into the Mercer catalog about
In Pursuit by Sharman Burson Ramsey

Creek half-breed and survivor of the Creek Indian War, Joie Kincaid, and the nemesis she rescued from certain death after the Massacre at Fort Mims are kidnapped from a tea room in London. Joie awakens with amnesia—after
having been struck on the head—to find herself in the hold of a ship sailing to the pirate Gasparilla’s lair in Charlotte Harbour and bound to a man she finds strangely familiar.

T o save himself and Joie, the scholarly Godfrey Lewis Winkel is forced to take heroic action. As a story of passion unfolds between the two, Joie Kincaid must overcome a childhood of abuse and rejection to accept love she had never known. Together they weather the tempests of pirates, illness, the Seminole War, family vendetta, and a hurricane to find their way to each other and a love neither could have imagined.

Interwoven in this action-packed adventure is the long-forgotten tale of hope and betrayal at the Negro Fort, the plight of the Red Sticks after Horseshoe Bend, the greed of a pirate longing for a legacy, Andrew Jackson’s single-minded vision of a nation’s manifest destiny, and the British officers who seek to redeem a promise and forge an empire.

In Pursuit continues the family saga begun in Swimming with Serpents. It is a story of kidnapping, passion, greed, love, and war set against the backdrop of the First Seminole War.

In Pursuit
A Novel
Sharman Burson Ramsey
Also available as an e-book

Follow half-breed Joie Kincaid in this action-packed adventure
of kidnapping, passion, greed, love, and war.
September 2013 | historical fiction
6 x 9 | 280 pp. | Paper, $20.00t | 978-0-88146-454-2 | P473
e-book, $16.00 | 978-0-88146-458-0

The Second Novel Learning Curve

The learning experience of a first novel prepares the way for the second. Still, as I edit the second pages for the publication of In Pursuit, I realize how much more there is yet to learn.
1.  One thing I learned with Swimming with Serpents is the importance of a title. Women are not drawn to books with any reference in picture or word to snakes.
2. The synopsis of the novel on the back of the book must draw the reader into the book within 200 words.
3. Helping words begin to jump out at you at a time when you cannot edit them out of the manuscript. For example:
“Arbuthnot!” Jackson spat with contempt, his eyes flashing. “At last I meet the infamous instigator of this war! It is you who have led these poor savages in the belief that the treaty they signed in my presence is worthless! You have encouraged them in their depredations. It is you who claim to speak for them."

Leaving out unnecessary helping verbs gives more power to the writing.
4. The people you meet along the way certainly enhance one's life.  Victoria Wilcox (Southern Son: The Saga of Doc Holliday) and I will be together on a panel soon and she has emailed me so that we can meet prior to that event at the Historical Novel Society. Her book was published in the UK. I look forward to learning more!

Holly McClure of Sullivan Maxx, MY NEW AGENT!

Big things happening here. I now have an agent for Mint Juleps and Murder. I have been corresponding with Holly McClure, president of Sullivan-Maxx (http://sullivanmaxx.com/) for a while now and she happened to be at Amelia Island for the Book Festival. She's been very busy reorganizing her agency merging with an entertainment agency. She has read the novel and wants to represent it. And, besides that, we've decided that we're cousins (through our Cherokee line)! I do love finding kinfolks!

Michael Morris, always one of my favorite people, was at the Amelia Island Festival and Joe and I thoroughly enjoyed his company.  Erika Marks, author of The Mermaid Collector and now The Guest House, whom I met at SIBA (Southern Independent Bookellers Association, one of my absolute favorite group of people!) last September also happened to be there and it was a delight to reconnect. But the big event at the Amelia Island Festival was hearing Debbie Macomber. She gave one of the most endearing and inspirational talks I have ever heard. Folks, I want to tell you as my mama would have said, "That girl is all cotton and a yard wide." Having sold about 150,000,000 book around the world, she is still grounded. Her story of achieving her dream of being a writer took us all through the valley with her to the joy of her first acceptance, a tale I to which I could not do justice. It was worth going to Amelia Island just to hear. It is my dream for Books Alive to get her as a speaker!!!!!
I was excited to be at Amelia Island because several scenes from In Pursuit take place there. In Pursuit will be out in September 2013.

Litchfield Books and the Moveable Feast at Pawleys Island

Carol from Litchfield Books and Linda Ketron founder of the Moveable Feast

Joe and I have just returned from Pauleys Island, South Carolina, where I was invited to speak at The Moveable Feast. This event has become a real attraction to Pawleys Island for those looking for a place to retire or just vacation and do something more than walk the beach. The concept began with Linda Ketron who owns Art Works gallery in the Litchfield Exchange and runs CLASS (Community Learning About Special Subjects), a continuing education program with classes on a wide variety of subjects. The Moveable Feast lunch and cultural lecture series is part of the diverse CLASS program of arts and humanities courses. The Moveable Feast turned out to be a boon to local restaurants as well. Most had been closing in the off season, but as the result of the success of the cultural and lecture series, those restaurants found a reason to remain open.

When Tom Warner and his wife Vickie (Crafton) Warner purchased Litchfield Books, Tom immediately realized the benefit of joining forces with Linda, booking authors for the event. The rest is history. Tom is one of those folks who cannot stay idle. Though I'm sure he thought Pawleys Island would be a great place to retire, he wound up putting his experience as a CEO of major businesses into making Litchfield Books a major player on the literary landscape. Publishing houses call Tom requesting bookings for their major authors. 

Sometimes he is kind enough to include a new author with a debut novel (me!).

An invitation to The Moveable Feast is as coveted in literary circles as an invitation to the White House might be for politicians or an invitation to Oscar Night for those involved in the film industry. A devoted nucleus of folks excited about meeting authors attend these events making the event memorable for each author who speaks. The venue changes with each event inspiring the name The Moveable Feast which Linda says is a nod to Hemingway's book of short stories.

Anne Potterfield Pauleys Island, SC

The delightful Anne Potterfield is a regular at The Moveable Feast. Each charm on her long gold necklace has a story as do the rings on the shorter necklace. Visiting authors have found inspiration in the stories of those rings. Bojinka Bishop, a former professor who now edits/publishes the website FlyingHighSolo.com just happened to find out about the Moveable Feast while vacationing and joined us at our table. 

 


Tom invited me back with the next novel. I look forward to visiting with this wonderful group of folks once again. http://litchfieldbooks.com/
For more information on The Moveable Feast:  http://www.classatpawleys.com/feast.php

To Twit or not to Twit

That is the question.

We live in a narcissistic world. I guess I am a perfect example. My publicist recommended that I sign up for Twitter and start "Tweeting." What would I have to say?

 "You are already good at writing about yourself on your website," she said.

She had a good point. We writers probably are quite the most narcissistic folks on the planet whether we realize it or not. I started my website as a public service, to share the genealogy that I did with others with the caveat that it needed to be proved. I appreciated others sharing their genealogy so much that I intended it as a humanitarian gesture to all those other struggling genealogists who just needed a clue.  Perhaps information that I found might actually give that clue and then we could all benefit by putting those clues together.

Truth was, however, that was MY genealogy so I wrote about myself. I organized a family history /cookbook around houses important in our history. I included recipes of dishes that the people who lived in those houses would have served. Eventually a little bit of whatever I found interesting became a part of that website from my garden to recipes to interesting people I met and places I had visited. (http://www.southern-style.com). The website became a general interest website (generally anything I found interesting).

Now it has been expanded to include my author website: sharmanbursonramsey.com. 


So, even though Tweeting is something that intimidates me, maybe I've been a twitter all along and just didn't realize it!

Join me on Twitter.