"Ten Ways to Improve Your Manuscript
and Increase Your Chances of Getting Published"
and
"Selling it with Humor" [more »

Saturday, January 22, 3:00 pm
Palms-Rancho Park Library in the Ray Bradbury Room. 

Authoring a good manuscript is more than simply knowing how to write. Beyond most writer’s straightforward prose, is a host of important tips and techniques that can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Writers often create a brick edifice, hoping readers will see only the bricks. But it’s the mortar — those small, largely unnoticed words — that can transform your writing into a “must read.”

Maralys Wills (author of 13 books and a writing instructor for 25 years), spoke on “Ten Ways to Upgrade Your Manuscript.” Drawing on chapters from her book, “Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead,” she shared her philosophy for overlooking rejection and achieve your goal of getting published.

Ms. Wills offered specific tips for making your manuscript lively and interesting. She also provided limited copies of a handouts for attendees — plus had copies available of her writing book and three memoirs.

 Maralys Wills - Guest Author & Speaker

Maralys Wills For the past 22 years, Wills has taught college novel-writing, and in 2000 was voted “Teacher of the Year.”  In addition to frequent speaking engagements, she has given numerous writing seminars---at UCLA, UC Riverside, UCI, Orange Coast College, Cerritos College, and writers’ conferences across the country.  She is a past president of the Orange County Chapter of Romance Writers of America.

Maralys Wills’s twelve published books span several genres and publishers.  Her fiction works include four romance novels published by Harlequin and Silhouette, and a techno-thriller about airplane sabotage.  The NY Times called SCATTERPATH “exciting, down-to-the-wire stuff ... her cockpit sequences all but put the reader at the controls.”     

Her recent, light-hearted memoir, A CIRCUS WITHOUT ELEPHANTS, earned a national award from Writer’s Digest. In 2008, Stephens Press published both the sequel, A CLOWN IN THE TRUNK, (an Indie award winner), and her writing book, DAMN THE REJECTIONS, FULL SPEED AHEAD, which won two national awards.          

Among her non-fictions is MANBIRDS: HANG GLIDERS & HANG GLIDING, published by Prentice-Hall; a party game book from Price/Stern/Sloan, and her family story about hang gliding champions, HIGHER THAN EAGLES.  Sadly, the Wills family lost two sons to the sport, and Wills’s account of those years--initially exhilarating, then tragic--earned her high marks in Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus.  HIGHER THAN EAGLES  garnered  five movie options, including one from Disney.      

Wills’s book on addiction, SAVE MY SON, is the result of years of trauma with an addicted son.  Research in four states proved that other locales do offer real solutions.         

Wills is the mother of six children – five boys and a girl.  Her husband is a lawyer.  She studied at Stanford and UCLA, earning a B.A. and a teaching credential.  She once helped her sons run a hang gliding manufacturing business, but after the family tragedies she went home to write books.

To learn more about Maralys Wills and her books, please visit: www.maralys.com

Click here to download her notes from the presentation

Special Added Speaker! Burt Teplitzky on "Sell It With Humor"

We all learn and remember more when when we enjoy what we're listening to. The same goes with selling. People buy from people they like and trust. Humor helps bridge the differences between people and builds that unbreakable bond. Relevant, appropriate and proven humor helps create rapport. And, even if you weren't born funny Burt Teplitzky and Sell it With Humor will show you how to easily insert proven humor gems into your presentation to help make you and your presentation more memorable and profitable.

Burt is an author of two books and is a former: managing partner of the World Famous IMPROV Comedy Club's Corporate Training Division, IMPROV Comedy Traffic School (licensee), top Beverly Hills based real estate sales person, co-owner of Culver City based Comedy District Comedy Club, three time Dale Carnegie Graduate assistant and instructor candidate and a four time time Carnegie Deli customer. Burt has also been published in Selling Power magazine, has performed Stand Up Comedy and has been interviewed on CBS television. He resides in Los Angeles and in Newport Beach.

http://www.sellitwithhumor.com

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