Time: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Location: Centreville Library in Centreville, Virginia

10:15 a.m.—11:15 a.m. Managing Your Romances:  How to Lovingly Organize a Book Collection

With WRW Member Christine Trent

Let’s face it.  You’re a Romance writer, which means you not only collect books written by other romance writers, but also oodles of research books and tomes on the craft of writing.  Cataloging them can help you get organized and work more productively.

Even if you’re happy with the current organization of your books, you might still want to consider cataloging them.  Have you ever:

( ) Spent 45 minutes trying to find a title in your collection?

( ) Purchased the same book twice because you didn’t know you already owned it?

( ) Loaned a book then couldn’t remember who you loaned it to?

In this session you will learn a variety of ways to not only organize your books, but to manage your collection so you can have any book you own at your fingertips in an instant.  Topics include Dewey Decimal and You, Electronic or Old-Fashioned Cataloging, Book First Aid, and more.  We’ll even take a peek at some of the world’s most gorgeous libraries.  You’ll walk away with a handy list of books, web sites, and other references for getting your book collection in tip-top shape.

You don’t have to be a librarian to have an organized book collection at home; you just need the few hints and tips provided in this workshop to get you started.

Christine Trent writes historical romances from her two-story home library.  She has a wonderful bookshelf-building husband, three cats (a prerequisite for a good library), and over 3,000 fully cataloged and mylar-covered books.  She learned everything about book organization from her mother-in-law, a retired librarian, who also gave Christine a discarded school card catalog case which she still uses actively.  Christine is a PRO working on her second manuscript, The Duke’s Ballerina.

11:30 a.m.—1 p.m. When Beauty Met the Beast: Using Folklore and Mythology to Give Your Stories Resonance (Whether or Not You Write Paranormal!)

With WRW Board Member Diana Peterfreund

Fairy tales and legends speak to something deep within the human spirit. The stories have existed for centuries and millennia for good reason: they work the audience. Now, make them work for you.

Is your book “a Cinderella story?” Are you working on a “fractured” fairy tale or a “retelling?” Are the characters in your stories folklore creatures like vampires, werewolves or fairies, and you want to know how to make them “fresh” and different? Or maybe your books aren’t paranormal at all, but you’re you using folklore conventions like clever youngest sons or wise old women without realizing it? Learn how many of the most successful stories out there are creating connections with their readers by borrowing from myths, legends, and folklore, and how you can do the same.

Diana Peterfreund is the author of the Secret Society Girl series for Bantam Dell. The fourth book in the series, TAP & GOWN, will be released in summer of 2009, right before the launch of her first YA fantasy, RAMPANT, which incorporates folklore about unicorns from around the world, as well as classic mythology and Christian legends.