The Santa Barbara Public Library will virtually host its fifth annual Local Author Day with events on Saturdays Jan. 30 and Feb. 6. Local Author Day supports the local writing community and increases community awareness of local author contributions in Santa Barbara.
The 2021 Local Author Days: First Impressions Matter offers two free virtual workshops open to all community members. The workshops were chosen from dozens of submissions from Santa Barbara authors, publishers and researchers.
For those looking to hone their writing skills, Jervey Tervalon of UCSB’s College of Creative Studies, will be leading Writing the Compelling Opening. Participants will engage in developing and critiquing the opening sentences and paragraphs of narrative pieces on which they are working.
Those seeking support on publishing can join local authors Ellen O’Connell Whittet and Aaron Shulman in Writing the Query & Landing the Agent. Attendees will be taken through the process of approaching literary agents, from developing a savvy pitch, to crafting a query letter that is compelling and professional.
Participants will study examples of query letters, listen to hard-won advice on mistakes to avoid, and receive feedback from fellow participants and the workshop leaders on a draft of a query letter.
“We’re fortunate to have a vibrant writing community in Santa Barbara full of talented professionals, and they have a wealth of knowledge and experiences to share,” said library director Jessica Cadiente. “With this event, the library seeks to provide a way for writers to connect with each other, enhance their skills, and also celebrate their work.”
From January through mid-February, community members can visit the library’s Facebook page to view a breadth of local authors whose works will be highlighted.
Registration for the two workshops is limited.
Writing the Compelling Opening with Jervey Tervalon
https://santabarbaraca.evanced.info/signup/EventDetails?EventId=32665
Jan. 30, Feb 6, 10 a.m.-noon
Tervalon is the author of “All the Trouble You Need,” “Understand This,” and Los Angeles Times bestseller “Dead Above Ground.” An award-winning poet, screenwriter and dramatist, Tervalon earned his MFA in creative writing at UC Irvine. He is on faculty for UCSB’s College of Creative Studies in Writing & Literature.
Writing the Query & Landing the Agent with Ellen O’Connell Whittet and Aaron Shulman
https://santabarbaraca.evanced.info/signup/EventDetails?EventId=33019
Jan. 30, Feb 6, 10 a.m.-noon
O’Connell Whittet is an essayist and lecturer who teaches in the Writing Program at UCSB. Her memoir “What You Become in Flight,” about coming of age in ballet, was released in the spring. She has written for Paris Review, Vulture, The Atlantic, Allure, Teen Vogue, Salon, and Prairie Schooner, where she won the Virginia Faulkner Award. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.
Shulman is the author of the nonfiction historical narrative “The Age of Disenchantments: The Epic Story of Spain’s Most Notorious Literary Family” and the “Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War. “A former Fulbright scholar, his work has appeared in The Believer, The New Republic, The American Scholar, The Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Review of Books.
He is co-owner of the book-coaching agency Splash Literary.
To learn more about the Local Author Collection at the Santa Barbara Public Library, visit SBPLibrary.org. All library programs are free and open to the public.