Word Clay: Word Play: Q and A

What would you call several unicorns if you were so lucky to see them? What does “avantular” mean? And why will your children and grandchildren smile when you tell them what the potentater is? If you love word play, you’ll love the other 47 questions and answers that go with the above.

The Pleasures of Language: Malapropisms to Rhyming Slang

This audience-participation program works best with a group that enjoys language, as they will be intimately involved and asked to volunteer further contributions to the lecturer’s list of Southern dialect, contemporary slang, folk etymologies, Spoonerisms, and more.

History, Climate, Politics, Scandal

Yes, this topic makes for an active open discussion, with more audience participation than most. Not only learn how authors utilize setting almost as character, but also learn from others what stories, especially SC stories, might be worth adding to your nightstand for future reading.

Setting as Character

People love stories set in the South, and many adore the South Carolina setting. Pat Conroy, Dorothea Benton Frank, and Mary Alice Monroe have capitalized on our state in their fictional stories. What is it about South Carolina that makes for a good backdrop? What part of South Carolina isn’t clearly depicted, and what is … Read more

Write Your Memoir… Like It’s a Novel

So many people want to write their life’s story. But where does one start, and how much is intriguing enough to engage readers? Learn how not to start when you were born, and how to identify the aspects of your history that merit the storytelling, and how to spin it like a novel and garner … Read more

Why Edisto? Why Any Setting?

Setting matters, and Hope Clark’s Edisto Mystery Series clears the shelves of the Edisto Bookstore as fast as they appear. There’s something about the jungle setting, about crossing the McKinley Washington Bridge to that island, that makes for an intriguing, suspenseful setting for mystery. Learn how choosing a strategic setting for stories can make as … Read more

Never Thought I’d Be a Writer

How a bribe led to a book deal. Hope Clark always wrote but never thought that writing could be a career. But after being offered a bribe, and finding herself in the midst of a federal investigation, she quickly realized that life made for great fiction. In a journey of starts, stops, and ample rejection, … Read more

Too Shy to Write

Most writers are introverts, meaning they not only find it difficult to take their ideas from thought to paper, but they fear submitting, publishing, and speaking. Using tricks and tools from her book The Shy Writer Reborn, C. Hope Clark walks potential writers through the landmines of writing and publishing so that their dreams of being … Read more

Writing the Series

Readers adore investing in characters over a series of books, and the mystery genre is ripe with such series. But what makes for an intriguing series? How does a writer keep the momentum going book after book so readers beg for more? As a reader or writer, understand how a series grows and builds a … Read more

How a Character Becomes 3-D

Using examples from well-known books, movies and television shows, and whatever example the audience wants to dissect, learn the art of taking a character from basic hair and eye color into a quirky, charismatic, loveable, respectable, enticing, intense, or demonic contributor to a tale. Whether you read or write, the discussion and Q&A shed new … Read more

Turning Your Ideas into Stories

Most of us wish we could flesh our thoughts, experiences, and make-believe dreams into stories on paper. The art of theme, plotting and characterization come from understanding what makes for an intriguing read: tension, active voice, creative dialog. Learning how to mold a story concept, memoir or fiction, into a three-dimensional tale is empowering and … Read more