Welcome to our first meeting back in person! (Or you can join us virtually on Zoom.)
To celebrate that and the upcoming holiday season, we have a special guest -- Sonali Dev will be joining us IN PERSON to talk about "Culture Building is Not Just for Multiculturals."
Please join us on Saturday, Dec. 4 for a memorable morning meeting with a great speaker, breakfast, raffles, door prizes, and goody bags! Tickets are available at dara.ticketleap.com/holiday21.
Our In-Person Gathering will be held at the Richardson Women's Club, 2005 N Cliffe, Richardson, TX 75082. Check-in starts at 9 am, with a full breakfast at 9:30. This catered buffet includes scrambled eggs, pancakes and syrup, potatoes, bacon, sausage, fruit and berries, and drinks including coffee, orange juice and cranberry juice. We'll have our annual DARA turn-over meeting to welcome in our new board at 10 am, and Sonali will begin her presentation about 10:30.
In-person attendees will also receive a goody bag and the chance to win door prizes! The DARA tradition of a holiday raffle continues, with many great items being donated by our members. You can get your in-person raffle tickets when you register, or you can purchase them (or purchase more!) at the event.
The Virtual Event will be available online, beginning with the business meeting at 10 am. We're also holding a virtual raffle, with tickets available when you sign up. Each ticket gets your name put in a random drawing once to win two, $50 Amazon gift cards.
Tickets for the in-person event are $20 for DARA members and $27 for non-members. You can save $12 if you sign up for the holiday gathering and a year's DARA membership together for $60. The virtual meeting is free for DARA members and $7 for non-members.
If you'd like to donate a basket or item to the raffle, please contact Janet at janetleighauthor@gmail.com. To put something in the goody bags, contact Randee at randee@randeeleigh.com.
CULTURE BUILDING IS NOT JUST FOR MULTICULTURALS
According to dictionary.com one of the definitions of culture is: "The sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another." With respect to storytelling it's the sum total of the nitty gritties of human existence that make up the inner and outer worlds our characters live
in.
Culture Building is World Building between the cracks and under the foundation of your story. Learn how to layer your storytelling with the nitty gritties of human existence that make up the world your characters live in. Learn not just how to enrich your narration with the kind of depth and detail that absorbs readers wholly into your story but also learn how to place your characters in conflict with their world to infuse authenticity and meaning into your story, irrespective of genre.
ABOUT SONALI DEV
USA Today bestselling author Sonali Dev writes Bollywood-style love stories that explore universal issues. Her novels have been named Best Books of the Year by Library Journal, NPR, the Washington Post, and Kirkus. She has won numerous accolades, including the American Library Association’s award for best romance, the RT Reviewer Choice Award for best contemporary romance, multiple RT Seals of Excellence, has been a RITA® finalist, and has been listed for the Dublin Literary Award. Shelf Awareness calls her “Not only one of the best but one of the bravest romance novelists working today.”
She lives in Chicagoland with her husband, two visiting adult children, and the world’s most perfect dog.
Find more at sonalidev.com.
Join us Saturday, October 23, for Darynda Jones' "Humor and Heat: How to Write Funny Without Sacrificing Sexual Tension." It should be educational and a lot of fun! We'll start at 9 am with a social half-hour, followed by a short business meeting at 9:30. Darynda will start about 10 am. FREE! Invite your friends.
Humor and Heat -- Darynda will give tips on how to add comedy to any book, how to take your sexual tension from lukewarm to blisteringly hot, and how inserting humor hits at the right time can amp up that tension even more.
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious RITA®, a Golden Heart®, and a Daphne du Maurier, and her books have been translated into17 languages. As a born storyteller, she grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by. Darynda lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband and two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys.
(P.S. There is a new Zoom link this month. Please email info@dallasarearomanceauthors.com for the updated link.)
Priscilla Oliveras teaches how to Craft Believable Characters at the March 27, 2021, meeting of DARA.
Many Keeper Shelf books land there in large part because the readers fell in love with the characters and want to revisit them. To create believable, three-dimensional characters and bring them to life on the page, you have to know them as well as you know your best friends.
This presentation explains several character-creating techniques, starting with character sketches, interviews, diary-ing/journaling, and “who, what, why,” ending with a detailed explanation of the all-important GMC, popularized in Debra Dixon’s how-to text Goal, Motivation and Conflict. GMC charts from the rom-coms “You’ve Got Mail” and “Pride and Prejudice” along with tips for using the GMC sentence to help with pitching round out the discussion, all with the end goal of providing attendees with a few new or improved additions to their writer’s toolbox.
Priscilla Oliveras is a USA Today bestselling author and 2018 RWA® RITA® double finalist who writes contemporary romance with a Latinx flavor. Proud of her Puerto Rican-Mexican heritage, she strives to bring authenticity to her novels by sharing her Latinx culture with readers. She and her work have earned praise from O, The Oprah Magazine, Washington Post, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist, among others. Since earning her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, Priscilla now serves as adjunct faculty in the program and teaches the online class “Romance Writing” for ed2go. While she’s a devotee of the romance genre, Priscilla’s also a sports fan, beach lover, and Zumba aficionado, who often practices the art of napping in her backyard hammock.
To follow along on her fun-filled and hectic life, visit her on the web at https://prisoliveras.com/books/, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prisoliveras, or on Twitter and Instagram via @prisoliveras.
