How many times are you asked “What’s your story about?” If you’re a writer, you get asked this all the time. Do you have a well-honed, snappy reply on hand, or do you flounder in dread, stumble, and change the subject? Or bore your audience to death with a 10 minute ramble of well, so and so does this, then this, then this… <yawn>. Maybe you think you have a good pitch, but want to make it the best it can be.

Wherever you are in your writing journey, every author needs a zippy one or two-line pitch that captures and sells the essence of his or her story.

Join SOLA on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. for some great tips and pointers on how to pitch your story to agents, editors and pretty much anyone who asks about it! We’ll start with a viewing of the RWA webinar “Pitching Tips from Best-selling Authors Damon Suede and Kristin Higgins.” Members Liah Penn and Vicky McHenry will talk with the group about other tips they’ve put together in an informative hand-out. (Note: Liah is a master pitch artist. Vicky has never pitched but is a fiend researcher.) We’ll ask a few of SOLA’s other published authors to show us their pitches.

Bring your notebooks and/or laptops, and we’ll try to squeeze in time to work on our own pitch perfect zingers!

In addition to the pitch program, photographer Lauren (Ren) Adkins will be available to members during the break to talk with members one-on-one for appointments. She has been invited as part of the Chapter’s focus to provide a variety of resources to the members.

Bio: Ren Adkins is a fine art and portrait photographer born in Memphis, Tennessee and based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She graduated with a BFA in Photography from the Memphis College of Art in 2010 and an MFA in Photography from the University of Nevada Las Vegas in 2013. Lauren’s work focuses in thoughtful portraiture and versatile use of color, from vibrant and intense to muted and moody. Lauren is a visual crusader, fiction junkie, and media literacy advocate who loves the art of storytelling and hates talking about herself in the third person.