You Can Be A Winning Writer
A professional author shares the keys to success—from first draft to first printing and beyond—in this complete writer’s guide.
For more than a decade, author Joan Gelfand has taught writers of all levels and disciplines how to find creative writing success using her unique 4 C’s approach that combines Craft, Commitment, Community and Confidence. In You Can Be a Winning Writer, Gelfand explains the 4 C’s with humor, empathy, and real-life anecdotes from famous, working, and emerging authors.
The 4 C’s provide solid tips on mastering your craft, connecting with a literary community, and building your fan base. But the essential component to all of this is confidence. Gelfand knows that a lack of confidence has kept too many writers unpublished for too long. With the help of Renate Stendhal, PhD, Joan defines clear steps to overcoming the lack-of-confidence demon that haunts so many aspiring authors.
This literary reference and publishing guide includes:Key authorship and publishing tipsImportant post-publication strategiesGuidance on avoiding common mistakesHow to enjoy greater success with the 4 C’s
Joan Gelfand
Joan Gelfand The author of three acclaimed volumes of poetry, an award-winning chapbook of short fiction and a forthcoming novel set in a Silicon Valley startup, Joan is the recipient of numerous writing awards, commendations, nominations and honors. Her reviews, stories and poetry have appeared in national and international literary journals and magazines including Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Kalliope, The Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, the Toronto Review, Marsh Hawk Review, Levure Litteraire and Chicken Soup for the Soul. For over ten years, Joan has lectured on the 4 C’s System and has coached writers to great success. An MFA from Mills College in Oakland, CA, Joan is a past President of the Women’s National Book Association and the founder of the WNBA National Writing Contest. Editor of the newly published anthology of winning contest writers, Joan is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle and a juror for the Northern California Book Awards. She blogs regularly for the Huffington Post on books, travel and movies. “The Ferlinghetti School of Poetics,” a poetry film based on Joan’s poem was featured at the 4th Annual Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece and won Certificate of Merit in a juried art show at the International Association for the Study of Dreams. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Adam Hertz and two beatnik kitties – Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.Rosemary Daniell is the founder and leader of Zona Rosa, a series of writing workshops attended by thousands of of women, and some men, with events in Atlanta, Savannah, and other cities, as well as in Europe, as described in People and Southern Living. She is also the award-winning author of nine books of poetry and prose, including Secrets of the Zona Rosa: How Writing (and Sisterhood) Can Change Women's Lives and The Woman Who Spilled Words All Over Herself: Writing and Living the Zona Rosa Way, and is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in writing, one in poetry, another in fiction. Rosemary’s work has been featured in many magazines and papers, including Harper’s Bazaar, New York Woman, Travel & Leisure, The New York Times Book Review, Newsday, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Mother Jones; she has also been a guest on many national radio and television shows, such as "The Merve Griffin Show,” “Donahue,” "The Diane Rehm Show,” "Larry King Live" and CNN’s “Portrait of America.” Early in her career, she instigated and led writing workshops in women's prisons in Georgia and Wyoming, served as program director for Georgia's Poetry in the Schools program, and worked for a dozen years in Poetry in the Schools programs in Georgia, South Carolina, and Wyoming. In 2008, she received a Governor’s Award in the Humanities for her impact on the state of Georgia. She is profiled in the book Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975.
