January 19,2018 Minutes

1. GUEST SPEAKER: Rita Aryoshi - Rita was raised with packs of cousins in New York’s vigorous Irish-American culture. She lived with her Irish-born grandmother, Bay, who fed her stories of tragic loves and festive insurrections. As soon as the nuns let her out of convent school, Rita headed for Europe and took an apartment in southern France. Travel became a profession when she turned her adventures into articles for magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Islands, Travel Holiday, and every airline in-flight publication she could think of. Her travel stories and photography have won many national awards. An article on Honolulu for Hemispheres, the in-flight magazine of United Airlines was turned into a television feature. Her travel assignments have taken her to places as diverse as Tahiti, Croatia and Antarctica. Rita has written several books including Maui On My Mind; Hula Is Life; and National Geographic Traveler Hawaii. Maui On My Mind remained on the Hawaii best-seller list for fifteen years. Before going freelance, Rita was editor of Hawaiian Airlines in-flight publication, and editor-in-chief of Aloha Magazine. Rita’s short stories have appeared in several literary journals and won several national awards including a Pushcart Prize for literature and Grand Prize in the National Steinbeck Center Short Story Competition.

• Took Rita 7 years to get an assignment form National Geographic – Her first notice was a rejection after 3 years of trying. One must be persistent.

• Has written Maui Beaches Travel, been to the Jerusalem mosque

• Most beautiful place/assignment was Antarctica. Difficult to decide what to write was so serene. When traveling on Zodiac they were being followed by seals; Silky seals if it had been a leopard seal he would have been there checking out the menu.

• One should always define the premise of their work

• Good thing to ask yourself is why do you write and are you actively pursuing that goal. If therapy- then you must tell the truth. All writers should tell truth and then ask themselves did they tell all the truth

• Very important to spend efforts to market yourself Vigorously; public speaking , social media, have a publicist

• Elmore Leonards 10 tricks for good writing:

• Never open a book with weather.

• Avoid prologues.

• Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.

• Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.

• Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

• Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."

• Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

• Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

• Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

• Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

• If you need to use exclamation marks, then you haven’t written strong enough

• In writing show, don’t tell

• Inspiration comes from work

• Sleep on it, look again with fresh eyes and insight

• Brebity is best. Hemmingway example: Baby shoes for sale, never used.

• What is your bed of nails? --- Now write

• Good homework- write about yourself as a landscape.

• In Ireland in 17th century - the poor could not go to school so they’d have illegal hedge schools in secret places. During potato famine, there was plenty of food, but the British took and sent it to England. Catholic mass was also illegal so they’d hold mass with a large rock for an altar.

1. SINC NATIONAL MEMBERSHIP BENIFITS: We encourage joining SinC National. Events sponsored by Natnal requires members only to be able to participate.

• Our monthly SinC Links — a digest of "news you can use" about the mystery business

• Sisters in Crime National Listserv

• Sisters in Crime Self-Publishing Listserv

• Regional chapters, including The Guppies, a support & critique group for unpublished writers

• Member discounts (see Special Offers)

• An author listing on the Authors for Libraries website (a $39 value). Many United for Libraries groups provide author programs for their libraries, and this sponsorship will also help match up authors for programs through Zip Code searching.

• An institutional presence at national and regional book events, mystery conferences and festivals with opportunities for individual author participation and/or distribution of promotional materials

• An on-going mystery review project that monitors media coverage of female and male authors, the Monitoring Project.

• Reports from our annual publishers summit

• Networking, mentoring, and fun!

1. 2018 MEMBERSHIP DUES: The Hawaii Chapter $10 fee and National $40 fees now due. Prefer online registration, but regular mail filing acceptable. Membership forms handed out.

2. 2018 PLANS: We have a few events we are going to pursue this year We will be seeking National sponsorship for those starred:

• 2018 Music/Book Festival ***

• Oct or Dec Blaisdale Arts and Craft ***

• Speaking engagements – with Literary classes at Manoa or other Univ (currently looking into, no updates yet)

• Possible book signing

• Plans to arrange a literary event/contest with school children as happened at March 2017 conference ***

• Laurie Hanan tells us there will be a Kapolei Fair in April 2018. It will have pony rides, petting zoo and a big outdoor tent

1. CONGRATS TO KENT: His new book Fire at the Bottom of the Sea available in Feb 2018.

2. ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: Bookworld Book Store now liquidating

3. AGENTS & ADVANCES: In new tech era, what used to be $50K advance is now $10K. The new draw: Sales of sub-rights—foreign, audio, film, etc.—are the gravy of publishing. The more you write the more you make- espec in multi formats, cheaper e-books help spike sales of paper books. Link for article: https://careerauthors.com/how-much-authors-make/ Suggestions to make more money are to focus on:

• Write more, better books. Keep on writing more, better books.

• Exploit your sub-rights.

• Publish in multiple formats.

• Take advantage of promotion opts—social media to Goodreads and BookBub.

• Develop related streams: writing nonfiction/fiction, teaching, blogging, speaking, etc.

1. JOHN GALVIN (Screenwriter): see link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/meet-the-tough-professor-who-inspired-jonathan-nolan-and-john-mulaney/2017/11/30/5f94d35c-be52-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?utm_term=.c3343e84b5e4 The first essential moment in any script is the “tear” — as in fabric, not ducts. It is the engine of the story

2. MYRIORAMA CARDS: or imagery writing to help fuel the imagination

3. RIP: And on a somber note, the mystery world deeply mourns the death of Sue Grafton on December 28/had three children and countless literary daughters.”/ master at subverting the detective novel.”/10 days before her death she posted the Little Black Story (link: https://www.facebook.com/SueGrafton/posts/1597634300280061

4. KENT discussed audiobooks and suggested flat fees work faster. See ACX for audiobooks.

5. ATTENDANCE: Kent Reinker, Laurie Hanan, Vicki White, Rose Mary Thompson, Rosemary & Larry Mild, Gail Baugneit, Scott Kikkawa, Dawn Casey, Rita Aryiyoshi