As a recent transplant to Ontario, I was thrilled to find WCYR and attend my first meeting in February 2020 (you know, way back when people left their homes and congregated in groups. Those were … Read more
Creating a synopsis is about getting your entire manuscript down to one page. MJ Moores provided us with her expertise. A synopsis must be thorough, as agents want to see the whole story, including the … Read more
The patrol officers had left the front door open. They thought they were doing her a favor, airing the place out. But that was a violation of crime scene protocol regarding evidence containment. Bugs could go in and out. Touch DNA could be disturbed by a breeze through the house. Odors were particulate. Airing out a crime scene meant losing part of that crime scene. Read more
Before we started this fantastic and educational writing dialogue workshop, the WCYR held the Annual General Meeting. Starting this September, at the beginning of our next season, there will be a new WCYR Board. Some … Read more
Jack Reacher caught the last of the summer sun in a small town on the coast of Maine, and then, like the birds in the sky above him, he began his long migration south. But not, he thought, straight down the coast. Not like the orioles and the buntings and the phoebes and the warblers and the ruby-throated hummingbirds. Instead he decided on a diagonal route, south and west, from the top right-hand corner of the country to the bottom left, maybe through Syracuse, and Cincinnati, and St. Louis, and Oklahoma City, and Albuquerque, and onward all the way to San Diego. Which for an army guy like Reacher was a little too full of Navy people, but which was otherwise a fine spot to start the winter. Read more
What could you do with a WCYR grant? How about hire a professional editor? I’ve been working on a book for a long time. Very. Long. I spent three years thinking about it and making … Read more
The journey was no worse than she expected. A train from London to Liverpool; the steam packet overnight to Dublin; a slow Sunday train west to a town called Athlone. Read more
Ever Thought About Freelancing? Freelance Tips and Tricks with Gail Mercer-MacKay was full of information. Gail brought it all, everything a prospective or working Freelance Writer needed to know. Before Gail began, we heard about … Read more
Marketing Your Short Stories? It All Starts With Licencing. So far, only Douglas Smith has won prestigious Canadian Aurora Awards for works in both official languages. During a June workshop, he highlighted this unique achievement … Read more
Do You Want to Write Better? Of course you do. Stories, ideas, thoughts – so many – swirling around inside of a writer’s mind, burning to escape. Maaja Wentz wants to help! Rescheduled and reformatted … Read more
Our First Re-imagined Online Workshop! Last month’s “Querying about Queries” was the first of the WCYR’s transformed online workshops. MJ gathered us together on the Cisco WebEx platform. After everyone connected (and some of the … Read more
The body lay on a small square of carpet in the middle of the gun-room floor. Alec Chipstead looked around for something to put over it. He unhooked a raincoat from one of the pegs and, covering the body, reflected too late that he would never wear that again. Read more
“It would be easy to kill you while you sleep.”
He rolls onto his side and faces his wife, tangling his fingers in her hair. Her face is shrouded in a dried blue mask; an antiaging beauty product that has begun to peel. The moonlight peeking through the bedroom curtains makes her look already dead. Read more
The call had come at six-twelve precisely. It was second nature to him now to note the time by the illuminated dial of his electric bedside clock before he had switched on his lamp, a second after he had felt for and silenced the raucous insistence of the telephone…. Read more
High Interest, Low Reading Level – We All Deserve Great Stories by M.C. Perron After a long hiatus from the WCYR, I decided to attend Erin Thomas’ presentation as a way of coming back. I … Read more
