Authors present a writing double-header
How do you write a series of novels about the same characters in the same world? How do you keep the stories consistent yet fresh? How do you share your own story? Local authors Nan C Ballard and Sue Fagalde Lick will answer these questions and more at a series of events this month, beginning with a virtual presentation on Sunday, Oct. 16.
The two authors will also share an in-person book-signing on Saturday, Oct. 22, followed with Lick as the guest speaker at the Willamette Writers Coast Chapter meeting at Newport Public Library. She will discuss how to turn a messy rough draft into a polished, publishable book.
Ballard is the author of the “Under Carico’s Moons” series, which includes the sci-fi western, “Distant Trails,” a book with more horses than technology. When footloose horse trainer Seth Reilly returns to his home town on the frontier planet Carico, he doesn’t expect to meet a girl with gold-brown eyes, a ready smile and a way of attracting trouble, the kind that could get him killed…or worse.
Currently working on the fourth book in the series, Ballard also co-chairs the Corvallis chapter of Willamette Writers, helping other writers hone their craft.
For more information about Ballard, go to nancballardwriter.blogspot.com.
Lick has just published “Seal Rock Sound,” a sequel to her novel “Up Beaver Creek” and is working on the third book in the series. The books are set on the Central Oregon Coast and follow the adventures of PD Soares, who has more troubles than she deserves. It’s bad enough that PD’s husband left her a childless widow at 42, but when she heads west from Montana to the Oregon Coast to remake her life with a new name, a new look and a new determination to become a professional musician, things keep going wrong. Her cabin has problems and the landlord has disappeared. She’s running out of money, and her first music gig is a disaster. Is she doomed to be penniless and pitiful? Not if she can help it. But Mother Nature is about to throw her another curve.
Lick, a longtime journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area, has published two poetry chapbooks and nonfiction books about Portuguese Americans, childlessness and life on the Oregon Coast. She is president of the Oregon Poetry Association. For more information, go to suelick.com.
The Sunday, Oct. 16, Zoom presentation begins at 2 pm. For a link to join, email nancballard@gmail.com or sufalick@gmail.com. The talk will be recorded for those who cannot attend at that time.
The Saturday, Oct. 22, book signing event will run from noon to 2 pm at the Nye Beach Book House, located at 727 NW Third Street in Newport.
The Willamette Writers event begins at 2 pm at Newport Public Library, located at 35 NW Nye Street. For more information, go to willamettewriters.org.