Happy Women’s History Month – March!

http://womenshistorymonth.gov/ is a website hosted by the Library of Congress

Happy International Women’s Day – March 8, 2014!

Click on names of organizations that empower women, girls, boys, men – I’ve hyperlinked so that one click sends you to that website while this blog post remains open.

Bay Area Impact making the world safer – one woman at a time

Women Rising (San Jose area) and their page “Global Movement”

Girl Rising  “One Girl with Courage is a Revolution”

Community Violence Solutions provides support services to child and adult victims of sexual assault and their families through seven main programs.

One Billion Rising (one billion women)

Afghan Women’s Writing Project – To Tell One’s Story Is a Human Right

Women’s National Book Association was established in 1917, before women in America even had the right to vote.

Stamp Out Stigma, a community advocacy and educational outreach program dedicated to eradicating the stigma associated with mental illness

Bring Change 2 Mind is a national anti-stigma campaign founded by Glenn Close, The Balanced Mind Foundation, Fountain House, and Garen & Shari Staglin of the International Mental Health Research Organization (IMHRO), aimed at removing misconceptions about mental illness.

NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness.

The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Program (ATIP) identifies and serves victims of human trafficking, assisting foreign trafficking victims in the United States to become eligible for public benefits and services to the same extent as refugees.  The program also raises awareness of human trafficking through the HHS Rescue & Restore Victims of Human Trafficking campaign.

The Mission of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) is to organize for collective power by advancing transformative work, thinking and leadership of communities and individuals working to end the violence in our lives. NCADV strives to make issues relating to battered women and children one of the top ten political and legislative issues in the U.S.

The documentary FEMME: Women Healing the World – a celebration of women around the world actively transforming and healing our global society. Sharon Stone and leading experts in religion, science, history, politics and entertainment, discuss solutions to the multiple crises we are faced with. FEMME focuses on utilizing a feminine approach with nurturing energy to inspire a new hope for the future.

My dear colleague Margie Yee Webb is one of the producers of this extraordinary project.

There are thousands of organizations celebrating women and girls – may they all grow and grow and grow!

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Bardi Rosman Koodrin welcomes audience to Literary Arts stage San Mateo County Fair

Look at the many writing contests offered through the Literary Arts Division of the San Mateo County Fair!  Go to https://sanmateocountyfair.com/pdf/2014/literary_arts_14.pdf  and review rules and guidelines carefully.    All entries due April 1, 2014 by 5pm Pacific Standard Time

Entry Fees: $10.00 per entry       NO MAXIMUM ENTRY FEE

Writing Contests through the Literary Arts Division of the San Mateo County Fair include “Immigrant Experience Writing Contest” !

For a list of all writing contests, please go to: https://sanmateocountyfair.com/pdf/2014/literary_arts_14.pdf

Mary E. Knippel and I (Teresa LeYung-Ryan) presented a 45-minute session “Be Your Own Editor: Inject Your Manuscript with the 5 Ws and Core Themes” at last weekend’s San Francisco Writers Conference.

The first W (“Who”) – as in “Who is the Protagonist?”  And, “Who or what is the Antagonist?”

Who or What is the Antagonist in Your Story / Novel / Memoir / Book ?

For every Protagonist, there’s an Antagonist!

Antagonist is a character or a set of circumstances that threatens the Protagonist’s well-being OR the well-being of someone the Protagonist cares about.

Other powerful Antagonists are:

• the Protagonist’s reaction to circumstances
• the Protagonist’s own character flaw
• something that threatens the status quo
• illness or grief (including loss of an aspect of One’s self)

This is how screenwriter/screenwriting teacher Terrel Seltzer defines “what” is a great story.  She says:  “Someone we care about … wants something badly…  and is having a terrible time getting it.”

Coach Teresa here . . . “The Antagonist is the one who/which is causing ‘a terrible time’ for the Protagonist.”

Go through your manuscript; are you showing at least one of the antagonists within the first 5 pages?

Happy re-writing!

Teresa LeYung-Ryan   aka  22-Day Coach Teresa helps clients identify their themes and archetypes; she is the author of:

Love Made of Heart: a Mother’s Mental Illness Forges Forgiveness in Daughter Ruby (novel used in college courses)

Build Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase In 22 Days: Attract Agents, Editors, Publishers, Readers, and Media Attention NOW (workbook for all genres),

“Talking to My Dead Mom” monologues

Coach Teresa’s website http://writingcoachTeresa.com

To subscribe to Coach Teresa’s Blog , please click here.

Dear Teresa,

Thank you for your honest and poignant writing. You have a gift of writing from the heart with a sincerity that is far-reaching. Heart-felt, heart-warming and perfect. Just what I needed to hear right now.

Marlene Cullen

Please click here for “Transforming Depression Into My Writer’s Muse” by Teresa LeYung-Ryan (on Marlene Cullen’s blog)

Love Made of Heart (a mother-daughter love story) by Teresa LeYung-Ryan

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Please click  here for Writing Teacher Marlene Cullen’s Book Review of Teresa LeYung-Ryan’s Love Made of Heart

Love Made of Heart by Teresa LeYung Ryan is excellent. I read it in two sittings. Dinner could wait. I had to find out what would happen to Ruby Lin. Teresa uses her novel to advocate compassion for mental illness and to help survivors of family violence find their own voices. Teresa’s writing is evocative and from the heart. . . she reaches deep and succeeds with her genuine and authentic voice. I want to read Love Made of Heart again. Yes, it’s that good.

Teresa LeYung-Ryan is an advocate for mental health.   Advocacy For Mental Health — Resources for Women, Girls, Boys, Teens, Men, Families

Love Made of Heart Gift Shop

Marlene Cullen

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Thank you, Writing Teacher Marlene Cullen, for reviewing my book Love Made of Heart on your blog, facebook, and Goodreads. Being the author of the book gives me strength to encourage other adult children of mentally ill parents to speak openly about the stigmas. Also, thank you again for letting me guest blog to talk about “Transforming Depression Into My Writer’s Muse”  You have my deep gratitude.

Sincerely,

Teresa LeYung-Ryan

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For more information about Marlene Cullen’s blog, writing workshops and Writers’ Forum of Petaluma, please click here.

Teresa LeYung-Ryan

Teresa’s novel Love Made of Heart: a Mother’s Mental Illness Forges Forgiveness in Daughter Ruby is used in college courses and archived at the San Francisco History Center.

As author of Build Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase In 22 Days: Attract Agents, Editors, Publishers, Readers, and Media Attention NOW, Coach Teresa helps clients identify their themes and archetypes.

http://writingcoachTeresa.com   Subscribe to  “Coach Teresa’s blog”

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If you or a friend want to create engaging plotlines for your stories/books, go to Martha Alderson‘s class in San Francisco on February 13, 2014  (you do not have to attend the San Francisco Writers Conference for open enrollment classes) at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel.  Even if you are not writing for middle grade and young adult readers, learn how to plot from Martha.  I was trained to write literature for children; the teachers who taught that class were authors of middle grade and young adult book; once you learn how to hook attention from young readers, you’ll hook readers of any age.  Martha Alderson is the celebrated Plot Whisperer; she’s the guru who taught me how to use front story/back story. Thank you, Martha!

Writing Teacher Martha Alderson aka the Plot Whisperer in San Francisco February 13, 2014

Thursday, February 13, 2014  6:30 to 9:30 pm

Click here to register

PLOT FOR MIDDLE GRADE AND YOUNG ADULT STORIES:   –  Fee: $99
Plot Your Story Scene by Scene to Move Your Readers

This class will enable middle grade and young adult fiction writers to use their plots to keep their readers engaged. Every scene has to deliver on many levels at once. Compelling characters; exciting dramatic action; meaning, emotion, and depth are essential. You will learn how many subplots is too many and how many characters you need.

You will also learn:

• Strategies to give your scenes the greatest impact
• How to turn episodic events into cause and effect
• Foolproof techniques for developing complex characters
• What makes for compelling action
• How to keep the tension constantly rising

Martha Alderson, author of The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master, is known as “The Plot Whisperer” for the help she offers writers worldwide. She is the founder of the award-winning blog The Plot Whisperer; the vlog: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay?; and the International PlotWriMo. Her books include The Plot Whisperer series. She has been teaching for SCBWI members for ten years.

For an additional $30, you may sign up for a 15-minute plot consultation with Martha during the conference.

For a list of all the classes on Feb. 13, 2014 and Feb. 17, 2014 (pre and post San Francisco Writers Conference), click here.  All classes will have handouts.

Teresa LeYung-Ryan

Teresa’s novel Love Made of Heart: a Mother’s Mental Illness Forges Forgiveness in Daughter Ruby is used in college courses and archived at the San Francisco History Center.

As author of Build Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase In 22 Days: Attract Agents, Editors, Publishers, Readers, and Media Attention NOW, Coach Teresa helps clients identify their themes and archetypes.

http://writingcoachTeresa.com   Subscribe to  “Coach Teresa’s blog”

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Thank you, dear Marlene Cullen, for asking me to be your guest-blogger this week.

Here’s how I had started the post for Marlene’s blog (The Write Spot Blog–Sharing the Light):

What do I have to be depressed about?

I am blessed with friends, writing colleagues, housemates, spouse, family members, coworkers, a half-time day job, health insurance, my intellectual properties . . .  and what friends call a sense of humor.  But I don’t feel like laughing in my condition, maybe later. I may have inherited the depression gene (or genes) from my loving mother.

While I sympathized with my mother’s illness (my novel Love Made of Heart was inspired by her), it would take experiencing the illness myself before I could gain empathy.

To read more . . .  please visit Marlene Cullen’s blog post by clicking on Transforming Depression Into My Writer’s Muse — by Teresa LeYung-Ryan

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For a list of resources, please visit my blog page Helpful Websites & Resources & Guides for Mental Health / Mental Illness / Depression.

Teresa LeYung-Ryan

Teresa’s novel Love Made of Heart: a Mother’s Mental Illness Forges Forgiveness in Daughter Ruby is used in college courses and archived at the San Francisco History Center.

As author of Build Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase In 22 Days: Attract Agents, Editors, Publishers, Readers, and Media Attention NOW, Coach Teresa helps clients identify their themes and archetypes.

http://writingcoachTeresa.com   Subscribe to  “Coach Teresa’s blog”

Any project or event that Kim McMillon is involved in is empowering!

I cheer for Kim McMillon and Everyone associated with 50 Years on the Black Arts Movement and Its Influences and the University of California, Merced!

Get tickets:  https://intelforms.ucmerced.edu/Form/Black_Arts_Movement

The conference is free for UC Merced students and Merced County youths, and $40 for the general public. To register or for more information about the conference, email Kim McMillon at kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu or go online.

Press inquiries should be directed to Scott Hernandez-Jason, shernandez-jason@ucmerced.edu

https://www.facebook.com/events/206503536195057/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/African-Diaspora-Graduate-Student-Association/260735274051324

Gala Host Belva Davis! at  50 Years on the Black Arts Movement and Its Influences!

Conference to Explore Black Arts Movement, Influences

The International Conference on the Black Arts Movement and Legacies will be held on March 1-2, 2014 at the University of California, Merced.

An international two-day conference on the Black Arts Movement will draw world-renowned scholars, musicians and artists, and offer new scholarship and perspectives on the 1960s and 1970s movement.

The International Conference on the Black Arts Movement and Legacies, on March 1-2, 2014 at the University of California, Merced, will provide an opportunity to hear and appreciate the elders, activists and artists who proclaimed “Black is beautiful” in their art, music, poetry and writings, while also shedding light on recent assessments of the movement.

“UC Merced is excited to contribute to the growing body of scholarship on the Black Arts Movement,” said Professor Susan Amussen, who’s also the director of the Center for the Humanities. “We look forward both to the presence of so many outstanding artists on campus and to the exploration of the impact of this important movement on mainstream American culture.”

Scholarly panels, poetry, art, theatre presentations and workshops on a wide variety of topics from the state of black studies in America to the impact of the Black Arts Movement past and present will be discussed.

“The Black Arts Movement and this UC Merced Conference comprise one whopping piece long missing from the jigsaw puzzle of cultural America,” said Al Young, California’s Poet Laureate Emeritus.

Askia Toure, Ishmael Reed, Marvin X, Eugene Redmond, Umar Bin Hassan, Nathan Hare, Emory Douglas, Judy Juanita, Avotcja and other key writers, musicians and artists from the Black Arts and Black Power movements will discuss their work and perform at the conference.

“No discussion of the Black Arts Movement or the radical left can take place without mentioning the late Amiri Baraka,” said event organizer and UC Merced graduate student Kim McMillon. “His words and art represent the beginnings of the movement, birthing black identity. Black Americans in the 1960s and 1970s created a new vision of blackness, one that celebrated the uniqueness of black culture.”

“The work of the Black Arts movement served as inspiration for many later artists, especially those from marginalized communities, and thus has shaped the flowering of artistic work over the last 40 years,” McMillon said.

The conference is co-sponsored by Associated Students of UC Merced, African Diaspora Student Association, the Center for the Humanities, Merced County Arts Council, Merced County Office of Education, Office of Student Life and The California Endowment.

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Any project or event that Kim McMillon is involved in is empowering!

I cheer for Kim McMillon and Everyone associated with 50 Years on the Black Arts Movement and Its Influences and the University of California, Merced!

“The Chinese word for ‘love’ is made up of many brush strokes. In the center of the word ‘love’ is the word ‘heart.’ Love is made of heart…”

Please visit my Love Made Of Heart online store where you’ll find gift items for yourselves, women, children, moms and babies, grandmothers, friends and pets.

Purple heart inside pink love in Chinese word.

Happy shopping !  Thank you!

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Love Made of Heart and Happy Valentine’s Day for Babies, Cats, Doggies too!

Please click on the link below to get to the store:   

 http://www.cafepress.com/lovemadeofheart

Love Made of Heart Gift Items–notecards, journal, Teddy Bear, throw pillow, cups, coffee/tea mugs, beach tote bag, apron, baseball cap, mousepad, water bottle, gym bag

Love Made Of Heart for Babies, Infants, Toddlers–bibs, bodysuits, T-shirts–organic fabric, for little ones

Love Made Of Heart for Pets: Dog T-Shirt, food & water bowls

Love Made Of Heart Maternity, Women & Men: T-shirts, fitted T-shirts, sweatshirts, raglans, tank tops, zipped hoodies, long sleeve, short sleeve, Women’s Plus sizes, organic fabric available

Love Made Of Heart Children / Kids T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies organic fabric available; Love Made Of Heart Juniors & Teens: Raglan, Ringer T-Shirts, tank tops

Pink and purple Love Made of Heart gift items for  grandchildren, mothers, grandmothers, kids and babies, dogs, pets, teens & juniors, women, maternity, plus sizes, girlfriends, grandparents, grandkids.

Love Made of Heart Teddy Bear & other gifts

Sincerely,

Coach Teresa LeYung-Ryan

author of Love Made of Heart

author of Build Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase In 22 Days

author of the “Talking to My Dead Mom” monologues

author of Coach Teresa’s Blog  http://lovemadeofheart.com/blog

http://lovemadeofheart.com

 

 

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**  Here’s a short-short video of Teresa LeYung-Ryan & Elisa Sasa Southard inviting you to the San Francisco Writers Conference!  **

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What will be happening? Four days of 90+ sessions with major presenters, agents and editors; copious networking with the people who can advance your writing career, a glorious opening gala; evening Open Mic, poetry happenings, and pitch sessions…plus a SFWC writer’s bag, 2 keynote luncheons and 2 breakfasts are included.   Late Registration until February 12th, 2014 is $745.00. Walk-up price will be $795.00 if there is still room.

San Francisco Writers Conference

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