One of the biggest thrills of being invited to the 2019 South Dakota Festival of Books is the opportunity to speak, not just once but TWICE! And yes, the specter of those two presentations is keeping me awake at night in excited anticipation.
I am pleased to be presenting The Story Behind the Story of Beauty & Grace on Thursday of the festival at 3 pm on the main floor of the Deadwood Public Library. I have been traveling the country telling this story and know it is a compelling presentation that impacts audiences of every age and interest.
My other presentation will be my first, on Tuesday, opening day of the festival, this time at 1 pm on the main floor of The Deadwood Public Library. I’ve titled it, “What You Want to Write and Why.” This is a talk I will be crafting over the next few weeks, but it’s one I know by heart, as I have lived it.
As I say in my SDFB Author Video, I have been a storyteller all my life. It’s only in the last decade that I have truly understood that telling stories through written and spoken words is who I am, what I am meant to do with my life.
It’s taken me forty years and more than a few incarnations of my writer’s being to come to this realization. In that time I have written diaries, essays for personal reflection and public competitions, slice of life pieces for my Op-Ed newspaper column and my WBFO listener commentaries, detailed profiles for The Ridgewood, New Jersey Newspapers and a number of local, regional and national magazines, voice over and story copy for my WBFO Special Reporting duties and WECK talk radio show, scripts for my 64 and More year-long, international interview project, political campaign speeches, slogans and news releases for myself and other candidates as well as press releases for a host of clients from insurance agencies and national ad jingle writers to a world championship horse farm. And I have penned (actually typed) four books with a fifth on the way.
I list the above not to brag about my accomplishments. Rather to clearly demonstrate that determining what you want to write and why is often a circuitous route. One with which I am intimately familiar and might be able to help others shorten, at least a bit.
The beauty of this talk is that with the caliber of attendees at this festival, I am assured of learning as much as I share and I look forward to interacting with lovers of words, language and books in our common journey of discovering who we are and what we are meant to do with our lives.