If you’re interested in taking a terrific online course to write down some of the stories of your life, I’d sure appreciate it if you’d consider Fundamentals of Life Stories, which starts on January 21, 2010.

Here is the course outline:

Session One: Getting Started
The stuff life stories are made of; Exploring your memories; Focusing on sensory details; How detail evokes emotion in your writing
Writing Assignment: Select two memories—your earliest memory and an important memory from the past year and write up to 250 words on each one, including detail about sensory perceptions and the emotions they evoke.

Session Two: The Importance of Place
Setting the scene; Writing descriptively about place; Showing vs. telling
Writing Assignment: A 500-word scene from your life when “place” had a special significance. Use descriptive language to “show” the place to your reader.

Session Three: Real People Are Characters Too
Becoming a careful observer; Characterization techniques; Dialogue
Writing Assignment: Write a scene from your life in which someone important to you played a central role. Include dialogue that helps reveal that character to your reader (maximum 750 words)

Session Four: Every Family Has a Story
Anecdotes & oral histories; Interviewing friends and family members; Research
Writing Assignment: A family story, or collection of shorter personal anecdotes (maximum 1,000 words)

Session Five: Voice & Style
Putting your personality on the page; An introduction to style; Word choice; Clarity
Writing Assignment: To help develop your personal voice, write a letter to someone you’re close to, telling about something important in your life (maximum 500 words); Then try to maintain that voice as you write the first draft of a complete life story (or a chapter of your memoir), up to 2,000 words.

Session Six: Making Your Writing the Best it Can be
Polishing your prose; Revising and rewriting; Making tough decisions about what to leave in and what to take out
Writing Assignment: Revised draft of the story or memoir chapter you wrote for Session Five, putting together everything you’ve learned (maximum 2,500 words).

I’ve done some blogging lately, for the first time in quite a while. Here are a couple of links:

Guilty Secret (Times Five), a cautionary tale of how I ended up with five pets

Moms - Baby Your Bladders, where I provide advice based on personal experience that I hope helps other women, healthwise

 I feel kind of rusty, not having blogged consistently in a couple of years, but it feels good. A nice change of pace.

And, I’d love it if you followed me at Twitter at /kbsagert. Thanks much!

I love the cover of my newest book, Flappers, and wanted to share it with you!

A few years back, I was taped for a Black Sox documentary (because of my writing a biography of Shoeless Joe Jackson) and the producer has now set up a web site where people can see clips of his work. He’s still looking for more funding, the last we talked.

To set the context for the film clip I’m in, Joe Jackson had just been picked up by the major league baseball team in Philadelphia — but he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay down in the Greenville, South Carolina area and he in fact ran away from Philly more than once. This clip shares a few reasons why this was a terrible mismatch from the start.

 Hope you enjoy!

I just finished reviewing the copy for my latest book, Flappers, which will be published by Greenwood Publishing in January 2010.  The book contains bios of some silent film stars and jazz musicians, along with bios of Al Capone and John Scopes and others.

It also contains several essays focusing on key areas of the decade, such as Prohibition, silent to “talkie” films, the flapper as the first modern woman and so forth. Plus, there are copies of articles that were published in the early part of the decade, a glossary of flapper slang and more.

 It was fun to write!

If you’re looking for a great one-day writer’s conference in the Cleveland area, then consider the Skyline Writers Conference on Saturday, August 22 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Hines Hill Conference Center in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I’ll be speaking on this topic: Live Out Your Dream: How to Succeed As a Freelancer.

Hope to see you there!

I’d never heard of a reader’s circle before, but I’ve just learned that it is a “book club where people attend with whatever they’re reading. The only structure is if participants decide to have an ‘optional book.’ Otherwise, people just bring their own books, articles, magazines, and conversation goes from there.

The idea is to loosen the usual format so participants can select their own reading and attend if they’re still in the middle of a book. Conversation inevitably covers the books brought and many other subjects as well.”

It’s an interesting concept and there is a web site dedicated to helping people find book groups where the reading circle concept can be employed and where people can also learn ways in which to start a book group if one isn’t available in the area. For a small fee, authors can put information about their books in front of readers who visit the Reader’s Circle web site.

I’m definitely all for a site that encourages more reading! I have just started to look around the site and I encourage everyone else to take a look, too.

Exciting news! A play that I’ve written, titled Freedom’s Light: A Stop Along the Underground Railroad, will be performed at the French Creek Reservation of the Lorain County Metro Parks and directed by TrueNorth Cultural Arts.

Freedom’s Light: A Stop Along the Underground Railroad is a play of hope and freedom. In the days leading up to the Civil War, helping slaves escape to freedom became increasingly dangerous – especially in Northern Ohio. Only the bravest of conductors on the Underground Railroad continued defying federal orders to stop helping slaves – and Robbins and Eliza Burrell of Sheffield Village, Ohio were two of those daring conductors who refused to stop.

Federal marshals raided their home countless times, yet they were never caught. No one knows how they evaded detection – but Freedom’s Light: a Stop Along the Underground Railroad suggests one possible way as it shares the story of Nellie as she courageously flees slavery so that her baby could live in freedom.

The play will be held from May 1 through 17th, with Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances starting at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday performances starting at 3 p.m. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online. Or, call 1-800-LCM-PARK.

Hope to see you there!

I just took a really fun quiz at a friend’s web site to discover what kind of flower I’d be, if I were indeed a flower.

This means that I am a “health conscious person, both your health and the health of others. You know all about the health benefits and dangers of the world around you.”

If you click on the floral photo, you’ll be taken to the site where you can take the quiz. Have fun!

Thanks to everyone who attended my presentation on “Nonfiction: Banquet of Opportunities.” You were a great group of people and I appreciated all of your excellent questions and your passion for writing.

As I told you at the end of my presentation, feel free to contact me with your writing questions, any time.

Thanks again!