Writing Workshop This Sunday at Hofstra!

Starting this Sunday, I'll be teaching a 3-session copyediting workshop at Hofstra called "Polish Your Prose for Publication." Registration is limited and there are only a few slots left, so if you're interested, please sign up today!

Here's the course description:

Almost ready to submit your manuscript or article to an agent or publisher? Make sure your writing is polished to perfection with this three session line editing workshop. You'll the learn rules and gather tools that can help push your work past the gatekeepers. Be prepared to bring 10 copies of your first 5 pages and get helpful feedback from author/book doctor Ellen Meister, as well as from your classmates. You'll be able to apply what you learn to your entire work.

Click here for more info and to register. 

This is a great class for any writer with a work in progress. If you know anyone who might be interested, please forward the info. Thanks so much!

Happy Valentine's Day

Last year I wrote a Valentine's Day blog that appeared on the Penguin site. Here it is:

I suppose the natural thing would be to use this space to write a love note to the man who proposed to me over twenty years ago, watched me give birth to three squirming bundles, endured the ups and downs of my writing career, supported me through the anxiety of failures and the ebullience of successes, and  held my hand across more dinner tables than I can remember ... the same man who still shares my hopes and dreams for our children, never complains when I grab the Sunday magazine section first, and lets me fall asleep on his shoulder while watching reruns of House.

But I'm not going to do that. (Sorry, hon!) Instead, I'm writing a Valentine to readers—the men and women who keep the torch lit in an era when the flame is threatened with extinction by so many distractions. So here's to you, readers ...

♥ For understanding the aisles of a bookstore hold more wonder and enchantment than the aisles of a shopping mall

♥ For choosing to run out in the rain for a trip to the library, and for falling in love with the soft, well-worn pages of a book that's been read and read

♥ For feeling a tingle of excitement at cracking the spine of a brand new book

♥ For finding it hard to turn the last page and leave the new friends you've discovered

♥ For getting more excited by the number of titles in your e-reader than the amount of money in your wallet

♥ For telling your friends that yes, yes, yes, they should read the book you just finished

♥  For starting a conversation with a stranger by asking what they're reading

♥ For putting a novel in your cart at the big chain store, along with the carton of diet soda and giant package of paper towels

♥ For deciding that attending your book club meeting is more fun than watching fighting housewives or dancing stars

♥ For knowing that a bookstore gift card is a better present than cash

♥ For reading to a child

♥ For knowing there can be more beauty in one tender sentence than in a whole bouquet of roses

Happy Valentine's Day, readers ...