Writing Workshops

“Jolene Philo brings wisdom, experience, and expertise to her speaking, but more than that, she reaches out to audiences with warmth and transparency that touches hearts and changes lives.”
Shelly Beach, Christy Award winning author, editor, and writing consultant

Become a Book Marketing Maven: In this day and age, authors are expected to help market their books. In this workshop, writers learn ten inexpensive and effective strategies for marketing their books long before the release date. From business cards to blogs, speaking to networking, this workshop covers marketing basics new and established authors can begin using right away.

Keeping Track of What You’ve Got: To effectively research and write non-fiction articles and books, writers need an organizational system. In this workshop, they receive tips about how to proactively organize research information for easy access when the writing begins. Strategies include organizing and coding interview questions, managing notes and audio files, taking notes while reading research materials, and creating tables and data bases to track what’s been gathered.

To Thine Own Self Be True: During twenty-five years in the classroom, Jolene learned to teach students more effectively by tapping into their different learning styles. Writers can use those educational strategies to increase their productivity and decrease their frustration. In the first part of this session different learning styles are described. Then participants use an assessment tool to determine their style. They then learn how to create a daily writing routine to match it and become more productive writers.

How to Become Your Editor’s BFF: Whether creating articles or book manuscripts, writers can impress editors by turning in clean copy. In this workshop, participants study the basic components of self-editing and learn clean writing strategies and skills, as well as some personal touches to make them their editor’s BFF.

The Secret to Writing Good Interview Questions: Believe it or not, a well-known educational theory is one of the secrets to writing good interview questions. In this session, writers are introduced to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Level Thinking Skills. They practice using the taxonomy to write questions that lead to deep, insightful answers from the people they interview. The taxonomy can also be used to developed rich, multidimensional characters for writing fiction.

The Why, What, When, & How of Writing Query Letters & Proposals: Whether they love ’em or hate ’em, serious writers must write eye-catching, thought-provoking query letters and proposals in order to be published. In this session, writers learn what query letters and proposals are, why they’re important, when to use them, and the basic steps of how to write them.

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Create Realistic Fictional Characters: Jolene uses the six categories of higher level thinking skills in Bloom’s Taxonomy to show fiction writers how to use the taxonomy to create questions designed to aid in the creation of multi-dimensional characters.

Grow Your Platform with Online Book Studies and Discussion Groups: This workshop will introduce you to the ultimate social media event for avid readers, Online Book Studies. You’ll learn what they are, how to organize studies for your books or books by other authors, how to adapt them into discussion groups for niche topics, and how to use them to grow your platform and internet visibility. You’ll also practice writing thought-provoking book study questions for you and study participants.

For more information or to book an event, contact Jolene via email.