Happy you rejoined me. 🙂 And, as you will see if you read far enough, this is all about me.
The Brooklyn Book Festival will be held from September 16-23 in a variety of venues around Brooklyn (of course). It’s one of America’s premier book festivals and the largest free literary event in New York City. Presenting almost 200 national and international literary stars and emerging authors, the Festival includes a week of Bookend Events throughout New York City, a lively Children’s Day and a celebratory Festival Day with more than 300 authors plus 250 booksellers filling a vibrant outdoor Literary Marketplace (September 22).
The Westport Writers Workshop is signing people up for one-day Saturday workshops beginning in September. Among them are: Honing Your Pitch  with Allison Dickens,  (September 14), Facebook For Writers w/ Jessica Grunenberg  (September 21), Twitter For Writers, also with Jessica Grunenburg, Learn to Outline (How to Write a Novel & Not Lose Your Mind) with Jessica Speart on October 5, Revise and Love It with Marie Cordell (October 12). Each costs $75, and runs from 10-noon or 10-1pm.
The Saugatuck StoryFest runs from September 26-28 and kicks off with Beyond Earth: The Stories and Science of Space (September 26, 7pm). Authorized Ray Bradbury biographer Sam Weller (The Bradbury Chronicles) returns to StoryFest to talk about Bradbury’s science fiction legacy. And Kate Howells (Space is Cool as F**k) takes the audience on an interplanetary adventure to worlds far beyond our galaxy. And New Media artist Balam Soto transforms the Forum into an interactive, interplanetary experience. The event is free but you need to register.
On Friday, September 27, from 7-9pm, see Creature Stories and Monstersongs a kind of rock-horror mashup.  Meet author Mallory O’Meara, who’ll discusses her bestselling book The Lady from the Black Lagoon, which uncovers the life and career of Millicent Patrick, the woman who created the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Then, musical theatre composer Rob Rokicki and illustrator Dave O’Neill are joined by a cast of New York performers for Rokicki’s Monstersongs, a rock musical song cycle celebrating an array of literary monsters. Tickets $25.
The Festival continues with non-stop activities throughout the day on Saturday, September 28, featuring over 60 authors. That day, the festival will feature several author panels, including Scary Stories (Horror Writers Association), See Yourself in the Story, New Worlds, Real and Imagined, The Art of Non-fiction, The Connecticut Nutmeg Book Awards, Coming of Age (YA), The Thrill of it (Thrillers), What Makes a Villain? (Fairfield Scribes, including yours truly), and Addictive Page Turners.
Christa Carmen will be interviewing featured authors. Diane Meyer Lowman, Westport’s poet laureate and haiku expert will give a workshop on writing haikus. And there’ll be a storytelling lab.  Everything is free, except as noted above.
September 29: The Storytellers Cottage is hosting an Author Afternoon with local writer James M. Chesbro whose book, A Lion in the Snow was published last year. A light reception will follow. When his wife was pregnant, James M. Chesbro started having daydreams of seeing a lion in his street, padding toward his house through the snowflakes of a New England storm. In these essays, Chesbro finds himself disoriented and bewildered by fatherhood again and again as he explores the maddening moments that provide occasions for new understandings about our children and us. Sunday September 29 from 3:00-4:30 pm. Cost: $5.  Pre-registration is required
If you’re interested in places to submit your work, you can join the CRWROPPS list, run by Allison Joseph, a poet and professor at SIU-C. She sends a daily email that includes calls for submissions of poetry or fiction, and contests as well. One current listing is a contest from Press 53, who are looking for flash fiction under 750 words. Deadline: September 30.
Need a website or book cover designer? Tim Kwiat at Night and Day Media comes highly recommended by member Carol Dannhauser, owner of the Fairfield County Story Lab. BTW, you can join the Story Lab for $25 per month, which gets you one day of writing there per month, but also access to their many community events for writers.
And PublishDrive is a website recommended by member Richard Seltzer, that will convert your manuscript to an eBook format and distribute it worldwide on various platforms. If you want paper copies, or you’re thinking of going exclusive with Amazon, they’re not for you. But if you want help with design, marketing distribution of review copies and more, you may find them helpful.
A new way to publish—via the app, Radish. Advance your career by publishing strategically–avoiding saturated e-retailers like Amazon and migrate to mobile storytelling. Publish in a week-long production cycle, as opposed to the traditional yearlong cycle and monetize your content immediately. Build a young and unique readership from rapidly growing global smartphone fiction consumption.