Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Announcing our Live Critque Workshop

Precision Editing's LIVE CRITIQUING WORKSHOP

August 13, 2011
American Fork Library
64 South 100 East, American Fork, UT
Doors open: 10:00 a.m.
Workshop: 10:30 a.m. -- 3:30 p.m.
Includes one hour lunch break, lunch on your own

Registration deadline: August 1st

**Limited Space**

Payments to: www.paypal.com
Pay $35.00 to PayPal account: editor@precisioneditinggroup.com
**include "PEG Workshop" in the notes
**include your email address in the notes if different from your paypal address
(you don't need a PayPal account to do this)

Instructors include best-selling & award-winning authors:
Annette Lyon (Best of State winner, Whitney Award winner, author of historical fiction, women's fiction, romance, and a cookbook)

Josi S. Kilpack (Whitney Award winner, author of women's fiction, romance, suspense, culinary mysteries)

Lu Ann Staheli (Best of State winner in non-fiction, Best of State educator, author of celebrity memoirs)

Heather B. Moore (Best of State winner, Whitney Award winner, author of historical fiction and non-fiction)

Julie Wright (Whitney Award winner, author of middle grade science fiction, time-travel, contemporary young adult, and romance)

Bring:
15 pages of your manuscript, double-spaced, 12 point type
**Make 6 copies for your critique table

(We may not get through all 15 pages, but we should get through at least 10)


Questions: email editor@precisioneditinggroup.com

This information is also on our PEG WORKSHOPS page

Monday, May 16, 2011

Monday Mania--Query Letter

One of our readers has submitted a query letter for critique. Please offer only constructive comments.

Critique Archive #44

Dear Ms.****,

It was 2003 and I was living in Haiti and working for a volunteer medical organization when there was a coup to remove Jean Bertrand Aristide as the president of Haiti.

While experiencing the sounds and smells of war—the extreme isolation, the hovering military helicopters, the gunfire—I was also experiencing a fear of my best Haitian friend and a journey of extreme mental decline. This is when I began writing The Faces of Haiti, Belief or Truth—a scrapbook of memories about a single voluntary commitment which drastically changed the life of a woman who was confident, responsible, well educated, and respected, to a woman who suffered from extreme fear, serious mental decline and loss of the lifelong ability to make good decisions. Here is the story of a woman who could no longer define who was friend, lover, or foe—a woman, who, when looking in the mirror, no longer physically resembled herself.

The commitment and work required to aid a medical doctor and close friend, with the building of a physical rehabilitation program in Port au Prince, Haiti, began not only the growth of the well respected Non Governmental Organization which prospers today, but was also the catalyst in a personal endeavor that approached the precipice of insanity.

The organization, Healing Hands for Haiti, has provided care and limbs for the disabled, and the education in rehabilitation care for orphanages, hospitals, and many young Haitians. The organization is where I met my best friend; and then began a downhill slide into fear, insecurity, and paranoia. Yet that same organization gave me a chance many people never have to examine my life and the lives of others.

Hopefully I have conveyed that I have had the good fortune to separate my beliefs from truth. Learning that acceptance means an honest, non-judgmental examination of the truths and beliefs of all parties involved—including my own—and separating those beliefs from the customs of a country steeped in mystical traditions. Only then could I begin my uphill battle to regain the woman I once was.

I have been a medical social worker for twenty years, twelve years directly in Physical Rehabilitation Social Work. I began my yearly volunteer work with Healing Hands for Haiti by helping create the organization in 1998, and I moved to Haiti permanently to aid in building a new clinic in early 2004. I later moved into the community of Carrefour, Haiti to heal my mental health and begin to know Haiti and its people in an intimate and honest manner. It was in Carrefour where I experienced a new level of love and friendship.

I have attached the Table of Contents and sample chapters of my book The Faces of Haiti, Belief or Truth and hope you will find in them a desire to read more. Thank you for your consideration.