News Blast -- December 2024
This final membership-wide News Blast of the year is definitely packed with news and information. Your MWSA board is excited to wrap up this year and to bring in 2025 with new opportunities and benefits to our members.
From all of us at MWSA, we wish you a festive and joyful holiday season and a productive and writing-filled New Year!
Membership Discounts—An opportunity to save 50% on dues
Thanks to a generous donation from longtime MWSA member and prolific author Joe Badal, we’re offering reduced-price memberships for new members and six-month dues expiration extensions for existing members.
Who qualifies for the discount, and how do I get it?
Recruit a new member–the newly recruited person can join with a 50% dues discount, while the recruiting MWSA member gets a six-month dues extension.
Attend a Write Your Story seminar.
Contribute to our Dispatches magazine or 2025 anthology.
For a limited time, existing associate members can upgrade to a full member at a 50% discount.
Visit our website for more details or to apply for this exciting new membership deal:
https://www.mwsadispatches.com/membership-discounts
Contact our membership secretary (membership@mwsa.co) if you have any questions.
Membership Survey & 2025 Conference Location
Cue the music, with Fats Domino singing, “I’m going to Kansas City. Kansas City, here I come.”
Although our voting resulted in a near three-way tie, the MWSA board selected Kansas City for our 2025 conference. The deciding factor was that one of our board members lives nearby and has offered to head up our conference planning. A big shout-out to fellow board member Rob Lofthouse!
As soon as Rob’s planning allows us to nail down the hotel venue and date, we’ll let everyone know so you can start marking your calendar and making your travel plans.
In addition to voting for a conference location preference, we asked survey takers several questions about how we run our conferences. We also solicited input on other MWSA member benefits and programs. Click on the link below to see the responses.
https://www.mwsadispatches.com/2025-conference-membership-poll
MWSA’s Writers Education Series Returns
MWSA will host five educational webinars during 2025 on the following topics:
January 19, 2025, Writing Your Story – Jim Tritten
March 16, 2025, Setting – Nancy Arbuthnot
May 18, 2025, Starting Your Story/Characters – Jack Woodville London
July 27, 2025, Telling – Narration and Dialogue – Bob Doerr
August 17, 2025, Plot and Story Arc – Jim Tritten
All webinars are on Sunday afternoons at 5:00 PM Eastern, 4:00 PM Central, 3:00 PM Mountain, and 2:00 PM Pacific. You'll also find these webinars listed on our website's Events page.
These are the same topics that were presented by these same people at the Admiral Kidd Club in San Diego on September 26th as our Write Your Story Workshop. Our intent is to record these presentations and make them available for others who want to use them for local presentations elsewhere. Events will be scheduled and links posted on our MWSA website and MWSA Facebook pages as we approach the dates listed. If anyone has any questions, contact Jim Tritten at jimtritten@comcast.net.
New Year’s Resolutions—MWSA Style
Tis the season to make resolutions about losing weight, exercising more, being a better spouse, family member, friend, etc., and then forgetting about the promises you made to yourself two weeks later. How about trying one or two (or more) of the following resolutions to make your 2025 a brighter and more literature-filled one?
Here are a few suggestions to get you started—MWSA style.
Help an author get their book a bit more polished before it’s published by offering feedback via our Beta Reader Program.
Buy an MWSA author’s book at least once this year.
Try browsing through our award winners to help you pick something worthwhile: https://www.mwsadispatches.com/award-winners
Have someone on your gift list you can’t imagine a present for? Buy them an MWSA author’s book as a gift.
Order a paper copy of an MWSA book. Read it and then donate the copy to your local library to help someone else discover their new favorite author.
Promote a fellow MWSA author’s book.
Tell your friends and family
Write about it in your author's blog
Mention it in your communications with your readers
Write a review and post it on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, or wherever.
Although everyone knows that it’s better to give than to receive, giving AND receiving is even better. Use MWSA’s Review Swap Program to GIVE a review for another author’s book and RECEIVE a review of yours.
Reach out to another MWSA author.
Post on their author page, social media account, or website
Send them an email
Go to an MWSA conference and talk to them in person
Recommend an MWSA book to your book club.
Share news about a fellow MWSA author’s success.
Make sure you support your local bookstore.
Yes, buying online from Amazon is easier, but the trip to your local bookstore will pay dividends—to the struggling owner and you. You might even talk them into stocking one of your books.
Attend another author’s event at the bookstore.
Request that the bookstore stock one of your favorite MWSA books. While you’re at it, do the same thing at your local library.
Help a fellow author by reviewing for MWSA.
If you’re not a reviewer, become one! (https://www.mwsadispatches.com/mwsa-reviewer-signup)
If you’re already a reviewer, recommend someone else to join our reviewing team or review “just one more book” during the season.
Benefit Spotlight
The Review Swap Program
Every writer knows that reviews are a vital component of their book marketing and sales efforts. MWSA authors submit their books to our review and awards program and pay a $45 submission fee to cover the costs of running our program and hosting our annual awards banquet. The reviews generated by this program are the “official MWSA review.” But that’s only one review; authors need more reviews–many of us need a lot more reviews. What happens when we run out of friends and family to beg for reviews?
MWSA created its Review Swap program to allow members to purchase or borrow each other's books and exchange reviews after reading them. You can consider this MWSA program as an online venue where our members can “meet” and agree to whatever review-swapping methodology they consider mutually convenient.
To learn more or to submit your book for swapping, visit our Review Swap page:
https://www.mwsadispatches.com/review-swap
Notes:
In order to participate, you must be an active (dues current) member, and you have to sign in to your MWSA account to participate.
Click on the Subscribe button to get notifications when new review swap opportunities are added.
MWSA does not monitor these individual transactions between our members, and the reviews represent the individual opinions of our members.
Friendly Reminders
Call for Anthology Submissions
Although we've received several submissions since our window opened on December 1, it's not too late to submit your contribution to our 2025 anthology.
For further details, please visit our Anthology Submission page.
50% Discount for Dispatches magazine ads
MWSA members can submit ads to Dispatches for inclusion in each edition; we accept three free ads, first-come, first-served. We currently plan on offering free ad space to our members once a year. If you’d like to advertise more than once a year, you might want to take advantage of our special half-off sale. Visit our Dispatches submission page (https://www.mwsadispatches.com/dispatches-submissions) for details and to submit your ad.
Of course, we’re also always looking for content, so please feel free to submit your latest short story, poem, or article!
Kickoff of our 2025 Awards Season
The submission window for MWSA's 2025 review and awards season will open on January 2. If you're planning on submitting your book, you'll find the details on our main awards page.
If you'd like to join our reviewer team, we'd love to have you join us! If you're interested, please email us or visit the page below: