Congratulations to NCWN West member, Pat Davis

We received this email from Pat Davis of Brevard who has published her first mystery novel for teens and young adults. I met Pat in 2008 when she lived in Pennsylvania. We were attending a NCWN Conference and began talking while standing in front of an elevator. That was the beginning of a friendship we still enjoy. A native of Transylvania County, NC, Pat moved back to the mountains and continued with her writing. Give this new writer a try. Order her book on Kindle. That is what I am doing. Glenda Beall

From Pat Davis:
I'm delighted to announce the publication of my Teen and Young Adult mystery novel, THE NIGHT THE DANCING STOPPED.

It is now available on Kindle eBooks for $2.99 or through a variety of other e-sellers for approximately the same price.
The paperback is still in the review process and will go on sale on Amazon and other book retailers in a week or two.

I hope you will consider buying my eBook or paperback. The story has characters of all ages, and adults have reported enjoying reading it too. For those of you familiar with the Blue Ridge/Great Smoky Mountains area, many locations will be familiar, although they are used fictitiously.

If you purchase and enjoy The NIGHT THE DANCING STOPPED, please write a REVIEW. Sales and Reviews are crucial to the success of this novel. Thanks for your continuing encouragement and the purchase and review of my first foray into fiction writing.

More Impressions on the Conference

I told you about Pat Davis, writer originally from Brevard, who lives in Pennsylvania now. Pat was nice enough to send me her views on the NCWN Fall Writers Conference in Winston-Salem. Pat writes fiction and was there to pitch her novel to an agent or publisher. She attended classes pertaining to her craft. So it is nice to hear her thoughts. This is what Pat Davis said:

I thought "Pitching" was good because it applied to writing queries (which I guess everybody has to do) as well as verbal pitches. I think the most helpful time was "Setting the Scene" since it dealt with the opening paragraphs/pages of writing a manuscript. "Children's..." was interesting (good info and presenters) as was Robert Morgan. I personally liked the ones that were taught like college-level classes.

...The woman who taught the"Setting the Scene" class was well-organized and prepared. She really taught like it was a college class. She had good examples and cited other examplesof good dialogue, POV, making the setting alive and real, etc.The three women who taught the "Children's.." covered the gamut of writing for children, illustrations, publications from the group. Robert Morgan went into depth about the process of research, etc. He's interesting so it was a pleasant hour and half. I like hearing what knowledgeable people have to say. As you know, I didn't like the speed writing class - I much prefer somebody teaching me something I can use.

Pat has been rewriting her first chapter since Bess Reed critiqued her work at the conference.

Saturday morning I began my day with a full breakfast at the Bayberry restaurant in the Hawthorne Inn. I felt I'd need it in order to accomplish everything on my schedule for that day. JC Walkup invited me to sit with her and another young woman. JC and Buffy Queen had gone to an expensive place for dinner Friday night instead of joining us at the Bayberry. I'm sure they had better food, but I couldn't have had better dinner companions.


Valerie Nieman was instructor for writing narrative poems. Michael Beadle, poet from Canton was in that group. I like Val and found the class interesting. I am a story teller and most of my poetry is narrative.


The class, held in the hospitality room with several large round tables was not the best setup. The room was filled with people of all levels of writing. Val had us do some association of words which gave me ideas of subjects for poems I'd not thought of before.


I wish I'd had time to take all the poetry classes and there were a number of them. Keith, of Asheville Poetry Review, and Tony Abbot among many other poets, led classes.


My second class for the day was with Marjorie Hudson, author of The Search for Virginia Dare. Marjorie led us in a marathon writing class. Nancy Cash and I sat together. Pat Davis was also in the class and she hated it. Nancy and I discovered some issues we plan to write about someday. Poor Nancy lost her notebook with all her notes from THREE conferences in that class. That ruined her day. Marjorie invited us to join her for breakfast on Sunday to discuss publishing. That was a generous gesture on her part. Her class turned out to be much larger than she had expected with 48 students. I found the timed writings fun and helpful.
She used Haven Kimmel's books to illustrate her subjects and Haven is one of my favorite authors.

The biggest problem at the conference was the class rooms were separated and on different floors. Our folders had no instructions as to were they were located. We ran up and down stairs a good bit, but it was good for me, I'm sure, since sitting for long hours is the worse thing for me to do.


Later, I realized there was an elevator I could have used. But my adrenaline was super high and the stairs became easier and easier.


We picked up box lunches in the lobby and found seats in the large room where we had met the night before. Nancy Cash and I ended up sitting together again. She is good company, but was still worried over her lost notebook. I'll tell more about the lunch program in my next post. Hope to learn how to include photos by then.