Gemini Ink

Creating Fictional Characters with Personality and Presence with Johnnie Bernhard
2023-02-15 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | Texas
Wednesdays, February 15 & 22, 6:30-8:30pm, CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Johnnie Bernhard
Nonmember: $115; Member: $100; Student/Vet/Mil $75

*EARN CPE’S
SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE.

What separates memorable characters from forgettable ones? What about a character that will make you invest in their journey or root for their downfall?
In this workshop, we will discuss what grabs a reader’s attention and draws them to a character. Writers will develop authentic fictional characters with the building blocks of character development: physical description, dialogue, and action. But we won’t stop there! We will explore the history, psychology, weaknesses, and motives that keep the reader hooked.
The importance of the sensitive reader will be discussed as a means of reassuring appropriate cultural representation in character development.
Writers will leave the workshop with the following:

An understanding of the building blocks of character development
Techniques for fleshing out a memorable character
Suggestions on practicing cultural sensitivity when crafting characters different from yourself

Award-winning author Johnnie Bernhard has written four novels: A Good Girl (2017), How We Came to Be (2018), Sisters of the Undertow (2020), and Hannah and Ariela (2022). Early reviews are calling Hannah and Ariela her “best and bravest.” Johnnie’s novels focus on the family, social issues, and the human condition. She served as a 2020 TEDx speaker for the Fearless Women Series. A Good Girl (2017) was a finalist in literary fiction, Kindle Book Awards. Her second novel, How We Came to Be (2018), received the Summerlee Book Prize, HM. Her third novel, Sisters of the Undertow (2020), was selected for discussion at the AWP Conference, the Pat Conroy Literary Center, and the Southern Book Festival/Humanities Tennessee. Named “Best of the University Presses, 100 Books” by the Association of University Presses, it also received First Place in the Press Women of Texas Communications Contest. All her novels are in the permanent collection of the Texas Center for the Book. Johnnie was a 2020 TEDx speaker for the Fearless Women Series. Read an interview with Johnnie Bernhard on Texas settings and universal themes. Follow Johnnie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JABernhard
www.johnniebernhardauthor.com

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Vincent Cooper
2023-02-15 19:00 - 20:30
RSVP
February 15th, 2023 via Zoom @ 7PM CST
Up Next: Poet Vincent Cooper, author of the poetry collection, Zarzamora. This session will be moderated by Christopher “Rooster” Martinez, an educator and spoken word poet from San Antonio, Texas.

About Zarzamora
“It’s time to celebrate the poet and buy this book, it’s a new voice, not one tied to timid convention or gimmicky stealth that results in poetry of cowardice— it tries to please no one, vociferates its own claim to Chicano identity and culture and does so with exuberance, even compassion and vulnerability—yes, compas y vatos y locos, get off it and go out and buy this book and pass it to other plebe, it’s time to celebrate this poet, unabashedly, honor this book written in blood, tears and laughter and pride, and love, adelante!!” Jimmy Santiago Baca – author of Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio.
Vincent Cooper is the author of Where the Reckless Ones Come to Die (Aztlan Libre Press), Zarzamora: Poetry of Survival (Jade Publishing), and Infidelis (forthcoming from Mouthfeel Press). He is a Chicano Marine Corps Veteran and Macondista based in San Antonio, Texas. Cooper’s poems have been seen in such fine publications as Huizache, Riversedge, Dryland Lit, and Somos En Escrito. He is currently at work on a hybrid genre book centering on his paternal heritage and how he came to be a Chicano named Cooper.

Christopher “Rooster” Martinez is an educator and spoken word poet from San Antonio, Texas. He earned a MA/MFA in Creative Writing, Literature & Social Justice at Our Lady of the Lake University. He is the author of two poetry books: A Saint for Lost Things (Alabrava Press, 2020) and As it is in Heaven (Kissing Dynamite Poetry Press, 2020). For twelve years, Rooster competed and won slams across the country and co-founded the literary nonprofit Write Art Out Inc.
