More new Essential Edits staff

Adria Laycraft (Editor and Writing Coach)

Adria Laycraft has joined the Essential Edits team. She has a journalism degree and nearly twenty years experience as an author, copywriter, and editor. She was the co-editor of the Aurora nominated Urban Green Man anthology from Edge, and has been published in such venues as IGMS, Tesseracts, Neo-opsis, On-Spec, Hypersonic Tales and various anthologies. She works primarily in the SF&F genre. She is a member of Editors Association of Canada (Editors Canada) and the Calgary Association of Freelance Editors.

Adria is based in Calgary, and her home page is http:// adrialaycraft.com/

WordBridge Writers Convention Lethbridge

I should mention that Essential Edits is one of the sponsors for the WordBridge writers conference in Lethbridge, scheduled for Feb 9, 2019. Tentative plans are to have a single track of programming during the day, followed by the keynote speaker, followed by a meet and mingle.

The hope is to (1) act as a catalyst to help create a cohesive writing/literary community in Lethbridge and area; (2) provide a conference experience for writers who cannot afford the expense of travelling and staying overnight in Calgary for When Words Collide or the WGA conference, etc, or who cannot get away because of elder care or child care or employment issues; and (3) to connect Lethbridge to writers in other communities.

The WordBridge web page is https://wordbridgeconference.com/

The WordBridge Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/WordBridgeConference/

We talked about WordBridge at When Words Collide conference in Calgary last weekend and I was surprised at the immense support from Calgary area authors. It was very energizing to have not only the writers from Lethbridge come and take a button from us, but writers from everywhere express interest in attending or supporting the conference. I'm very excited about the possibilities!

As an aside, my report on my experience at this year's When Words Collide conference, is at http://runte.blogspot.com/2018/08/report-on-when-words-collide-2018.html. WWC has always been and remains my favorite writers' convention, but when it started eight years ago, it wasn't much bigger than we're planning for WordBridge.

WordBridge will be the third literary convention for which I was a founding board member. Back in 1979, I was one of those involved in launching Edmonton's NonCon SF convention, which ran for twenty years; and I was secretary for ConText'89 and '91, which saw the founding and consolidation of SF Canada (Canada's national association of professional SF writers) which is still alive and well today). The Lethbridge Library's Word on the Street successes shows that there is a lively community of readers and book lovers in the city; now to focus more specifically on building an event for writers.

New Essential Edits Staff

Halli Lilburn (Editor and Writing Coach)

Halli is an editor, workshop leader, writing coach, and author. She has published in Tesseracts, Carte Blanche,Spirited, We Shall Be Monsters, and other venues; was co-editor of The Dame Was Trouble anthology [Coffin Hop Press, 2018]; and is the author of the YA novel, Shifters. She is a member of The Editors Association of Canada and the Writers Guild of Alberta,and is part of Essential Edits' Lethbridge team. She has extensive teaching/workshop experience working with both teens and adults. Halli is Essential Edits’ lead for teen writers, YA authors, and horror, but also edits poetry and genre fiction.

Halli Lilburn's SF YA novel, Shifters.

Halli will be participating in panels at When Words Collide in Calgary this coming weekend, the Essential Edits table at Word on the Street Lethbridge (Sept 22, 2018) and is offering a creative writing workshop through CASA October 20.