Monday, November 8, 2010

Carolyn Howard-Johnson vists!


Carolyn Howard-Johnson
(3rd person from the left)
accepting an award.
          Today, I'm featuring a skilled promotion, editing, and writing guru who makes my skills look like baby-talk. So, let's see a little bit more about what Carolyn does from her mouth. Yep, I'll stop gibbering now.

         As a college freshman, Carolyn Howard-Johnson was the youngest person ever hired as a staff writer for the Salt Lake Tribune--"A Great Pulitzer Prize Winning Newspaper"--where she wrote features for the society page and a column under the name of Debra Paige.
         Later, in New York, she was an editorial assistant at Good Housekeeping Magazine. She also handled accounts for fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert who instituted the first Ten Best Dressed List, where she wrote releases for celebrity designers of the time including Pauline Trigere, Rudy Gernreich and Christian Dior. She was also a consultant for the Oak Park Press in the Chicago area.
         Her nonfiction and humor have been seen in national magazines and her fiction and poetry appear regularly in anthologies and review journals. She has been a columnist for The Pasadena Star News and is now a columnist for Home Décor Buyer, a trade magazine, and Myshelf.com and others. She writes movie and theatre reviews for The Glendale News-Press.
         She studied at the University of Utah, graduated from USC and has done postgraduate work in writing at UCLA. She also studied writing at Cambridge University, United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University in Prague.
          The author’s first novel, This Is The Place, and her book of creative nonfiction are award-winners. She also wrote a screenplay, The Killing Ground. Her book The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't was named USA Book News' Best Professional Book of 2004 and won Book Publicists of southern California's Irwin award.

          The second book in the HowToDoItFrugally series is The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success which also won a USA Book News Best Book nod. It is also the winner of Reader Views Literary Award and a finalist in the New Generation Indie Best Book Awards. Her marketing campaign for that book took top honors for marketing.

         Howard-Johnson’s stories have appeared in anthologies like: Pass/Fail, edited by Rose A. O. Kleidon, PhD; Calliope’s Mousepad in review journals like California State University at Stanislaus's Penumbra and the Mochila Review.

        She was honored as Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award by California Legislature members, Carol Liu, Dario Frommer and Jack Scott. She is the recipient of her community's Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance. She was honored by her city's Character and Ethics committee for promoting tolerance with her writing and was named to Pasadena Weekly's list of 14 women of "San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen".

          Born and raised in Utah, Howard-Johnson raised her own family in sunny Southern California.

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         Now, here are some links to get to know more about this wonderful person. And if you're a NaNoWriMo participant this year, you might want to grab a copy of her Frugal Editor, so when Nation Novel Editing Month (December) comes around, you'll be ready to edit each and every one of those 50,000 words!
BLOGS FOCUSED ON WRITING AND RELATED TOPICS


http://www.SharingWithWriters.blogspot.com


          Sharing with Writers is a blog on all things publishing with an emphasis on book promotion. It was named to Writer's Digest 101 Best Website list.

http://thenewbookreview.blogspot.com/

          The New Book Review is a great way for readers, authors, reviewers and publicists to get more mileage out of a great review. Guidelines for submitting (and recycling) good reviews are in the left column. Scroll down a bit. It's free.


http://www.SizzlingBookFairBooths.blogspot.com

          The Sizzling Book Fair Booths is a blog where participants in in my HowToDoItFrugally cooperative fair booths exchange ideas that make a ho-hum booth into a sizzling success. We keep it open so all authors can learn from our successes and mmmm...challenges.



http://www.thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com/

          This is the Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. It covers everything that has anything to do with editing from grammar to formatting. The question and answer format encourages you to get the answers you need.

OFF THE SUBJECT OF WRITING--MOSTLY

www.warpeacetolerance.blogspot.com

          My creative writing is mostly inspired by the need for tolerance--nay, acceptance--on this planet. War Peace Tolerance also includes resources so that people can--no matter what they think of our wars--support our troops.

Also check out Carolyn's Website where you can see what other kinds of books she has written. She's also on Twitter!

13 comments:

Darcía Helle said...

I am always amazed when I read Carolyn's list of accomplishments. We can all learn a lot from her, both as a writer and a person.

Karen Cioffi said...

LOL, I think Carolyn puts most of us to shame!

Unknown said...

I want to be Carolyn when I grow up! LOL

Glad she offers so much advice on editing. I can always use help in that area!

VS Grenier said...

Heather, you're not the only one who feels like they don't have much to say when Carolyn's around. I totally feel that way as well. Carolyn is who has helped inspire me to do the things I'm doing and I hope I can one day be a fraction of the expert she is.

Janet Ann Collins said...

Carolyn isn't just impressive, she's also a nice person who helps others.

The Old Silly said...

HoJo never ceases to amaze me. Excellent post here, and Carolyn you 'remember when' when you helped me SO much as a starving novice author. Best wishes for your continuing success!

Marvin D Wilson

elysabeth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
elysabeth said...

Good posting. I've not read any of Carolyn's books yet but I've heard how much they have helped everyone. Just one little fix - National Novel Editing Month is actually in March through the NaNoWriMo sites - so if you are wanting a copy of Carolyn's Frugal Editor book, you have plenty of time to get it.

Keep up the good work - E :)

Elysabeth Eldering
Author of the Junior Geography Detective Squad, 50-state, mystery, trivia series

Where will the adventure take you next?

http://jgdsseries.blogspot.com
http://jgdsseries.weebly.com

Martha said...

I have one of her books and I go to it as a reference all the time.
Martha Swirzinski

H.C.Paye said...

Thanks so much for stopping by you guys!

I want to be Carolyn when I grow up too!

And thanks for that, Elysabeth, I'll go fix it. I think I got it wrong because I dread it so much - I hate editing - lol!

~ Heather Paye

Heidiwriter said...

I'm honored to be in the same group as you, Caolyn! Thanks for all your tips and help to us all.

Jewel Sample said...

When I hear the name Carolyn Howard-Johnson I stop and tune in my listening ears because I know there will be a gold writing nugget waiting for me somewhere. Indeed her frugal book series should be on every serious writer's resource list. But what sold me on Carolyn Howard-Johnson is her advocacy for tolerance. We can't have enough people like Carolyn and I applaud her efforts to make a difference. Keep writing Carolyn!
Jewel
jewelofabook.blogspot.com

Carolyn Howard-Johnson said...

Oh, my gosh. I am overwhelmed! I was on vacation for a couple weeks and then had a few computer problems (I'm still having some with FACEBOOK!). This makes it worth while. I mean all this love in one place. I just must say I am so touched. Thank you to all of you who came by to recommend and send good will. Really!

Love to you all.
C.