Arts & Literature

Writing Group Based in Peachtree Corners Brings Romance to the Masses

Published

2 years ago

October 9, 2022

Berta Platas and Nancy Knight (founding member of GRW) presenting during a workshop panel at the 2019 Moonlight & Magnolias Conference.

Escaping into a good book has never been more important than in recent years. During the slowest days of the pandemic, when restaurants, sporting events and other activities were closed, we turned to puzzles, streaming movies, binge-watching entire seasons of a TV show, home workouts and reading a favorite author’s work to pass the time.

According to Readers Magnet, a self-publishing and marketing firm, fiction writing remains the most popular type of book sold. At the top of the fiction list are romance novels, an estimated $1.4 billion genre.

Peachtree Corners-based Georgia Romance Writers (GRW) couldn’t agree more.

The non-profit GRW has more than doubled their membership this year with 180 serious, professional writers, nearly one-third of whom are multi-published. Members range from the self-published to New York Times Best Selling Authors.

Meet the authors in Peachtree Corners

Each month, romance writers from Georgia meet at the Hyatt Place Atlanta in Peachtree Corners. Beginning at 9 until 11:30 a.m., they enjoy coffee or tea, network and hear from an experienced author on a variety of topics. Inevitably, you’ll find many writers just leaving at 2 p.m. when GRW’s time to gather runs out.

HM Thomas, author of The Right to Surrender and What We Deserve at the 2019 Moonlight & Magnolias book signing.

“We’ve had many published authors — NY Times Best Sellers, USA Today Best Sellers — who come and speak to us on a craft topic like editing or strengthening character,” said Brenda Lowder, President of the Georgia Romance Writers Board of Directors and romantic comedy author of “Body Jumping” and “Sparks.”

Their most recent meeting, held Sept. 17, featured Sia Huff discussing “Stellar Scenes.” Topics in 2022 have ranged from social media basics and how to find an audience to adapting romance fiction to the screen and how to create “firsts” in a novel.

Moonlight & Magnolias

In October, GRW will host their annual Moonlight & Magnolias Writing Conference Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 20-23 at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta SW in Peachtree City. The three-day event, drawing writers from neighboring states like Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina, is jam packed with opportunities to learn and hone the craft.

Since its inaugural event in 1982, the conference has a long-established tradition of supporting and developing writers of all levels. While focused primarily on romance, writers of all genres are welcomed, respected and encouraged.

Thursday’s workshop features Debra Dixon on “Goal, Motivation and Conflict,” followed by an opportunity to visit vendors and socialize. Friday and Saturday include more than 25 morning and afternoon workshops on a wide range of subjects including titles like “Strength in Skirts: Creating a Strong Heroine,” “Writing Diversity throughout Genres,” “Villains,” “Tik Tok for Authors” and “Setting up Book Clubs and Get Your Book Chosen.”

Panel discussions will cover cold reads and industry trends, and provide an opportunity to learn from NY Times Best Selling Author Sherrilyn Kenyon, best known for her Dark Hunter series. Daily keynote speakers include Andrew Grey, Dahlia Rose and Melinda Curtis.

Moonlight & Magnolias Conference Chair and contributing author of “Love in the Lowcountry” Robin Hillyer-Miles notes that for authors attending each year, the highlight of the weekend is the Maggie Awards and the dance party that follows. The awards recognize published and pre-published authors of romantic fiction. Authors from as far away as Australia have submitted their work to win a Maggie.

Vicki Dabney, Robin Hillyer-Miles, and Pam Trouy enjoy a selfie at the 2019 Moonlight & Magnolias Conference.

Registration for the three-day event is $300 for members and $385 for non-members. That covers all workshops, lunch on Friday and Saturday as well as the Maggie Awards Banquet on Saturday evening.

“I’ve been to many conferences, and this one is the most fun,” said Lowder. “It’s a party atmosphere and people are just friendly and learning and looking to have fun. It’s joyous.”

What exactly is a romance novel?

According to Hillyer-Miles, GRW was at one time affiliated with the Romance Writers of America. Breaking away from that organization has allowed GRW to broaden their definition of what constitutes a romance writer.

“We’re able to expand our horizons a little bit,” said Hillyer-Miles. “Sometimes people who write novels with a romantic subplot might not be acceptable for RWA but is accepted for GRW.”

Most romance novels result in the main characters of the novel resolving a conflict for an optimistic conclusion. “A romance gives a promise that there’s going to be either a happily ever after or a happy for now,” explained Hillyer-Miles.

According to a MasterClass article explaining the genre, “Romance novels can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece, with five surviving stories centered on romantic love from this time. Samuel Richardson’s 1740 novel “Pamela” is also a precursor for the modern romance novel. In the nineteenth century, romance novels rose to prominence with the popular works of Jane Austen, whose novel “Pride and Prejudice” greatly influenced the genre.”

While a happy ending is required to be considered romance, the genre is inclusive of sub-genres that range from historical romance and suspenseful romance to the paranormal, science fiction and fantasy. The genre is also diverse with some novels focused on the challenges of young adults, multi-cultural relationships or LBGTQ connections. Erotic romance delves into more explicit sexual interaction and may bring to mind the worldwide best seller “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Members join for the community

Joining GRW costs $25 annually and members pay only $10 per in-person meeting or $8 to join the meeting virtually. Following their October conference, GRW’s next monthly meetings in Peachtree Corners will take place Nov. 19 with USA Today Best-Selling Author Ciara Knight and Dec. 10 with Tanya Angler, who Amazon describes as the award-winning author of “sweet contemporary romance novels revolving around themes of second chances and hope.”

For Lowder, becoming a GRW member eight years ago resulted after a friend encouraged her to attend a monthly meeting. She found the authors welcoming, uplifting and well-connected.

“Join for the warmth and support of the very talented writers in the community,” added Lowder. “The reason I volunteer is because the authors have been so supportive, warm and encouraging and it is a place that really nurtures growth.”

Learn more at garomancewriters.org.

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Karen Huppertz

Karen Huppertz is a freelance journalist, content writer and passionate volunteer with the International Dyslexia Association. She has worked with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for the past 10 years primarily covering city and county government action. Her endlessly inquisitive nature about a wide range of topics, desire to understand the big picture and an impassioned aspiration to provide accurate facts shape her work. Originally from South Carolina, Karen has lived in Gwinnett for nearly 30 years. She is happily married and mother to two great young adults. Her professional career includes a marketing and advertising background while her volunteer career has focused on dyslexia, a learning difference making it challenging for about 10-20% of the population to learn to read. She is proud to have played a small part in Georgia’s recent legislation calling for teacher training in how to recognize and help dyslexic students. When not posting images from her nearby garden on social media or writing to meet a deadline, she can be found advocating to make literacy available to everyone.

Around Atlanta

The High Museum to Showcase “Thinking Eye, Seeing Mind”

Published

1 week ago

December 12, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Oil on paper artwork by Terry Winters. A large red circle with smaller blue circles on top of it and gold/yellow accents. All of it on a dark brown background.

The special exhibition of the Medford and Loraine Johnston Collection will run January 17 through May 25, 2025

In the mid-1970s, artist and Georgia State University professor Medford Johnston, along with his wife and collaborator Loraine, began collecting works by artists who were in the vanguard of contemporary art. Today, they hold one of the finest collections of postwar American drawings and related objects of its kind, now numbering more than 85 works.

In 2025, the High Museum of Art will present Thinking Eye, Seeing Mind: The Medford and Loraine Johnston Collection, featuring their collected works, which is a promised gift to the museum. Featuring artists such as Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Elizabeth Murray, Martin Puryear, Ed Ruscha, Al Taylor, Anne Truitt, Stanley Whitney and Terry Winters, among others, the exhibition will demonstrate how establishing the parameters of an art collection requires infinite patience, focus, discipline and a keen eye.

“The Johnstons have been friends of the High for a very long time. They’ve also built an impressive collection featuring works by many of the 20th century’s most significant abstract artists,” said the High’s Director Rand Suffolk. “We are honored that they have promised to leave their collection to the Museum where it will be preserved for future generations — and we are delighted that they are sharing it with our audiences now, hopefully inspiring the next generation of art collectors and supporters.”

A curated collection

The Johnstons’ story is a testament to, in the words of the High’s Wieland Family Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Michael Rooks, “knowing the difference between what is right and what is almost right” when building a collection.

Although the Johnstons acquired several paintings and objects when they first began collecting in 1972, they quickly narrowed their focus to drawing, primarily by artists working on the frontlines of abstraction in the mid-1960s during a time of great innovation and experimentation.

Ink drawing by Anne Truitt, rectangular lines and shapes made with black ink on off-white background — Anne Truitt (American, born 1921), *Ink Drawing ’59 [11]*, 1959, ink on paper, The Johnston Collection. © Estate of Anne Truitt / The Bridgeman Art Library / Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.

Rooks added, “Med and Loraine’s collection struck me at once by its single-minded focus on a specific moment in time, which was essentially the time of their contemporaries. The artists in their collection are like close friends to the Johnstons — in fact many are or were. What is equally astonishing about the collection is the Johnstons’ dogged pursuit of quality. Their in-depth knowledge of each artist’s practice combined with their understanding of specific qualities to look for — or more appropriately, to hold out for — will be a revelation to emerging collectors.”

The Johnstons have built their collection with the High in mind as the benefactor of their passion and discernment. For them, their collection “is a labor of love, pursued over more than 50 years, and we are delighted to be able to help the High Museum document and celebrate these important artists working during the same decades as our lives.”

About the exhibit

Thinking Eye, Seeing Mind: The Medford and Loraine Johnston Collection will be presented in the Special Exhibition Galleries on the second level of the High’s Stent Family Wing.

The exhibit is organized by the High Museum of Art and made possible through the generosity of sponsors:

Premier Exhibition Series Sponsor Delta Air Lines, Inc.
Premier Exhibition Series Supporters Mr. Joseph H. Boland, Jr., The Fay S. and W. Barrett Howell Family Foundation, Harry Norman Realtors and wish Foundation
Benefactor Exhibition Series Supporters Robin and Hilton Howell
Ambassador Exhibition Series Supporters Loomis Charitable Foundation and Mrs. Harriet H. Warren
Contributing Exhibition Series Supporters Farideh and Al Azadi, Mary and Neil Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones, Megan and Garrett Langley, Margot and Danny McCaul, Wade A. Rakes II and Nicholas Miller and Belinda Stanley-Majors and Dwayne Majors.

Support has also been provided by the Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund and USI Insurance Services.

About the High Museum of Art

Located in the heart of Atlanta, the High Museum of Art connects with audiences from across the Southeast and around the world through its distinguished collection, dynamic schedule of special exhibitions and engaging community-focused programs.

Housed within facilities designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Richard Meier and Renzo Piano, the High features a collection of more than 19,000 works of art, including an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American fine and decorative arts; major holdings of photography and folk and self-taught work, especially that of artists from the American South; burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, including paintings, sculpture, new media and design; a growing collection of African art, with work dating from prehistory through the present; and significant holdings of European paintings and works on paper.

The High is dedicated to reflecting the diversity of its communities and offering a variety of exhibitions and educational programs that engage visitors with the world of art, the lives of artists and the creative process.

For more information about the High or to purchase tickets, visit high.org.

Top image: (from the collection) Terry Winters (American, born 1949), Orb, 2020, oil on paper, The Johnston Collection. © Terry Winters, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.

Around Atlanta

City Springs Theatre Company Presents the Hit Musical Jersey Boys

Published

6 months ago

July 3, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

The megahit musical Jersey Boys is making its regional premiere with the City Springs Theatre Company in a five-week run.

The megahit musical Jersey Boys makes its regional premiere in City Springs Theatre Company’s (CSTC) first-ever, five-week run at the Byers Theatre in Sandy Springs.

Directed by Atlanta’s-own Shane DeLancey, and choreographed by Meg Gillentine, Jersey Boys tells the rags-to-riches story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. The show details their remarkable journey from the streets to the top of the charts, to their 1990 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Leading the cast of Jersey Boys is Haden Rider as Frankie Valli. Rider is a City Springs Theatre Company veteran, with recent roles in both Legally Blonde (Emmett) and Fiddler on the Roof (Perchik).

Presented by Resurgens Spine Center, Jersey Boys runs from July 12 through August 11, and shines a special spotlight on home-grown talent, as the show’s four leading men are all Atlanta-area residents.

With phenomenal music, memorable characters and great storytelling, Jersey Boys follows the fascinating evolution of four blue-collar kids who became one of the greatest successes in pop-music history.

“City Springs Theatre Company is very proud to be the first in the southeast region to present Jersey Boys,” said CSTC Artistic Director and Tony Award-winner Shuler Hensley. “Our audiences have been asking for this particular show since we opened. The production is truly stacked with talent onstage and off, and we’re pulling out all the stops to bring audiences an experience that will rival any previous version of the show.”

Jersey Boys premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2005, prior to its 13-year Broadway run, from 2005 to 2017. There have been productions of the show in Las Vegas, UK/Ireland, Toronto, Melbourne, Singapore, South Africa, the Netherlands, Japan, Dubai and China.

Jersey Boys features a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music by Bob Gaudio, and lyrics by Bob Crewe.

Individual tickets to see Jersey Boys are on sale now ($42 – $108), with discounts for seniors, students, groups and active and retired military personnel.

CSTC’s Box Office is open Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Call 404-477-4365 or visit CitySpringsTheatre.com for more information.

This production contains adult language and is recommended for mature audiences.

Performance schedule:

Arts & Literature

Local Students Show Off Their Artistic Creations

Published

7 months ago

June 2, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Courtney Escorza, Colleen Nikopour, Laura Hwang, Jennifer Jackson, Norcross. Laura ELizabeth Martin, Payton Hirschmann, Paul Duke HS

From May 11 through May 18, the Norcross Gallery & Studios kicked off a fantastic exhibition, Reflections at Rectory, which showcased the works of 36 rising stars: AP and IB art students from our local high schools.

The opening reception celebrated their creativity and dedication. Gallery director Anne Hall presented a dozen awards generously sponsored by the community, a testament to the local support for these young artists.

One prestigious award, the Terri Enfield Memorial Award, holds special significance.

Established by Terri’s daughters, it recognizes not just artistic excellence, but also leadership, work ethic and the spirit of collaboration. Last year’s winner, Aidan Ventimiglia, even played a part in selecting this year’s recipient Jasmine Rodriguez.