AGM Conference 2008 The Federation of BC Writers' Annual General Meeting and Conference will take place at the Listel Hotel in Vancouver on May 9 and 10, 2008. The AGM will commence at 6:30 pm on Friday, May 9, and will be followed by a reception and the launch of the Fed anthology, Imagining British Columbia (Anvil Press).  Two workshops, details below, are scheduled (at the same venue) for Saturday, May 10.  Contact the Federation office at bcwriters@shaw.ca for registration forms. A First Date with Screenwriting Instructor: Michele Adams 9 am to noon $75 for Fed members ($90 for non-members) Registration fee includes complimentary notebooks & pens, and light refreshments. Many novelists, short fiction writers, memoirists, and poets are attracted to the idea of writing for the silver screen. Why? Fun, glory, money--because they "see" this narrative unfolding as a film, because they want to be part of the primary storytelling mode of our culture, because Vancouver is "Hollywood North"--or even all of the above! A feature script can be an exciting creative achievement, but it's also a lot more than a great idea.  Screenwriters need to develop special skills to connect the images, emotions and words that will bring their visions to life on the page; skills that, while they relate to the work of prose writers and poets, are in some ways unique to the screenwriter's craft.  In this morning workshop, we'll explore some basics: writing visual, screenplay formatting and vocabulary, developing active protagonists, etc. -- with a special focus on transferring skills from other writing practice. Michele Adams is the author of Bright Objects of Desire, a collection of short stories, published by Biblioasis Press. In 2006 her story "Infinite Speed" won the Fiddlehead fiction prize and was also listed in Best American Short Stories 2006; her fiction has appeared in literary journals, and has been adapted for short film and radio.  In 2007 her novel manuscript Grim Sausages was shortlisted for the Metcalf Rooke Award.  Two of her feature scripts: Lady S and Sex Lives of the Saints , won the SFU Praxis screenplay competition; both have subsequently been optioned and in development with production companies. She also works as a script analyst and story editor, and teaches screenwriting for SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts. The Art of the Sentence Workshop Instructor: Stephen Osborne 1 to 4 pm. $50 for Fed members ($65 for non-members) Registration fee includes complimentary copies of Geist, notebooks & pens, and light refreshments. Good writing begins with good sentences and Stephen Osborne knows where to find them and how to write them. Learn about good verbs and bad verbs, and even those pesky adverbs. This combination lecture-workshop will provide you with techniques to improve and revitalize your writing immediately. Bring along a sharp pencil and you’ll leave with some great sentences in your pocket. Stephen Osborne is the editor of Geist and author of Ice & Fire: Dispatches from the New World. He is a recipient of the Vancouver Arts Award for Writing and Publishing, the CBC Literary Award for travel writing, the National Magazine Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Western Magazine Award for Lifetime Achievement. He founded Pulp Press Book Publishers (now Arsenal Pulp Press) in 1971. Read more about him at   http://www.geist.com/phototaxis/