Victoria-area freelancers, CMG Freelance has a professional development opportunity coming your way next month. Every freelancer — whether new or experienced — can use some pitching practice. So join us for The Perfect Pitch, our day-long workshop on pitching.
It’s scheduled for October 1 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Fisgard Street Forum (845 Fisgard Street). You’ll learn how to hone your ideas and craft effective query letters to sell your stories.
The instructor is Don Genova, a 20-year award-winning veteran of freelance journalism and former food columnist for CBC Radio and Television. Don has been an instructor in Freelance Writing at UBC since 2002 and his students have gone on to become contributors to magazines such as the Georgia Straight, EAT Magazine, Edible Vancouver, and many others.
The workshop will be a combination of instruction and participation. Please bring a tablet or laptop and be prepared to do some writing.
Two top Victoria-area writers will join the workshop at the end of the day to meet with participants to provide feedback on their ideas.
• Tom Hawthorne is an award-winning reporter who has written for a wide range of newspapers and magazines. He wrote a human-interest column for the Globe and Mail for seven years and is a now columnist for the Victoria lifestyles magazine Blvd, as well as a contributor to TheTyee.ca and CBC Radio. His byline has appeared in Reader’s Digest,Canadian Geographic, the National Post, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Detroit Free Press.
• Judith Lavoie is an award-winning journalist who has worked on newspapers in England, Cyprus, the Middle East and Canada and is now a freelance reporter specializing in stories on the environment, climate change and First Nations. Lavoie spent two years with the Cyprus Mail and, during that time, was also a Middle East stringer for UPI. She spent more than 20 years at the Victoria Times Colonist, where she spent more than 20 years covering beats such as the Legislature, social issues and environment. Lavoie has won four Webster awards and was nominated for a National Newspaper Award for her coverage of the Hells Angels. Her proudest achievement was a nomination for a Michener Award for her series of stories about First Nations housing in B.C.