Live Events & Appearances

My Scribd love affair con­tin­ues to deepen month after month. This week­end, I’m hon­ored to return to the fab­u­lous South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Writ­ers Con­fer­ence where I’ll be speak­ing about Grow­ing Your Read­er­ship with Scribd​.com. You’ll know why I love telling other writ­ers how I’ve built my writ­ing plat­form when you read what Michael Steven Gre­gory, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of The South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Writ­ers Con­fer­ence, wrote about my phe­nom­e­nal Scribd​.com journey: “(Hyla’s) first time attend­ing a writ­ers’ con­fer­ence was last February’s SD24.  Net result, three agents request­ing her mem­oir, Drop Dead Life: A Preg­nant Widow’s Heart­felt and Often Comic Jour­ney...

Last month, I had the honor of read­ing in “The Mama Mono­logues” at Corte Madera Book Pas­sage, along with NY Times best-selling author Kelly Cor­ri­gan and many other tal­ented Writ­ing Mamas. Spe­cial thanks to Dawn Yun, founder of The Writ­ing Mamas, for mak­ing this laugh­ter and tear-filled event pos­si­ble. We raised over $5,000 for Abelina Mag­ana, a North­ern Cal­i­for­nia mother of three who was shot 15 times and lived to tell. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to Abelina and her chil­dren, all of whom are still very much in need of our help, please send a check to: Attn: The Mag­ana Fam­ily Fund, Bank of Marin, 1450 Grant Avenue, Novato, 94945. Please enjoy this video of my piece, “You Think You Know,”...

I’ll be lead­ing a work­shop enti­tled: Scribd Suc­cess: How to Accu­mu­late Read­ers on Scribd​.com at the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Writ­ers’ Con­fer­ence in New­port Beach. The con­fer­ence runs from Sep­tem­ber 24th — 26th, 2010. There’s still space avail­able, so get your tick­ets and let’s hang out at the best writ­ing con­fer­ence in...

The red taxi drove away, leav­ing me there, alone, for three days of writ­ing, lec­tures, read-and-critique work­shops, author pan­els, edi­tor insights, net­work­ing, and the nerve-wracking one-on-ones with lit­er­ary agents. Already, I wanted to board the plane back to San Francisco. Only days before, my mem­oir, DROP DEAD LIFE, a preg­nant widow’s poignant, heart­felt, and often comic jour­ney through death, birth, and rebirth, had been rejected, via email, by yet another lit­er­ary agent. Like most rejec­tions, there wasn’t much com­men­tary on the actual writ­ing, but I con­jured up plenty of imag­i­nary bash­ing on my own. Not feel­ing very poignant or comic, I dragged my horse-sized brown suit­case up to the hotel lobby...