Newsletters and Kite Tales blog

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Check out our Fall 2023 Newsletter! Click here for google link.

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Fall 2023 SoCal Newsletter

Read about our Fall Harvest conference, book festival, winning illustrators, book signing, book banning, marketing advice and more!

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Kite Tales

Find out what's happening in the tri-regions: CenCal, LA and SoCal. This weekly blog covers events, member good news and more.

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Spring 2023 Newsletter

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Our SoCal newsletter comes out twice a year.

Grammar Nerd Articles - Table of Contents

Want to improve your grammar? Check out these articles by Tim Burke from previous newsletters (below).

Spring ’24 Issue 11--Comma Rule 2: Intro Comma

Fall ’23 Issue 10--semicolon

Spring ’23  Issue 9--No grammar nerd column!

Spring ’22  Issue 8--odds and ends:

  • Could’ve/should’ve/would’ve = could have/should have/would have
  • Past tense versus past perfect
  • ellipsis
  • capitalization common errors 

Fall ’21 Issue 7--Dialogue issues (tag in the middle of dialogue, nonspeaking verb/verbs in tags) 

Spring ’21  Issue 5--Apostrophe (possession/its vs. it’s); Wrong plurals with apostrophes the Smiths/Smith’s

Fall 2020  Issue 4--

  • Indent 1st line
  • Inner dialogue
  • Interrobang
  • Idioms: on purpose/on accident
  • Lie/lay

Spring ’20 Issue 3--Pronoun Twins

Summer ’19 Issue 2--Lie/Lay

Spring ’19 Issue 1--Comma Rule 1:  FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)

  • Advanced topic: end punctuation (abbreviations w period/interrobang/question marks in and out of dialogue)