Joe Samuel “Sam” Starnes, author of the novel tentatively called Fall Line, forthcoming from NewSouth Books, conducted a novel writing workshop along with novelist Tenaya Darlington at Port Richmond Books in Philadelphia last month. The event featured discussions on the writing process, character development, and point of view and place. According to an article in Philadelphia’s Star newspaper, writers Starnes and Darlington see the workshop as an important step in forming a writing community in which members will encourage each other.

“I was in a writers’ group for almost 10 years and I watched one woman write two novels, and finish them, but it was really interesting to hear someone bring a novel together chapter after chapter, and I felt it gave me a road map,” explained Darlington, a native of Wisconsin. “I was really inspired by that process.”

Darlington and Starnes hope to make the workshop a monthly event, eventually expanding topic discussions to include short fiction and non-fiction.

Starnes, who works professionally as a freelance journalist, has experience in many styles of writing. He has published novels, short stories, poems, magazine and newspaper articles, and he also writes a blog. His next novel is due out from NewSouth Books in 2011. Fall Line is the powerful and suspenseful story of how the lives of one rural Georgia community are affected by the 1955 damming of a river by the power company, which results in the forming of an enormous lake.