How was your weekend? Whatever you did, I hope it was fun and enriching. As usual, I had a busy two days. On Saturday there was an event at the GIlbreath Memorial Library here in my small town to once again celebrate the Official Winnsboro Historian, Bill Jones. We were both at the library to greet folks and sign copies of his new book, Reflections of Winnsboro. We had a wonderful time, and it reminded me again of what a treasure a library is.
Then in Sunday, we had our performance of The Little Red Hen, a short play I adapted from the Russian fable for The Winnsboro Center For the Arts for our beginner drama camp. We had some of the cutest kids in the show with wonderful costumes. The parents and grandparents outdid themselves with making costumes, as did one of the boys who made his own owl costume.
We have not worked with so many five year olds in the drama camps before, and herding the little chicks was like herding cats. But they stole the show, as did the little mouse.
WRITING WISDOM – Now I’ll leave you with some advice on copyright law from a lawyer who specializes in that. Susan Spann has a great post over at The Writer Unboxed that covers some of the basic myths about copyright and writing. Here is the first one:
Myth #1: You have to register copyright in order to own the copyright in your work.
False. Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office is not a legal requirement for copyright ownership. Copyright attaches to “qualifying works**” automatically at the time of their creation. However, copyright registration is generally required in order to file a lawsuit against infringers, and to claim certain benefits under the U.S Copyright Act, so authors should register copyright within three months of a work’s initial publication.
(**Short stories, novellas, novels, anthologies, poetry, and similar fiction and non-fiction works all generally qualify for copyright protection.)
If you are a writer, it is worth your time to go over and read the entire post. There are some myths there that I was not aware of, even after my many years in this business.
The week of camp, and the busy weekend, wore me out, so I think a nap is in order for today. Hope you have a great beginning to your week.