Author Spotlight
Clint Johnson
Clint Johnson is an award-winning writer of novels for adults and children, primarily in the fantasy and historical fiction genres. He writes about ancient penkrationists enduring marital strain, obsessive-compulsive robber barons, redneck fairies, demonic angels in puritan America, and the like. In the past he has written and published academic essays, journalism, writing and literature commentary, and short stories, as well as edited academic publications. His professional experience also includes technical writing in marketing and freelance editing of fiction.
The Dragon Codices
Green Dragon Codex
Clint Johnson did a great job introducing me to the world of Dragonlance. I went in unsure of what to expect, but soon found myself lost in the adventure of Scamp, Mather, and Dannika as they come set out on an adventure to save a Green Dragon (Is it evil???).
Action sequences were well crafted and kept me reading to learn about the fate of the dragon, the young adventurers, and the unknown artifact that seems to be an unknown cornerstone in their adventure.
Forum with Social Network Connectivity
I've finally figured out how to create the UtahWriting.com forum so that you can login with your Facebook or Twitter account. By restricting this from the traditional registration, I will be able to better limit spammers without making it so people have to email me for access to the forum. This way you get instant access to the forum and can avoid all the spam that goes with some forums.
Facebook Integration
Over the next few weeks I hope to be able to integrate Facebook into UtahWriting.com. With this addition, I would then be able to add function to the Facebook Like feature for use with authors and books, create a forum, and possible a chat area. My intent is to do away with the ning site. Too many passwords and sites can be frustrating and difficult to manage, so I hope to make this as userfriendly as possible without the addition of another password. Another feature I am thinking of adding, is an online university feature for authors that wish to host web classes. Along this same token, critique groups interested in an online environment might be able to use similar features.
Redesigning UtahWriting.com
Welcome to the first changes to UtahWriting.com. The newest features include several new additions.
- First off is a database to store all the book and author information so that I can more easily maintain the website. While this may not directly affect you as the visitor, it will open up more opportunities to add more authors and more features in the future to better serve the writing community.
- I have also added a RSS tracking system where I will be able to update this website with RSS feeds from authors or aspiring authors that are deemed appropriate - the completed version will soon be available for others.
- Off to the right you'll see the author spotlight. Before I had to manually input this and change it, and there was no history. Now, this will be changed randomly and will be saved so once I put in a review, it will become a permanent part of the random display.
- The conferences also will be easier to maintain and a historical archive has been added to automatically remove the conference from the main screen after the date passes and can then be browsed in the archive section at a later date. This will save me much needed time to work on other issues.
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