Author Interview you might like.

Check out this interview with C. Hope Clark, author of Low Country Bribe, an exciting mystery. This is Hope's first published book. She talks about her writing history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=M5CYHmOGKlo

NCWN's Squire Summer Writing Residency July 11-14 in Western NC

2013 Squire Summer Writing Residency will be July 11–14 on the campus of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.

The Squire Summer Writing Residency is the Network’s smallest and most intensive conference. Admission is limited to the first fifty registrants who sign up for one of three three-day workshops:

• Poetry with Kathryn Stripling Byer, North Carolina’s first woman Poet Laureate. Byer has published six full-length collections of poetry, including Descent (LSU Press, 2012), her most recent. A re-print of her first, the AWP Award-winning The Girl in the Midst of the Harvest, is forthcoming from Press 53. Her work has appeared in many journals and newspapers, including The Atlantic, Hudson Review, Boston Globe, and Georgia Review.

• Fiction with Elizabeth Lutyens. Lutyens returned to her native North Carolina after a career in the Boston area as a journalist in print and television. Her novel-in-progress, Medicine Island, was a semi-finalist in the 2011 William Faulkner – Wisdom Competition. A faculty member of the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC Asheville since 2006, she currently teaches its by-invitation Prose Master Class and is editor-in-chief of its online literary magazine, The Great Smokies Review.

• Creative Nonfiction with Catherine Reid. Reid is the author of Coyote: Seeking the Hunter in Our Midst (Houghton Mifflin) and Falling into Place (forthcoming from Beacon Press); she has also edited two anthologies and served as editor of nonfiction for a literary journal. Her essays have appeared in such journals as Georgia Review, Massachusetts Review, Fourth Genre, and Bellevue Literary Review. She is currently the director of creative writing at Warren Wilson College, where she specializes in literary nonfiction and environmental writing.

The Residency will begin on Thursday evening, July 11, with registration and check-in. Workshops begin on Friday morning, July 12, and continue until the early afternoon of July 14. The Residency will also feature panel discussions and readings by faculty and attendees.

Registrants also will enjoy meals together and have the option of staying overnight in on-campus accommodations.

“The small class sizes and extended, intensive format of the Squire Summer Writing Residency makes it especially safe for writers to share their work, get to know other writers, and find inspiration,” NCWN executive director Ed Southern said.

Registration is available online at www.ncwriters.org or by calling 336-293-8844.

The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to writers at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.

Poets, submit your best poetry for this outstanding anthology.

I was very happy to have a poem in the last Kakalak Anthology.

Beautiful book with great work in it. 

KAKALAK POETRY CONTEST

http://mainstreetrag.com/Kakalak%202013.html

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$10 ENTRY FEE

Must be a native or resident of North Carolina or South Carolina.

Send 1 to 3 poems by email as WORD formatted attachments. Any style, virtually any subject (we are not interested in pornography or poems that promote ethnic or religious hatred), no more than one poem per page, up to 60 lines (including stanza breaks) per poem. Deadline

May 31, 2013.

First Prize -- $300

Second Prize -- $150

Third Prize -- $75

Publication -- One free copy of the published book for each poem 

selected for publication

You can pay the entry fee online. Visit the link above to pay with PayPal or credit card.

Nuts and Bolt of Online Submission Class cancelled

We are extremely sorry that we had to cancel Robert King's class today, Saturday, due to a problem with getting a projector at the library.

We will re-schedule the class as soon as we can. Everyone was disappointed, including me, as I want this class and we all need this class.

We might try to hold it during the week instead of a Saturday as almost all the Saturdays in May are booked already.

If you were not registered for this class, you still have the opportunity to sign up for it.

Contact me at nightwriter0302@yahoo.com for information.

A Few of the Writers and Poets who teach at Writers Circle

Karen Holmes

Scott Owens

Robert S. King

Will Wright

Mary Michelle Keller

Blue Ridge Writers Conference Reception Friday Night

Tonight I met some new authors in our area. I was in Blue Ridge Georgia for the 16th annual Blue Ridge Writers Conference directed by my dear friend, Carol Crawford. 

The reception at the Arts Center on Friday evening was fun and filled with good food, good wine and artists of all kinds. I could spend hours just looking at the visual arts on the walls, on the tables and everywhere.

But this weekend is about literary art. Vicki Lane, popular fiction writer, is the Keynote speaker. C. Hope Clark, author of Lowcountry Bribe, is back to speak on writing mystery novels. My friend, Scott Owens, highly popular poet, editor and teacher, is back also to speak at two sessions on Saturday. 

This conference draws people from Atlanta and the surrounding area as well as local writers from north Georgia and Western NC.

I met a delightful author who began as a freelancer and wrote articles for magazines for years before she wrote her novel she is promoting at this time. I hope she will teach a class at Writers Circle one day. We've never had anyone teach a class on freelance writing. I'd love to take the class myself.

SEE WHAT SUNNY LEARNED THIS WEEK

Sunny at the dog park

The pup is Sunny who has developed into a very bad barker. She also lunges at other dogs and people as they pass her on the trail at the park. But, just this week, Sunny went to school with a good teacher and now, I hear, she is being such a good girl. She has learned a command that stops her barking and her household is much quieter and calmer. Sunny is a rescue from Logan's Run Rescue in Murphy, NC. They do great work for our furry friends at Logan's Run. So, if you have some extra funds to donate to help find homes for good dogs like Sunny, please visit the website of Logan's Run. 

You have time to enter these contests from Writers Market

Writers Digest lists some writing contests with deadlines in May.

Check them out on www.WritersMarket.com.

3 MAY WRITING CONTESTS

WritersMarket.com lists hundreds of contests for writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, writing for children, and more. Here are three with May deadlines:

• The Alexander Patterson Cappon Fiction Award is offered annually for the best unpublished short story. The winner receives $1,500. Deadline: May 18.
• FIELD Poetry Prize is offered annually for the best unpublished collection of poetry. The winner receives $1,000, standard royalties, and publication. Submissions are received only during the month of May.
• Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition is offered annually for the best previously unpublished chapbook collection of poetry. The winning manuscript earns $1,000, publication, and 20 copies of the chapbook. Deadline: May 15. 

Pat Davis, budding novelist, Gives Good Advice

I tell my students who self-publish books to find a good professional editor before they print their books. I tell them that no matter how much we have gone over the chapters in class or how well their best friend says you have done this book, don't waste all the time and energy you have put into the manuscript by publishing a book with errors or simply a book that doesn't transition well or flow properly.

My good friend, Pat Davis is a novelist and she says it best on her blog. Read her post before you publish your book. 

New Memoir by Nadine Justice

A new writer, Nadine Justice, heeded my advice and her memoir is a very well written book, I'm a Coal Miner's Daughter, But I Cain't Sang. See it on Amazon.com and read my review.

She says the most valuable thing she learned about publishing a book is that you don't want to work for a year or more to write a book and then publish it before it has been polished to perfection or as close as possible. I am so happy she heeded my advice. Her book is good reading and I recommend it.

Nadine Justice, author of I'm a Coal Miner's Daughter, But I Cain't Sang