There’s still time to make a year-end financial gift to 49 Writers! The direct support we receive from the community ensures we can continue offering our programs and activities, and we hope you will enjoy the classes and events that we have planned for you in 2013. It’s easy to donate online – just click here!
Just a few more days until registration opens on January 1 for our spring semester. Here’s a quick rundown of the classes we’ll be offering in Anchorage:
- Writing fiction and Non: How Story Chooses Its Form, with Christine Byl
- Bring in the Clowns: The Uses of Humor in Writing, with Rich Chiappone
- Building a Platform as a Writer, with Lorena Knapp
- Spiritual Writing: An Introduction, with Kathleen Tarr
- Revision Intensive, with Andromeda Romano-Lax
- Prose/Poem: Exploring the Boundary Between Poetry and Prose, with Eva Saulitis
- Anatomy of a Sentence and Anatomy of a Scene, with Andromeda Romano-Lax
In Juneau, Amy O’Neill Houck will teach two classes for 49 Writers – Characters: Real and Imagined and What’s Next? How to take story starts and rough drafts through development and revision. In Palmer, Julie LeMay will lead a workshop entitled Poetry: The Mysterious and the Obscure. And for writers living anywhere, we are offering two apprenticeships this spring: Science Fiction with David Marusek and Nonfiction with Leslie Hsu Oh. Click here for more details or to register online starting January 1.
Join us in welcoming a new addition to our 49 Writers blog volunteer team: Writergirl. Each week she’ll answer your emailed questions on pretty much anything. Can your manuscript be saved? Can a shy creative type like you find love in the marketplace? Is it time to break up with your agent? Does it really matter whether you say lie and lay? Is it time to lie (lay) down your pen and give up on writing? Quit banging your head on your keyboard (that’s why your N key keeps sticking) and email your questions to askwritergirl@gmail.com. Writergirl assures us she’ll treat queries with all the love and respect writers don’t usually get, and you don’t even need to sign your real name.
On Friday, January 11, 7 pm, we will be holding our annual Resolve to Write event – details in our upcoming newsletter. If you live outside Anchorage and would like to organize a Resolve to Write in your community, just let us know and we can connect you to members in your area. It’s a great way to focus on your writing goals for 2013 – and, remember, you now have Writergirl to turn to for advice! If your goals include getting published, what better opportunity than our Alaska Shorts feature on the 49 Writers blog?
We have a great series of Reading & Craft Talks lined up for the first part of 2013 –thanks to our volunteer co-coordinators Lucian Childs and Lorena Knapp, and to our gracious hosts at Great Harvest Bread Company, Barbara and Dirk and their staff.
- January 23, Bill Streever
- February 11, Cinthia Ritchie
- March 4, Anne Coray
- March 22, Eva Saulitis (in partnership with Alaska Quarterly Review)
- April 25, Leigh Newman
Last week we reported favorable reviews from Publishers Weekly of two Alaska authors: Bill Streever and Cinthia Ritchie. We have since heard that they also picked Christine Byl’s Dirt Work as a featured review on their home page – “a beautiful memoir of muscle and metal.” Way to go, Christine!
If you have news to share of publishing success, a book signing, or any other literary activity in your community, feel free to email us at 49writers@gmail.com and we’ll help to spread the word.
If you know a young writer or are a young writer yourself, there are opportunities here in Alaska to get your work recognized and published. Write Young Alaska, the young program of 49 Writers, is taking submissions for the next contest: the deadline for the My Alaska entries is February 14.
Meanwhile, congratulations to the winners of the last WYAK contest, “Ghosts and Legends:”
- Nataly Ayala, Anchorage (10-12) for “Birthday Present”
- Katherine Johnston, Juneau (13-15) for “Beyond”
- Kaylea Wuya, Bethel (16-20) for “Grandma’s Ghost”
Read their stories in our online zine, Alaska Out Loud. Our thanks go to Barrow author Debby Dahl Edwardson for judging this contest, which drew entries from all around the state.
Remember too that F Magazine is soliciting entries for its 3rd Annual Statewide Youth Art & Writing Competition – deadline January 20, 2013, click here for more information. This year’s winners will be published in a special issue of F Magazine, showcased at Out North Contemporary Art House, and the top two will go to Sitka Fine Arts Summer Camp! Creative teens in grades 7-12 are invited to submit work in a variety of categories of art and writing. The submissions are judged locally and 49 Writers will jury the writing entries. In March, Out North Contemporary Arts House in Anchorage will showcase the statewide winners of the competition with a reading of their work by experienced readers and actors and the entire event will be streamed online for students unable to attend. ASYAWC is supported, in part, by Out North and grants from the Alaska Humanities Foundation and the Alaska State Council on the Arts/National Endowment for the Arts.
The new issue of Cirque is up at www.cirquejournal.com. Hard copies will be available soon and can be ordered from the same website. Look out for Cirque in selected bookstores also, and online at Amazon.
Ballot Press announces a new monthly $2,000 contest for writers. The winner is chosen based on votes from readers and Ballot Press judges, and their work has a chance of publication. Those chosen for publication are offered professional editing and aggressive publicity. Go to their website for contest rules and more information, and/or contact Josh Friedman with specific queries.