This week I’m in Boston with 11,000 other writers and time is flying by – look for a roundup of literary news from AWP next Friday. Yesterday I attended a panel where two of our wonderful poets, Joan Kane and Kelsea Habecker, read from their work and the panelists talked about their personal experiences of the far north and south in Writing the Ends of the Earth: Women Writers on the Arctic and Antarctica (although Joan was quick to point out that from the Inupiaq perspective it’s the Beginning of the Earth). It’s great to run into writers you know from around the country and to make new contacts at other writing centers, who are already proving to be a source of inspiration for new ways to think about programming at 49 Writers. Today I’m on a panel called Creating a Literary Center and will be talking up our volunteers!
Our thanks go to Anne Coray for a fascinating Reading & Craft Talk this week about The Poem Within, at which she read from her three collections, explicated each poem, then read them again to enhance our understanding. It’s rare to hear two pieces read twice and the experience really deepened our appreciation of the language used and the ideas expressed. Thanks also to Lorena Knapp for coordinating the event, and to Great Harvest Bread for their fine hospitality.
Here’s a reminder
of upcoming 49 Writers classes and events – details at 49writingcenter.org:
- Friday,
March 22, 7:00pm, Great Harvest Bread: AQR and 49 Writers present a Reading
& Craft Talk featuring Eva Saulitis - Saturday,
March 23, 9:00am-4:00pm: Prose/Poem, a workshop with Eva Saulitis - Friday, April 5, 7:00-8:30pm, Anchorage Museum: Crosscurrents with Nancy Zafris and Frank Soos, “The Short Story: Alive and Well?”
- Saturday, April 6: Weekend workshop with Nancy Zafris, Short Story Structure and Brainstorming
- Friday, April 12, 5:00-11:00pm: Annual Write-a-thon fundraiser at Snow City Cafe
The Artist in Schools grant application
for the 2013-2014 school year is now open at https://alaska.cgweb.org
The first deadline for the 2013 cycle is April
15 and the second is November 1.
Check out the website for full information.
Yaw Chapel for an Artigras Writers Read, featuring John Straley, Jake Kranz, Hillary
Seeland, Hugh Bevan, Paulette James, and Erin Coykendall. All are welcome.
Virginia Library recently announced a new award: the Mary Lynn Kotz award. The
purpose is to recognize “an outstanding book (any genre, prose or poetry) that
is written primarily in response to a work (or works) of art while also showing
the highest literary merit, in and of itself, as a creative or scholarly work.”
Deadline Friday March 15. Full
information and application forms at the website.
March 19, 7-8.30pm¸ the Alaska Writers Guild presents David Onofrychuk, professor of creative
writing at Alaska Pacific University, for “Creative Nonfiction and Memoir:
Framing Experiences in Narrative.” Wilda Marston Theater, Loussac Library.
Club conference, coming up April 18-20. See the website for full details and registration.
North Words Writers’ Symposium will take place May 29-June 1 and will feature writer-activist Kathleen Dean Moore
as keynote speaker. Moore is backed by a faculty of Alaska authors that
includes John Straley, Kim Heacox, Lynn Schooler, Andromeda Romano-Lax, David
Hunsaker, Howard Weaver. For more information and registration, go to www.nwwriterss.com
contributions for a new anthology by and about successful writers retired from
a career other than writing. This is to be a how-to for retiring baby boomers
with time to write. See the blog for full information.