Today is the day! Registration is now open for our fall classes in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Palmer. We may yet add some to the schedule and will announce them as details are finalized. Check here and on the website for the latest information. Here’s a quick roundup of topics and instructors:
· Thriving in the Writing Life with Claire Rudolf Murphy (Fairbanks)
· Writing Your Alaska with Douglass Bourne (Palmer)
· Description and Detail with Deb Vanasse (Anchorage)
· Building a Platform as a Writer with Lorena Knapp (Anchorage)
· Writing Wrongs with Jonathan Bower (Anchorage)
· Character: Fiction’s Master Key with Andromeda Romano-Lax (Anchorage)
· Unleashing the Screenwriter in You with Don Rearden (Anchorage)
· Fiction Apprenticeship with Martha Amore (statewide)
· Children’s Literature Apprenticeship with Deb Vanasse (statewide)
Thanks to all who attended this week’s informational session “Write Your Life,” at which screenwriter Michael Berk shared tips on what it takes to be a creative and successful writer for television and the silver-screen. More than 20 writers came to hear his presentation and to ask questions about the process of screenwriting. Our thanks go to Affinity Films and Out North, who made this event possible.
Our first Crosscurrents event of the fall season takes place on Thursday, September 6, 7:00pm at the Wilda Marston Theatre, Z.J. Loussac Library. “Fictionalizing Our Lives” features acclaimed author Pam Houston (Contents May Have Shifted, Cowboys are My Weakness, Waltzing the Cat, A Little More About Me) in an on-stage conversation with award-winning Alaska writer Heather Lende (If You Lived Here I’d Know Your Name, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs). A book signing and reception, hosted by the Anchorage Library Foundation, will follow at 8:30pm in the Ann Stevens Room, 3rd floor. Free to members of 49 Writers and Friends of the Library, $5 donation suggested.
The UAA Bookstore has announced its fall schedule of events – full details available at their website. September highlights include:
· September 10, 5:00pm-7:00pm—“Writing the Alaska Native Story: Contemporary Perspectives and Challenges” with Jan Harper Haines, Lael Morgan, William L. Iggiagruk Hensley, and Dr. Jeane Breinig
· September 17, 5:00pm-7:00pm—John Morgan discusses his new book, Forms of Feeling: Poetry in our Lives, Eva Saulitis presents her new collection of poetry, Many Ways to Say It, and poet/playwright Arlitia Jones presents Come to me, Leopards.
Eagle River author Monica Devine will be signing copies of her new children’s book Kayak Girl (University of Alaska Press) at the Homer Bookstore on Saturday, September 1, noon-2:00pm.
In Fairbanks, the UAF English Department’s Midnight Sun Visiting Writers series kicks of on September 14, 7:30pm, with Melinda Moustakis reading from her fiction at the Museum of the North. On September 28, 7:00pm, John Morgan will be at the Schiable Auditorium to share his poetry and prose.
Anchorage essayist and author Bill Sherwonit will teach a 12-week nature and travel writing class beginning September 19, 7:00-9:30pm, at the Sierra Club office downtown. Participants will explore and refine their own writing styles, with an emphasis on the personal essay form, and read and discuss works by some of America’s finest nature and travel writers. The cost is $240. To register or for more information, call 907-245-0283 or email akgriz@hotmail.com.
Bill Streever’s article about vintage flying, “Try These Hot Wings” appeared in the August 24 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Check it out!
Cirque, an Anchorage-based regional journal, invites emerging and established writers living in the North Pacific Rim (Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Hawaii, Yukon Territory, Alberta, British Columbia and Chukotka) to submit short stories, poems, creative nonfiction, translations, plays, reviews of first books, interviews, photographs, and artwork for Cirque’s Winter Solstice 2012 Issue. Submission deadline is September 21 (fall equinox). Click here for submission guidelines.
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.
Sitka residents have the chance to meet with Montana writer Robert Lee on Tuesday, September 4, at 7 pm in the Kettleson Library. Suggested donation is $5. Lee, the September writer-in-residence at the Island Institute, teaches for the Missoula Writing Collaborative and is author of “Guiding Elliott.” Tune in for an interview with Lee on Raven Radio’s “Raven Anthology” Sunday, September 2, 1:30-2:30 pm.
Submissions
Gulf Coast is accepting entries for the 2012 Barthelme Prize for Short Prose, judged by Ander Monson. The contest is open to prose poetry, flash fiction, and micro-essays of 500 words or fewer. Winner receives $1,000 and publication. Entry fee is $17. Deadline is September 1.
Cruel Garters (come on, with a name like that, how can you not submit?) seeks poems for its inaugural issue for fall 2012. Submission deadlines are Oct. 15 for snailmail and Oct. 23 for online. The quarterly publication prefers short, lyrical and odd poems but will work with anything that sparks interest. Poems only. Cover letters not necessary. Response time about 90 days. Submit to cruelgarters.submishmash.com/submit.
Otis Nebula seeks fearless prose, poetry, art, and audio for its October issue. For more information, visit www.otisnebula.com.
Northwind is accepting short fiction and narrative non-fiction for its Fall 2012 Story Contest. Submissions from 1,500 to 8,000 words (no flash fiction, please). First prize is $1,000 and publication, second is $250 and publication and third is $100. Deadline is October 15. Entry fee is $10. For more information, vist www.northwindmagazine.com.