To: Clayoquot Writers Group
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2011
Subject: CWG website

I just had a peek at the CWG website and see that several of us (ahem…) actually need to add something. Greg, can you please remind me (us) how to do that?

–Adrienne

Yes, we have indeed been slack about keeping up our new website. Action item! Thanks, “mom”.

~greg

Seven of us will be heading over to Port Alberni next week, to do our first public reading as a group there. We’ll be at Serious Coffee this Wednesday November 24th. Readings start at 7:30 pm, but the doors will open at 7:00. And the event is, of course, free!

We actually have a lot of well published authors within our group – with dozens of books between us. Reading in Port Alberni will be non-fiction and science writer Adrienne Mason, novelist Joanna Streetly, poet and fiction writer Greg Blanchette, fiction writer Ashley Little, novelist David Floody, poet Janice Lore, and me – author and broadcaster Jacqueline Windh.

Our readings will be a blend of both published works and works in progress. And it will be fun! (And our books will be for sale – great local Christmas presents!)

We are all looking forward to visiting our neighbours in Port, and we hope to see you there!

Download our poster (5Mb jpg)  or our press release (6Mb pdf).

Janice Lore's fridge

It is the subject of the poem, and it is the poem itself.

Janice Lore’s fridge, with her poem Requiem for a Fridge, is now on display at Darwin’s Café, in the Tofino Botanical Gardens.

Listen to Janice read Requiem for a Fridge.

Janice Lore's Requiem for a Fridge

We pick Canada’s 10 best English-language poets

As a prelude to this year’s Griffin Prize for Poetry ceremony (June 3), I embarked upon an exceptionally difficult task: pinpointing the 10 best Canadian poets writing in English.

Coming up with such a list is tougher than choosing a roster for the Stanley Cup office pool. I started by eliminating any poets primarily known as novelists, and dropped several past masters in favour of some younger authors making their mark in this millennium. A few ruthless cuts later, I had my top 10.

The bio’s of the ten follow in the article, which is here. None from farther west than Calgary!

News Release — For Immediate Release — May 14, 2009

Fernie Writers Conference

P.O. Box 43, Fernie, B.C. V0B1M0

www.ferniewriters.org

Fernie Writers Conference Turns Three

FERNIE, B.C. — The Fernie Writers Conference brings together award winning writers, aspiring writers and emerging writers, for two weeks of workshops, social gatherings, panel discussions and evening readings. In its third year, the Conference continues to grow adding programs and additional workshops to meet the increased interest of writers in the western Canada and the Northwest US. As always, the readings, panel discussions and gatherings are open to the public at no charge.

This summer sees a major venue change. Through the generosity of the Fernie Arts and Culture Council, the Arts Station Gallery and Theatre will be hub for the afternoon discussions and evening readings. The Theatre will host the afternoon panel discussions and the author’s evening readings running from July 13 to July 25. The gallery will host most of the conference receptions.

To meet the broadening interest in genre writing, new workshops have been added in Creative Non-Fiction (Sid Marty and Jon Turk) and in Young Adult Fiction (Luanne Armstrong). An additional poetry session, the first weeklong poetry offering, will be led by Ron Smith, poet and publisher of Oolichan Books. Ron’s session will offer poets with a collection of work the opportunity to work with an award winning poet and publisher in shaping both individual poems and shaping a collection into a cohesive book. Oolichan titles have been nominated for the Governor General’s Award four out the last five years and took the top prize in 2006 with John Pass’s Stumbling into Bloom.

A Book Arts section the first week will offer a two-day workshop in letterpress printing, and one-day sessions in book design and a papermaking. The Book Arts workshops may be taken as a block or as individual workshops.

For full details on the Fernie Writers Conference, please visit the website at www.ferniewriters.org

Join our Facebook group

Or contact the director, Keith Liggett at keith@ferniewriters.org or 250-423-6132.

Thanks to Jacqueline Windh for taking the video, and to the Pacific Rim Arts Society for organizing RAATU.

1. Events are:

Author reading: Kathy Page
Thursday May 28th 8pm
Doors open 7:30, Darwin’s Café, Tofino Botanical Gardens
Novelist Kathy Page discusses characters, and reads from both published works and her new novel “The Find” which will be published in 2010.
$8 includes appies and entertainment, cash bar
Organized by Mermaid Tales book store and Clayoquot Writers Group, with support from The Writer’s Union of Canada and Canada Council for the Arts
(this evening will start with a few readings from our group, totalling about 20 minutes)

Fiction-writing workshop May 29th, 9:30 to 4pm
Location: Clayoquot Field Station at Tofino Botanical Gardens
Novelist Kathy Page leads a hands-on workshop on creating characters and discovering dialogue.
$50, limited enrollment
Contact jwindh@hotmail.com, 725-2484

2. Workshop content:

Creating characters and discovering dialogue
In this enjoyable, hands-on workshop we’ll use a series of exercises to first create and then develop new fictional characters. We’ll explore their potential in story terms, discover their voices and then, in an afternoon session on dialogue, get them saying (and doing) things they may regret. Intense, fun and inspiring, the workshop is suitable for beginners and more experienced writers alike.

3. Enrolment

So far we have one Port Alberni and one Victoria writer coming up for it, yay!!
Max enrolment is 14.
From CWG I have David, Caroline, Joanna, Sharon, Janice, Adrienne (and I think Greg). Oh, and me. That means 10 of 14 slots are filled. So anyone who might want to join – whether from within or outside CWG – should let me know asap.
SHARON: please confirm with me, I know it’s normally a workday for you.

4. Venue

Not sure about this – I’ll check in about Botanical Gdns. We have had a few places offered within our group (Janice, Sharon, me, and I think Adrienne did you offer too?) but am not sure if any can accommodate our group size, which would be somewhere between 12 and 15. If someone think they can accommdate that, please let me know. I think I could at my house with a bit of help of tables and chairs being brought in.
Please let me know about suggestions/ideas on this one. Obviously, if we can come up with a free place it brings down the CWG-member price (non-members are fixed at $50).

Submission Guidelines for Island Writer

The next issue of the Victoria Writers’ Society’s Island Writer is now being planned. We welcome submissions from both established and emerging writers currently living on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.

Deadline: Submissions for Volume 7 Issue 1 must be received by Wednesday April 22, 2009

What to Submit: We welcome poems, fiction, creative-nonfiction, articles on the craft of writing or the writing life and reviews.

Submission Lengths and Limits:

Poems: no more than 150 lines, (three poems/submission)
Fiction: 4,000 word maximum
Creative non-fiction: 4,000 word maximum
Articles, reviews and interviews between 750-1500 words.
Submissions are limited to one submission in each category (fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, articles) per writer per issue. Any submissions beyond these limits will be considered for the next issue in the order received. Please specify in which genre you would like it to be considered.

How to Submit:
Island Writer Magazine will only accept submissions in an electronic format. Please send your submission as an attached Word document to:
victoriawriterssociety@gmail.com

Please include your contact information on both your email and on the cover page of your attached submission. Your contact information should be on a separate cover page and include your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, title, genre and word count.

Please include only your work’s title on every page of your manuscript to facilitate blind judging and please number your pages.

You will receive a confirmation email that we have received your submission. If you do not receive a confirmation within two weeks, please follow up with us at victoriawrtierssociety@gmail.com

We will occasionally consider reprints. Writers retain all copyright after publication. Island Writer is not currently a paying market, but please include a brief bio with your submission, where you may promote your website or other work. Authors will receive a copy of the issue in which their work appears.

Please note that submission does not guarantee publication. All submissions will be carefully considered and read by the Editorial Team blind of authorship. Due to the large number of submissions, we regret that we cannot offer critiquing or commentary about your work. Aside from a confirmation of receiving your work, please allow upwards of three months for us to respond to submissions.

All Entries must be postmarked no later than December 31, 2009.

Send Submissions to: Theatre In the Raw, Artistic Director/One Act Play Contest, 3521 Marshall Street, Vancouver, BC V5N 4S2 Canada

Email: theatreintheraw@telus.net, tel: 604-708-5448

All One-Act Play Submissions must be:

• An original One-Act play (comedy, tragedy, drama or radio play), unpublished and unproduced.
• No longer than 25 double-spaced typed pages equal to 30 minutes, with no more than 6 characters, presented in proper stage-play format, and scripts MUST have page numbers. (Please include a SASE for return of script. Send copies only of script. NO original manuscripts.)
• There is an entry fee of $25 for each one-act submitted to Theatre In the Raw. (For two plays: $45 – For three plays: $70 – For four plays: $90)
• Please make cheques/money orders payable to “Theatre In the Raw”, bearing the submission date and NAME OF PLAY ENTRY and AUTHOR on cheque memo line. (Note: Plays without the entry fee cheque or funds will be returned unread.)

Winners will be announced June 30, 2010 (Increased prize funds this year.)

Full info at Our One Act Playwriting Contest 2009 @ Theatre In the Raw

The Writers’ Union of Canada is pleased to launch its 13th annual Writing for Children Competition, which invites writers to submit a piece for children up to 1,500 words in the English language that has not previously been published in any format. A $1,500 prize will be awarded to an unpublished Canadian writer, and the entries of the winner and finalists will be submitted to three publishers of children’s books. The deadline for entries is April 24, 2009.

Writing for children is a popular yet challenging genre to write in, whether for the youngest of children or teenagers. “Writing for children at its best speaks to young people without pandering to them, and whether through entertaining, educating, or enlightening, instills a love of reading that lasts a lifetime,” says Deborah Windsor, the Union’s Executive Director.

The Union initiated the Writing for Children competition to discover, encourage, and promote new writers of children’s literature. The Competition has grown in popularity since its inception, last year attracting 933 submissions from every region of Canada.

The Union is delighted to announce an esteemed group of jurors for the Competition. Norma Charles has written several award-winning books for children, including The Girl in the Backseat, which received the Moonbeam
Bronze Medal in 2008. She also won the 2005 Chocolate Lily Award for All the Way to Mexico, and the Sheila Egoff Prize for Children’s Literature in 2002 for The Accomplice. Former CBC journalist Kathy-Diane Leveille, a former finalist in the Writers’ Union’s Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers, published her first collection of short stories Roads Unravelling in 2003. Her debut novel, Let the Shadows Fall Behind You, will be released this spring. Noted children’s writer Eric Walters is a two-time Red Maple (for We All Fall Down and Rebound) and three-time Silver Birch (for S.T.A.R.S., Trapped In Ice, and Camp X) award winner who has received numerous other accolades for his writing, including a UNESCO Honours Selection for Caged Eagles.

To be eligible, submissions must be written by Canadian citizens or landed immigrants who have not been published in book format in any genre and who do not have a contract with a book publisher. Any text, fiction or nonfiction, up to 1,500 words, in the English language, that is original and not previously published in any format, is eligible. A typed, double-spaced entry in a clear twelve-point font on white paper, not stapled or exceeding maximum word length, along with an entry fee of $15 (cheque or money order) per submission, should be sent to The Writers’ Union of Canada at: 90 Richmond Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, M5C 1P1. The deadline for submissions is April 24, 2009. Submissions on computer disk or faxes will not be accepted. For complete rules and regulations, please go to http://www.writersunion.ca/cn_writeforchildren.asp.

The Writers’ Union of Canada is our country’s national organization representing professional authors of books. Founded in 1973, the Union is dedicated to fostering writing in Canada, and promoting the rights, freedoms, and economic well being of all writers. For more information,
please visit www.writersunion.ca.

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For additional information:

Nancy MacLeod, Competitions Coordinator
The Writers’ Union of Canada
416-703-8982 Ext. 226
competitions@writersunion.ca