Writing and Other Submissions for The Latent Print

The Latent Print is a website for San Diego artists to submit their work for possible publication. I ran across their site when perusing the San Diego Writers Online website, and The Latent Print looks quite promising. You can view their stunning website here: The Latent Print.

They are currently reviewing submissions in the following categories:

SHORT FICTION

SERIAL FICTION

POETRY

TWITTER POETRY

NONFICTION ESSAYS

STAGE/SCREEN PLAYS

EXPERIMENTAL WRITING

VISUAL ART

GRAPHIC NARRATIVE (COMICS)

PHOTOGRAPHY

VIDEO

Their submissions page will give you all the criteria necessary to publish there. Plus, all submissions remain the intellectual property of the artist, so we may submit the same works for publication elsewhere. It's a great place to start publishing!

June Meeting

Greetings, Mountain Empire Writers!

We will be meeting at the Pine Valley Library at 7:00 PM this Tuesday, June 9. Bring along a short piece to share, and we'll give each other some feedback and support.

Summer is a great time for writing, at least for me as I'm finally finished with home schooling and teaching classes. So boot up your computers, sharpen your pencils, grab some new pens, and let's get started!

See you all on Tuesday night!

Poetry Contest!!!

Ruminate Magazine is an outstanding Christian literary and arts journal that is published quarterly. Judith and I have met several of the editors at Judith's Ad Lib Christian Arts retreats, and their journal is chock full of top-notch writing -- truly excellent stuff.

I received an e-mail today stating that they just extended their Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize deadline to May 31, 2009. The prize will be judged by the award-winning poet Scott Cairns.

The entry fee is $15, and $500 will be awarded to the winner and publication in Ruminate's Fall 2009 issue of the winning and runner-up poems. Up to three poems per entry may be submitted, and multiple entries are also allowed.

Plus all entries will be considered for general publication in the Fall 2009 issue, and each entrant will also receive a Fall 2009 issue of Ruminate.

I'm going to enter a few poems. How about YOU?

May's Monthly Meeting!

Come and hang out with Mountain Empire writers and hear what they've been up to lately!

If you feel intrigued by the idea of writing, this is the place for you!

Our upcoming monthly Writers' Workshop meeting will be
Tuesday, May 12 @ 7:00 PM
in the Community Room of the Pine Valley Library

Beginning and experienced writers are encouraged to attend. We'll be sharing our work and discussing pertinent topics related to the art and business of writing.

If you have any questions, leave a comment here or call Susanne at 473-0085.

April Is National Poetry Month!

Even if poetry isn't your "thing," the opportunities afforded by National Poetry Month can still broaden our exposure to poetry of different eras, genres, and forms. I've discovered some wonderful resources at poets.org, the most extensive and well-known site for serious poets. Here I have found The Poem of the Day which obviously sends me a new poem to my inbox each day, mostly by emerging and contemporary poets that I've very much enjoyed (if not completely understood). Other poems and information about poets, both contemporary and canonical, are available here, and it's simply a wonderful site.

Also on this web site is the link to NaPoWriMo - National Poetry Writing Month. The challenge: write a poem a day for the month of April. Tipping its hat to the vastly successful NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month each November in which participants are successful if they write 50,000 words of a novel, the NaPoWriMo project has plunged me back into composing poems on a daily basis, and even to play around with rhyme, a new venture for this "free verser." There's even a forum on the poets.org site set aside especially for those writing daily poems: NaPoWriMo.

Also in the spirit of National Poetry Month, I've joined TwiHaiku where one can use Twitter (140 characters) to write the classic Japanese poetry form of haiku: five syllables for the first line, seven syllables for the second line, and back to five syllables for the final line. It's quite fun and exposes one to a great deal of haiku from people all around the world ~ some even are posted in foreign languages. The TwiHaiku format even allows reviews of haiku, so that one can review other poets' haiku and receive feedback on one's own. Pretty cool stuff, that.

So if poetry really, truly isn't your "thing," may we suggest reading a poem a day rather than writing one? Appreciate this condensed form of writing in which every syllable is chosen with such deliberate care. And perhaps try writing a poem or two. It can't hurt, right?

Writers' Workshop Meeting for April

The Mountain Empire Creative Arts Council's Writers' Workshop is meeting on

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 7:00 PM

at the Pine Valley Library's Community Room.

Everyone interested in writing is encouraged to attend.

Beginning writers are very welcome!

If you are bringing a piece of your writing to share, please bring just ONE page, two pages at the very most, so we have time to give feedback to everyone.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Writers' Workshop Meeting Tuesday Night!

Attention Mountain Empire Writers!

Our monthly Writers' Workshop will meet this Tuesday, March 10 at 7:00 PM in the Community Room of the Pine Valley Library. This will be our first meeting after the extremely successful Writers' Workshop with Dean Nelson last month, and we hope that many local writers will join us for our monthly meetings as a continuation of Dean Nelson's workshop.

Judith Dupree has kindly agreed to facilitate the group this month as Susanne Barrett will be out of town with her family. Judith is an accomplished, published writer with a passion for sharing writerly gifts with the community (and is the co-editor of Pine Valley's monthly missive, The Valley Views), so Tuesday evening's meeting promises to be a wonderful and encouraging experience.

Beginning writers are warmly welcomed to attend our monthly meetings as are more experienced wordsmiths. If you like, you may bring along a short (1-2 pages) piece to share and receive feedback on. If you don't feel quite ready to share your work, then you may offer feedback to writers who do bring their work for review. Providing copies of your writing for the group works best so that everyone can read along and mark suggestions for the author.

We hope that you can join us for a meeting of minds and pens this Tuesday evening!