If you have had trouble reaching Katie Griggs, or anyone at Planning the Globe during the past week, the reason is because they are in the midst of an office move. Communications, both phone and email, have been disrupted. Also, Katie will be traveling to Prague for another conference from October 9th through October 19th.

If you have any conference related questions or concerns, please contact Susan Boyer at 864-370-9262 or 864-901-2378 (cell), or by email at susan.boyer@charter.net. Katie will be available again on Monday, October 22nd for last minute questions, and looks forward to seeing everyone at the conference.

If you are one of the group trying to get a critique to her via email, she expects her email to be operational late in the day on Wednesday, October 3rd. Should you experience trouble with this, please send the material to Susan at the above email address.

With over three hundred attendees registered as of last Friday, this year's conference promises to be a special event. Don't miss it! It's not too late to register. Everyone who registers by October 5th can still get a critique--you just have to submit your materials via email immediately upon registration. Folks who register after October 5th will still get faculty appointments, but there won't be time to send in material for pre-reading. With ten agents, eleven editors, over twenty authors, five poets and over seventy workshops and classes for all levels, this is a great opportunity for each of us to grow as writers. We will take registrations right up until the conference--unless we sell out.

Here are a few last minute reminders/updates:

• If you have not already reserved a room at The Hilton, please be aware that the deadline for our conference rate passed on September 25th. As they were kind enough to add rooms to our block several times already, The Hilton cannot add further rooms at the $97 rate. Our sales representative is trying to work out another discounted (but still more than $97) rate for condos at the adjacent Royale Palms. The lowest cost option from this point on will be to reserve a condo in Royale Palms with two or three bedrooms and find some roommates. There are already a few posting on the forums page of our website from folks looking for roommates. At least two members have already found roommates via the forum, but I believe others are still trying to connect.
• We're putting together a list of published SCWW members for the conference notebooks. If you haven't already emailed Susan with your name and titles, please send them today to Marcia Migacz at marciamigacz@prtcnet.com. We don't want to leave anyone out!
• If you want a spot at the SCWW member table during the book signing, you must sign up in advance. Please email susan.boyer@charter.net to reserve your place if you haven't already (or call 864-370-9262).
• We tried to work out an arrangement with Barnes & Noble to sell member books on consignment, but they are unable to accommodate this request. You can certainly sell your own books at the member table, or, if you prefer, we can have Barnes & Noble order them and have some on hand. If you want B&N to order your books and have not already let us know, please email susan.boyer@charter.net today (or call 864-370-9262).
• As of Friday, Katie Griggs at Planning the Globe was missing manuscript pages for critique from 30 conference registrants. She is attempting to contact each of these individuals via email. Please make sure that kgriggs@planningtheglobe.com is an allowed sender to your email address. If you are one of these registrants, and Katie can't reach you via email, she will try to call, but if she gets no response to either attempt, she'll assume that you've changed your mind and do not want a critique. Because Katie had technical difficulties with her email account when the critiques first started coming in (the inbox was not big enough for all the manuscripts), and we have no way of knowing if the hard copies were lost in the mail or if you guys missed the deadline, if you haven't submitted your manuscript for critique, you have deadline amnesty. HOWEVER...the pages must be emailed immediately to kgriggs@planningtheglobe.com. The last outbound shipment of critiques to faculty leaves on Friday, October 5th.
• Transportation from Airport to Hotel: The Hilton does not have a shuttle from the airport to the hotel. However, our contacts at the hotel advise that there are always taxis aplenty waiting at the airport. According to the folks at The Hilton, cab fare to the hotel, which is approximately 15-20 minutes away, is $35 -$38. As many of you will be coming in around the same time, sharing a taxi should be easy if you coordinate in advance. We'll add a forum topic later today to help you guys connect.
• What did I signup for again? Please don't worry about this. If you didn't print your selections, and didn't receive the email link that theoretically went out to everyone--but in reality did not--we'll remind you when you arrive of your Friday Intensive selections. All of the rest of the workshop selections were non-binding. We asked you to pick so we could see which topics attracted the biggest crowds so we could assign rooms. Overall, the appeal of each shouldn't change substantially. When you get to the conference, you'll get a list of classes offered in each session, and you can decide which ones you want to take. If you really want to know what you selected when you registered, please email Katie, and she'll send you a link to your receipt, which has your selections on it.
• Add-on Critiques: Carrie McCullough still has 3 slots left on her schedule for the add-on critiques. If you want one, please call (843) 971-6034 or email Katie ASAP. Remember, these are $40 each, and can be standard or extended length--your choice!
• Room proctors are still needed for some conference classes. If you would like to serve, please contact Sandra Johnson sandraellajohnson@yahoo.com.

With the next issue of The Quill, this year's conference will be a memory for many of us. We hope to have highlights and pictures to share with everyone who could not be with us--we'll miss you!

Susan and Sarah

...to have an agent, editor or established author critique your entire manuscript? As a fundraiser for the SCWW organization, the following faculty members are donating book-length mini-critiques for the silent auction at this year's conference:

Andrea Brown - Literary Agent

David B. Coe - Award Winning Author of 8 Fantasy Novels

Mindy Friddle - Award Winning Author, Book Reviewer and Columnist

Richard Helms - Three-Time Shamus Award Nominee

Emily Sylvan Kim - Literary Agent

Lauren McKenna - Senior Editor, Pocket / Simon & Schuster

Mary Alice Monroe - Bestselling Author

Rebecca Oliver - Literary Agent

Having professionals of this caliber read and critique your entire manuscript and offer advice is not something available for sale, anywhere, at any price. But you can bid on one, at the conference!

Among many other items donated by our generous faulty and other donors, you can also bid on an autographed copy of Lee Lofland's Police Procedure and Investigation, A Guide for Writers, which comes with a consultation regarding police procedure/forensics/CSI as it relates to your own book or work in progress.

Many thanks to all the professionals with a heart for writers for their overwhelming generosity. A complete list of donors will be provided in our conference notebooks.

Nominations are now being accepted for the SCWW Board of Directors. Elections will be held in November for terms beginning January 1, 2008. The two-year term of office is a great way to give back to our writing community and set goals for the future. Anyone interested should send a bio and their qualifications to SCWW President Steve Heckman (steveheckman@charter.net) prior to October 30, 2007.

Bob Strother's short story "Sunday Morning Conclusion" has been accepted for publication in the experimental literary magazine, Metal Scratches. Based in Forest Lake, Minnesota, the magazine has been publishing since 2000 and likes to explore the "darker side of humanity." The magazine is published semi-annually, however, the date of the publication for the story is yet to be determined.

Cynthia Hodell Dyer's essay "Whatever Frees Your Mind" will be published in the November-December, 2007, edition of Whole Living Journal, a bi-monthly regional publication out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Cynthia has been accepted as a member of the 2008 class of the Feminist Leadership Academy of Cincinnati, the leadership training program of Women Writing for (a) Change www.womenwriting.com.

Jody Martinez is interested in starting a new SCWW chapter in the Columbia area at the new library branch South Congaree-Pine Ridge (preferably not on Monday or Wednesday). Contact Jody Martinez, (803) 755-2885 or (803) 920-3113 or mart529@bellsouth.net

Billie Bierer now has seven short stories available for download on Amazon.com.

Sunday October 21st, 2007, 3-5 p.m., Main Library Auditorium

Denise Hildreth, Beth Webb Hart, and Nicole Seitz are all well known writers with strong connections to the South Carolina Lowcountry. They will read passages from their latest novels and discuss how they incorporate spiritual ideas into their stories. A book signing will follow the panel discussion. Sponsored by the Charleston County Public Library, the Lowcountry Initiative for the Literary Arts, and the Sophia Institute. For more information please call 843-805-6930.

Tue October 30th, 7-9 p.m., Main Library Auditorium

Reading with book signing to follow

Join us at the Charleston County Public Library for an evening of poetry with Marjory Wentworth and Linda Annas Ferguson. Marjory Wentworth, South Carolina Poet Laureate, will be reading from her new book Despite Gravity. And Linda Annas Ferguson will be reading from her new book Bird Missing From One Shoulder. Co-sponsored with the Lowcountry Initiative for the Literary Arts.

Copies of these newly released books will be available for purchase and to have the authors sign. For further information, call 805-6930.

Words & Music, a Literary Feast in New Orleans is sponsored annually by The Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society, a non-profit literary and education organization. Adult sessions begin with continental breakfast at the Hotel Monteleone at 8 a. m. Thursday, November 15, and continue through Sunday, November 18.

Words & Music tuition per writer (which includes all discussions, workshops, readings, critiques, one on one consultations with BOTH an agent and editor) is $325. This tuition fee does not include the daily "Literature and Lunch" luncheons or the evening events. A package for one person who wants to attend every single event, including manuscript critiques, all discussions, all luncheons, all evening events, is $750.

Included in tuition this year is a cocktail hour event Friday evening at at one of the most historic sites in New Orleans, the Cabildo at Jackson Square, the seat of Spanish colonial government and site of the signing of the Louisiana Purchase. This event is the first meeting of The Words & Music Writers Alliance, a new writers' group chaired by screenwriter Amy Serrano, writer and producer of the controversial new documentary, The Sugar Babies, which will be shown on Friday of the conference.

Ticket prices for special events include the following: Literature & Lunch, $55 per luncheon per person, including a glass of wine served with lunch; Thursday night's Evening with Sandra Cisneros, food, wine, and Latin music, $35; The Napoleon House annual jazz event that features light food, open bar, and music are $75 each.

For more information, contact Rosemary James at Faulkhouse@aol.com.

October 1
Caught in the Creative Act lecture on Shauna Singh Baldwin's "What the Body Remembers" and "The Tiger Claw"
5:45 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., Gambrell Auditorium, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
Registration required
Info: www.cas.sc.edu/cica/index.html

Book Launch for George Singleton at Hub City
7:30 p.m., The Showroom at Hub-Bub, 149 S. Daniel Morgan Avenue, Spartanburg
Info: www.hubcity.org

October 3
Caught in the Creative Act visit of Shauna Singh Baldwin
5:45 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., Gambrell Auditorium, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
Registration required
Info: www.cas.sc.edu/cica/index.html

October 3 - October 7
Coastal Carolina University Theater: Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors" -
Steve Earnest, director
Oct. 3-5, 7:30 p.m., Oct. 6, 3 p.m., Oct. 7, 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Courtyard, Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts
Admission: General admission $12; alumni and senior citizens $8; faculty/staff $6; free to CCU students with valid ID.

October 5
The Moveable Feast Literary Luncheon: John Hart
11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., Pawleys Plantation, Pawleys Island
$25 tickets
Info and reservations: 843-235-9600 or www.classatpawleys.com

October 6
Take A Step in the Write Direction: Explore Nature Writing with Susan Meyers and Marjory Wentworth
10:00 a.m. - noon, Charleston County Main Library
Free. Registration required and seating limited to 25, please call (843) 805-6930

October 8
Rev and Miesha plus Poetry Idol: Round Three
7:30 p.m., Coffee Underground, Coffee Street, Greenville
$5 cover or $10 season pass
Info: www.witsendpoetry.com or Kimberly@witsendpoetry.com

October 8 - 13
The Green Art Poetry and Film Festival, Sumter
Info: Booth Chilcutt, bchilcutt@sumter-sc.com

October 9
Converse College Writers Series: Albert Goldbarth (Elizabeth Boatwright Coker Visiting Writer)
8:00 p.m., Montgomery Student Center, Converse College, Spartanburg
Free and open to the public
Info: rick.mulkey@converse.edu

October 11
Words to Say It Visiting Writer Series: Poet Stuart Dischell, author of "Dig Safe"
4:30 p.m., Edwards Recital Hall, Coastal Carolina University
Admission: Free with ticket

October 12
The Moveable Feast Literary Luncheon: Catherine McCall
11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., Sea View Inn, 414 Myrtle Ave., Pawleys Island
$25 tickets
Info and reservations: 843-235-9600 or www.classatpawleys.com

Cherryl Floyd-Miller and Kendra Hamilton the Poetry Society of South Carolina
7:00 p.m., Second Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, 342 Meeting Street, Charleston
Info: poetrysocietysc@aol.com

Poets in the Forest: Claire Bateman
Sponsored by Travelers Rest Arts Mission
7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Leopard Forest Coffee Company, 26 S. Main Street, Travelers Rest.
$5.00 cover ($2.00 students)
Info: www.trartsmission.org

October 13
Take A Step in the Write Direction: Unlikely Beauty: The Poem of the Everyday
10:00 a.m. - noon, Charleston County Main Library
Free. Registration required and seating limited to 25, please call
(843) 805-6930

October 14
Kendra Hamilson discussion and book signing
Second Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, 342 Meeting Street (at Ashmead), Charleston, 7:00 p.m.
Free and open to the public. A book signing and reception follow the program.
www.poetrysocietysc.org/pp/map.html

October 14
Wits End Anniversary with Buddy Wakefield
8:30 p.m., 640 South Main Street, Studio 103 in Liz Daly Designs Studio.
$7, $5 cover or $10 season pass
Info: www.witsendpoetry.com or Kimberly@witsendpoetry.com

October 15
Basik Knowledge plus Poetry Jam
7:30 p.m., Coffee Underground, Coffee Street, Greenville
$5 cover or $10 season pass
Info: www.witsendpoetry.com or Kimberly@witsendpoetry.com

NOTABLE UPCOMING EVENTS AND DEADLINES:

Class on Great Women Writers Offered in Salem
Thursday, October 04, 2007-Thursday, November 15, 2007
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Clemson University offers a class on Great Women Writers, focusing on George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Iris Murdoch, Thursdays, October 4-November 15, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., at Keowee Key Activity Center in Salem. Call for registration details.
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Clemson www.clemson.edu/OLLI, Salem, SC
For information (864)656-6912 Joan or Amanda, olli@clemson.edu

Monthly Fiction Writing Group, Led by Sean Scapellato and Carol Peters
The second Tuesday of each month
7:00 p.m.- 9:00 p.m, Charleston County Main Library, 68 Calhoun St.
Free and open to the public
Information: hammesm@ccpl.org

October 6-27
Take A Step in the Write Direction
Saturday, October 6, 2007-Saturday, October 27, 2007
Charleston County Public Library invites you to Take A Step in the Write Direction, with workshops in Nature Writing, Poetry Writing, Fiction Writing, and Journal Writing, Saturdays in October. The workshops are free and held at the Main Library from 10am to noon. Registration is required. Instructors include Susan Meyers, South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth, Jessica Bundschuh, Sean Scapellato, and Carol Peters.
For information (843)805-6930, hammesm@ccpl.org

October 9 - November 13
Victorian Literature Seminar Offered in Salem
Tuesday, October 09, 2007-Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Clemson University offers a seminar in Victorian Literature: The Bronte Sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne), every Tuesday, October 9-November 13, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., at the Keowee Key Activity Center in Salem. Call to register.
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Clemson http://www.clemson.edu/OLLI, Salem, SC
For information (864)656-6912 Joan or Amanda olli@clemson.edu

October 9 - November 13
Jane Austen Seminar Offered in Central
Tuesday, October 09, 2007-Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Clemson University offers Phase I of a seminar in The Fiction of Jane Austen (1775-1817), every Tuesday, October 9-November 13, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., at Trinity Wesleyan Church Family Life Center in Central. Call to register.
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Clemson www.clemson.edu/OLLI, Central, SC
For information (864)656-6912 Joan or Amanda olli@clemson.edu

October 20
Poetry Seminar: Tension and the Power of Poetry - Cathy Smith Bowers, instructor
Cosponsored by Poetry Society of South Carolina and the Emrys Foundation
10:00 a.m. - noon
$10 for PSSC/Emrys members, $15 for others
Contact: Vera Gomez vera.gomez@ey.com

October 26-28
South Carolina Writers Workshop 17th Annual Writers Conference
Featuring Keynote speakers Mary Alice Monroe and McNair Wilson
Friday, October 26 - Sunday, October 28
Hilton Myrtle Beach Resort, Myrtle Beach
Information and registration: www.myscww.org or conference@myscww.org or 864-370-9262

October 31
Deadline for Sixth Annual Fundsforwriters Essay Contest
FundsforWriters and the National Association of Baby Boomer Women announce the Annual FFW Essay Contest with the theme: Make Us Want to Be You!

Word limit: 750 or less

NABBW is looking for a remarkable promotional plan for your writing project or an explanation of what you'd do with your writing career if you had a year to devote to your passion. As always with a FFW contest, you choose whether to pay a $5 entry fee or not. The first prize for the entry fee division is $200. The first prize for the non-entry fee division is $50. Deadline October 31, 2007. Winners announced December 1, 2007.

Information: www.nabbw.com and www.fundsforwriters.com/annualcontest.htm

January 2, 2008
SOUTH CAROLINA FIRST NOVEL COMPETITION DEADLINE:
In honor of the 40th Anniversary of the South Carolina Arts Commission, the Commission and its literary partners are pleased to announce a call for submissions for the inaugural South Carolina First Novel Competition. The application deadline is January 2, 2008; the award winner will be announced in May 2008.

Guidelines: www.southcarolinaarts.com/firstnovel/index.shtml

Partnering with the SC Arts Commission and the Hub City Writers Project for the First Novel Competition are the South Carolina State Library and The Humanities Council SC. The contest will be judged by a nationally recognized writer.

January 15, 2008
2008 SOUTH CAROLINA FICTION PROJECT DEADLINE:
The deadline for submissions to the 2008 South Carolina Fiction Project, a contest of previously unpublished short stories sponsored in partnership with The Post and Courier, is January 15, 2008. For more information, including full guidelines, please see the South Carolina Arts Commission Web site at www.SouthCarolinaArts.com

February 22-24, 2008
2008 SOUTH CAROLINA BOOK FESTIVAL (12th Annual)
Friday, February 22-Sunday, February 24
Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, Lincoln Street, Columbia
Free and open to the public on Saturday, February 23 and Sunday, February 24
Info: www.scbookfestival.org

March 17 - April 9, 2008
Caught in the Creative Act, Spring Session
Featuring: Joyce Carol Oates, Peter Balakian, Francine du Plessix Gray, and Salman Rushdie
Mondays and Wednesdays, 5:45 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., University of South Carolina, Columbia
Free and open to the public
Registration required
Info and registration: www.cas.sc.edu/cica

All regular monthly programs, except as noted, are held at
Second Presbyterian Church, 342 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC, at 7 PM
They are free and open to the public. A book signing and reception follow the program.
Contact: Carol Peters, pssc.programs@gmail.com

October 6

2007 Chapbook Contest Awards Ceremony
2:00pm until 4:00pm at the Columbia Museum of Art, Main and Hampton Streets

Please join us in celebrating the 2007 SC Poetry Initiative's Chapbook Series Awards Ceremony. A little food, a little music, and some poetry! The afternoon's agenda is one of celebration and will surely inspire your own creative journey. This event will feature the presentation of this year's awards as well as readings from poets selected over the past two years, such as Therese Carr, Ed Madden, Karen Peluso, Angela Kelly, and Brian Slusher. These poets will be sharing some of their work as well as their own personal journeys as writers.

October 12

Nikky Finney is the author of The World Is Round, Heartwood, Rice, and On Wings Made of Gauze. She was editor of the The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, the latest Cave Canem anthology. She teaches creative writing and poetry at the University of Kentucky and is serving a faculty appointment this fall at Smith College in Amherst, MA.

Kendra Hamilton's debut poetry collection is The Goddess of Gumbo. She has been published in Callaloo, Shenandoah, Southern Review, River Styx, Obsidian II, The Best of Callaloo: Poetry, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. She has won fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio program. She collaborates with artists from other disciplines, most recently on Water Table, a site-specific art installation at the 2004 Spoleto Festival USA.

November 9

Carol Ann Davis's first book, Psalm, available from Tupelo Press in October, 2007, was runner up for the 2005 Dorset Prize. Her poems have recently appeared in Agni, The Threepenny Review, and The Southern Review. The recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the SC Arts Commission, she lives in Charleston, where she directs the undergraduate creative writing program at The College of Charleston and edits Crazyhorse.

Sheila Joan Tombe is the winner of the 2006-07 Individual Artist Fellowship Award for Poetry from the SC Arts Commission. She is a professor of English at USC Beaufort and the editor of Apostrophe: USCB Journal of the Arts. Her work has appeared in journals and magazines such as Fortnight, Visual Arts, and Charleston Magazine. She has won grants and awards from The Atlanta Review, the Scriptwriters of SC, the SC Humanities Council, and the USC Research Foundation.

December 14

Holiday Party & Reading for members and their guests at the home of Oliver Bowman.
Members are invited to bring finger food and an original seasonal poem.

January 11

Open Mic: City Gallery at Waterfront Park, 34 Prioleau St, Charleston (tentatively)

Jim Lundy, emcee, is active in the local open mic poetry scene as emcee and contributor for Monday Night Blues, Charleston's longest-running weekly literary and music event. He was a featured poet in the Charleston County Library's A Rather Poetic Evening series, and for Piccolo-Spoleto's Stories for Life festival. His self-published chapbook, All I Can Be Is Myself came out in 2006. He lives in Charleston and works as a mechanical engineer, landlord, and home inspector.

February 8

Alice Friman's new book is The Book of the Rotten Daughter. Previous recent books are Zoo, winner of the Ezra Pound Poetry Award from Truman State and the Sheila Margaret Motton Prize from the New England Poetry Club, and Inverted Fire. Her poems appear in Poetry, Georgia Review, Boulevard, Gettysburg Review, and Shenandoah, which awarded Friman the 2002 Boatwright Prize. She has won three prizes from Poetry Society of America and in 2001 was named to the Georgia Poetry Circuit. Professor Emerita at the University of Indianapolis, Friman now lives in Milledgeville, GA, where she is Poet-in-Residence at Georgia College & State University.

March 14

Sebastian Matthews is the author of a collection of poems, We Generous, and a memoir, In My Father's Footsteps. He co-edited, with Stanley Plumly, Search Party: Collected Poems of William Matthews. Matthews teaches at Warren Wilson College and in the Queens University of Charlotte low-residency MFA in Creative Writing. His poetry and prose have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Ecotone, Georgia Review, New England Review, Poetry Daily, Poets & Writers, Seneca Review, Tin House, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. Matthews was a recent recipient of a 2006 NC Artist Grant. He co-edits Rivendell, a place-based literary journal.

April 11

James Baker Hall is a former poet laureate of Kentucky. His most recent book of poetry is The Total Light Process: New & Selected Poems. He has been published in The Paris Review, Poetry, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Hudson Review, The Kenyon Review, The Sewanee Review, and elsewhere. For twenty-five years he was the Director of Creative Writing at the University of Kentucky. He is also a widely exhibited and published photographer (jamesbakerhall.com).

May 9 Annual Forum

Lavonne J. Adams, Forum Critic, is the author of two award-winning chapbooks, In the Shadow of the Mountain (Randall Jarrell/Harperprints Chapbook Award) and Everyday Still Life (Persephone Press Book Award). She has published in numerous literary journals including The Briar Cliff Review, Missouri Review, and The Cimarron Review. She teaches and is the BFA Coordinator in the Department of Creative Writing at UNC Wilmington. Her current project is based on the life and art of Georgia O'Keeffe, aided by a summer 2007 artist-in-residency at UNM Taos.

October 20 Craft Seminar: Tension & the Power of Poetry

Cathy Smith Bowers, instructor
Cosponsored by PSSC and the Emrys Foundation
10 AM - noon, Coffee Underground, Greenville
$10 for PSSC/Emrys members, $15 for others
Contact: Vera Gomez, vera.gomez@ey.com

Cathy Smith Bowers is the author of The Love That Ended Yesterday in Texas, Traveling in Time of Danger, and A Book of Minutes. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and The Kenyon Review. She won an SC Poetry Fellowship and The SC Arts Commission Fiction Project. While Poet-in-Residence at Queens University of Charlotte, she received the 2002 JB Fuqua Distinguished Educator Award. She now teaches in the Queens low-residency MFA program.

March 15 Poetry Seminar: Space Is the Place: Using Classic Film Techniques to Deepen a Sense of Place in Poetry

Sebastian Matthews, instructor (see bio above)
10 AM - noon, College of Charleston; $10 for PSSC members, $15 for others
Contact: Carol Peters, pssc.programs@gmail.com

May 3 Poetry Workshop for Generating New Poems: Metaphor

Cathy Smith Bowers, instructor (see bio above)
10 AM - 3 PM; DeBordieu Colony Beach Club, Georgetown
$40 for PSSC/NCPS members, $50 for others
Contact: Dennis Stiles, dstiles@americabyfoot.com

Broadsided Press is currently seeking submissions of poetry and short prose that respond to the work "bird's eye" (mixed media on paper, 30" x 22"), created by Kate Baird. Ms. Baird is one of the many visual artists whose work usually responds to poems and prose submitted to Broadsided. This month, we're switching things around and asking writers to respond to the visual art.

Your response need not be literal--you may take off in any tangent the work suggests. However, the art and writing must, together, work to create a greater piece.

The usual guidelines apply for submissions. Please, however, CLEARLY mark your submission "Switcheroo," as we are also accepting regular submissions during this time.

Submissions due october 15, 2007.

For more details, please visit our website, www.broadsidedpress.org. On the website, you can find more submission guidelines, as well as an archive of previous Broadsides.

Dynamic dialogue, fresh body language, description that doesn't stop the action, intriguing hooks that keep going . . . and going . . . . These are four of the 24 fiction-writing techniques for which positive examples are being sought for the next edition of this year's winner of the Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Book. If you or the writers you know would like an excerpt from your published or unpublished novel, short story, script, or work of creative nonfiction considered for inclusion in the all-genre edition of this award-winner, here's a one-time opportunity. Up to 145 of the best examples that show the effective use of a specific writing technique will be featured in DON'T SABOTAGE YOUR SUBMISSIONS, the all-genre edition of DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY, which -- in addition to winning the Agatha Award -- became a nominee for both the Anthony and Macavity awards for best nonfiction book, an alternate selection of the Writer's Digest Book Club, and a finalist in ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards.

The author of this much-acclaimed insider's guide for writers is Chris Roerden, an editor for 43 years whose clients have been published by Berkley Prime Crime, St. Martin's Press, Midnight Ink, Viking, Rodale, and many others. Her purpose in creating the DON'T series is to show:

• why 90 percent of manuscript submissions are rejected immediately, and
• what writers can do to boost the odds that an agent or editor will actually read what they submit.

Roerden targets 24 techniques that reveal most manuscripts as average. "Only positive examples will be published," she says. "The bad examples I write myself because I don't want to embarrass anyone." Writers who are featured receive a copy of their own review and full credit, as in any review, and retain all rights to their own work. No purchase is required and no fees or payments are involved. Guidelines and a form for submissions can be downloaded from www.tinyurl.com/yclawc or received for a large SASE sent to P.O.Box 16024, High Point NC 27261. Deadline is US Thanksgiving 2007; selections are being made as they arrive. Publication is June 2008.

For more information, reviews, and the first four chapters of the award-winning book, see www.bellarosabooks.com.

Do you hear it? Silence from a nation in turmoil. The ruling authorities in Myanmar recently cut off communication by Internet and text messaging to hide their works of violence and oppression from the eyes of a watching world. The flow of images showing a sea of robed Buddhist monks and citizens of Myanmar filling the streets of Yangon, protesting the military regime in the face of armed riot police, has been squelched. Lacking the dazzling eye appeal of video images, the stories of violence and oppression in Myanmar quickly slipped from the flow of evening news. The guerrilla news media, armed with cell phone cameras and networked computers, posed a real threat to the military leadership, so the powers pulled the plug before doing their worst. And we, like people who wake from a nightmare, soon moved on.

We have in our time the most awesome means of communication, available to more people, and able to reach more people. Gutenberg would have been pleased (flabbergasted, but pleased nonetheless) at the ease with which we sling text to the virtual page and thence to the world. To paraphrase an ubiquitous advertisement, "What's in your blog?" You have at your disposal a remarkable tool of enlightenment, empowerment and justice. Choose your words well! Stand firm for the liberty we enjoy, and do not forget to raise your voices for those who are losing theirs. Listen! Hear the muffled cries of those who are even now being smothered under the cloak of oppression. Lend them your voice.