Sunday, November 18, 2012

Susan Lilley's New Chapbook Available

FLAC Member Susan Lilley has a new chapbook listed on Amazon. Buy one, review it!


Saturday, October 27, 2012

Other Words Conference schedule posted!

Check out the 2012 Other Words Conference schedule! http://floridarts.org/other-words-conference

The Florida Review becomes Instutional Member

The Florida Literary Arts Coalition is pleased to announce that The Florida Review is now an institutional member. Visit their website http://floridareview.cah.ucf.edu/

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Literature for Lunch at St. Leo University

Saint Leo University English Department is pleased to present Literature for Lunch featuring poet Rosalynde Vas Dias. Literature for Lunch will take place on Friday, November 2, 12:30-1:30 in Selby Auditorium on the University Campus.

Rosalynde Vas Dias visits Saint Leo as a featured writer on the Florida Literary Arts Coalition Writers Circuit. The Writers Circuit provides guest poets and writers to member institutions several times a year. This is the first year the SLU English Department has been a member of the Coalition.

Rosalynde Vas Dias is the winner of the Robert Dana-Anhinga Prize for Poetry, 2011. Her collection only blue body will be available in November. Her poems have also appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Crazyhorse, New Orleans Review, and The Pinch. Ms. Vas Dias lives in Providence, Rhode Island. only blue body is her first book of poetry.

Literature for Lunch is free and open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to bring a brown bag lunch.

For more information contact Gianna Russo at:  352-588-8282 or gianna.russo@saintleo. edu

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Interivew with Ira Sukrunguang


Take a look at this interview with Other Words conference workshop leader Ira Sukrungruang with Fiction Fix discussing his memoir Talk Thai, how to skillfully blend humor and poignancy, and exploring his Buddhist roots in Thailand.

Ira Sukrungruang will be leading non-fiction workshops at the FLAC Other Words Conference on Friday, November 9th and Saturday, November 10th.

Friday, October 5, 2012

An excerpt from Bob Kunzinger's "Walled In"

Check out this excerpt from Other Words evening reader Bob Kunzinger in the Southern Humanities Review titled “Walled In: A Four-Week Thoreauvian Rehab.” http://www.cla.auburn.edu/shr/documents/kunzinger-excerpt.pdf

Bob Kunziger is the author of five collections of essays, including the forthcoming Borderline Crazy (Nov 2012). He is a repeat offender for such diverse publications as Southern Humanities Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as many other regional and national reviews, and his work has been noted in Best American Essays.  He is a professor of humanities and creative writing in Virginia.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Stephen Kampa Discusses the Power of Poetry

Did you know Other Words evening reader Stephen Kampa won the 2011 Florida Book Award for his collection of poetry Cracks in the Invisible? Check out his interview in which he discusses the power and importance of poetry.


Thursday, September 27, 2012

Terri Witek reads "See You Tomorrow Night"


Only have a minute to spare? You can still get in your daily poetry fix. Check out Terri Witek reading “See You Tomorrow Night” from her book Carnal World. Terri will be leading poetry workshops at the Other Words conference.

Terri Witek is the author of four books of poems—Exit Island (2012), The Shipwreck Dress (2008), a Florida Book Award winner; Carnal World (2006); Fools and Crows (2003); and Courting Couples (2000), a Center for Book Arts Prize winner. She holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing at Stetson University where she has received the McInery Award for Teaching and the John Hague Teaching Award for outstanding teaching in the liberal arts and sciences.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Lisa Zimmerman Interview

Former Other Words presenter, FLAC Writer's Circuit rider, Lisa Zimmerman is interviewed by Four Ties Lit Review: http://fourtieslitreview.com/2012/09/21/interview-with-the-author-lisa-zimmerman/

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Ira Sukrungruang Reads From His Memoir




Don’t listen to this on an empty stomach! Ira Sukrungruang reads a mouthwatering passage about the power of his Aunty Sue’s cooking from his memoir Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy.

In addition to writing Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy, Ira Sukrungruang is the co-editor of What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology and Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology. He has published his essays, poems, and short stories in many literary journals and anthologies, including Creative Nonfiction, The Bellingham Review, North American Review, Isotope, Crab Orchard Review, Post Road, and Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing. He teaches at the University of South Florida, Tampa.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Interview with Bob Shacochis




Check out this entertaining interview with Other Words conference reader Bob Shacochis. In the video, Shacochis discusses his favorite quiet place, his preferred places to write (including a basement in Florida), and what makers a writer.

Shacochis, acclaimed for both his fiction and nonfiction, is well-known for writing about travel in both. His new novel, set on several continents, is The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, scheduled for publication this year by Grove/Atlantic.  His first collection of stories, Easy in the Islands, won the National Book Award for First Fiction in 1985, and his second collection, The Next New World, was awarded the Prix de Rome from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1989. He is a former columnist for Gentleman’s Quarterly and a contributing editor for both Outside and Harper’s.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Join YellowJacket Press for a night of poetry, art and fun!

YellowJacket Press presents 5th Annual Florida Poets Happy Hour and Prime Time Show

Join YellowJacket Press (YJP) for a night of poetry, art and fun! The 5th Annual Florida Poets Happy Hour and Prime Time Show will take place on Friday, September 28, 2012 from 7-9pm at Nuance Galleries, 804 S. Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa.

The Happy Hour and Prime Time Show has become a favorite fall event, celebrating Florida poetry with readings, refreshments, YJP’s famous raffles, book signings and all-around frivolity. Taking place at one of Tampa’s most celebrated galleries, this year’s event will feature "poetry specials” by YellowJacket Press poets and guest writers and will highlight the debut of a new YellowJacket Press chapbook, Museum of Chairs, by longtime Tampa native Mary Elizabeth (Bettie) Perez. Ms. Perez will be joined by USF creative writing professors Ira Sukrungruang and Katie Riegel, local poets Rhonda J. Nelson and Wayne S. Williams and Orlando poet Terry Ann Thaxton.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Enid Shomer Video


Check out this new video about Other Words reader Enid Shomer's new novel, The Twelve Rooms of the Nile. Shomer sheds light on her inspiration for the novel’s interesting story, namely how two disparate people, Florence Nightingale and Gustav Flaubert, may have chanced on each other when their separate journeys of the Nile River delta intertwined.

Kelle Groom AWP Interview



Other Words conference reader Kelle Groom is “In the Spotlight” with The Association of Writers & Writing Programs. A poet and memoirist, Groom is the author of three poetry collections: Five Kingdoms, Luckily, and Underwater City. Her memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers and a New York Times Book Review editor’s pick for 2011. In this interview with AWP, Groom discusses her early inspirations for writing, her living literary heroes, and the ideal environments in which to work on her writing. Learn more about Kelle Groom and her writing in the AWP interview at this link.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

New Anthology from Jane's Stories Press

From FLAC Member Jane’s Stories Press:
Jane's Stories Press Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of its new anthology, "Jane's Stories IV: Bridges and Borders," at Women and Children First Bookstore (5233 N Clark Street, Chicago, IL) on Friday, October 5, 2012 from 7:00 - 8:30 pm. Several contributing authors will be on hand to read from the collection in which women from all over the world consider Bridges and Borders from many different perspectives.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Former Other Words participant named NC's Poet Laureate

Award winning poet, professor and advocate for literacy, Joseph Bathanti, of Vilas, has been named North Carolina’s Poet Laureate by Governor Bev Perdue.

North Carolina’s seventh poet laureate, Bathanti will be installed during a public celebration scheduled Thursday, Sept. 20 at 4:30 p.m. at the State Capitol. The event is free. He succeeds Cathy Smith Bowers, the state's poet laureate from 2010 to June 30, 2012.

Bathanti is a professor of creative writing at Appalachian State University where he is also Director of Writing in the Field and Writer-in-Residence in the University's Watauga Global Community. He has taught writing workshops in prisons for more than three decades and is former chair of the N.C. Writers’ Network Prison project.

“I can’t imagine a better place in the United States to be a writer than North Carolina,” Bathanti says. “There is no place richer in literature and no place that has celebrated writers in quite the same way as our state does.”

Bathanti’s books of poetry include This Metal (St. Andrews College Press, 1996 and Press 53, 2012), Restoring Sacred Art (Star Cloud Press, 2010), Land of Amnesia (Press 53, 2009), Anson County (Williams & Simpson, 1989 and Parkway Publishers, 2005), The Feast of All Saints (Nightshade press, 1994) and Communion Partners (Briarpatch Press, 1986). He has published two novels, Coventry (Novello Festival Press, 2006) and East Liberty (Banks Channel Books, 2001) along with a book of short stories, The High Heart (Eastern Washington University Press, 2007).

A native of Pittsburgh, Penn., Bathanti arrived in North Carolina in 1976 as a member of Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), a national service program designed to fight poverty, and he never left the state. Assigned to work in Huntersville Prison in Mecklenburg County, he met fellow volunteer and future wife, Joan Carey on his first day of training. They have been married for 35 years.

Bathanti is a two-time recipient of Literature Fellowships from the N.C. Arts Council (1994 and 2009) and will receive the 2012 Ragan-Rubin Award, made to an outstanding North Carolina writer, from the N.C. English Teachers Association (NCETA). He has received numerous other awards including the 2002 Linda Flowers Prize, awarded annually by the North Carolina Humanities Council; 2006 Novello Literary Award; 2002 Sherwood Anderson Award; 2006 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, to name a few. His fiction, nonfiction and poetry have appeared in numerous journals including Carolina Quarterly, Texas Review, California Quarterly, Cincinnati Poetry Review, Connecticut Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, and New Letters.

Bathanti will be installed as N.C. Poet Laureate in a ceremony at the North Carolina State Capitol, One Edenton Street in downtown Raleigh, Thursday, Sept. 20 at 4:30 p.m. The free event is open to the public.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

2012 Conference Sunday Advanced Workshops

2012 Conference Sunday Advanced Workshops
Optional Advanced Writing Workshops
The new Advanced Breakthrough Workshops being offered for the first time can be taken without full conference registration. Those rates are: Sunday Advanced Breakthrough Workshops Only: $100 for members, $125 nonmembers; Member Students, $55 Sunday only; Nonmember Students $70 Sunday only.  Register here: http://floridarts.org/other-words-conference/2012-conference-registration/
Mark Powell
Fiction
Sunday, Nov. 11th



"Getting it on the page" This workshop will focus on the process of moving from an initial idea to a solid (if not final) draft. We will examine a number of passages by published writers.

Mark Powell is the author of the novels Prodigals, Blood Kin, and The Dark Corner. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Breadloaf Writers' Conference. He teaches fiction writing at Stetson University.

Ira Sukrungruang
Non Fiction
Sunday, Nov. 11th


In this workshop session writers will explore the nature and balance of scene and exposition in their nonfiction and investigate other structures besides chonology. Though scene is used in fiction, how one approaches scene and dialogue is different when dealing with real life events. Students will write and share their work with the workshop group. 

Ira Sukrungruang is author of the memoir Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy and the co-editor of What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology and Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology. He has published his essays, poems, and short stories in many literary journals and anthologies, including Creative Nonfiction, The Bellingham Review, North American Review, Isotope, Crab Orchard Review, Post Road, and Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing. He is the editor of Sweet: A Literary Confection (sweetlit.com), and teaches in the MFA program at University of South Florida. For more information about him, please visit: www.sukrungruang.com.

Terri Witek
Poetry
Sunday, Nov. 11th


Topic: “Site-Specific St Augustine.” After an introductory exercise, Sunday poets will become flaneurs and flaneuses, wandering the city with a series of prompts designed to generate new work. Intervals inside and out, with a rain plan.

Terri Witek is the author of four books of poems-- Exit Island (2012), The Shipwreck Dress (2008), a Florida Book Award winner; Carnal World (2006); Fools and Crows (2003); and Courting Couples (2000), a Center for Book Arts Prize winner. She holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing at Stetson University where she has received the McInery Award for Teaching and the John Hague Teaching Award for outstanding teaching in the liberal arts and sciences.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

2012 Conference Sunday Advanced Workshops

2012 Conference Sunday Advanced Workshops

Optional Advanced Writing Workshops

The new Advanced Breakthrough Workshops being offered for the first time can be taken without full conference registration. Those rates are: Sunday Advanced Breakthrough Workshops Only: $100 for members, $125 nonmembers; Member Students, $55 Sunday only; Nonmember Students $70 Sunday only.   Register here:  http://floridarts.org/other-words-conference/2012-conference-registration/

Mark Powell
Fiction
Sunday, Nov. 11th

"Getting it on the page" This workshop will focus on the process of moving from an initial idea to a solid (if not final) draft. We will examine a number of passages by published writers.

Mark Powell is the author of the novels Prodigals, Blood Kin, and The Dark Corner. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Breadloaf Writers' Conference. He teaches fiction writing at Stetson University.
Ira Sukrungruang
Non Fiction
Sunday, Nov. 11th

In this workshop session writers will explore the nature and balance of scene and exposition in their nonfiction and investigate other structures besides chonology. Though scene is used in fiction, how one approaches scene and dialogue is different when dealing with real life events. Students will write and share their work with the workshop group. 

Ira Sukrungruang is author of the memoir Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy and the co-editor of What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology and Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology. He has published his essays, poems, and short stories in many literary journals and anthologies, including Creative Nonfiction, The Bellingham Review, North American Review, Isotope, Crab Orchard Review, Post Road, and Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing He is the editor of Sweet: A Literary Confection (sweetlit.com), and teaches in the MFA program at University of South Florida. For more information about him, please visit: www.sukrungruang.com.

Terri Witek
Poetry
Sunday, Nov. 11th

Topic: “Site-Specific St Augustine.”   After an introductory exercise, Sunday poets will become flaneurs and flaneuses, wandering the city with a series of prompts designed to generate new work. Intervals inside and out, with a rain plan.

Terri Witek is the author of four books of poems-- Exit Island (2012), The Shipwreck Dress (2008), a Florida Book Award winner; Carnal World (2006); Fools and Crows (2003); and Courting Couples (2000), a Center for Book Arts Prize winner. She holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing at Stetson University where she has received the McInery Award for Teaching and the John Hague Teaching Award for outstanding teaching in the liberal arts and sciences.

2012 Conference--Friday and Saturday Workshops

2012 Conference--Friday and Saturday Workshops

Optional Writing Workshops

Workshops are optional items not included in general conference registration.  Conference Registration is here. 

Friday Workshops

Bob Kunzinger
Non Fiction--Travel Writing
Friday, Nov. 9th 
"Everything I write is true but this actually happened": a workshop where we mix the reality of an event and the digression of what is and isn't true.

Bob Kunzinger is the author of five collections of essays, including the forthcoming "Borderline Crazy" (Nov 2012). He is a repeat offender for such diverse publications as Southern Humanities Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as many other regional and national reviews, and his work has been noted in Best American Essays.

Mark Powell
Fiction
Friday, Nov. 9th
"Reading like a Writer". This workshop will use a number of passages to examine what we can learn from published writers.
 
Mark Powell is the author of the novels Prodigals, Blood Kin, and The Dark Corner. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Breadloaf Writers' Conference. He teaches fiction writing at Stetson University.

Terri Witek
Poetry
Friday, Nov. 9th
Poets will generate new work in Flagler College's Crisp-Ellert Museum (next door to the main conference building). Friday and Saturday workshops will be different experiences: each will feature separate poetry challenges, some suggested by workshop participants. Visual artists and photographers also welcome.

Terri Witek is the author of four books of poems-- Exit Island (2012), The Shipwreck Dress (2008), a Florida Book Award winner; Carnal World (2006); Fools and Crows (2003); and Courting Couples (2000), a Center for Book Arts Prize winner. She holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing at Stetson University where she has received the McInery Award for Teaching and the John Hague Teaching Award for outstanding teaching in the liberal arts and sciences.

Saturday Workshops

 
Jeff Bens
Screenwriting
Saturday, Nov. 10th
This workshop will look at effective ways to write for the screen. We'll watch film clips, study scenes from celebrated screenplays and complete exercises to help get at how to make stories and characters believable, enjoyable and compelling. For all levels of writers.

Jeff Bens directs the undergraduate creative writing program at Manhattanville College. He is author of the novel Albert, Himself and director of the documentary film, Fatman's. His short fiction and essays are published widely. Jeff has served on film festival juries around the world including the 2011 Slamdance feature film jury. He was a founding faculty of the School of Filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

Ira Sukrungruang
Non Fiction
Saturday, Nov. 10th
Topic: "Exploring the Malleability of the Essay Form"— This seminar is dedicated to the amebic nature of the essay form. We will evaluate alternative ways of structuring an essay, create our own structures, and discuss how the essay form is a blueprint of our brains. We will also examine how an essayist creates order out of disorder and the close relationship the essay has to poetry.

Ira Sukrungruang is author of the memoir Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy and the co-editor of What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology and Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology. He has published his essays, poems, and short stories in many literary journals and anthologies, including Creative Nonfiction, The Bellingham Review, North American Review, Isotope, Crab Orchard Review, Post Road, and Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing He is the editor of Sweet: A Literary Confection (sweetlit.com), and teaches in the MFA program at University of South Florida. For more information about him, please visit: www.sukrungruang.com.

Terri Witek
Poetry
Saturday, Nov. 10th  

Poets will generate new work in Flagler College's Crisp-Ellert Museum (next door to the main conference building). Friday and Saturday workshops will be different experiences: each will feature separate poetry challenges, some suggested by workshop participants. Visual artists and photographers also welcome.
Poets will generate new work in Flagler College's Crisp-Ellert Museum (next door to the main conference building).  Friday and Saturday workshops will be different experiences:  each wil feature separate poetry challenges, some suggested by workhop participants.  Visual artists and photographers also welcome.

Terri Witek is the author of four books of poems-- Exit Island (2012), The Shipwreck Dress (2008), a Florida Book Award winner; Carnal World (2006); Fools and Crows (2003); and Courting Couples (2000), a Center for Book Arts Prize winner. She holds the Sullivan Chair in Creative Writing at Stetson University where she has received the McInery Award for Teaching and the John Hague Teaching Award for outstanding teaching in the liberal arts and sciences.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Florida Book Awards 2012

From: http://floridabookawards.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/2012-florida-book-awards-competition-is-now-open/

The Florida Book Awards has kicked off its seventh annual competition with a call for entries in nine categories.


Established in 2006 and now the most comprehensive state book awards program in the nation, the contest recognizes and celebrates the year’s best books penned by full-time residents of the Sunshine State (with the exception of submissions to the Florida Nonfiction and Visual Arts categories, whose authors may live elsewhere.)

The contest categories include General Fiction,Young Adult Literature, Children’s Literature, Florida Nonfiction, Poetry, Popular Fiction, Visual Arts, Spanish Language Book, and a new category forGeneral Nonfiction. Entries, which can be submitted by anyone (e.g. publisher, author or literary agent), must have both an original publication date between Jan. 1, 2012, and Dec. 31, 2012, and an International Standard Book Number (ISBN).

Applicants are encouraged to submit their booksinto competition any time after the competition is launched, and as soon aspossible after books are officially published. All entries must be received no later than 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, 2012 (this is not a postmark deadline). Three-person juries –– including members of co-sponsoring organizations, subject experts from the faculties of Florida colleges and universities, and previous Florida Book Award winners –– will choose up to three finalists in each of nine categories. In each category, the jury may award one Gold, Silver and Bronze medal.

Co-sponsors of the competition include humanitiesorganizations from across the state such as the Florida Center for the Book; the State Library and Archives of Florida; the Florida Historical Society; the Florida Humanities Council; the Florida Literary Arts Coalition; the Florida Library Association; the Florida Association for Media in Education; the Florida Center for Literature and Theatre; the Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America; Friends of FSU Libraries; the Florida Writers Association; the Governor’s Family Literacy Initiative; and “Just Read, Florida!”

Friday, August 3, 2012

Michael Martone on FLAC Writer's Circuit in September

Plan to attend (dates below)!

Michael Martone's most recent books are Four for a Quarter; Not Normal, Illinois: Peculiar Fiction from the Flyover; Racing in Place:  Collages, Fragments, Postcards, Ruins, a collection of essays; and Double-wide, his collected early stories. Michael Martone, a memoir in contributor’s notes, Unconventions, Writing on Writing, and Rules of Thumb, edited with Susan Neville, were all published recently. He is also the author of The Blue Guide to Indiana, published by FC2. The University of Georgia Press published his book of essays, The Flatness and Other Landscapes, winner of the AWP Award for Nonfiction, in 2000.













 
Wed, 9/19—Miami Dade College (Miami)

Thurs, 9/20—University of Tampa (Tampa)

Friday, 9/21—University of South Florida (Tampa)

Saturday, 9/22—Edison College (Ft Myers)

Monday, 9/24—Eckerd College (St. Petersburg)

Tuesday, 9/25—Valencia College (Orlando) and

Tuesday, 9/25 —College of Central Florida (Ocala)

Wednesday, 9/26—Flagler College (St Augustine)