Sunday, October 3, 2010

Other Words Presenter Wil Haygood Wins Kudos!



Breaking news: Other Words presenter Wil Haygood has just been named a runner-up for the 2010 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing for his book Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson. The award recognizes outstanding books about sports published in 2009. Congratulations!

UT Books Honored by Southeastern Libraries Association


The Southeastern Libraries Association has honored the University of Tampa Press with Awards of Excellence for three of its books in the Southern Book Competition Awards, 2008 and 2009. Sponsored every two years by the Southeastern Libraries Association, the Southern Book Competition Award Committee gave its highest award, the 2009 Award of Excellence, to Lines from Neuchatel, a collection of poems by St. Petersburg Poet Laureate Peter Meinke, with drawings by Jeanne Meinke, and the 2008 Award of Excellence for Dust Jacket Design to The White Bride, a collection of poems by Sarah Maclay, who will be reading and presenting at this year’s Florida Literary Arts Coalition “Other Words” conference in St. Augustine. The committee also issued a 2009 Special Award to Lankes: His Woodcut Miniatures by J. J. Lankes, a limited edition hand-printed letterpress miniature book and the first handmade book produced by the University of Tampa Press at its Tampa Book Arts Studio. It was printed on the 1848 Washington Hand Press once owned by the American woodcut artist J. J. Lankes, on which he printed his woodcut illustrations for books by Robert Frost, Sherwood Anderson, and others.

The winning books will be part of a traveling exhibit that debuted at the joint conference of the Arkansas Library Association and the Southeastern Library Association in Little Rock, Arkansas. The exhibit of will then travel to various libraries throughout the Southeast. A copy of each book will also become part of the permanent archive held by the W. T. Young Library of the University of Kentucky.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Liz Robbins Hits Radio


Flagler College professor and poet Liz Robbins is featured on Red River Writers Live radio. She reads her poems "Jesus, My Suitor," "Studio," "Kentucky Derby Poem (2008)," "Horror Flicks, or Poem Beginning with a Line by Auden," "Poem with Oceanic Variables," "God Poem," "The Letter (1940)," and "My Soul Went to Hastings, and All I Got Was This Lousy Crack Pipe." Check it out!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Yellow Jacket Press Happy Hour Benefit!

The 3nd Annual Florida Poets Happy Hour and Prime Time Show
Friday, September 24, 2010, 6-9pm.
Tre Amici at the Ybor Bunker
1907 N. 19th St. Ybor City, Tampa
813-247-6964
Suggested donation: $5.00

Join YellowJacket Press (YJP) for a TGIF happening! The 3nd Annual Florida Poets Happy Hour and Prime Time Show will take place on Friday, September 24, 2010, from 6-9 pm. The event will feature "poetry specials” throughout the night by YellowJacket Press Poets and other well-known Florida poets.

Peter Meinke, Poet Laureate of St. Petersburg, will read along with YJP poets Cole Bellamy, Gregory Byrd, Robert S. Carr, Nyssa Hanger, Kirsten Holt, Susan Lilley, Jesse Millner. Guest poets include Silvia Curbelo, Philip F. Deaver, Melissa Fair, Phyllis McEwen, and Enid Shomer.

The evening will include food and drink specials, book sales, and a raffle. In addition, a silent auction will allow guests to bid on a dozen one-of a kind individualized and literary experiences.

The 3nd Annual Florida Poets Happy Hour and Prime Time Show rides the wave of Tampa’s cultural happenings. It will take place at Tre Amici at the Ybor Bunker, the most welcoming venue for artists of all stripes in Ybor City. We envision people coming and going throughout the evening, not necessarily staying the whole night. Come for a reading, an hour, or the whole evening--but do come!

A $5.00 donation will support YellowJacket Press a 501c3 non-profit.

YellowJacket Press is an independent poetry press and currently the only publisher of poetry chapbook manuscripts in Florida. Established in 2005 by Gianna Russo, YJP sponsors the annual Chapbook Contest for Florida Poets. Renowned across the state, the contest identifies the state’s most vital and vibrant poets and brings their exhilarating, well-crafted poems to the public eye.

Happy Hour, readings at 6:15 pm
Prime Time, readings at 7:00 pm
Raffle and Auction at 8pm
Last Call, readings at 8:20 pm

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Update on Kelle Groom Memoir


We congratulated Kelle Groom a little while back on the upcoming publication of her new memoir, but now there's even better news! I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl will be published by The Free Press/Simon & Schuster in September 2011, not 2012 as we initially reported. Way to go, Kelle! Can't wait for the release.

SCREENWRITING JUST ADDED!



This year, for the first time, the Other Words conference will feature a workshop in screenwriting, in addition to the core workshops in fiction, poetry, non-fiction, publishing and more. Be sure to visit the FLAC/Other Words site for registration information and more details!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Bartleby, the Sportscaster


Check out Ted Pelton's novella here: Ted was a presenter at last year's Other Words Conference in St. Augustine. Congrats, Ted!

Holiday Inn Special Rate for 2010 Conference


Holiday Inn is helping out for our November conference. They are offering $79 for Thursday night (11/4) and $89 for Fri and Sat nights (11/5 and 11/6). Address: 1302 North Ponce de Leon Blvd. St. Augustine, FL 32084 Phone: 800-569-8008. Ask for the “Florida Literary Arts Conference” rate. And don't forget we still have deals at the Bayfront Hilton and The Monterrey Inn. Scroll down for more info.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Dennis Hinrichsen Wins Tampa Review Prize



Poet Dennis Hinrichsen of Lansing, Michigan, has won the 2010 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry. He receives a $2,000 cash award and book publication by the University of Tampa Press for his winning manuscript, Rip-tooth. His book will be released simultaneously in hardback and quality paperback editions in early 2011. Read more!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Hotel Deals for Other Words Conference!


Monterrey Inn
904-824-4482
Nov. 4-6, 2010
Thursday: $70
Friday: $99
Saturday: $99
Ask for "Other Words Conference" rate.

Bayfront Hilton
1-800-Hiltons
Thurs, Fri, Sat: $239 each.
Ask for "Other Words Conference" rate.
Reserve room by Oct. 6th for rate.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Congratulations, Poet Rhett Trull


Rhett Trull, a presenter at last year's Other Words conference, has earned well-deserved recognition recently. Her book The Real Warnings (Anhinga Press, 2009), winner of the 2008 Anhinga Prize for Poetry, has received three book awards: the 2010 Devil's Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry from Southern Illinois University, given for the best book of poetry published in 2009; the North Carolina Poetry Society's 2010 Brockman Campbell Book Award and the Poetry Council of North Carolina's 2010 Oscar Arnold Young Book Award, both given to the best collection by a N.C. author published in 2009. Congratulations, Rhett!

Katie Riegel and Yellow Jacket Press!

Congratulations to Yellow Jacket Press board member Katie Riegel, whose poetry collection Castaway was a finalist for the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize. Her book will be published in the near future. Way to go, Katie! Upcoming Yellow Jacket Press Events: Sept. 11, Tampa--Deep Carnivale--YJP is involved and will most likely have a reading slot. Sep. 24th--3rd Annual YJP Happy Hour and Prime Time Show--all YJP poets are invited to read.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Register NOW for Other Words!!




Registration is now open for the Sixth Annual Other Words Conference, Nov 4-6, 2010, held again this year in St. Augustine, Florida on the campus of Flagler College. Click here to download your registration form, and we'll see you in November!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Kelle Groom to Publish Memoir


Big congratulations in order! Kelle Groom's memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl, will be published by The Free Press/Simon & Schuster (Fall 2012). Way to go, Kelle. We'll be watching for the release.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Other Words 2010 Call for Proposals and Book Fair Participation


We are starting to plan our 2010 Other Words Conference. It will be held on the Flagler College campus in St. Augustine, Florida, as it has the last two years. The dates for this year’s conference are November 4-6.

On Thursday, November 4, we will kick off the conference with a reading by local writers William Slaughter and Laura Lee Smith. The Thursday reading will begin at 7:30 pm.

Friday and Saturday events will follow the pattern established in the last two years with panels and readings scheduled from 9 am to 5:30 pm and then we will gather again for evening readings. We will have a keynote event by Jeffrey Lependorf of CLMP and SPD. The evening reading schedule will feature Wil Haygood on Friday night and Diane Wakoski and Terese Svoboda on Saturday night. There will not be any Sunday activities this year.

The theme of this year’s conference is, loosely speaking, “Writing About Something.” Broadly, we see this as meaning that panels should have a theme such as writing about art, writing about place, writing about baseball, writing about physics, etc. This will allow participants who want to include readings of their poetry, fiction, or nonfiction in their presentation to do so as long as it follows the thematic guidelines. There will also the more pragmatic, nuts and bolts panels about publishing, submitting work, agents, editors, small presses, teaching creative writing, collaboration, and others.

We will also offer (for a small additional fee) creative writing workshops in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction and special sessions of workshops as outreach to underserved youth. Our writing faculty, as of now, includes Terri Witek (poetry); Mark Powell (fiction); Lisa Zimmerman (poetry); Tania Rochelle (poetry). Our writing staff (also for an additional fee) will offer individual manuscript consultations or advice for publishing one’s work.

Publishers and journals will be able to sponsor readings by their authors by signing up for a table at the book fair and paying a fee above the cost of a table alone.

At this time we are ready to entertain panel proposals in any area and to discuss with small presses and journals the methods for getting sponsored readings.

This information will be posted on the FLAC/Other Words blogspot, Facebook page, and website. (Please see http://flacnews.blogspot.com/ and http://www.floridarts.org/, and become a fan on Facebook by searching “Other Words Conference.”)

To make a proposal or get more information, please email Rick Campbell or Jim Wilson. Further details about scheduling, participating writers, conference hotels, and more will be posted soon.

Rick Campbell, FLAC, rc2121@tds.net
Jim Wilson, Flagler College, jmwilson@flagler.edu

FLAC "Other Words" Conference Nov. 4, 5, & 6, 2010
Flagler College, St. Augustine, Florida


Thursday, Nov. 4, 7: 30 p.m., Flagler Room: Laura Lee Smith and William Slaughter.

Laura Lee Smith's short fiction was selected by guest editor Amy Hempel for inclusion in New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2010. Her work has also appeared in The Florida Review, Natural Bridge, Bayou and other journals, and it received the Snake Nation Press prize for short fiction. She teaches creative writing at Flagler College and works as an advertising copywriter. William Slaughter is editor and publisher of Mudlark, an electronic journal of poetry and poetics, "never in and never out of print"; author of The Politics of my Heart and Untold Stories; and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of North Florida.

Friday, Nov. 5, during panels: Painting and Poetry presentation by Sean Sexton

Sexton was born in Indian River County and raised on his family's Treasure Hammock Ranch where he paints and writes and takes care of 300 brood cows. His volume of poetry, Blood Writing, was published by Anhinga Press. Sexton uses the world around him as a subject for complex allegorical still-lifes and dramatic painterly landscapes. Like Jean-Francois Millet, Sean's keen observations emphasize the untamed beauty of the natural world and its stewards-- the agrarian society of the south.

Friday, Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m., Flagler Room: Wil Haygood

Haygood is a prize-winning Washington Post staff writer and an acclaimed biographer. His In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr., won the Zora Neale Hurston-Richard Wright Legacy Award, the ASCAP Deems-Taylor Award and was named Nonfiction Book of the Year by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., was named a New York Times Notable Book. His family memoir, The Haygoods of Columbus, received the Great Lakes Book Award. His latest book is a biography of Sugar Ray Robinson, Sweet Thunder, published in 2009 by Knopf. He has been an Alicia Patterson Fellow and, for his newspaper work, a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Saturday morning, Nov. 6: Keynote address by Jeffrey Lependorf

Executive Director of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), Lependorf has a long history working in the field of literary arts. From 1996-1998, he served as the Development Director of the Poetry Society of America. There he played an instrumental role in the national expansion of the Poetry in Motion program, which brings poems to subways and buses. More recently, he has worked as Development Director for Creative Capital, an innovative foundation providing direct grants to experimental artists working in a variety of disciplines.

Saturday, Nov. 6, 7:30 p.m., Flagler Room: Terese Svoboda and Diane Wakoski.

Terese Svoboda's writing has been featured in The New Yorker, Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate.com, Bomb, Lit, Columbia, Yale Review, and The Paris Review. Her honors include an O. Henry for the short story, a nonfiction Pushcart Prize, a translation NEH fellowship, a PEN/Columbia Fellowship, two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in poetry and fiction, and the Iowa Prize in poetry. Diane Wakoski has published more than forty collections of poems, including the four books that constitute her series "The Archaeology of Movies and Books"—Argonaut Rose (1998), The Emerald City of Las Vegas (1995), Jason the Sailor (1993), and Medea the Sorceress (1991)—all published by Black Sparrow Press. Her honors include a Fulbright fellowship, a Michigan Arts Foundation award, and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Michigan Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

====================================================

INFORMATION SHEET
Conference dates November 4-6, 2010

A partial list of participants:

Wil Haygood
Diane Wakoski
Terese Svoboda
Lola Haskins
Ken Hart
Terri Witek
Cyriaco Lopes
Lisa Zimmerman
Tania Rochele
Mark Powell
Marc Fitten
Stephen Corey
Sean Sexton
Lynn Aarti Chandhok
Kelle Groom
Shane Seely
Carol Lynne Knight
Allison Granucci


PRESSES AND JOURNALS

Anhinga Press
Autumn House Press
Yellow Jacket Press
University of Tampa Press
The Tampa Review
The Georgia Review
The Florida Review
Apalachee Review
and Press

Monday, May 10, 2010

George Hirsch Headlines Summer Workshop


Join the faculty of the Anhinga Writers' Studio Summer Workshops for intensive, hands-on instruction in three separate tracks: poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. The faculty includes NEA Fellowship recipient Peter Meinke; The Southern Review editor Jeanne Leiby; poet Lola Haskins; poet and editor of Anhinga Press Rick Campbell; agent Anne Hawkins; award winning novelist Mary Anna Evans; self-publishing expert Peter Bowerman, and noted travel writer Bob Morris. Guest of honor George Hirsch, publisher of Runners World, Men's Health, and La Cucina Italia, will speak on the changing face of publishing. July 28-31, 2010. University of Florida Hilton Convention Center, Gainesville, Florida. Registration: $395 full-price, $375 through May 15. Contact information: info@anhingwriters.org or Anhinga Writers’ Studio, P.O. Box 357154, Gainesville, Florida 32635-7154. Phone: (352) 379-8782. Website: http://www.anhingawriters.org

Monday, March 22, 2010

Inaugural UCF Book Festival!


Tons of great writers and poets will be appearing at UCF's Inagural Book Festival April 16-17. Look forward to catching up with Kelle Groom, Michael Hettich, John Dufresne and many, many more! Check the link for the full list of authors and events.
http://education.ucf.edu/bookfest/

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

New Book, Another Award Winner!

A. Manette Ansay's latest novel, Good Things I Wish You, has been awarded a 2009 Florida Book Award (bronze) and will be published in paperback this June by HarperPerennial.

Ansay is the author of six novels, including Vinegar Hill, an Oprah Book Club Selection, and Midnight Champagne, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as a short story collection, Read This and Tell Me What It Says, and a memoir, Limbo. Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, a Pushcart Prize, the Nelson Algren Prize, and two Great Lakes Book Awards. She lives with her daughter in Florida, where she teaches in the MFA program at the University of Miami.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Kelle Groom Readings Coming Up!

This spring, Kelle Groom will be reading from her new poetry collection Five Kingdoms at venues throughout the state. The next one is:
  • Saturday, April 17, Time: TBA, UCF Book Festival , UCF Arena.

Kelle Groom’s previous poetry collections are Underwater City (University of Florida, 2004), and Luckily, a Florida Book Award winner (Anhinga, 2006). Her poems have appeared in AGNI, DoubleTake, Gettysburg Review, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Witness, among others.

Monday, March 1, 2010

A Bronze Medal Honor for FLAC Members





Poet Peter Meinke, a featured reader at the past two FLAC Other Words Conferences, has just been awarded the Florida Book Award’s Bronze Medal for Poetry for Lines from Neuchatel: The Thirty-fifth Anniversary Edition. The special edition was published by a founding FLAC member, the University of Tampa Press. Meinke is the author of seven books of poems in the prestigious Pitt Poetry Series. He is also the author of two collections of short stories, The Piano Tuner, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award, and, recently, Unheard Music. In 2009 he was appointed the first Poet Laureate of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, where he and his wife, the artist Jeanne Clark, whose drawings are featured prominently in Lines from Neuchatel, have lived since 1966.

Monday, February 22, 2010

New Novel from Mary Jane Ryals



Mary Jane Ryals has a novel coming out in October 2010: Cookie and Rayann, published by Kitsune Books. It’s a story of cross-racial friendship between two young teenage girls set the deep South of the 1960s. An award-winning author of nonfiction, poetry, and short stories; editor at the Apalachee Review literary magazine; and research associate at Florida State University’s College of Business, Mary Jane Ryals is also the 2008-2010 Big Bend Poet Laureate. Congratulations, Mary Jane!

Dorothy Allison at UT, March 25


The University of Tampa Writers at the University series will host writer Dorothy Allison for a reading on March 25. The event is co-sponsored by UT’s student literary magazine, QUILT. Dorothy Allison grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, the first child of a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who worked as a waitress. She received the 2007 Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction, and her books include Trash and Bastard Out of Carolina.

March 25, 8:00 p.m.
University of Tampa
Plant Hall - Grand Salon
Free – open to the public
Contact Name: Audrey Colombe
Contact E-mail acolombe@ut.edu
Contact Phone Number: (813) 257-3116

Monday, February 8, 2010

R.I.P., Robert Dana


Sad news. Poet Robert Dana passed away Saturday morning, February 6, at Mercy Hospice in Iowa City after a lengthy struggle with pancreatic cancer. He died peacefully with his wife and family present. His last two books will be published in April--New & Selected Poems 1955 to 2010 (Anhinga), and a book of essays, Paris on the Flats: Versions of a Literary Life (University of Tampa). His publishers and friends will host an informal tribute at this year’s AWP Conference in Denver.

Guy Libeda, a longtime friend now with the Utah Arts Council, wrote: “He gave freely from his experience and his wisdom. I asked him for advice, not just about the lit biz, but about life & love. I looked up to him & valued his friendship. Another of our older brothers in the order has passed. Soon we will be the elders in our world. I just hope we are able to provide the kind of wisdom RP did.”

Robert Dana’s own words remain memorably eloquent, as these from his “Elegy for a Hometown”: “Soon I'll bury my own shadow & slip away like sunlight. / Simplicity's what I'm best at. / In the end, / a small box of a house by the sea. / No electricity. / No running water. Dirt floored. / Prayer, /wind & slapdash from the whereafter.”

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Morrill Wins Massachusetts Review Poetry Award




“Enemy Infant,” a poem by Donald Morrill, of the University of Tampa, has been awarded the 2010 Anne Halley Prize from The Massachusetts Review. The annual award, which includes a cash prize of $500, recognizes the best work to appear in the magazine in the previous year. In addition, a broadside of the poem will be produced, and Morrill will give a reading of this and other works at UMass-Amherst this spring. Congratulations!

Friday, January 29, 2010

Florida Review Call for Submissions


Announcing The Florida Review 2010 Editors' Awards in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. $1,000 award and publication. Submission Deadline: February 26, 2010 (postmark). This is a blind read: title only on the manuscript; cover sheet should include title, name, and contact information. Full contest guidelines are available on our website, (http://floridareview.cah.ucf.edu/).

To enter, send $15 (includes a one-year subscription) and the manuscript to The Florida Review/UCF, Department of English, University of Central Florida, PO Box 161346, Orlando, FL 32816.

ALSO!

The Summer issue of The Florida Review, FR 35.1 is a special issue on contemporary Native American writing. The issue will be out in time for AWP in April. The issue may be purchased by mail, or by subscribing to The Florida Review. Single issue cost: $8.00. Subscription: $15.00 (by mail or at Amazon.com).

Monday, January 25, 2010

New Poems from FLAC Member Michael Hettich


Michael Hettich’s new book of poems, Like Happiness, is forthcoming from Anhinga Press this spring. Hettich also has poems forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, South Dakota Review, Pudding, Arch, and other journals. Look for an update and new cover art coming soon!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

John Henry Fleming and Fearsome Creatures


Storm devils, peat fairies, and skunk apes, oh, my! FLAC member John Henry Fleming has published Fearsome Creatures of Florida, a literary bestiary of environmentally-themed Florida creatures. 20% of royalties go to the Nature Conservancy of Florida. John is also the author of The Legend of the Barefoot Mailman, a Florida novel. His short stories have appeared in McSweeney’s, The North American Review, Mississippi Review, and Fourteen Hills. He teaches creative writing at USF in Tampa.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Conference Dates Announced!


Save the date . . . plenty of time to plan. The 2010 Florida Literary Arts Coalition Other Words Conference will be held November 5 and 6 in St. Augustine, Florida. That's a pretty good time of year to be in Florida, enjoying the sights of the Oldest City. Just sayin'.

Poet Chad Sweeney Turns Conference Gig into Community Service

Poet Chad Sweeney, author of Arranging the Blaze, A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer, and An Architecture, turned his conference gig into community service. When Sweeney visited St. Augustine for the 2009 FLAC Other Words Conference in November, he made a special visit to the Teen Center in Hastings, Florida to work with young poets. Read all about it on Kim Bradley’s Juice Up the True Say Blog.

Friday, January 8, 2010


The Other Words Conference of the Florida Literary Arts Coalition has a new logo. We're already planning for a great 2010 conference in November. More news coming soon!