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Members Only
Also, Dena has been asked to co-facilitate a writing track at the “National Speakers Association University” at Loes Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, AZ in January. See "Classes" for information about her classes here. Songwriter/poet Kathy Sharon Wilson has written and composed a song paying tribute to Greensboro firefighters, entitled, “Cause You’re Brave.” The song was performed Sunday, October 2 at Fire Station #1, 1512 N. Church Street, during the unveiling of a statue honoring firefighters. Pam Cable, Novel II, has been contacted by the Southern Women’s Shows to present Southern Fried Past, Present and Future in Birmingham, AL, West Palm Beach, FL and Greensboro. Her compilation of short fiction, Southern Fried Women is due to be published by Spotlight Press in early January. In September, Pam volunteered to help work a table with her Sisters in Crime Group for the Southeast Booksellers Association Trade Show in Winston-Salem. Last month, she also read her stories on the radio, WCOM 103.5, Carrboro, NC. Check out Pam’s website www.pamelacable.com. Once more demonstrating the versatility of our members, Joel Landau (One String Over musician) has entered the race for Greensboro City Councilman. President Ed Schubert (and co-facilitator Green Bean Jam) has scored notable literary success. His ghost story, “Just a Piece of String,” will appear in the Halloween issue of Writer’s Post Journal. His science fiction piece, “Last Hammer Song,” will be published by the on-line sci-fi magazine, Alien Skin. Check it out: www.alienskin.com. In early October, Ed will have a fiction story, “Trill and the Bean Stalk,” in the Premier edition of Orson Scott Card’s new on-line magazine, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. See: www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com. Nellcott My Darling, by Golda Fried, member of Novel II, was recently published by Coach House Books. Set in Montreal, the story traces the vulnerable ups and downs of a girl's freshman year at McGill University. Helen Goodman's new mystery, Murder in Eden, will soon be released by publishers Hilliard & Harris. Set in a North Carolina nursing home, the protagonist is a retired nurse who discovers mysterious deaths may not be just that. Stephen Hyers, former Assistant Drama Director for City Arts in the Cultural Center, has been named Drama Director. He continues as the founder/director of the Greensboro Playwrights Forum, an affiliate group of creative writers who specialize in writing for the theatre and stage. Steve Willis, a member of the Greensboro Playwrights Forum, recently had a play performed in Melbourne, Australia by Fly-on-the-Wall Theatre, directed by Robert Chuter. It ran for three weeks at St. Martin's Theatre. Steve was in Melbourne for the first five performances through an assistance faculty development grant. He says he was very pleased with the production and met some terrific theatre folks in Oz. A Stroke of Misfortune, by Nancy Gotter Gates, member of WGOT Mystery I group, published by Silver Dagger Mysteries, was released in April. In April, Nancy read and signed books at the apartment complex in Florida where she based this mystery. Also in April, Ellen Hunter hosted an author's party for Nancy at the Stadler Place apartment clubhouse, 2 Stadler Place. During this month, Nancy read and signed during Shepherd's Center Adventures in Learning. Nancy also attended the Malice Domestic Mystery Convention in Washington, DC April 29 through May 1. Laine Cunningham, former facilitator for WGOT Novel Group II, has been accepted for the 2004 edition of Marquis' Who's Who in America for her work as an author and book editor. Her book proposal for a novel, Message Stick, about a biracial Australian Aborigine's quest for self-identity finished in the top fifteen in the 2003 Books for Life Foundation contest. Her novel was selected as one of the ten finalists in the Pacific Northwest Writers' Association 2003 contest. She received the Hackney Literary Award from Birmingham-Southern College and she won the 2003 James Jones First Novel Fellowship, at Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA for which she received a $6,000 prize at the James Jones Literary Society Symposium. Laine attended the awards ceremony of the Writing Today conference, and as winner joins Pulitzer Prize winners William Styron and Horton Foote. Story South recently announced that a story by WGOT President Ed Schubert, member of WGOT Novel I group, was included in its Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2004. "Reality Check on Register Two," published in January 2004 by Pindeldyboz, is listed in these top stories and is a take-off on Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." WGOT member and Mystery Writer Helen Goodman announces signing a book contract with Hilliard and Harris Publishers for her mystery novel, Murder in Eden. Publication is expected later this year. A nonfiction article entitled, "The Angel Beside Me," by WGOT member and Children's Writer Emily Izzell has been accepted for publication by Angels On Earth magazine. The article is scheduled to be featured in their "Only Human" section of the March/April 2005 issue. WGOT member Joel Landau, a member of OneStringOver, is being published with a regular column in the Greater Greensboro Observer. Our State magazine contains book reviews of two WGOT authors. Hattie's Big Move, by Emily Izzell (a member of WGOT Children's Writers). Her creative work was described as "an adorable children's book about one of our state's most remarkable modern events, the moving of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse," by reviewer Jessie Tucker Mitchell. Paving Tobacco Road, by Walter Turner (a member of WGOT nonfiction group) explores how "creating one of the best highway systems in the nation requires determination on the part of many people and adequate funding from the state legislature," according to reviewer Al Stewart. As part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, Marie Gilbert gave a reading during the Sundown Poetry Series at the Dock Street Theatre Court Yard. This was Marie's third time to read there. "People and Places" in the News and Record carried photographs of Emily Izzell and Hal Koger who were honored at the awards banquet of the Burlington Writers Club. Emily and Hal both placed in the Burlington Writers' Club 2004 Adult Contest. Several WGOT members read from Wordworks, the most recent WGOT anthology, at McIntyre's Fine Books in Fearrington Village. Readers at the event included Mary Ferryman, Ellen Hunter, Nancy Gates, Marie Gilbert and Leslie Parker. Ellen Hunter was moderator. Pam Cable has won yet another short story contest, the Write Tight Short Story Contest. She placed Second for her entry, "Old Time Religion" and won a 5,000 word critique and a copy of Noah Lukerman's book, The First Five Pages. Tita Bakas, co-coordinator of the NSAI Greensboro Songwriters Chapter, has produced a CD, titled "Animal Totem Songs, performed by Tita and the Traveling Totems. It is a great CD for children, aged 4 to 11, as well as for all persons who are young at heart. The group is composed of WGOT members Bradford Reaves, John Paul McNeil and Tita. The original work benefited from numerous critiques by the songwriters groups in Greensboro and in Winston-Salem. The group recently performed in the Greensboro Children's museum and were interviewed by WGOS radio host Ogi Overman. Connie Usry read her nonfiction piece, "Kotz" which describes a recent trip to Alaska, for the Triad Information Reading Service at Wake Forest. TIRS provides closed circuit radio service for vision impaired and print handicapped persons. "Kotz" was published in the WGOT adult anthology Wordworks. Usry's short nonfiction humor piece, "The Cellphone Incident," was published in the December iss of In the Spotlight magazine. A short humor feature, "Women Wearing Pantyhose Unite," appears in the January issue of the triad area magazine. Mary Webb and Gail Fleagle were editorial consultants (i.e. "ghost writers") for the biography, Silent Like a Lion. The subject, Fred I. Dickerson, was a graduate of Reidsville High School who went on to compete in sports in college and who coached sports at both Lees McRae College and Mars Hill College. He was named "Coach of the Century" at Lees McRae. At 92, he still takes time to play tennis weekly, and placed second in the 100-meter dash and running broad jump at the 2003 Senior Olympics in Norfolk, VA. A front page story about the book appeared in the Reidsville Review newspaper. Muriel Hoff has published Messages Via Muriel, a little book of inspired poetry that reminds one of Kahlil Gibran. The cover of the book, designed by Tim, a graphic designer at A Bolder Image in Greensboro, is strikingly emblematic of the spirituality within. Marie Gilbert, past president of the North Carolina Poetry Society, says "a poet such as this is certainly what Percy Bysshe Shelley had in mind when he wrote 'A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one.'" Walter Turner, a member of the WGOT Nonfiction genre, has come out with his first book, a decade-by-decade exploration of North Carolina highways featuring historic photographs and maps. The book is titled Paving Tobacco Road: A Century of Progress by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. It tells how North Carolina developed a reputation in the 1920s as "The Good Roads State," as it constructed over the years one of the nation's largest highway systems. It is scheduled for release this month. Two articles by Walter were also published in the November issue of Our State magazine. They were titled "Sky High" which was about the Pioneers of Aviation exhibit at the NC Museum of History in Raleigh, and "Airline with a Heart" about Piedmont Airlines. Helen Goodman, WGOT Mystery Writer I member, was honored by the Anson County Writers' Club in Monroe with a reading-signing for her book, Jess. Goodman is a founding member of the Anson County Writers' Club. Her book was recently published by PublishAmerica. Emily Izzell, a member of the WGOT Children's Writers genre, and author of the children's book, Hattie's Big Move, was invited by PublishAmerica to a book signing and convention earlier this year in Frederick, MD. Emily is that rare breed in the publishing industry: both a writer and an illustrator. "Zachariah's Gift," a short story by Izzell, was presented using PowerPoint for a Christmas program at Rankin Baptist Church. Dorothy O'Neill, author of Ultimate Doom, published in October by Avalon Books, is the subject of an interview on Avalon's website (check Author's Archives on avalonbooks.com.) In addition, a poem Dorothy wrote, entitled "The Beach" was published in Woman's World in August. Karen McCullough, author of Witch's Journey, a romantic fantasy, has been released by ImaJinn Books. This cross-genre trade paperback adds significantly to the stack of books produced by this prolific WGOT writer. To learn more about Karen McCullough and her numerous book awards, go to her professional website: http://www.kmccullough.com. Doug Hewitt, member of the WGOT Novel I genre, is off and running with booksignings for his new novel, Spear at different bookstore locations. Hewitt's story, "The Macabre Art of Mason Greenfield" was published in the third volume of the award-winning Asylum anthology series: The Asylum: The Quiet Ward. Kitty Beasley Edwards, member of the WGOT Mystery II genre, has published a book, A Pleasure of Cats. According to Kitty, "This is just a little book of cat tales, mostly true, about cats I had as a child, cats the family had when the children were growing up, a few "cat tales" from others, and the cat that lived to be 19 and, strangely, became rather more my husband's cat than mine. The cover of her book shows Kitty at age five with two young cats named "Blackberry" and "Nasy Augustus Lindberg, Jr." Ellen Hunter author of Murder on the Candlelight Tour, was among the speakers at the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society in Wilmington, NC in November. Several other members of the WGOT Mystery Writers genre served on panel discussions during the conference, including Nancy Gates and Dorothy O'Neill. A review of Deadly Plots, the book by our WGOT Mystery Writers, was written by Ruth Moose, Chapel Hill instructor, and printed in "The Pilot," in Southern Pines. Ms. Moose notes that the authors "can wield a wicked pen while keeping those saintly smiles intact. They know a lot of secrets with fresh plots readers can only read and guess from clues dropped as carefully as lace handkerchiefs." Our newest WGOT genre is Nonfiction II. It meets the fourth Thursday of every month. This will be an alternate Nonfiction group, one that will meet from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Sternberger Artists Center, 712 Summit Avenue in downtown Greensboro. There is ample free lighted parking at the rear of the building. As you face Sternberger from the back lot, the WGOT entrance is the entrance on the far left. A second Nonfiction group meets on the fourth Monday of every month from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the home of Sharon Logan, 1714 Tenth Street, Greensboro. June Read and Mary Ferryman are co-facilitators of the Nonfiction genres. 2005 O'HENRY FESTIVAL Members of the Mystery Writers Group have been invited to serve on a panel at the 2005 O'Henry Festival. The group gave a "Deadly Plots" reading and book signing for residents of Wellsprings Retirement Community earlier this year. OUR STATE MAGAZINE For decades Arizona Highways was the premiere state magazine in terms of quality of writing, layout and photography. Our State magazine here in North Carolina equals the photo quality and surpasses the Sunshine State in the literary category. Tar heel writers, poets, artists and photographers will all want to subscribe! WGOT LIBRARY EXPANDS Member donations to our library have added books for our reading pleasure. Most of the following were donated by Becky Chaney, when she moved to California. Thank you, Becky, from all of us. A few of the newest additions include: Reference Nonfiction
Poetry Marketing
Story Telling
Creativity
Fiction -
General Fiction
Science Fiction
Mystery
Script Writers Next time you are in Sternberger (Studio
5) notice the shelves where your favorite
genre "lives." We have spaces set
aside
for the following: Marketing and Selling,
Creativity, Reference and Resources,
Fiction,
Science Fiction, Children's Stories,
Books
produced by WGOT Members, Mysteries,
Adult
Fiction, Playwrights Scripts, Poetry
and
Nonfiction. All of the books are available
to be checked out by WGOT members with
the
exception of books written by members.
Please
keep these at the center so others
can enjoy
them. And please be encouraged to
donate
new (or gently read) writing books
of your
own to our growing collection.
SEND IN YOUR NEWSLETTER ITEMS
The newsletter
deadline is on the 12th of each month. We welcome the contributions of members
of WGOT with newsletter
production. If you have any news for Members Moments,
Contests, Readings and Signings, general
or miscellaneous items for the WGOT
newsletter,
send them to:
Breaking news that misses our newsletter
deadline can still catch our later
WGOT web
site deadline -- the 25th of each month
for
news for the following month. Contact
Bob Webb (mbull68516@aol.com; 605 Forest Drive, Reidsville,
NC 27320) and put "WGOT website" in
the title box.
One shelf at the Writers’ Center has
photographs
of past WGOT events. Feel free to
look through
them, and add some of your own for
members
to enjoy. |
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