FWA St. Augustine Ancient City Chapter Writers Group

SAVE THE DATE for the St. Augustine inaugural Florida Heritage Book Festival, September 12 and 13th. Writing workshops, author speaking events, children’s corner, book festival book store (ACC participation, see below) and other events will take place during this 2 day history making celebration.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, Craft of Writing Workshops from 9:30a-4:00p, at the Casa Monica. Included with the sessions on fiction, non-fiction and the business of writing will be lunch with Keynote speaker Gary Monroe, photographer and author of two books on the Highwaymen, Florida’s African-American Landscape Painters, and another on other Florida artists. Fee for the craft of writing workshops and lunch is: $45.

Space for this event will be limited and a registration form will be available shortly.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, BookFest, 10:00am-4:00pm, at Flagler College and the Markland House. Authors will talk about their books and give readings (free)
Guest Speaker Luncheon at the Casa Monica is $40 and will feature our keynote speakers, Heather Graham and Les Standiford.

BOOKSTORE: Invited speakers’s books will be available for sale at the Friday, Craft of Writing Workshops and at the Book Festival Book store at Flagler College.

ACC/FWA will be participating in the Festival Book Store. The chapter will have space where on Saturday, throughout the time of the book fest, members can sign up to promote and sell their books. Participating details are not available at this time.


November 14th – 16th, 2008

THE 7th ANNUAL FLORIDA WRITERS CONFERENCE is scheduled for November 14 - 16, 2008 at the Marriott Resort in Lake Mary, Florida.

Join the heart of Florida’s writing community at the Lake Mary Marriott, for the biggest and most exciting 3-day event FWA has ever presented. "We’ve reached the tipping point this year,” says Chrissy Jackson, vice president of FWA and chair of the conference. “A minimum of 300 attendees has drawn the best faculty we’ve ever had — and I just know that faculty is going to drive attendance even higher.”

Fourteen experienced agents, publishers and writing mentors will be coming from all over the country to offer thirty information-packed sessions over three days — in a three-track plan tailored for full-time pros, serious hobbyists and determined beginners.

Learn how to improve your writing skills, package your work for selling and go on to make the sale — in special one-on-one meetings with the faculty. Get to know those things that no books on creating and selling your work ever could teach you.

It’s going to be a hard work, hard play get-together like none Florida has ever seen — a chance for end-of-the-day meetings with your kind of serious writers in an environment that will help you make friends and create common bonds for years to come.

You’ll also get the chance to show off your best work and see the best work of other Florida writers, as well:

Saturday night, November 15th, is the annual Royal Palm Literary Awards dinner. As you know, the Royal Palm is the premier awards contest for all of Florida, and this year there are more categories in fiction and nonfiction and separate genres than ever before. The contest closes August 1, so climb on the internet and go to http://www.floridawriters.net/ to get the rules and enter your prize work for all to read and praise.

Make your reservation now. (For hotel reservations, call 1-899 380-7724 and ask for the FWA discount rate. First come, first serve.)

P.S. We’ll be giving away an unbelievable number of door prizes worth from $10 to over $500 in value. The Silent Auction to fund our new Florida Writers Foundation in its fight against illiteracy will feature dozens of items ranging from autographed bestsellers to packages of Disney World and Sea World passes worth $400 dollars each. A chance to get your Christmas shopping done in a flash! Sponsors and donors are still sending items so fast we can hardly keep up, so look for more news on the door prizes and silent auction items in our next email.



Writing Contests/Opportunities:

The 2008 New England Book Festival – Call for Entries

The 2008 New England Book Festival has issued a call for entries for its annual program celebrating the best books of the holiday season.

The New England Book Festival will consider non-fiction, fiction, biography/autobiography, children's books, teenage, how-to, cookbooks, science fiction, audio/spoken word, photography, art, poetry and spiritual works published on or after Jan. 1, 2000. All entries must be in English.

Our grand prize for the 2008 New England Book Festival winner is $1500 cash and a publicity campaign during the post-holiday season spotlighting your work. The winning author will also have a choice of flights to our various awards ceremonies for our family of festivals and a free vendor table at the day events, including New York, Hollywood and London.

For more information including rules, deadlines, and submission guidelines, visit:
http://www.diyconvention.com/categoryA/2_details.asp?category_id=76&categoryA1_id=&categoryA2_id=37

We are now accepting entries for the 4th Annual Writer's Digest Poetry Awards. Whether you write rhyming poetry, free verse or haiku—as long as your poems are 32 lines or fewer, we want them all! 1st place: $500 / Second Place: $250 / Third Place: $100 Fourth Through Tenth Place: $25 Eleventh Through Twenty-Fifth Place: $50 gift certificate for Writer's Digest Books.

New this year: The 1st- through 50th-place poems will be printed in a special competition collection, published by Lulu.com.Winners' names will appear in the August 2009 issue of Writer's Digest.


Writer’s Digest Competitions

Check out the Writer’s Digest website for different writing contests throughout the year including the upcoming Popular Fiction Awards and the Short Short Story Competition:

http://www.writersdigest.com/competitions/


Gulf Coast Writer’s Association 2009 Anthology

Greetings from Gulf Coast Writer's Association!

We are writing to announce a Call for Submissions of short fiction to our second GCWA anthology. There is no entry fee. GCWA will pay $25.00 (or two free copies) to contributors whose work is selected for one-time publication rights -- all rights revert to authors upon publication.

Stories must be set in The South and clearly capture a southern tone. Themes might include: coming-of-age, family relationships, fitting in, social life (in its many facets), dreams/aspirations. We will also consider previously published stories that meet this criteria. Deadline for submissions is March 15, 2009.

Please share this information with members and friends. Interested writers will find all the information they need to submit at: http://www.blogger.com/

We are eager to include voices from many southern states in this collection!

Thank you very much and all best to our fellow writers!

Dixon Hearne, Co-Editor
GCWA



See you all at the next meeting and keep writing,

Jeff Swesky