34th West Virginia Writers Conference June 8-10, 2012

May 3, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

Cat Pleska, president of West Virginia Writers, Inc., sends this important news about the 34th annual writers conference:

West Virginia Writers, Inc.’s 34th annual writers conference at Cedar Lakes Conference Center in Ripley will be from Friday June 8 through Sunday June 10.

“Our conference offers attendees workshops in poetry, nonfiction, fiction, young adult and middle grade, short stories, play writing and much more. This year editor Joy Held, with Secret Cravings Publications, will take pitches for fiction and nonfiction. Panel discussions on the latest in ebook publishing and regional literary magazines are in the offering. This year, we will also offer a limited number of manuscript critiques,” Pleska said.

Stay tuned to the website for updated information.

Registration is ongoing and can also be taken on site at the conference. There are also one and two-day alternatives if you cannot attend the whole conference. West Virginia Writers, Inc. hopes you will join them for three days of writing and camaraderie. Registration forms can be found at http://www.wvwriters.org or you can contact Cat Pleska for more information at 304-757-4109 or send an e-mail to her.


What are we? What are we doing? Where? Who?

May 3, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

"The Scream by Edvard Munch" / AP photo

Artist Edvard Munch created four or more versions of “The Scream” in various media.

The one auctioned at Sotheby’s yesterday for $119.9 million, a pastel, is said to be the only one to bear a hand-painted poetic inscription by the artist of his inspiration for the work:

“I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun set. I felt a tinge of melancholy. Suddenly the sky became a bloody red. I stopped, leaned against the railing, dead tired. And I looked at the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword over the blue-black fjord and city. My friends walked on. I stood there, trembling with fright. And I felt a loud, unending scream piercing nature.”

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Check out the comments that follow the nytimes.com story about the auction.

Tracy K. Smith wins Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

April 17, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

Smith

Yesterday on her birthday, African American poet Tracy K. Smith won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. “Life on Mars” is a collection of 33 poems about hope and belief. A little about Tracy K. Smith: She teaches at Princeton … wrote two award-winning previous collections, “Duende” and “The Body’s Question” … lives in Brooklyn … her tight poems resonate with us, zeroing in on the split between surfaces and realities in our lives…. One of the many high points of “Life on Mars” is the long poem “The Speed of Belief,” an elegy for her father.


2012 Dodge Poetry Festival Oct. 11-14

April 12, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

JUST IN: Get tickets to North America’s largest poetry festival….

Award-winning poets scheduled to appear:
Nikky Finney, Terrance Hayes, U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine, Natasha Trethewey, Gregory Orr and many others.


Poetry there and here

April 6, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

Evening with Poets — 6:30 p.m., 4/26/12, Hazard, Kentucky. A reading to celebrate the publication of Kudzu, Hazard Community and Technical College’s literary magazine. Jim Webb, emcee. Featured poet, author of “Hellfightin’,” Makalani Bandele. For information, email Scott Lucero.

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Susanna Holstein, a poet and storyteller, at Morgantown Poets, 7 p.m. 4/19/12, Monongalia Arts Center, Morgantown, West Virginia. Open mic follows.

Morgantown Poets is an informal not-for-profit, all-volunteer community group that meets 7 – 9 p.m. the third Thursday each month at MAC, providing literary enthusiasts in north-central West Virginia the opportunity to express themselves, share their work, network, and to connect up-and-coming writers with more established authors. New writers are welcome. Join on Facebook by entering “Morgantown Poets” in the search or join the mailing list at morgantownpoets@gmail.com. Follow on Twitter(@MorgantownPoets) or watch videos of past events on Morgantown Poets’ YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/user/MorgantownPoets).
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Please email news of poetry events to this blog, and Thank You.


Author writes book of poetry about Sago – WVPubcast.org

March 4, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

Listen to an interview with writer Susan Shaw Sailer.

Find out more about the book.


Poetry Out Loud, here and now

March 2, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

Amber Tamblyn

Poetry Out Loud is here. The 10 a.m. Friday session is over, but if you’re in the Charleston area this afternoon at 2 p.m. (semifinals), or Saturday at 1 p.m. (finals), come to the Culture Center Theater and listen. Students will recite wonderful poems. Actor and Beckley native Chris Sarandon will host. Emmy-nominated actress and poet Amber Tamblyn will be a special guest. A panel of judges — seasoned poets and teachers usually — will judge the dynamics of the students’ oral interpretations. Saturday 1 p.m., the top ten students will compete for a chance to go to Washington DC for the nationals.

Here’s a link to Bill Lynch’s recent Gazette story about Poetry Out Loud:

http://www.wvgazette.com/Entertainment/201202290347

Here’s some more information from the Poetry Out Loud website:
49 out of 53 State Finals will be taking place this
month (congrats to Alabama, Indiana, New Mexico and Texas for successful finals in February!). Stay in the know by following all the Poetry Out Loud happenings on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

Also, if you live near your state’s finals venue the best way to show your support is in person. These events are free and open to the public. To find out the details of your state’s contest got to your state arts agency’s website or contact your state’s POL coordinator.

And if you have any Poetry Out Loud news, we want to hear from you!

Post POL news and pictures to our Facebook wall
Use @Poetryoutloud and #poetryoutloud to tweet any POL news
Send videos for us to post on Youtube or let us know about your own Youtube videos
Email us any POL stories, photos, and info

Wishing all our competitors out there good luck…go poetry!

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UPDATE:

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/wvbookfestival/2012/03/06/nitro-student-wins-state-poetry-out-loud-finals/

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POETRY App up for award

February 29, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

POETRY App Announced as Finalist for National Magazine Award : The Poetry Foundation: http://bit.ly/xjhE2G


Lynnell Edwards Poetry Reading at WVWC

February 15, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

Poet Doug Van Gundy invites us to hear Louisville, Ky., poet Lynnell Edwards read from her new collection, “Covet” (Red Hen Press 2011).

“Edwards has a remarkable gift for finding the poetic in the everyday, and her poems crackle with wit and humor, thunder and burning leaves, desire and danger,” Van Gundy said.

If you go:
Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, 7:30-8:30 p.m., Greek Alumni Room, Virginia Law Performing Arts Center, West Virginia Wesleyan College, 59 College Avenue, Buckhannon, WV 26201.
Q&A and book signing immediately following the reading.

View the “Covet” book trailer by Pam Swisher:


Outstanding writers reading at Marshall this spring

February 9, 2012 by Vic Burkhammer

Many thanks to Art Stringer for sending news of the readings scheduled at Marshall University this spring:

Fiction writer Donald Ray Pollock

Reading: February 16 at 8:00 pm Shawkey Room (Memorial Student Center)

Donald Ray Pollock is the author of two books. His first book of short stories, Knockemstiff, won the 2009 PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Third Coast, The Journal, Sou’wester, River Styx, Boulevard, Folio, Granta, Washington Square, and The Berkeley Fiction Review. The Devil All the Time is his recently released first novel, praised in reviews by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, and others. He works and teaches in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Distinguished writer Jayne Anne Phillips

Discussion: March 8 at 3:30 pm Shawkey Room (Memorial Student Center)

Reading: March 8 at 8:00 pm in the Booth Experimental Theater

Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of eight books, most recently the National Book Award Finalist, Lark and Termite. She was born and raised in West Virginia. Featured in Newsweek, Phillips’s first story collection, Black Tickets was lauded by Raymond Carver as a collection of “stories unlike any in our literature.” Nadine Gordimer has called her “the best short story writer since Eudora Welty.” Phillips’ first novel, Machine Dreams was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of twelve Best Books of the Year.

Jayne Anne Phillips’ works have been translated and published in twelve languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Her work has appeared most recently in Harper’s, Granta, Doubletake, and the Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction. She has taught at Harvard University, Williams College, and Boston University, and is currently Professor of English and Director of the MFA Program at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey.

Poet Kathryn Kirkpatrick

Reading: April 5 at 8:00 pm in the Shawkey Room (Memorial Student Center)

Kathryn Kirkpatrick is the author of four collection of poems, most recently Unaccountable Weather. She is also the editor of Border Crossings: Irish Women Writers and National Identities (University of Alabama Press, 2000).
Her poems have appeared widely in such journals as Calyx, Carolina Quarterly, Cortland Review, Epoch, The Florida Review, The Hollins Critic, Kalliope, Shenandoah, The South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, Sundog and other magazines. She teaches at Appalachian State University.

Visiting Writers Series readings are free and open to the public. The Series is supported by the Marshall English Department, the College of Liberal Arts, and the West Virginia Humanities Council.