As of February 1, 2017, our blog will be moving to mcwc.org/blog. We hope you'll continue to join us there!
7 Comments
By Cameron Lund, MCWC Social Community Manager Sometimes in the rush of the holidays—the stress of cooking, of navigating crowded grocery aisles, of choosing, buying, and wrapping a mountain of presents—it’s hard to find the time and the motivation to write. But as writers, it’s important for us to keep our creative spark alive even when curling up to watch a holiday movie marathon seems a lot easier. We contacted some former MCWC faculty members to see if they had “little gifts of wisdom” to inspire us this holiday season and keep us on track. Here are a few tips to imbibe with the eggnog: ![]() Brooke Warner, Publisher: Try not to feel guilty when you carve out time for yourself just because you have family in town, or kids home from school. Your loved ones will appreciate your boundaries! Be mindful of the excuse that it’s December, so you’ll just start up again in January, as if that’s not the most tired New Year’s Resolution ever. December can be a very productive month, but you have to allow it to be. Schedule writing dates with yourself, and maybe treat yourself to some holiday treats as rewards for keeping the dates. ![]() Elizabeth Rosner, Author: Remind yourself as often as possible that there is something only you can write. Allow yourself to proceed in bursts, with silences for listening deeper and deeper. The words will find you. Now, more than ever, the world needs each individual voice to be heard. ![]() Victoria Zackheim, Author: As simplistic as it sounds, write from the heart. It's not always easy, and it can be painful, but the emotions are honest, and your readers will resonate to that honesty. Mystery writer Anne Perry says it well: Put your heart on the page. ![]() Susan Woolridge, Poet: 1. Persistence! Be like the water buffalo. When this heavy animal crosses a river he gets stuck in the mud bottom if he stops. If he just keeps the slightest movement forward he makes it across safely. Put numbers on pages! Tinker with titles. Whatever keeps the chapter or essay or poem alive. 2. Write to discover, not to recount what you already know. Keep at it till you uncover something—let a surprise come forth for you. This will delight your reader, and again, keep your writing alive. How are you keeping yourself motivated this holiday season? Do you have a favorite piece of writing advice? Let us know and we could publish your advice in a future blog! News: We're co-hosting a literary art installation and open mic event on Jan 14th with Flockworks! Here's how to participate: 1. Write 200 words on the prompt "I am"—this can be in whatever form you choose: manifesto, flash fiction, poem, memoir… 2. Bring your work to the Odd Fellows Hall, 45101 Ukiah Street, Mendocino, on Saturday, January 14th between 4:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Photographer Mimi Carroll will be there to take your portrait. 3. Watch as your writing and portrait become a part of a real-time literary art installation! 4. Sign up to read your work at the 6:00pm open mic. You can find more detailed information here, or contact info@mcwc.org. - - - Congratulations to Marion Deeds! Her story “Never Truly Yours” was workshopped at MCWC 2016 and has since been accepted by the fiction podcast PodCastle to be read by a professional narrator. - - - She Writes Press is launching a scholarship program for a woman of color in 2017. You can find more information here: http://shewritespress.com/scholarship-donations/ - - - We are also proud to announce a new scholarship for a woman of color to attend MCWC 2017. This will be offered as part of our new Diverse Voices scholarships. More details will be available at mcwc.org after February 1. This is your opportunity to help make sure marginalized voices get heard! We are still looking for additional donors to fund MCWC Diverse Voices scholarships. Please contact director@mcwc.org if you're in the position to help, or for more information. - - - Support MCWC on AmazonSmile Visit AmazonSmile and select Mendocino Coast Writers Conference as your charitable organization of choice. For every eligible purchase, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to MCWC Do you have a story to share or an exciting announcement? Let us know by emailing news@mcwc.com. To comment, click on "Comments" above or below the post, then fill in the form, or click on the "Reply" of another comment to add to that comment. SHARE on your Facebook or Twitter, hit the buttons: By Cameron Lund, MCWC Social Community Manager Exciting things are happening to our past participants. We caught up with a few and heard rewarding stories about how friendships formed at MCWC have helped pave the road to success. And what success! We'd like to toast the many MCWC community members that have accomplishments to be proud of this holiday season. We’d first like to congratulate Annelyse Gelman, winner of one of our Under 25 scholarships in 2015, for getting her poem “Conch” published in the October 14th issue of The New Yorker. At the conference, Gelman enjoyed working with Indigo Moor and Lisa Locascio, lauding Locascio’s talk on reading and interiority as one of the best she’d ever attended. “It felt like a perfect exploded view of someone’s else’s mind,” Gelman says. “I’m so grateful to have begun friendships with these two amazing writers at MCWC.” Locascio, too, has some exciting news to share: her first novel, Jutland Gothic, will be published by Grove Atlantic in 2018. Although Gelman may have known her as faculty, Locascio started at MCWC as a participant in 2012. She attended Steve Almond’s fiction workshop where she met Kara Vernor, initiating a relationship that helped foster both women's successes. Vernor first attended MCWC in 2011(her first ever writers' conference). "Although I arrived not knowing anyone else," Vernor remembers, "I soon found people to connect with—namely Dani Burlison, who was another participant, and Shirin Bridges and Michael David Lukas, who were both faculty that year." Those friendships led to further literary adventures. "Shirin suggested we come back to Mendocino and do a weekend writers' retreat," Vernor recalls. "The goal was to write something new with a set of interlinking story prompts. We wanted our aggregated pieces to be something like the book Finbar's Hotel, or the movie Four Rooms—each segment having its own plot line but occurring in the same time and place. I returned to MCWC in 2012 and submitted the story I wrote on that retreat to Steve Almond’s fiction workshop where I met Lisa Locascio, a fellow participant. I received great feedback all around and the story, David Hasselhoff is from Baltimore, went on to find a home at Smokelong Quarterly." Vernor has since had her short fiction published in many literary journals such as Hobart, matchbook, Paper Darts, and Necessary Fiction. In 2016, her first fiction chapbook, Because I Wanted to Write You a Pop Song, was published by Split Lip Press. Vernor also hosts Get Lit, a reading series in Petaluma, with author Dani Burlison, whom she befriended at MCWC. Authors who've read at Get Lit include many MCWC alumni and faculty, including Lisa Locascio this past January. "Having connected with Lisa on social media as well," Vernor says, "I saw she was editing Golden State 2017: The Best Fiction and Nonfiction from California, which features writing about life in the Golden State. I thought the story I’d brought to Steve Almond's workshop, about a woman from Montana who makes a pit stop in Mendocino en route to the California she’d seen on TV, might be a fit. Fortunately, Lisa and her team agreed, and the story was accepted for the anthology, due out in April 2017 from Outpost Books." “For me, MCWC is the gift that keeps on giving,” Vernor says. “I mean, seriously: giving and giving and giving. I have been, and continue to be, deeply grateful for the friendships, the growth, and the opportunities it has enabled.” You never know whom you might sit next to in a MCWC workshop, what panel will inspire you, or which speaker will become a friend. This is something that makes MCWC so special. We’re proud of all our participants who have gone on to great success, and who come back—sometimes as faculty.
We also congratulate: • John Lescroart, past MCWC faculty and board member, for his new novel, Fatal, coming out this January • Joycelyn Trigg, our most recent Carmen Etchenberry Freund scholarship winner, for her poem published in Caylax • Kate Erickson, Treasurer and Board Member, for being published in this year’s Chicken Soup for the Soul, Christmas edition • Devi Laskar, 2016 conference participant, for being named a finalist in the 2017 Press 53 Award for Poetry, for Leave Your Gods at the Door Do you have a story to share or an exciting announcement? Let us know by emailing news@mcwc.com News: November 17th, 6 p.m, at the historic Mendocino Hotel, the California Writers Club hosts poet Indigo Moor's “Writing to History and Culture: Using the Tools of the Present to Illuminate the Past." Free and open to the public. WritersMendocinoCoast.org. We're looking for artists' submissions for publication in the Noyo River Review. Artwork must be submitted electronically as RGB, TIFF, or JPG image files, with a resolution of 240 dpi or higher, and with minimum dimensions of 5 inches x 7 inches. Artists can submit up to 3 images before November 30th as e-mail attachments to sbono@comcast.net. Past faculty Reyna Grande is having her 3rd annual Christmas toy drive. You can donate here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/3rd-annual-christmas-toy-giveway-in-iguala-mx-mexico#/
To comment, click on "Comments" above or below the post, then fill in the form, or click on the "Reply" of another comment to add to that comment. SHARE on your Facebook or Twitter, hit the buttons: By Cameron Lund, MCWC Social Community Manager October is the start of a new chapter for the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference! The beginning of the MCWC 2017 conference year brings new leadership, new ideas, and—very soon—new branding and a gorgeous new website. Karen Lewis set the bar high as Executive Director for the past two years. Her work led to MCWC 2016, what many agree was our most successful conference to date. Karen first attended MCWC back in 1992, when she was a recently widowed mom of two pre-schoolers, writing poetry and essays to make sense of the world. “For a few days each summer, the literary world comes to our beautiful coast for a world-class writing conference,” she says. She will be stepping down and handing over her position to Shirin Yim Bridges, but will remain on the MCWC advisory board. ![]() Shirin’s first involvement with MCWC was as a member of faculty. Since 2012 she has also served as a member of the MCWC advisory board. Shirin has a strong vision for the future, including a commitment to bringing more cultural diversity to MCWC, and to ensuring that the conference offers exciting and relevant programming for aspiring writers. Shirin is the author of Ruby’s Wish, a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book and winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Award; The Umbrella Queen, which made TIME magazine’s Top 10 lists; and Mary Wrightly So Politely, which launched to starred reviews in Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Shelf Awareness. She is also the Head Goose of Goosebottom Books, an award-winning independent children’s book publisher. Another change in leadership: Nona Smith, our President for the past three years is moving to the position of Vice President. Nona has served on the board for six years and has made many contributions. MCWC was the first writers’ conference she ever attended, which she says makes it dear to her heart. She is thankful for the support of the community and local donors, as well as the letters she receives from past attendees, but will continue to enjoy and develop these relationships as Vice President. ![]() Stepping in as President is Ginny Rorby, one of MCWC’s longest-serving board members (21 years and counting). Ginny is also the author of five novels for Middle Grade and Young Adult readers: Dolphin Sky; Hurt Go Happy, which won the American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award; The Outside of a Horse, and Lost in a River of Grass, which won the 2013 Sunshine State Young Readers Award. Her most recent title, How to Speak Dolphin, will be released in paperback in March of 2017. Ginny’s long legacy knowledge of MCWC will be the perfect partner to Shirin’s fresh ideas. She says, “We’re going to be the dynamic duo. Watch this space.”
Photograph of Shirin by In Her Image Photography Click on "Comments" above or below the post, then fill in the form, or click on "Reply" of another comment to add to that comment. SHARE on your Facebook or Twitter, hit the buttons:
|
CONFERENCE WEBSITE:
(RSS Feed) Chrome users who see code: get Google RSS extension
Tags
All
|