Web Site of Potential Interest to Writers

Leslie Hanson emailed me recently about her blog article on thesis and dissertation resources for writers. Topics covered include writing and research as well as writing centers. While her blog is mostly for graduate students, it might be worth your time to browse.  http://onlinephdprogram.org/thesis-dissertation/

Blogs You Should Be Reading

There are two excellent blogs I would like to recommend to my writing friends and followers. The first is by St. John Fisher College's Writer-in-Residence, M. J. Iuppa. Her blog, (A)stray: One Poet's Conversation, is especially essential during this National Poetry Month. She is posting daily writing prompts and her prompts are well-known to kickstart the creative muse in us all http://mjiuppa.blogspot.com/ 

The second is by Tom Holmes, editor of Redactions: Poetry and Poetics and a long-time resident of the Rochester area now working on his Ph. D. in Mississippi. The Line Break features a good article on promoting your published collection of poems 
http://thelinebreak.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/promoting-your-recently-or-soon-to-be-released-collection-of-poems/. He has also posted several of his book reviews worth reading.

Check them out. Follow them. Enhance your own writing experience. 

Web Site for Women Writers

Whether you are looking for an opportunity for self promotion or would like to share your work with others for critiquing, check out www.shewrites.com. This online community of women writers from all genres recently reached 10,000 members. As a member you will be able to post your publication news on the site's weekly digest. You will also be able to join any groups relevant to your interests, ranging from spiritual writing, publishing and editing, and many more. Your participation can be as little or as much as you wish. Please take a look at She Writes and let me know what you think by posting a comment on this blog.

August Occasion

My weekend was spent participating in Writers & Books and the Downtown Writing Center's joint poetry and fiction "August Occasion." The weekend featured four genre specific workshops led by poet Phil Memmer of the Downtown Writing Center, poet and prose writer Steve Huff of Writers & Books, poet Debra Kang Dean and prose writer Jennifer Pashley. The event was held at Writers & Books' Gell Center in Bristol where some of the more outdoor-friendly participants pitched tents while others stayed in the Thoreau cabin and still others chose to rough it at local B & Bs. Donna Marbach and I chose to carpool and commute from our suburban Rochester homes each of the 3 days. Were I to attend this event again, I would probably be less interested in commuting to save more personal energy.


Personally, I appreciated Memmer's critiquing from the perspective of a literary journal editor as well as Dean's careful attention to "how the poem means," the importence of which was ingrained in me by Tim Liu. I came away with interesting input on and direction for the poems I'd brought. The poetry workshop attendees were, with the exception of one, from the Rochester area. In spite of this, I was not familiar with everyone's work which made for a pleasant treat to experience works in progress I would not otherwise have seen.


While this was neither a "Bennington" experience--I think nothing can duplicate an actual Bennington experience--nor a rival of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, it was a good opportunity to connect with other poets in a different setting and a credit to the western and central New York literary communities.

Publication in the Briar Cliff Review

The 20th. anniversary edition of the Briar Cliff Review is now available. My poem "Stakes" appears in this 2008 volume. The Briar Cliff Review is published by Briar Cliff University. For more information visit http://www.briarcliff.edu/campus_info/bcu_review/home_bcu_review.asp.

Info on ByLine Magazine

To receive the back issue of ByLine Magazine in which my article "Five Essential Books Every Poet Must Have," contact the editors through their website: http://www.bylinemag.com/.