Sherry Chandler

Contest deadlines

A reminder of some local contest deadlines.

The Kentucky State Poetry Society offers prizes for poetry in 29 categories. Postmark deadline June 30. Complete guidelines here.

Accents Publishing 2010 Poetry Chapbook Contest, contest deadline July 31. Complete guidelines here.

By the way, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, owner of Accents Publishing, and Leatha Kendrick are doing a Saturday Seminar at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning here in Lexington on the subject How to Create a Chapbook Manuscript. The date is June 19, 10:00 a.m. to Noon, fee $25. You can register here.

The Betty Gabehart Prizes of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference is still accepting entries in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction , which must be postmarked by July 15. Think of this contest as a merit-based scholarship program to the conference, awarding free conference admission for two, $100, and an opportunity to read from your work during the conference. Contest guidelines are here.

New Southerner lilterary contest in three categories, poetry, fiction, nonfiction. Contest deadline October 1. Complete guidelines here.

You can get the New Southerner 2008-2009 anthology for a bargain $10 at lulu

Betty Gabehart Prizes

I’ve received this announcement from the Women Writers of Kentucky:

The Betty Gabehart Prize in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction is now accepting entries. The deadline is July 15, and winners will receive $100, two free passes to the conference, and an opportunity to read their winning entry during the conference. Please visit our Web site for submission guidelines.

I am very excited that Patricia Smith will be a presenter at this year’s Kentucky Women Writers Conference. She’ll perform at the Gypsy Poetry Slam on September 10 and teach a writing workshop on September 11 & 12. Nikole Brown will discuss Smith’s Blood Dazzler next Friday, April 16 at 12 noon at the Carnegie Center, 251 West Second Street.

Check out also the MotesBooks’ Gathering of Writers and Songwriters. Two dates: April 25-27 and May 20-22.

And Salt is accepting proposals.

Betty Gabehart Prizes from the Kentucky Women Writers Conference

Submission deadline July 31.

Each year the Kentucky Women Writers Conference offers opportunities for both emerging and established voices to be singled out and cheered on by our community. The Betty Gabehart Prize honors our good friend, patron, and former director who led the conference during its seminal decade in the 1980s.

Three prizes are awarded, in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Each winner receives $100, two 2-day passes, publication of the winning manuscript on this web site (if desired), and the opportunity to read her winning manuscript at the conference.

Guidelines at the link.

Nancy Fletcher Cassell

Nothingness (9/11)

�Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words.�
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The forest sings aloud in winter,
a host to sleep of the unnamed beautiful.
Musk and leaf compact under foot,
black with moist ages and ages of eyes.

I am chilled clean,
to the slick bone of the present.
A laugh turns to scent crush on my sleeve.
Weariness runs down inside the crayon of my flesh.

Watch us, as what is ours is taken.
Our moans are ravenous. They flail the stars.
Shadows uncelebrated erupt.
We rob one to one.
Our hearts unscrewed peer from loot-smeared eyes.

The joy of ignorance burns each word.
They tumble out and away from our lips,
into the knowledge of the world singing:
I want to hear and not take to heart the song.

— Nancy Fletcher Cassell, originally published in Poems and Drawings on Peace and Justice, 2005.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

Nancy Fletcher Cassell, visual artist and writer, is currently a finalist for the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize from Water-Stone Review. She has received the Legacies Award from the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and was a finalist for the Second Annual Next Great Writers Award from the Carnegie. Nancy has also received an Honorable Mention for the The Kentucky Women Writers Conference‘s Betty Gabehart Award.

Her poems and drawings were published in Poems and Drawings on Peace and Justice by Greater Cincinnati Artists. Her visual work has received fellowships from The Kentucky Arts Council (Al Smith Fellowships), The Kentucky Foundation for Women and The Southern Arts Federation/NEA. Her artwork has been featured in Wind Magazine, The Artist’s Magazine and New American Paintings. Nancy has been awarded residencies at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Yaddo.

She was selected as a featured artist from the state of Kentucky for The Southern Arts Federation website.

Nancy is currently represented by the Ann Tower Gallery in Lexington.

Learn more about Nancy at her individual website is www.nancyfletchercassell.com .

5 Writers to Know for the Women Writers Conference

5 Writers to Know for the Women Writers Conference:

Nikky Finney.

Jan Oaks, Senior Lecturer in Gender and Women�s Studies and English at the University of Kentucky, leads a discussion of Nikky Finney�s 2003 collection of poetry and prose, <em>The World Is Round.

Tuesday, April 7, 12 noon, Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, 251 W. Second Street, Lexington, tel 859-254-4175

Also this week, Nikky herself is giving a reading and craft talk at nearby Morehead State University on Wednesday, April 8 at 7:00 p.m.

HOLLY GODDARD JONES.

Julie Wrinn, Conference director, leads a discussion of selected stories from Girl Trouble, forthcoming in September from Harper Perennial. Photocopies of selected stories will be available at the April 7 discussion (see above) or by contacting Julie Wrinn at wwk.info@gmail.com.

Friday, May 8, 12 noon, Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, 251 W. Second Street, Lexington, tel 859-254-4175

The 2009 Women Writers Conference will be held September 10-12. Elizabeth Alexander will be the keynote speaker. Pre-registration for the September conference begins May 1. More information at the link.

Balance

One of the highlights — there were many — of the 29^th Kentucky Women Writers Conference was a panel discussion at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Lisa Williams, and Crystal Wilkinson. Subject: Poem or Story: Finding Your Subject’s Form.

I got a real impression that Oates had a prejudice for narrative. From my hastily jotted notes, I quote her as saying something on the order of (and not necessarily all at one time):

I’m sure many of you are poets. There are more people writing poetry than reading it. There are 40 million people writing poetry right now…outbursts of emotion…divorced from narrative…having little weight. …Prose fiction has to have something to say.

I don’t want to give the impression here that Joyce Carol Oates was completely negative about poetry. After all, it was she who picked Lisa Williams’s volume Woman Reading to the Sea (Norton, 2008) for the Barnard Women Poets Prize. Oates was witty, charming, and very intelligent on this panel. Still, such statements, which are not rare, make me want to burn my papers and break my pens. What point in adding to this glut of lightweight emotional indulgence?

As happens, however, this afternoon I picked up the winter 2007 issue of Rattle and opened it to Alan Fox’s interview with Arthur Sze and read the passage below, which restores the balance a little bit for me:

I think poetry has a crucial role to play in our society. We’re in such a hurry; we live in such a consumer culture. Yes, it’s a common complaint to say that the readership of poetry is small and to lament that. I can’t change much about the numbers; all I can say is, we as poets feel this is worth doing—we’re committing our lives to it. It’s not about making money; it’s about nourishing the human spirit.

If, like the monks who pray at Gethsemane to restore balance to the world, I choose to spend my life as an obscure poet, nourishing my own human spirit and with luck a few readers’, then who is to say that is not a worthy thing to do, whether or not I leave an individual mark on the world at large.

Added: This from William Stafford from Writing the Australian Crawl (Univ Michigan, 1979), an essay called “Writing:”

One doesn’t learn how to do art, but one learns that it is possible by a certain adjustment of the consciousness to participate in art—it’s a natural activity for one not corrupted by mechanical ways.

preceded by:

In my area, the coyotes are still the best poets.

KWWC prizes

The Kentucky Women Writers Conference calls for submissions for their 2008 prizes:

Each year, the Kentucky Women Writers Conference offers opportunities for both emerging and established voices to be singled out and cheered on by our community.

This year, we are pleased to again present the Betty Gabehart Prize and also the Gypsy Slam Poetry Prize.

The Gabehart Prize is our way of honoring our good friend, patron, and long-time director who took the decade of the 1980s to show us all how it’s done. Three prizes are awarded, in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Each winner receives $100, two 2-day passes, and the opportunity to read her winning manuscript at the conference.

Guidelines at the link.