Author, educator, scientist, business and technical writer and essayist Judith Steininger has joined the Council for Wisconsin Board of Directors. Judy won last year’s Kay W. Levin Short Non-Fiction Honorable Mention for her article “The Girl(s) from Montana” published in 2018 in the Montana Quarterly. That award was one of several writing awards she has received. Among her writing credentials are more than a thousand business, technical and industrial-related articles and columns. She is Professor Emeritus at the Milwaukee School of Engineering where she continues to teach. She also teaches courses at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Continuing Education. She is a former Teaching Fellow in Boston College’s Literature Department and was a Peace Corps Volunteer for two years in Kenya. CWW will benefit in many ways from Judy’s wide-range of experience, talent and service. Members of the Board extend her a warm welcome.
Wisconsin Writers Contest Offers $500 Prizes, Writing Residencies
$500 prizes and weeklong writing residencies await 1st place winners of the Council for Wisconsin Writers 55th annual writers contest for work published in 2019. Honorable Mention recipients will receive $50 prizes and writing residencies.
Jan. 31, 2020, is the deadline for entering the contest.
Wisconsin writers may submit work published during the 2019 calendar year in the following categories:
- Book-length fiction,
- Book-length nonfiction,
- Book-length poetry,
- Short fiction,
- Short nonfiction,
- Children’s literature,
- A set of five poems, two of which must have been published in the contest year,
- Young Writers Award.
First-place winners in all categories except the Young Writers Award will receive $500 and a one-week writer’s residency at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point WI. Honorable mention recipients will receive $50 and a one-week writer’s residency at the Painted Forest Study Center in Valton WI.
The Young Writers Award recognizes Wisconsin high school students who excel at the craft of creative writing. The category includes poetry, fiction, essay, memoir, journalism, humor and drama. The first-place prize is $250. Honorable-mention winner will receive $50.
Award recipients will be recognized and celebrated at CWW’s Awards Banquet in May.
Entries for all categories must be postmarked no later than Jan. 31, 2020. Writers who enter must be current Wisconsin residents.
The entry fee for all contests except the Young Writers Award is $25. There is no fee for Young Writers Award entries. CWW membership is not required to enter.
Members in good standing are entitled to one free entry. Out-of-state judges will make the selections, except for the Young Writers contest. That category will be judged by the CWW Board of Directors.
The recipient of the Christopher Latham Sholes Award, which is awarded in alternate years with the Council’s Major Achievement Award, will also be presented. The Sholes award is named for Christopher Latham Sholes who is credited with inventing the first practical typewriter, and is awarded to an individual or organization for outstanding encouragement of Wisconsin writers. The Sholes Award recipient will be selected by the CWW Board of Directors and will receive $500.
Awards will be presented at CWW’s Annual Awards Banquet on May 9, 2020, at The Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee.
Specific guidelines, entry forms, and important additional information for each award category are on the CWW website.
Please address general questions about the contest to CWW Publicity/Blog Manager Jerrianne Hayslett at jerrianneh@gmail.com. Questions about individual contest categories should be addressed to the category co-chair. Co-chairs are listed with their contact information on the 2019 Entry Forms section of the CWW website.
Wisconsin Writers Contest Now Open for Entries
Wisconsin writers are invited to enter the Council for Wisconsin Writers’ 55th annual Wisconsin writers contest. First-place and honorable-mention winners will be recognized and celebrated at CWW’s Awards Banquet in May.
Wisconsin writers may submit work published during the 2019 calendar year in the following categories:
- Book-length fiction,
- Book-length nonfiction,
- Book-length poetry,
- Short fiction,
- Short nonfiction,
- Children’s literature,
- A set of five poems, two of which must have been published in the contest year,
- Young Writers Award.
First-place winners in all categories except the Young Writers Award, will receive $500 and a one-week writer’s residency at Shake Rag Alley in Mineral Point WI. Honorable mention recipients will receive $50 and a one-week writer’s residency at the Painted Forest Study Center in Valton WI.
The Young Writers Award includes poetry, fiction, essay, memoir, journalism, humor and drama. This award recognizes Wisconsin high school students who excel at the craft of creative writing. The first-place award includes $250. Honorable-mention winner will receive $50.
Entries for all categories must be postmarked no later than Jan. 31, 2020. Writers who enter must be current Wisconsin residents.
The entry fee for all contests except the Young Writers Award is $25. There is no fee for Young Writers Award entries. CWW membership is not required to enter, but members are entitled to one free entry. Out-of-state judges will make the selections, except for the Young Writers contest. That category will be judged by the CWW Board of Directors.
The Christopher Latham Sholes Award, which is presented biennially, honors an individual or organization for outstanding encouragement of Wisconsin writers. The award is named for Christopher Latham Sholes who is credited with inventing the first practical typewriter. The Sholes Award recipient, who will be selected by the CWW Board of Directors, will receive $500.
Awards will be presented at the Council’s Annual Awards Banquet on May 9, 2020, at The Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee.
Specific guidelines, entry forms, and important additional information for each award category are on the CWW website.
Please address general questions about the contest to CWW Publicity/Blog Manager Jerrianne Hayslett at jerrianneh@gmail.com. Questions about individual contest categories should be addressed to the category co-chair. Co-chairs are listed with their contact information on the 2019 Entry Forms section of the CWW website.
Come to the Cabaret for the Constitution, Social Justice and Poetry
Two members of the Council for Wisconsin Writers board of directors are among poets featured in a Constitutional Cabaret that will spotlight the U.S. Constitution and social justice issues through spoken word, music, and satire!
Monday, September 9, 7 p.m.
The Draw, 800 S. Lawe Street, Appleton
Poetry Unlocked & poet Nathan J. Reid, who is a CWW board member, have partnered up to present this unique experience motivated by the uncertainties facing our world today. Issues like gun violence, racism, women’s rights, class system, and more will be presented by these talented poets. Fellow CWW board member Sylvia Cavanaugh will join Nate at the Cabaret, along with:
• Dan Denton
• Bobbie Lee Lovell
• Alex Ullberg
• Ed Werstein
• Laura Winkelspecht
A live band featuring Joanna Kosowsky Dane, Loren Dempster, and Tad Neuhaus, will use their skills to create spontaneous, improvised music throughout the show. Travis Whitty will provide videography as well as his own musical talents.
Nate will emcee the evening, punctuating the night with spoken word, sketches, and songs.
An OPEN MIC is scheduled for the middle of the show, as part of intermission. [Note: due to the special nature of this event, OPEN MIC time will be limited to two minutes per person and should be thematically related to the Cabaret].
As always, a cash bar will be available.
Come get your freedom of speech on with these talented people and other members of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets!
DISCLAIMER: This event will be filmed! By attending, anyone at the event will be agreeing to be on camera as an audience member.
More news from WFOP:
ON DECK:
Oct 14 – Former Poets Laureate Bruce Dethlefsen and Karla Huston
Nov 11 – Stay Tuned!
Dec 9 – WFOP Poets’ Calendar Reading
For more information about the poetry reading series in Appleton, contact Sarah Gilbert at pses@sbcglobal.net.
OTHER READINGS & EVENTS IN THE AREA
MARILYN TAYLOR
Wednesday, September 11, 7 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Door County
10341 Water Street (Hwy 42), Ephraim
Open mic follows featured readers. For more information email contact @uufdc.org.
SHEBOYGAN POETS
Tuesday, September 24, 6:30 p.m.
Evergreen Manor, Fireside Room
1125 N. Westfield Drive, Oshkosh
An open mic will follow where participants may read a poem of their own or one that they love.
For further information you may contact Mandi Isaacson at mandiisaacson@gmail.com or Frankie Mengeling at mengeling.frankie23@gmail.com.
DEADLINES & SUBMISSIONS
Bramble is open for submissions to Wisconsin writers for the Fall Issue, starting August 1 – September 15. Guest editors Kim Parsons and Sheryl Slocum invite you to explore black holes and lacunae — for guidelines, click here: https://www.wfop.org/bramble-how-to-submit.
WORKSHOPS & CONFERENCES
Mark your calendar for the WI Fellowship of Poets’ Fall Conference on October 25 – 26! The theme is “The Magic of Poetry” with featured guests Cynthia Marie Hoffman and a real live magician (we’re told). Other fab conference features include the book fair (sell em or buy em), roll call (introduce yourself to the fellowship via a short poem), Triad contest winners and on Friday night, the open mic or fellowship in the bar! It’s a great opportunity to learn and grow and gain some new poet friends! Non-members welcome! More information and registration will be open soon on the WFOP website, here: https://www.wfop.org/conferences
Submitted by Cathryn Cofell-Mutschler, WFOP
‘Hand-Me-Downs’ Wins Young Writers Award
Ripon High School student Elizabeth Stanfield won the Young Writers Award for her poem “Hand-Me-Downs. At the Awards Banquet in May she thanked the Council for Wisconsin Writers for the award and that she would like to return to the banquet in later years as a published author. Here’s her winning poem:
Hand-Me-Downs
First published in The Ricochet Review
A friend of mine asked me to write a poem
about myself, and for the first time, I was left
without words. I realized that I can churn out
pages upon pages about lovers and the sea
and holy places and music floating through
the night, but I can’t write a single line about
myself. I don’t know how to weave my grocery
list of redeemable qualities into the tapestry of
Earth’s most beautiful things.
See, I grew up playing in the mud and I
don’t think I ever got the dirt out from
underneath my fingernails. When somebody
says you look good today I can’t tell if
they are reaching out to shake my hand or
slap me. Modesty claws its way out of my throat
every time anyone says something kind and
chokes me until I’m gasping for disinterest
like it’s air. I am a collection of hand-me-downs.
My confidence doesn’t quite fit me yet;
it still hangs off the ends of my hands like I’m a
child playing dress up in my father’s sportcoat. I
have to cuff the hems of my integrity. I wear thick
socks so that my feet fill my compassion. My
honesty falls into my eyes.
But I am still learning, and I am still growing
into this body. My eyes and my smile are tailor made,
and my heart has my initials stitched into it between
its coronary veins. They are mine and only mine,
and I am theirs, and someday they’ll fit me like a glove.
I’ll radiate confidence and integrity and
compassion and honesty and be soft like rose
petals and babies’ dozing breaths but strong like
iron and women’s hands and the ground I skinned
my knees upon in childhood and someday, some
glorious someday, I’ll be unwavering in my love
of myself.
I have been with me every second of my life.
I am the best friend I’ve ever had.
Slowly, I will learn to see myself as such.
CWW Nonfiction Honorable Mention Addresses Loss
Christy Wopat, who received the Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book honorable mention award for Almost a Mother: Love, Loss and Finding Your People When Your Baby Dies published by Orange Hat Publishing, tells us why she wrote this memoir and what the Council for Wisconsin Writers award means to her. An excerpt from her book follows her remarks.
CHRISTY WOPAT
I write so that people know they are not alone. I write so that humans can be comforted by the words of others. For Almost a Mother to be recognized by such a distinguished council of writers is an absolute dream come true. My goal is to get this book, these words, into the hands of as many readers as possible, specifically those affected by a grave loss. Thank you, thank you to the Council of Wisconsin Writers for this tremendous honor and I am so thrilled to continue on my journey as a Wisconsin writer.
Dear Reader,
If you are reading this, there’s a likelihood that you or someone close to you has just lost a baby. First, please know that there are no real words for the pain that you are feeling. This grief is like no other, and your grief is like no other.
I wrote this book because after my infant twins died, I couldn’t find anything on the shelves at the bookstore that was actually honest. I found books about grief, sure. Books written by psychologists on the stages of grief and books that assured me that I would find my answers in prayer. This isn’t meant to replace those. Those books are necessary, but in the raw, emotional weeks and months after losing my twins, what I wanted to know more than anything was that I was not crazy.
I wanted to know that the thoughts and feelings I was having didn’t mean that I was the crazy lady on the made-for-tv movie who lost a baby and then went around stabbing people. I needed to know that I was not alone.
I wanted to know that my rage against the pregnant lady checking out at the grocery store didn’t mean that I was suddenly a terrible person. That I was going to be okay.
In the pages of this book, you may disagree with thoughts or feelings that I have about grief. I tried very hard to make it known that in no way do I think that my thoughts are the only “right” ones. On the contrary–I know that everyone has their own journey. I just need to share mine in the hopes that someone can connect and maybe find some peace.
What I hope more than anything is that you find some solace in knowing that you are not alone. That the hard work you are up against will be worth it. That some day the edges of the pain will eventually dull and, with any luck, the memories will turn into loving thoughts about the precious babies we lost.
I’m not going to lie–it might be a while. In the meantime, hang in there. Find your people and lean on them. You’ve got this.
All my love,
Christy Wopat