Council for Wisconsin Writers

Supporting Wisconsin writers from 1964 to 2022

Shake Rag Alley Center for Arts and Crafts

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WFOP Jan. News

Here’s some January news from the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, including the Council for Wisconsin Writers contest deadline, which is January 31. Get details at www.wiswriters.org/rules:

Make a point of coming out on January 21 to help us kick off the Harmony Cafe/WFOP Poetry Series in style…Brent (driving all the way over from Rhinelander!!) and David (from Ripon!!) are two of Wisconsin’s (and the nation’s) FINEST poets. 

The Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets (WFOP) Fox Valley Poetry Series meets at Harmony Cafe in Appleton (233 E. College Ave) on the third Monday of most months.  Each evening begins at 6:30 p.m. with the featured reader(s), followed by an open mic open to anyone who wishes to read 1-2 poems.  

Monday, January 21, 6:30 p.m. – Brent Goodman and David Graham

 

Brent Goodman is the author of Far From Sudden and The Brother Swimming Beneath Me. His poems have appeared in Pleiades, Sou’wester, Pank, Poetry, Barn Owl Review, and elsewhere. Brent lives in Rhinelander WI, where he works as a creative professional and serves as an assistant editor for the online journal Anti-.  For sample poems and more, visit www.brentgoodman.info/ 

David Graham has published six collections of poetry, including Stutter Monk (Flume Press) and Second Wind (Texas Tech University Press).  He also co-edited (with Kate Sontag) the essay anthology After Confession: Poetry as Confession from Graywolf Press.  Essays, reviews, and individual poems have appeared widely for over thirty years.  Recently anthology appearances include Seriously Funny: Poems about Love, Death, Religion, Art, Politics, Sex, and Everything Else; Aspects of Robinson:  Homage to Weldon Kees; Poetry from Paradise Valley:  Poems from the First Decade of Valparaiso Poetry Review; and 180 More:  Extraordinary Poems for Every Day.  He has served on the Advisory Board of Verse Wisconsin, as poetry editor for Blue Moon Review and as poet-in-residence at the Frost Place, in Franconia, New Hampshire.  He is Professor of English at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin.  For more on David, visit http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/grahamd/ 

ON DECK AT HARMONY – 2013 

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Feb 18           FICTION LIKE POETRY:  Abby Frucht and Don Wydeven

Mar 18           Bobbie Lovell and Michael Koehler

Apr 15           Marilyn Annucci and Susan Elbe                       

OTHER KEY HAPPENINGS 

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JANUARY 22 (TUES), APPLEBLOSSOM BOOKS, OSHKOSH FEATURES MARILYN ZELKE-WINDAU:  A retired art educator who lives in Sheboygan, Marilyn likes to paint with words.  Her work has been published in many journals including Brawler Lit, Qarrtsiluni, Your Daily Poem, Verse Wisconsin, Seems, and Stoneboat. Marilyn will be giving a poetry reading at 6:30 pm at Apple Blossom Books, 200 E City Center, Oshkosh.  An open mic will follow where participants may read one or two of their own poems or poems by others that they love.   Come early and enjoy a meal or grab a cup of coffee at Caramel Crisp and Café whose inner doors connect with the bookstore.

CONTESTS

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Wisconsin Writers Awards DEADLINE JANUARY 31!

Contact: Robin Chapman rschapma@wisc.edu   608-238-6932
For the 49th year, the Council for Wisconsin Writers sponsors its contests for work published by Wisconsin writers in the prior year.  Entries published in 2012 are invited in the categories of book-length fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; short fiction and nonfiction; a set of five poems; outdoor writing; and children’s literature.  Authors who enter must be current Wisconsin residents. First-place winners will receive $500 and week-long writers’ residencies at Shake Rag Alley Center for Arts and Crafts or Maplewood Lodge in Mineral Point. CWW also sponsors an Essay Award for Young Writers (1500 word maximum) for Wisconsin high school students; there is no entry fee, and the award is $250 this year. Members of the board will judge. Postmark deadline for the student essay contest is also January 31, 2013. Nominations are also open for the $1000 Major Achievement Award, which is given to recognize a Wisconsin writer who deserves special recognition for literary merit. Specific guidelines, entry forms, and important additional information for each award category are available on the website, www.wiswriters.org.   

WFOP 2013 CHAPBOOK PRIZE DEADLINE FEB 1!:  The Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets honors the best chapbook published in the previous year by a Wisconsin resident.  Visit http://wfop.org/contests.html for details.

WFOP MUSE PRIZE FOR POETRY DEADLINE FEB 1:  Open to any Wisconsin resident (you don’t need to be a member of the WFOP).  Visit http://wfop.org/contests.html for details.

Cathryn Cofell, PR Coordinator for 

Sarah Gilbert, Poetry Reading Series Coordinator (and WFOP Regional VP)

 

 

 

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WI Poet Laureate, Historian to Judge Writing Contest

Wisconsin People & Ideas  has announced that CWW award winners and distinguished writers Bruce Dethlefsen and Jerry Apps will judge its 2013 poetry and fiction contests. Contest entries are accepted from Sept. 15 – Dec. 15, so there’s still time to get entries submitted. The contests are open to all Wisconsin residents and students.  Top prize includes $500, publication in Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine and a one-week residency at  Shake Rag Alley School for Arts and Crafts in Mineral Point.

Details are at http://www.wisconsinacademy.org/magazine/writing-contests

Information about CWW’s 2012 contests and awards is as www.wiswriters.org.

 

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News We Hope You Can Use

In addition of the new “News” page on the Council for Wisconsin Writers website at www.wiswriters.org, the Council is supplementing the major events and announcements posted there with this blog, which will provide more detailed information about what’s going on in the Wisconsin writing community.

The number of organizations–large, small, active, not-so active, formal, more casual, genre specific and general–abound in Wisconsin. Events for some of those organizations as well as many of their members’ publishing credits and recognition are truly impressive and contribute to Wisconsin being at the forefront of the literary world.

While this blog is not exclusively for CWW events and members, this initial post focuses on the organization’s annual contest which opened the first of this month and will close on Jan. 31, 2012. Awards will be presented to first place and honorable mention winners at the Council’s annual banquet, May 12, 2012, at the Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee.

Contest categories–there are nine of them–guidelines and entry forms can be found at http://www.wiswriters.org/contests.htm.

First place winners in eight categories each receive a $500 award and a week in a residency writing program with Shake Rag Alley Center for Arts and Crafts and Maplewood Lodge in Mineral Point.

 The ninth category is the Essay Award for Young Writers, which recognizes Wisconsin high school students’ nonfiction writing. First place award in that category is usually $150, but is $250 this year, thanks to a generous contribution from an anonymous patron. Qualifications and guidelines for the youth essay category are at http://www.wiswriters.org/Student_Contest_Guidelines.pdf. The entry form is at http://www.wiswriters.org/Student_Contest_Entry_Form.pdf.

You can help spread the word about the student essay contest by printing and distributing a flyer, which is at http://www.geoffgilpin.com/pdfs/CWW-Essay-Award-flyer.pdf. The flyer can be given to high school students, teachers and counselors and other interested individuals and groups and posted in libraries and other appropriate locations.

The Council for Wisconsin Writers hopes visitors to this blog will find it informative and will send items to be considered for posting to blog manager Jerrianne Hayslett at jfarhsi[at]aol.com.

Visitors who want to receive email notification when new posts are published or updated can do so by clicking on the “Follow” button at the upper right of this blog page.