This event will be conducted via Zoom. Register and you will be emailed the Zoom credentials.
Join our writing community for a lively discussion on writing for contests. Speakers this month include poet Ray Miles, chronic writing contest participant Doug McAbee, and B. Lynn Goodwin, editor of WriterAdvice.com. Moderated by Sheryl Bize-Boutte.
Ray Miles joins us from outside of Edinburgh, Scotland. He started writing in 2017 after retiring and soon his inner poet was awakened. Ray read one of his poems at the Edinburgh International Book Festival last August and has had several of his poems published in the online magazine WriteOn! published by Pen to Print.
Douglas McAbee has been writing fiction for about four years now, using prompt-driven writing contests to assemble a stockpile of short stories and screenplays that otherwise would not have been written. Last year, he placed seventh overall in the Writing Battle short screenplay contest. Additionally, he has been able to advance to the next round close to a dozen times in NYC Midnight writing challenges. When Douglas finally retires in a year or so, he anticipates turning his stockpile of stories into a pile of rejection slips.
B. Lynn Goodwin owns Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com. Her memoir, Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62 won a National Indie Excellence Award a Human Relations Indie Book Award, and a Pinnacle Book Award as well as being an Honorable Mention in other contests. Her YA, Talent, won a bronze medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, was short listed for the Literary Lightbox Award and was a finalist for a Sarton Women’s Book Award. Her first book, You Want Me to Do WHAT? Journaling for Caregivers is still used by caregiving groups.
Shorter works have appeared in Hip Mama, The Sun, GoodHousekeeping.com, PurpleClover.com, and Flashquake among other places. She is a reviewer and teacher at Story Circle Network as well as Writer Advice and is available to write guest blogs for your web site. She lives east of Berkeley and west of the San Joaquin Valley with her energizer-bunny husband and their exceptional terrier.
Award-winning author and Pushcart Prize nominee Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte is an Oakland multidisciplinary writer whose autobiographical and fictional short story collections, along with her lyrical and stunning poetry, artfully succeed in getting across deeper meanings about the politics of race and economics without breaking out of the narrative. Her writing has been variously described as “rich in vivid imagery,” “incredible,” and “great contributions to literature.” Her first novel, Betrayal on the Bayou, was published in June 2020 and a poetry collection she has written with her daughter Dr. Angela M. Boutte, titled No Poetry No Peace™, was published in August 2020 and is the namesake of the No Poetry No Peace™ series at the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco. Her in progress novel first chapter, “The Burden Keeper,” was the 2021 fiction category winner for the San Francisco Writers Conference writing contest anthology. An inaugural Oakland Poet Laureate runner-up, she is also a popular, teacher, literary reader, presenter, storyteller, curator, and emcee/host for literary and poetry events. Find out more at www.sheryljbize-boutte.com/
The Writers' Lunch is a casual brown-bag lunch activity on the 3rd Friday of each month. Look forward to craft discussion, informal presentations on all forms of writing, and excellent conversation. Please contact Taryn Edwards if you have any questions or if you would like to be a panelist - [email protected]
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