AuTHor Thursday: Writing Group, Northern Eclecta and UND Writers Conference

Greetings Reader on the Other Side of the Screen,

Today, I write to tell you of three author-y things, two reminders and one new!

1.  New: The Fargo-Moorhead RRVWP Writing Group will meet this Saturday morning.

Under Kim Rensch's fearless guidance, the Fargo-Moorhead writers will gather to write at 9 am on April 9th at Dunn Brothers Coffee on the corner of 13th Ave. S and 25th St. S. Hope to see some of you there! 

2. Reminder: Northern Eclecta has just extended their deadline to April 11!

This is an opportunity for both 7-12 students and for current and former NDSU students to submit their work. Here is a link to Northern Eclecta's website) 

Northern Eclecta is an interdisciplinary journal that aims to promote creative expression in the written and visual arts by inviting submissions and publishing work from these groups:

• All current and former NDSU students–graduate students as well as undergraduates.

• All students in grades 7 through 12 in area schools.

Northern Eclecta is produced annually by students in the ENGL 213, 313, and 413: Literary Publications classes. These students do all of the work associated with producing a literary journal from publicizing the call for submissions to reviewing the submissions to doing the document design and desktop publishing.

3. UND Writers Conference is here! 

If you're around, you can do more than simply check out the UND Writers Conference website, but you can also visit the UND Writers Conference! Many excellent writingly conversations are sure to be had! 

May your writing be rich and full and luminous. 

And remember, the difference between a cat and a comma is that one is a pause at the end of a clause and the other has claws at the end of its paws. 

Happy writing!

Erika, the Writer on This Side of the Screen

AuTHor Thursday: Northern Eclecta and UND Writers Conference

Greetings Reader on the Other Side of the Screen,

Today, I write to tell you of two author-y things.

1. Northern Eclecta has just extended their deadline to April 11!

Now, you might have two questions: 

1. What is Northern Eclecta?

2. Why is Northern Eclecta important? 

Great questions you might be having.

First, Northern Eclecta has explained what it is wonderfully on its website, so I will save you the time in having to click on a link (but if you want to click on a link, here it is: link to Northern Eclecta's website) 

Northern Eclecta is an interdisciplinary journal that aims to promote creative expression in the written and visual arts by inviting submissions and publishing work from these groups:

• All current and former NDSU students–graduate students as well as undergraduates.

• All students in grades 7 through 12 in area schools.

Northern Eclecta is produced annually by students in the ENGL 213, 313, and 413: Literary Publications classes. These students do all of the work associated with producing a literary journal from publicizing the call for submissions to reviewing the submissions to doing the document design and desktop publishing.

Second, if you are a graduate of NDSU, this is an opportunity for you to be published. But equally importantly, this is a great opportunity for your students (7-12) to bravely send their work off into the world! Check out their website for more submission specifics. 

2. UND Writers Conference is looming on the horizon!

While we have already featured the UND Writers Conference on this blog, we wanted to feature it again because it is not every day that so many writers gather together. If you haven't already checked out this year's featured authors, I invite you to head over to the UND Writers Conference website and check them out!  Hopefully you have some time April 6-8 to head over to UND and participate in this wonderful writing opportunity.

I hope your writing--whether in the classroom or beyond--is going splendidly well.

Remember, to write with a broken pencil is pointless, so make sure to always keep a pencil sharpener on hand!

Happy writing!

Erika, the Writer on This Side of the Screen

AuTHor Thursday: Writing Conferences are Coming!

The UND Writers Conference is in its 47th year and is coming up April 6-8. The day after, April 9, marks the first writing and reading (WAR) conference for students.

The "Waging WAR for Literacy" student conference, open this year only to Grand Forks students, will feature national and local speakers.

 Guest speakers include such writingly folks as
-young adult author Chris Crutcher
-UND graduate and contributing science editor at Time for Kids David Bjerklie
-hip-hop artist from Turtle Mountain Reservation Mic Jordan
-UND faculty members

Eileen Zygarlicke and Jodi Dodson led the conference organization. You can find more information about this free conference by reading the article featured in the Grand Forks Herald and by searching for "Waging WAR on Literacy for Facebook. 

Whenever writers come together, words are sure to follow--in the air and on the page.

May these conferences be a time of rich conversation, connection, and learning.

AuTHor Thursday: UND Writers Conference Preview

Save the date!

April 6-8 marks the 47th Annual UND Writers Conference.  This year's theme is "The Art of Science."

Featured writers include Brian Greene, Kim Stanley Robinson, Katharine Coles, Frank Huyler, Allison Leigh Holt, and Tania James.

Check out the website for more information about the authors, events, and schedule. All events are free and open to the public.

Hope to see you there!

UND Writers Conference starts tomorrow

The UND Writers Conference begins Wednesday, March 25, at 10:00 am and runs through Friday, March 27. The conference features appearances by noted authors and local writers, community readings, writing workshops, and film viewings. The theme for this year's conference is "The Other Half. To view this year's schedule or for more information on the UND Writers Conference, click here.

AuThursday: Tara Betts

Tara Betts is an author and a Cave Canem fellow. She recently received her Ph.D. in English from Binghamton University. Tara is the Poetry Editor for Blackberry: a magazine and a Contributing Editor for Radius. Her poetry has appeared in a variety of publications.

Betts will be appearing at the UND Writers Conference on Wednesday, March 25, through Friday, March 27. For more information on Betts and the UND Writers Conference, click on the preceding hyperlinked texts.

AuThursday: Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Time, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Salon, and many others. She is the co-editor of PANK. She is also the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, and Hunger, forthcoming from Harper in 2016.

Gay will be appearing March 26-27, 2015, at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference. For more information about her and/or The UND Writers Conference, click on the preceding hyperlinked texts.

-From The UND Writers Conference

AuThursday: Carol Muske-Dukes

Carol Muske-Dukes: Author with North Dakota Ties

Carol Muske-Dukes is the author of 8 books of poems - the most recent of which is Twin Cities from Penguin. Earlier books of poems include Sparrow, from Random House, a National Book Award finalist, and others. She has also published four novels, including Channeling Mark Twain from Random House in 2003.  She is also an essayist and anthology editor. Her collections include Married to the Icepick Killer: a Poet in Hollywood (San Francisco Chronicle Best Book) -- and an anthology of poems, co-edited with Bob Holman - Crossing State Lines: an American Renga (from Farrar, Strauss & Giroux) plus two children's poetry "handbooks" - The Magical Poetry Blimp Pilot's Guide, 1 & 2. Many of her books have been New York Times Most Notable Books.

Although Carol is currently bi-coastal - New York & L.A. - she has strong ties to Minnesota and North Dakota.  Beyond Twin Cities, she has a collection of poems entitled Wyndmere (1985), in honor of Wyndmere, North Dakota, a place where extended family called home.  She also edited Wyndmere Wind-Rows:  Memories of Growing Up on the Dakota Plains (2013) by her mother, Elsie Kunchera Muske.

Carol Muske-Dukes will be appearing March 26-27, 2015, at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference. For more information about her and/or The UND Writers Conference, click on the preceding hyperlinked texts.

-From The UND Writers Conference

March with the RRVWP

March has arrived! Will spring be far behind?

Here's what's going on with the RRVWP this month. Please mark your calendars and join us for as many of these activities as you can.

The RRVWP Annual Reunion for all members will be held in the afternoon on Sunday, March 29, at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo. More information about this event will be sent out soon.

The RRVWP Professional Book Club is meeting at the UND Bookstore from 2:00-3:30 pm on Sunday, March 8, to finish our discussion of the The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems by Frances Mayes.

The Grand Forks Book Club will be meeting on Wednesday, March 18, at 6:00 pm at Andrea Scherer's to discuss Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, one of the writers appearing at the UND Writers Conference, March 25-27. Email Andrea Scherer <andrealscherer[at]gmail[dot]com> if planning to attend.

At our next Saturday Seminar, "A Syntactic Look at Sentences, " participants will examine sentence-level syntax, learn to manipulate sentence syntax to create varying effects for readers, and discuss how syntax strategies can be used to scaffold students K-16.

We will meet from 1:00-4:00 pm in Room 167 at Central High School in Grand Forks on Saturday, March 21. Enter through Door #6 (new music/theater addition). Parking is available in the lot kitty corner from Central. This session is open now for registration on My Learning Plan for PRISM credit. If you plan to attend but not sign up on My Learning Plan, please contact Pam Fisher at the email below so we plan for the appropriate number of copies. 

The Saturday Seminars are open to other educators in addition to RRVWP TCs, so if you would like to attend and bring your teaching colleagues, they may attend as well and earn PRISM credit or clock-hour certificates. And, even if YOU cannot attend, please pass the word on to any interested colleagues.

The Fargo-Moorhead Book Club has plans to meet on Friday, March 27, at Usher's House in Moorhead from 4:30-6:00 pm to discuss The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson. RSVP to Dan Dooher at <DTDOOHER2006[at]alum[dot]csbsju[dot]edu> if planning to attend. You need not have read the book to join the discussion and learn more about the book.

The Grand Forks Writing Group will meet on Saturday, March 28, at 1:00 pm at the home of Nancy Devine to workshop pieces of any genre. All RRVWP members are welcome to attend. You need not have attended meetings in the past nor commit to attending all meetings to be a part of the GF Writing Group. If planning to attend, RSVP to Pam Fisher at <pam[dot]fisher[at]gfschools[dot]org>.

The Fargo Writing Group is meeting on Monday, March 30, from 7:00-8:30. Please RSVP to Kim Rensch at <renschk[at]fargo[dot]k12[dot]nd[dot]us> if planning to attend.

As always, you can keep up with RRVWP events by liking us on Facebook, joining the listserv, and following this blog.

AuThursday: Bonnie Jo Campbell

Bonnie Jo Campbell

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of the National Bestselling novel Once Upon a River (Norton, 2011). Campbell's critically-acclaimed short fiction collection American Salvage (Wayne State University Press, 2009) was finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critic’s Circle Award. The collection consists of fourteen lush and rowdy stories of folks who are struggling to make sense of the twenty-first century. Campbell's collection Women and Other Animals, won the AWP prize for short fiction, and details the lives of extraordinary females in rural and small town Michigan. Her story "The Tatoo" is included in the anthology Shadow Snow, a tribute to Ray Bradbury. Her story "The Smallest Man in the World" was awarded a Pushcart Prize and her story “The Inventor, 1972" was awarded the 2009 Eudora Welty Prize from Southern Review. She is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow.

Campbell will be appearing March 26-27, 2015, at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference. For more information about her and/or The UND Writers Conference, click on the preceding hyperlinked texts.

-From The UND Writers Conference

AuThursday: Gish Jen

Gish Jen

Gish Jen is the author of numerous award-winning novels, including World and Town, Mona In the Promised Land, The Love Wife, and Typical American, as well as a collection of stories, Who’s Irish? Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and dozens of other periodicals and anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. It was also featured in a PBS American Masters’ special on the American novel.

Gish Jen will be appearing March 25-26, 2015, at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference. For more information about her and/or The UND Writers Conference, click on the preceding hyperlinked texts.

-From The UND Writers Conference

Volunteer Opportunity

We, Voices of the Valley, are seeking writers who are interested in a nonprofit volunteer project focused on interviewing and writing the stories of international Red River Valley residents.

We seek to connect local writers with the diverse population that resides in the Red River Valley Region, while offering a local, artistic experience for the entire community. The relationship that is formed during the interview process will be integral to the project, and the story should be a reflection of both the interviewee and the artistic vision of the writer.

Potential interviewees could include New Americans, refugees, or citizens originally from a different country. In collaboration with their interviewees, writers will compose international residents’ stories in a creative nonfiction format.

Stories should be 2000 to 2750 words, written in a creative nonfiction format (not journalism). All well-developed stories that meet the project requirements will be included in a bound copy of Writing Stories: Voices of the Valley, 2nd edition. Three to four stories will receive a time slot at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference for a public reading.

Timeline:
-Interviews should be completed by February 15th.
-Final Drafts should be completed by March 2nd.
-Collection goes to print March 9th.
-Voices of the Valley reading is scheduled for Thursday, March 26th at 6:00 p.m.

If interested, please contact Erin Kunz (erin[dot]lord[dot]kunz[at]gmail[dot]com) or Emily Hill (emily[dot]dubord[at]gmail[dot]com) for more information.

A big Friday

The UND Writers Conference continues. Here's a bit from a recent Grand Forks Herald piece. The Friday in the piece is TODAY.

The UND Writers Conference has hosted some big-name authors in its 44 years, but perhaps none bigger than playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, who on Friday will share perspectives on his work, including some of America’s best-known plays and films. (Paulette Tobin at the Grand Forks Herald)

More on the UND Writers Conference

A famous and diverse group of writers will be making an appearance soon in Grand Forks including to Academy Award nominee Tony Kushner.

With UND's 44th annual Writers Conference taking place March 19-23, a wide variety of well-known, up-and-coming and local writers will be coming to Grand Forks to present their work, either individually or in a panel setting.

Most of the events will take place in the Memorial Union and all events are free and open to the public.

"I think it's exciting to be able to bring in authors that I love and who I think the community will respond to, not just well-known authors but a lot of up-and-comers," Writers Conference Co-Director and UND English professor Heidi Czerwiec said. "We've been lucky because many of the writers we've featured before have ended up being very successful later on." (Jaye Millspaugh at the DSOnline)

A busy week

Yep, the UND Writers Conference is underway. One way to keep up with the latest on the conference is to "like" the UND Writers Conference Facebook page.  To begin doing that, click here.

The conference also includes a film festival. To learn more about it, click here.

UND Writers Conference begins

Today is the first day of the annual UND Writers Conference at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.  The conference is packed with interesting panels, readings and films.

To learn more, click here.

The conference runs from March 19 to March 22, 2013.

Unless otherwise noted, all readings and panels will be held in the UND Memorial Union Ballroom. Films will be shown in the Memorial Union Lecture Bowl. All events are free and open to the public. 

Tony Kushner on writing

I find writing very difficult. It’s hard and it hurts sometimes, and it’s scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities. You’re smart enough to see that there’s something that lies beyond what you’ve been able to do, but you don’t know how to get there, how to make it happen in the medium in which you’ve decided to work. I can be very masochistic, but that kind of anxiety is something I tend to want to avoid. (Tony Kushner at the Paris Review interviews online)

Kushner is one of the featured writers at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference March 19-23, 2013 in Grand Forks. 

Annual spring event around the corner

Remember that the University of North Dakota Writers Conference begins next week in Grand Forks. The dates of this annual spring event are March 27-31, 2012. This year's conference theme is Humanimal.

To learn more, click here.

UND Writers 2012 line-up

The line-up for the 2012 annual UND Writers Conference is up at the conference website. Authors scheduled thus far are: Jane Smiley, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Pam Houston, Brenda Miller, Hal Herog, Mark Doty and Grand Forks' own Aaron Poochigian. Follow the above hyperlinked text to the website and you'll be able to read authors bios and more.

The theme of 2012 conference is "Humanimal." The conference runs March 27-31, 2012 at UND.

RRVWP's dinner with writer Carl Phillips

Poet, translator, and essayist Carl Phillips will be the RRVWP dinner-with-the-writer guest at this years UND Writers Conference in March. Check your e-mail for the listserv message from Kim on signing up for this dinner if you'd like to participate.

Phillips is heavily influenced by ancient Greek and Roman writers, and experiments with their poetic forms in his work. He also taught high school Latin for eight years. He has an interesting essay on reading (and writing) available at the poets.org website, in addition to other essays and some of his many poems.