News
June 12, 2009
CONTACT:
Mary Anna Evans
Anhinga Writers’ Studio
P.O. Box 357154
Gainesville, FL 32635-7154
(352) 379-8782
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Charlaine Harris, creator of the bestselling Southern Vampire Mysteries and HBO hit series “True Blood” joins 20 other nationally recognized authors, editors and agents at The Anhinga Writers’ Studio 2009 Summer Workshops in Gainesville July 29-Aug. 1
GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Poetry, mystery, romance, serial heroes, telepathic barmaids … and even a monster or two. They’re all part of a magical mix of writing courses offered at the Anhinga Writers’ Studio 2009 Summer Workshops in Gainesville July 29-Aug. 1.
The conference, formerly known as the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Writing the Region Workshops, this year features more than 40 courses in poetry, narrative nonfiction, general fiction, romance, and mystery for beginning and intermediate writers, taught by 21 nationally renowned authors and editors.
Mystery writer Charlaine Harris is the conference’s 2009 keynote speaker. Her workshop session on Thursday, July 30 at 3 p.m., titled “True Blood and Werewolves and Vampires, Oh My!”, traces the author’s 37-book career from her first published novel to the wildly popular Southern Vampire Mysteries, featuring telepathic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse. Harris’ ninth book in the series, “Dead and Gone,” debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list when it was released in May. The books form the basis of HBO’s hit series, “True Blood,” now entering its third season.
A book fair and book signing event immediately follows Harris’ talk on Thursday, July 30 from 5:30-7 p.m., where she’ll be joined by a number of other notable authors, including Lauren Groff, who penned the New York Times bestselling novel, “The Monsters of Templeton;” mystery writers Mary Anna Evans, Bob Morris and Rhys Bowen; romance novelists Gayle Wilson and Roxanne St. Claire; poets Peter Meinke, Rick Campbell, and Lola Haskins; memoirist Bev Browning; journalist and magazine editor Diana Tonnessen; nonfiction book author Kevin McCarthy; and children’s book author M.C. Finotti. The book fair is sponsored by Goerings bookstore. Harris’ talk and the book fair are free to registered students. A limited number of general admission tickets are available online (www.anhingawriters.org) for $20 in advance (recommended) or $25 at the door.
Literary agent Anne Hawkins of John Hawkins Associates in New York will be on hand, as well, offering talks and tips on pitching ideas to an agent and the agent-author relationship. Hawkins, Harris and the rest of the faculty are also available for one-on-one consultations and manuscript consultations with registered students.
Three guest editors join the conference for the first time this year: Jeanne Leiby of Southern Review, a literary magazine published by Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Jim Gilbert of River City Publishing in Montgomery, Alabama, and Rick Campbell, editor of Anhinga Press, a boutique publishing house in Tallahassee that specializes in quality poetry.
“There’s something for anyone who has ever aspired to put pen to paper,” says conference co-director Bev Browning.
Full tuition for the 4-day conference, held at the Hilton University of Florida Conference Center in Gainesville, is $395. Discounts are available for returning students and students bringing friends. For more information or to register for the conference, visit www.anhingawriters.org, e-mail info@anhingawriters.org or call (352) 379-8782.
December 15, 2008
EARLY DECEMBER NEWS
2009 Meetings
Meeting dates for 2009 have been posted! The location has been changed due to Wednesday’s at the Tower Branch library being booked for 2009. The new location is now at
Gainesville Writers Group
Meet the 4th Wednesday of every month
6:30 p.m. – 8:00/8:30 p.m.
United Way of North Central Florida
6031 NW 1st Place
Gainesville, FL 32607
(352) 331-2800
The next meeting will be held on a Tuesday, December 23, as Christmas Eve falls on the fourth Wednesday, and many of us will need the time to finish preparing for the 25th! Check the About page for more dates.
Online Critiquing
Online critiquing will start in January. Participants will need access to
• MS Word or Adobe Reader (click here to download the latest version of Adobe Reader)
• Email access
The guidelines are currently being hashed out so stay tuned. I’m so excited about the potential of this project for the upcoming year!
Reviews
Do you have a book, website, podcast or any resource that has been beneficial to you? Send an email with a review and have it posted on the blog.
This is a great opportunity to
• Have your name and personal website published on the Internet with searchable Tags
• Let people see your expert knowledge and professional writing style
• Show your willingness to help other writers
So put those thinking caps on, warm your fingers from the winter cold, and review, review, review!
FWA Collection #1: From Our Family to Yours
FWA Collection #1: From Our Family to Yours will be a collection of short stories (1500 words or less) with a theme revolving around family. Written by FWA members and published by FWA, the collection will be marketed across the nation through national booksellers as well as on the FWA website. Guildlines can be downloaded here.
November 23, 2008
NOVEMBER IN REVIEW
We had three new attendees! Thank you Linda, Frances and Kim for being able to attend. It was a pleasure to meet with you. Your input was insightful and informative, and I hope to see you all again.
G-Work
There is a new page under development! “G-work” will be a page featuring work (or links to work) contributed by members! This is the place to feature excerpts from your works in progress and to potentially get feedback from the online world!
FWA Writers Conference and Writing Resources
I distributed handouts gathered from some of the various workshops of the 2008 FWA Writers Conference. There are more handouts but I will be scanning them to PDFs to distribute via email to the group. The scans will include info I received from Chrissy Jackson (FWA VP) covering various/important issues of concern to writers.
Some of the information from the workshops will be listed on the blog as I think they are extremely good resources for writing.
FWA Royal Palm Literary Awards
Congratulations were in order for our very own Janet McGuire Hendershot, who won in the Unpublished Mystery category for her novel, Dangerous World. We were also graced by the presence of another Royal Palm winner, Linda Eadie, for her novel, Kiss And (Don’t) Tell, in the Young Adult category. My hat’s off to you ladies. Keep up the good work!
FWA Collection #1: From Our Family to Yours Submissions
FWA will be publishing a collection of themed short-stories from members. This collection’s theme will be “From Our Family to Yours”. Be they humorous, dramatic or just plain crazy, if you have a story to tell, send it to FWA and you may be included in the collection! Be on the lookout for more info.
Presenters/Volunteers Request
If you have an interesting topic you would like to share with your fellow writers, you can share that information at the 2009 FWA Writers Conference. Presenter applications are available if you are interested, please contact me for more info.
December Meeting
The group voted to have a December meeting. I contacted the Tower Branch Library and the room is unavailable for the next few months! So the United Way graciously allowed me the use of their conference room from December 08 to July 09! December and January have Wednesdays that fall on or before holidays so these dates will be announced in future, but for February through July, the fourth Wednesday will remain the same.
Online Group Critique
It’s about time, you say? Yes, the Gainesville Writers Group will soon be starting online critique using MS Word and its “Comments” and “Tracking” features. Guidelines are in the works and Kim Mansfield will be helping create directions for Windows users while I will organize directions for Mac users. I’m excited about this latest venture and can’t wait to get it started!
Contest
While at the FWA Conference, I won a raffle prize of $200 off publishing with Pepper Tree Publishing, a “book publishing company”. I may look into holding a writing contest with the coupon as the prize. If you have any advice/additional thoughts on this, please feel free to contact me!
November 16, 2008
OCTOBER IN REVIEW
There were some old–and I’m proud to say–new faces at the October meeting! A bouquet of voices and styles were heard ranging from teenage angst to sea sickness to visceral nightmares.
One of the youngest members who attended, read a chapter from her amazing book which began the saga of a young teen “…who has always been a loner and doesn’t get along well with her disagreeable family. When her recently divorced parents decide she needs to get away for a bit, they send her to live with her aunt and uncle in a small town in Maine. There, she gets caught up in the family affairs of a clan of otherworldly immigrants she stumbles across one day when she gets lost in the woods. She becomes close to a boy who is almost an outcast of the clan because of his parentage, and comes to realize the blood that runs through his veins could cost him the ultimate price in the end.”
Jack read a tasty tid-bit of his “…mystery-adventure pitting Nazis against MI5 and the FBI on the storm-bound society playground of Jekyll Island on the eve of America’s entry into WWII.” A tale full of grit and reality.
Sam read a moving, untitled poem about the anger she experienced as a teenager, only to realize her anger should have been directed at the one she now faced in the mirror.
Those who were unable to come, thanks for letting me know that you would not be able to make it. I hope to see you the next time around! 
NOVEMBER MEETING LOCATION
As the Thanksgiving holiday is upon us, the November meeting is tentatively set for
Gainesville Writers Group
Thursday, November 20
6:00pm-8:0pm
Tower Road Branch Library
3020 S.W. 75th Street,
Gainesville, FL 32607
(352) 333-2840
However, if most will be unable to make this meeting, then we will skip November and try to hold an “online” critique instead.
Please let me know if you will be able to attend.
October 26, 2008
MEETING LOCATION
The October meeting will be held at Books, Inc., courtesy of the lovely Ann, who allowed me to reserve the Art Gallery for the GWG. You can find them at
Wednesday, October 29
6:30pm-8:30pm
Books, Inc.
505 NW 13th St
Gainesville, FL 32601
(352) 374-4241
There are some stipulations, but I do not believe they are steep:
• All attendees must purchase an item from the cafe (e.g. coffee, pastry).
• Meeting MUST end at scheduled time as they close soon after and would like their employees to be able to leave on time.
She was very pleased that I was interested in their facility and even offered the use of their loft, which is only available during the winter months. The loft is cozier with a couch, loveseat and other seating available. I will be reviewing the room before the meeting.
Gainesville Writer Alliance (GWA)
I was approached by a business college at a recent luncheon who heard that I was restarting the GWG. He and others who belong to various writing groups are in the process of creating an alliance of the local groups. The idea is to have various groups that people can choose to be a part of but still have a main group that raises funds for guest speakers and specialized events.
I will be getting more information this Sunday and will discuss it at Wednesday’s meeting. This seems to be a viable venue and I am heavily interested in maximizing its potential.
Agenda Postings
I will be posting the Agenda on the Monday before each meeting. That way if anyone has anything they would like to add, there will be time to update.
October 17, 2008
YAY!…FIRST MEETING EVER
The first meeting went well even with the threat of heavy, 5-o’clock traffic. Feedback was plentiful and some of the topics suggested were: theme challenges, different character vernaculars, grammar exercises, character development, book resources, publishing markets, e-books and the kindle…and the list goes on.
Attending members agreed that an evening during the week would be better than on the weekend. So the weekday meeting will be held on the 4th Wednesday of every month, from 6:30p.m.-8:00p.m., at the Tower Road Branch Library (unless otherwise noted). More
I would still like to create a Saturday–preferably the 4th Sat. of the month–group as there are some members who simply can’t make a weekend meeting due to weekly obligations. I don’t want them to miss the opportunity to be heard. When I have a confirmation of location and time, I will post that information on the About page as well.
OCTOBER MEETING
The October meeting is still in the works and when the place and time are settled, I will send message to everyone and post the information on here.
New Pages Added
If you haven’t noticed…new page headers have been listed: News, Agendas, Speakers, Events and Reviews. This should allow for more specific information to be organized.
Help Us Grow!
There are leadership positions awaiting your expertise to fulfill their roles. Help the GWG grow and blossom into the group that we all want it to be.
Membership Chair
Maintain a list of current and potential members and their contact information
Programs Chair (I will assist with this position)
Acquire guest speakers related to the chosen topic for the month
If you are interested in any of the listed positions or want to help in a way that is not listed, please feel free to message me.
FWA Writers Conference
The FWA Writer’s Conference is getting closer by the minute. With less than a month to go, members are stretching anxious typing fingers and gearing up to feed their hungry minds. Check out the FWA for more information.
A Big Thanks to the Pres and VP!
A big ‘Thank You’ to our lovely FWA VP, Chrissy Jackson, and President, Dan Griffith, who have passed down to me a list of guest speakers that have presented to other groups, and a handbook and articles to help move the GWG forward.
FWA Forum
The forum is well under way with many FWA members signing up daily. Become a member of FWA and take advantage of this networking opportunity. Meet and befriend those who have years of experience with writing and publishing. Find a mentor, a literary partner or simply…a valued friend.
Well, that’s it for now, folks. Until next time…
