We've Added INFORMATIONAL PAGES

Hello all,
If you will look to the right, just under the heading bar, you will see a new section on the blog..."INFORMATIONAL PAGES". In this area you can find the Writing Conference Registration Form and the Writing Contests and Guidelines. There is a comment at the bottom of the registration form with instructions for printing. I will do my best to get these documents put on the LRACW website and the Facebook page so they will be easy to find.

I hope you have decided to submit some of your writing to one or more of the contests. 

Keep reading. Keep writing.

APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

I love poetry.  The title deserves all caps. Who is your favorite poet? Do you have a favorite poem?  LRACW also has a poetry contest you can enter at our Writers Conference. The deadline for entries is April 22.   Come on, get writing.  

It is my goal to read and write poetry every day during April.  Since Haiku is one of my favorite forms, I like to sit on the patio and write about what I observe in my own back yard.  Here's one I really like... it just makes me smile:

The bird ate the worm

Stretched it right out of the ground

Early bird, late worm

There now, didn't that make you smile.  Poetry should be enjoyable. And another:

Icicles hang steep

Water trapped in frozen form

Winter's jagged teeth

You can find all kinds of poetry online. You don't even have to buy the books.  Joyce Kilmer's poem, Trees is so lovely I carry it around with me. 

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree. 

I was in Michigan one summer and some of us decided to go on a tour of several Victorian homes. They were wonderful.  Well maintained. Beautifully furnished.  Made you want to just sit and read awhile.  But at the last house I stepped out onto the back porch, and there, in the back yard, was the most magnificent, majestic tree I've ever seen.  They told us it was a  live oak tree, about 200 years old, and it was coming to the end of its lifespan.  I'm not sure, but I imagine Joyce Kilmer saw a tree that affected her the same way as this live oak affected me.  My thought at that time was that anyone can build a house, but only God can make a tree.  

And lets not forget about the poetry in the Bible:  in Psalms.  Find it. Read it.  Let it speak to your heart as living poetry does.  

Find and read a poem a day.  Then find someone to share it with.  

Keep reading.  Keep writing

Lorinda Gray April 8th Meeting Speaker

So excited to share with you that Lorinda Gray will be our featured speaker this month.  You will be getting an emailed flyer with some pertinent  information.  I don't want to steal the thunder from the flyer but I'm EAGER to hear what she has to share about e-zines (electronic magazines).  She publishes one that is extremely well done.  And what a writer she is!  If you want a preview you can go to www.ragamuffincreative.com

Also, if you have an iPad, or some such thing, Lorinda has requested that you bring it. I have no idea what she has in store for us, and that anticipation makes it even better.

Hope you will all come and welcome her and learn all about e-zines.  And who knows... there could be cookies!

Keep reading.  Keep writing.

Perseverance Pays Off

By Linda L. Scisson

Author Deborah Howard spoke at our March meeting on Monday, the 17th, rather than the original scheduled date of March 11, 2014 (the 2nd Tuesday of the month) because of hazardous road conditions caused by ice and snow.

It was worth the wait.

For one thing, this lady knows a lot about another kind of delay: the delay in being published. Deborah said she literally wall-papered a wall in a room in her house with rejection slips she received upon first trying to get published. Yet through a lot of hard work and perseverance, her Wall of Rejection transformed into a Wall of Perseverance.

Her 2005 book Sunsets: Reflections for Life’s Final Journey is relevant to everyone, because death touches everyone’s life. As a certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse, Deborah writes what she knows about.  Sunsets is a composite of different patients with a fictional character introducing each chapter.

Deborah’s book Where is God in All of This?: Finding God’s Purpose in Our Suffering (2009) is like a first cousin to Sunsets. It dives into a question many of us ask ourselves at one season or another.

Another book by Deborah is much shorter; it’s only four chapters in length. The title is: HELP! Someone I Love Has Cancer (2010). And HELP! Someone I Love Has Alzheimer’s (2012) also comes in a compact size.

And we look forward to the release later this year of HELP! I’m So Lonely. While Deborah shared that she has never been plagued with loneliness, she interviewed a lot of people who have.

Besides nursing and writing, Deborah (Mrs. Theron) Howard divides her time with editing, ghost writing, and lecturing. She mentioned a book that she ghost-wrote and emphasized the importance of being like-minded with the author. But she was not an unseen ghost, as Deborah’s name appears on the book’s front cover: It’s Not Fair! Finding Hope When Times Are Tough by Wayne A. Mack with Deborah Howard (published in 2008).

Deborah gave us advice on getting published. First and foremost, we are to read and keep reading. Writers love to read; that’s a given.

Secondly, buy an updated edition of Writer’s Market. Check the submission guidelines carefully. Use the editor’s name in your correspondence, rather than simply writing “Dear Editor.”

Third: Enter writing contests. Fourth: Attend writers’ conferences and ghost-writing conferences, as Deborah specified some of the “How To’s” one learns at these conferences.

Her final points of advice were to get an agent, and to keep marketing your own books, as generally a publishing company markets their authors’ books for only the first six months, and that’s it.

Hopefully, with Deborah’s appearance at our writers’ club, she will see an increase in sales of her books, as they are worth our time to read. And whether we look up from our reading and see snow and ice or Bradford pears and forsythia, let’s keep reading and writing.  

What a Fantastic Idea & Opportunity!

Here is a WONDERFUL IDEA from Linda Scisson.  The moment I read it I knew that I'M IN!  I want to do this.  I sure hope you can join us
Read On:

Linda Scisson was in Barnes & Noble and saw a sign about an upcoming book-signing and talk by a CHRISTIAN author,

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson,

Linda thought some of us might be interested in this.

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson has obviously got some good marketing going for her . . . with a book-signing AND talk at our local Barnes & Noble:

March 26, 2014

Wednesday, 7 PM
Talk and Book-signing
By: Shellie Rushing Tomlinson

Book:
Heart Wide Open: Trading Mundane Faith for an Exuberant Life with Jesus

The cover of the book reflects an endorsement by author-speaker Sheila Walsh.

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson and her husband live and farm in Louisiana, according to the bio part of her book.

AN IDEA:

On a related note: Would some of you like to meet . . . say at The Purple Cow (restaurant) across the street from Barnes & Noble at . .

6:00 PM (one hour before the event)

March 26, 2014 (Wednesday)

The Purple Cow (sandwich, soup place, milk-shakes -- very casual)

Eat there, and then walk over

to Barnes & Noble . . .

and support this Christian author,

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson,

. . . as a group: the Little Rock chapter of American Christian Writers

There.  I told you it was a fantastic idea. Would you shoot me an email to let us know you are planning to attend so we know the size of table to get?  I love love love the Purple Cow.  How about you?  Are you in?  I'm dohill@Reagan.com
I wanted to include Linda's email but didn't ask her first, so I'm not comfortable just handing out her email information...

Keep reading. Keep writing.