I am offering a poetry critique group starting on November 7th. We will meet at the Starbucks at The River in Rancho Mirage at 1:30. You will bring five to six copies of a poem you are working on and receive critiquing from the group. If you are interested in joining please contact me at msfitz1951@gmail.com.
This month’s readers are Marj Charlier. She is a prolific writer, an author of at least eight novels. The other reader is David Roos, an intense poet. As always, an open mic is included. The readings begin at two on October 8th. Koffi is located at 71-380 Hwy 111 in Rancho Mirage, Ca. See you there!
If so, subscribe online to Authors Publish. They will send you email updates on publications that are accepting submissions. I have recently been published in two publications through this site.
Sept. 10th begins my third year as host of the authors series held at Koffi in Rancho Mirage! I am kicking off the new year with two interesting authors: Judith Fabris, and Marjoree Snell. Judith has a new novel coming out entitled Kameleona/Chameleon. Marjoree Snell’s bio about her husband is entitled Lest We Forget: A WWII 101st Airborne Paratrooper. The readings begin at two. An open mic is always included. Come and enjoy, listen, participate, buy a book!
Last Saturday I participated in The Diamond Valley Writers Guild’s annual Appreciation of Poetry Day. There were over twenty poets and we each were allotted two poems to read. A good friend of mine had been telling me about this group for some time. They meet monthly at the Hemet Public Library. I also know the director of this group, Lynne Spreen, an author of several novels, including Dakota Blues which I thoroughly enjoyed. Lynne has also been a featured reader at my authors’ series held at Koffi in Rancho Mirage.
I was most impressed by this group and will be joining. Their membership dues are only $20. They have speakers at their monthly meetings and other events such as an authors book fair taking place on Saturday September 23rd at 123 North Harvard Street in Hemet. If interested in joining The Diamond Valley Writers Guild go to Meetup.com. Oh! They also put out a literary magazine entitled Straitjackets.
I was all set to enroll in an online writing course through Stanford when I decided to download the syllabus. It consisted of writing a poem a week, reading a list of poets, and reading essays from Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook. Well, it’s not like I need college credit, I just wanted to improve my writing skills. The only advantage of the course would be the critiquing from the professor and fellow students, but I already run a critique group, and we really help each other. So, this is what I did. I ordered Mary Oliver’s book and kept the syllabus. There was also an anthology to order, but I have most of the works of the recommended poets already, and those I don’t have I can google. So, I will do the course work on my own and save $880!
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Scroll to May 2014 under archives to read all about Reruns.
An article this month in Writers Digest entitled Creative Rations explores how people who have creative writing jobs, whether it’s copy writing, journalism, or advertising, to name a few, find that their personal creative writing many times suffers because their creativity is utilized during the day in the workplace. I found this to be true when I was still teaching; all of my creative energy was poured into lesson plans and writing lectures, not to mention grading essays. Right now though I have a part-time job that does not utilize my creativity, and so, even though these eighteen hours a week I am putting in do take up writing time, I am finding that I am becoming more disciplined due to my writing time being limited. Many times when I have all the time in the world I tend to waste it. So for me, having to schedule my writing and sending off submissions time more efficiently is resulting in actually getting more done!
If you have a similar story, or a not so similar story, please respond.
Ariella Moon is our featured reader for July at Koffi in Rancho Mirage. Ariella draws upon her experiences as a shaman to create magical young adult fiction. Her series include The Two Realm trilogy and The Teen Wytche Saga. The program begins at two on July 15th. Come and enjoy!
