What an exciting and invigorating weekend! Five of us from our writers group attended the Oxford Creative Nonfiction Conference at Ole Miss in Oxford: Kathy Rhodes (who was “staff” and worked very hard!), Mary Buckner, Doug Jones, Rick Romfh. We’ll have many stories from the weekend. Fun, entertaining, instructional, motivating – it was an unforgettable experience. Being with our group made it just that much better, and we made some new good friends, too.  Writers are the best!

Our writer friends in Knoxville have announced their 2010 contest winners. The Knoxville Writers Guild holds an annual competition in several categories. “The Major’s Wife” (short story) placed third in the Leslie Garrett Fiction Contest, and “Stitches in Time” (memoir) placed second in the Creative Non-Fiction category. These  may be available soon on the KWG website or published in an upcoming anthology. Thanks to the KWG for providing opportunities like this for writers.

Our panel is set for 4:00-5:30, Saturday, October 9. The Southern Festival of Books is a weekend-long event, Friday through Sunday, on the Legislative Plaza. It is a tremendous event for writers and readers in Nashville – and people come in from far away to attend.

The Nashville Writers Alliance panel is made up of members and former members of our writers group that has met on Tuesday nights for more than 30 years. (See Writers Group category for more information.) Some questions we will be addressing: What makes a successful writers group? Why has ours flourished when others don’t? What are some issues to consider in forming a writers group?  Please make plans to attend, and we welcome your ideas.

Our writer friends in Knoxville have announced their 2010 contest winners in their e-newsletter on the Knoxville Writers Guild website.  I invite you to read my stories:  The Major’s Wife (Third place, short fiction) and Stitches in Time (Second place, creative nonfiction).

What fun it was to be at Killer Nashville last weekend! The session I presented was on “True Crime.” There were many sessions, about 350 in attendance, and a good time was had by all.

Bill Larson at www.clarksvilleonline.com was at the Zone 3 celebration to video all the readings. You can view his video here.

I will be reading in Clarksville on April 28, along with others who are past contributors or editors of Zone 3.  Here is a press release about the literary journal and the event:

They settled on the name “Zone 3” for their new magazine, in reference to the temperate zone that encompasses Clarksville, and the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts agreed to publish a few issues. It was a risky venture. Thousands of literary journals are founded each year, only to fold because of small readerships and financial constraints.

Twenty-five years later, both Till and Glass have retired from APSU, but the poetry journal they helped found has grown into a leading voice in the nation’s network of literary magazines. “Zone 3”expanded into publishing short stories in the 1990s, and it recently added provocative flash interviews with some of America’s finest prose writers, such as Michael Martone, Brenda Miller and Ander Monson.

On April 28, former editors and contributors will join the current editorial staff of “Zone 3” at the Clarksville-Montgomery County Public Library for “Terra Firma,” a reading and broadside exhibition commemorating the journal’s 25th Anniversary.

The event, sponsored by the Tennessee Arts Commission, the CMC Library and the Center of Excellence, begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m. At 6 p.m., Till and Glass will read from their work, as will current “Zone 3” editors Blas Falconer, associate professor of English at APSU, Barry Kitterman, professor of English at APSU, and Amy Wright, assistant professor of English at APSU. Past magazine contributors Phyllis Gobbell and Jeff Hardin will also read during the event.

Hardin has published poems in recent and forthcoming issues of The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, The Hudson Review, Ploughshares, Nimrod, Passages Meridian and Measure. He is the author of two chapbooks, “Deep in the Shallows” and “The Slow Hill Out.” His first collection, “Fall Sanctuary,” received the 2004 Nicholas Roerich Prize from Story Line Press. Hardin teaches at Columbia State Community College in Columbia.

A book signing will follow at 7 p.m.

In addition to the readings, the event will feature broadsides of Zone 3 poems, created by APSU art students using the University’s Goldsmith Press and Rare Type Collection. These broadsides will be on display during the event.

For more information about the 25th Anniversary Celebration, contact Susan Wallace with the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts at 931-221-7031 or wallacess@apsu.edu.

Alana White has started the ball rolling by setting the date – October 9, 2010, during the Southern Festival of Books – for a reunion of writers from the early years of the Nashville Writers Alliance.  We didn’t even call ourselves by a formal name in those days.  Then John Egerton did an article about us and he gave us the name.  If you didn’t get an email from Alana, she probably did not have your address.  I can’t wait for the reunion!

Our writers group started a discussion about creative nonfiction that I want to continue.  We all know CNF is grounded in “truth” – but what kind of liberties can the CNF writer take?  In a memoir, for example, how accurate must conversations from decades ago be?  Jump in with your thoughts.

Every year our writers group celebrates Robert Burns’ birthday in January with a night of poetry. Some of us write our own; some of us read favorite poems.  Always at Doug’s house because he started the tradition, the poetry night has become one of our favorite Tuesdays of the year.  Wearing plaid is mandated and there is even a kilt now and then.  Where was the camera?