WE WILL RE-SCHEDULE THIS EVENT SOON AND WILL ADVISE THOSE WHO’VE REGISTERED FOR IT VIA THEIR PERSONAL EMAIL.  THANK YOU.

If your work is selected, we will ask you for an email copy if we don’t already have it.
Do not send a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope). Submissions will be shredded upon publication. Include a self-addressed stamped postcard if you wish acknowledged receipt of your submission.
Goldfinch retains one-time publication rights for all works accepted. The author retains all other rights. Goldfinch is copyright as a collective work by Women Who Write, Inc. We allow simultaneous submissions but will not consider previously published work. All members of Women Who Write, Inc. will receive a copy of Goldfinch. Those whose work is in Goldfinch will receive an additional copy. Additional copies may be purchased.
Submissions:
Poetry: Maximum of five (5) poems; no poem longer than 50 lines.
Fiction: Maximum of two (2) short stories or self-contained excerpts of longer works. Maximum of 2,000 words.
Prose: Maximum of two (2) memoirs, creative non-fiction, essays or humor pieces. Maximum of 2,000 words.
Artwork/B&W Photograph: If interested in submitting pen & ink artwork or black & white photography, please send name, telephone and e-mail to goldfincheditor@yahoo.com. If the layout allows for drawings, we will contact you during the month of March or April 2012
Submissions should be sent to:
Goldfinch Editor Prose to goldfincheditor@yahoo.com
P.O. Box 652 or email
Madison, NJ 07940 Poetry to goldfincheditor@yahoo.com

And don’t forget…

Women Who Write is proud to announce that two prizes will be awarded this year: The Goldfinch Prize for Prose and The Goldfinch Prize for Poetry. The winner of each of these prizes, chosen by our editorial board, will receive special commemoration in the 2012 edition of Goldfinch as well as a cash award in the amount of $25. Please see our website for more information.

Another   SAVE THE DATE  from the Morning Muses!

You are invited to join the Morning Muses for a Reading and Open Microphone Event at Barnes & Noble in the Livingston Mall.

WHAT:   Morning Muses Reading & Open Mic* Event

WHEN:   Saturday, October 22, 2011

               1:00 PM to 3:00 PM

WHERE:  Barnes & Noble

                       112 Eisenhower Parkway,                         

                       Livingston

                       (973) 758-1317

Bring a story.

Bring a poem.

Bring a friend (or two).

* Open to all ages and genders

Writer’s Conference A Success

Pictured from Left to Right:Anastasia Werner, workshop leader and poet, Katherine R. Harrison, editor, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, Emily Seife, editor, Scholastic Press, Karen Stober, secretary for Women Who Write, Heather Alexander, editor, Penguin Books and Marietta B. Zacker, agent, Nancy Gallt Literary Agency.

By Deborah Amadei

Women Who Write, Inc., a NJ based writer’s collective with 100 members, held their first writer’s conference Saturday, September 17 at the Madison Community House. Many non-members also came out for this well-attended event.

After Marie Ascolese, the organization’s president, gave the opening remarks, all attendees dispersed to one of three all–day writing tracks on poetry, prose and children’s literature.

Marietta Zacker, an agent at Nancy Gallt Literary Agency gave a talk for the children’s track entitled, “You Had Me at Hola: Looking at Submissions Through the Eyes of an Agent.” Her central theme was making a good impression. She used an anecdote from her own life as an example. Because her mother worked for an airline, she was able to fly for free. However she was expected to dress as a representative of the airline in a blouse with a collar, skirt, and heels. When she tried to fly wearing a t-shirt and jeans, she was barred from flying.

Writers need to be professional too. Their work needs to be ready to go before they submit to her. Query letters need to be brief, no more than three paragraphs.

Two editors conducted the afternoon session: Katherine Harrison of Random House and Emily Seife of Scholastic Publishers. Picture book authors need to be aware that character- driven stories are in demand. Keep up with the current market and if you work in rhyme, it should be impeccable. For middle grade and young adult, language and voice are important. Voice is your manner of speaking, not what you say.

A number of authors participated in critique sessions by the editors, including Heather Alexander of Penguin Books. They gained valuable insights into their manuscripts. The prose track had two sessions that left all participants with new techniques and improved their writing styles. In her presentation, “Writing Effective Dialogue,” Dr. Susan Osborn of Rutgers University focused on enlivening dialogue with the introduction of conflict and flow. All writers were required to revise their work three times, using the revision techniques she gave them.

“Everyone’s product was more powerful and engaging,” said one of the participants.

Novelists Judith Lindbergh and Michelle Cameron led the group in more exercises in their session, “Creating a Character.” The group created fictional characters and assumed their identifies. Then they developed personalities for their characters by giving them personality tributes like dreams and fears and created backgrounds for them.

“Certainly one of the measures of the success of both sessions was that people did not want to leave!” said a participant.

The poet Anastasia Werner led the workshops “The Depth of A Poem” and “Poetry Revision” for the poetry track. Anastasia wanted her poets to play with words and gave them exercises for practice. To give a love poem depth, each participant combined two separate poems she had written; one on love and one on hate. Anastasia gave out a list of revision suggestions.

One was to reverse the order of the lines – start with the last line and see where that leads.

Another was to take a favorite line from the love/hate poem and write a new poem from that. One of the poets tried that and was pleased with the result. Both teenage and adult poets requested that Anastasia return for another session some time in the future.

All attendees were on hand for “Protecting Your Writing in Virtual Environments,” a presentation given by Isabelle Felix, an attorney for New Jersey Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. Writers who put their work on the internet need to be prepared to fight theft of their work. They need to register their on-line articles with the copyright office. And put their copyright information on every page. When writers discover their work on other websites without being given credit, they need to send e-mails to the offending web sites. If the website does not comply contact the host site who will take it down.

For more information about Women Who Write or to become a member visit their website http://womenwhowrite.org.

We of the Morning Muses wish to thank the board for their generous support and to all others who participated in the first Women’s Arts Festival  held recently at the Parsippany Library.   We have been receiving positive feedback and hope that this event  was enjoyable to all.

Our vision became a reality out of a desire to create a venue that would benefit as many WWW members as possible through networking.It was a grassroots effort to pool the creativity of our WWW members and showcase it to others.  The library had an open slot in it’s schedule for a poetry reading and the dream was born.

We would like to thank Naomi Levine who helped to facilitate this connection.   We hope as a result that some new connections were made, and some new doors have opened! Please share with us your good news!

We would also like to thank WWW members Elsie Boehm and Karen Stober for lending their experience and knowledge in the art display segment. Without their help and talent, we would not have been able to execute it as efficiently as I think that we did.

WWW member Lisa Honecker did a fabulous job with handling the refreshments. It is my belief that she may have some expert skills in catering that should not go without mentioning.

WWW members Lisa Kintish and Lorraine Ash who are newspaper writers by trade, can not be thanked enough for the publicity that they were able to provide us for the event. So I guess you can see that the running theme here is that we all have so much to offer each other, and that sometimes we don’t need to look any further than our own backyard!  The Morning Muses will continue to strive to inspire others in their creative endeavors.

Finally, I would like to publicly thank the Morning Muses who entrusted me with the position of Chairperson after only becoming a member of the the Morning Muses for a few months.  It was an experience that I truly enjoyed and am very grateful for. I can honestly say that it is really possible to live the dream!

Thanks to all,

Debby Forte

The members of the Morning Muses invite you to attend this celebration of women and their accomplishments. We welcome you to peruse work by published authors, listen to music by woodwind ensemble musicians, and view paintings by artists.

Features: water colors, oils, silk screen, photography, music, and readings of original prose and poetry by the Morning Muses.

An Open Microphone segment will conclude the day.

Save the date and plan on enjoying this festive day.
Bring the children, too.

If interested in participating or have any questions, please contact Chairperson Debby Forte by e-mail at dmfmail@optonline.net.

                                                                                    Please join the Morning Muses, of Women Who Write, Inc. at BORDERS

                                                                                                                            357 Mt. Hope Ave.,Rockaway,NJ

                                                                                                                                   Saturday, May 21, 2011

                                                                                                                                     1:00 PM to 3:00 PM

                                                                                                                       Local authors reading their original works

                                                                                                                                                  & Open Mic*
                                                                                                                                         Joanne Flynn Black

                                                                                                                                         Dr. Ann M. DeVenezia

                                                                                                                                               Karen R. Elsman

                                                                                                                                                   Debby Forte

                                                                                                                                             Alice Mendelsohn

                                                                                                                                                   Dana Punzo

                                                                                                                                             Rochelle Sullivan

                                                                                                                         Bring a story.  Bring a poem.  Bring a friend.

                                                                                                                                           *Open to all ages and genders.

For more information: Call Vin or Beth @ Borders, Rockaway (973) 659-1027

The zero draft of my memoir looked like a series of such essays cobbled together. My first critique group’s comments were along the lines of: “Show, don’t tell, LittleStar” and “That first chapter sounds like a Public Service Announcement.” What worked in my undergrad career wasn’t going to help me write a memoir. After I got over my shame attack (about three years), I took a second look at the zero draft. Yep, I’d moralized all over the place, blamed whoever I could, and seasoned it with lots of proclaiming and complaining.

As my first mentor, Sue William Silverman, said, “Good writing is rewriting”.  It felt good to moralize, blame, proclaim and complain but I realized that, if the memoir stayed strictly a narrative, that’s all I would do. It was time to rewrite. Though I was not used to writing scenes, my steamy story about my journey to self-love would be more interesting if written mostly in scene (characters, dialogue and action) with narrative bridges. I could do it. After all, I was once a comic book fan. Talk about Characters! Dialogue! Action!

Thanks to my perfectionism, borne from insecurity, I rewrote most chapters eighteen times. Eighteen means life and I was bringing this baby to life. During the drafting of the zero to first, I worried about transitions between chapters; tossed out brilliant phrases that didn’t serve the narrative; killed off chapters that didn’t move the story forward or belonged in another memoir; paid deeper attention to the “Unh” feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me when a sentence or scene wasn’t working and that “Yeah!” feeling when the rhythm was just right, which meant the truth had somehow burst through. I also stopped worshipping my marvelous critiquers. Instead of employing every one of their suggestions, I began to question whether their remarks were relevant to my vision.

A variety of structural problems came to my attention.  For example, I never disclosed that my father revealed a family secret to my brother or that my brother told me. Was the information crucial to my choices as a character in the memoir? Did I need to share the disclosure to drive the narrative forward? If I wanted to put the information in, how would I do that? Create a scene or chapter in which my brother transmits the information or will a line of dialogue do?

It has been more useful for me to allow the questions to frame themselves and sit with the confusion, rather than go for immediate gratification when I really don’t know the answer.

As to story structure and what to do: In the smoky residue of Rewrite Alley, I discovered that, in some instances, I could fix story gaps with a simple paragraph or one line of dialogue. In other instances, I had to write a whole chapter to include important material. How do I know when to do what? When does the brush begin to move the hand instead of the hand moving the brush? There is no formula. Once the question arises, if I am willing to wait, the answer usually arrives.

by: Little Star

I’ve read thousands of books, many of them on grammar, usage, syntax, style. Millions of words have leapt across my synapses. I think my obsession with adjectives is not in pursuit of the perfect word, but for the more elusive of a memoirist’s endeavors: the search for meaning. As Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning) discovered, that search can be the glimmer of hope that keeps a person going even in the most desperate of circumstances.

Even though using technique as a substitute for truth is as comfortable for me as putting on an old pair of shoes, it doesn’t work. When I start overusing adjectives, there’s usually internal conflict. The fearful voices in my brain spew opposing messages, such as: Hurry up and finish. Nah, don’t put your manuscript out there until it’s perfect. Don’t bother; no one can tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Memory is faulty and you’re lying through your teeth anyway. Gather your friends for a ritual burning of the manuscript and go on with your life.

When the narcissistic symphony reaches its crescendo, I’m ready to quit. A small, persistent stubbornness refuses to allow the clever use of language to serve as a mannequin stand-in for the real me in memoir. So, at some point not long after, scared as I am, I find myself, like a crazy, curious cat, creeping back to the page, ready to venture below the safe surface world of language, down to meaning. Getting to the truth, though, is not that easy.

Like many modern memoirs, mine is about the darkest period in my life. It’s vulnerable  to admit that I’d wandered so far from my true self I didn’t know who I was and neither did my family, even though I continued to perform nearly flawlessly in my professional career.  Now, five years into my memoir, as I nip and tuck the zero and first drafts into a second draft, I realize I may never arrive at the nice, neat solution to why or how that happened; I can only inch closer to the hazy truth. And raw truth, by the way, isn’t a substitute for good writing. Truth and technique should serve each other.

A well-written memoir will draw the reader in. The more the reader is drawn into my story, the more we will bond.  What keeps me going is the desire to shine the light of hope to those in need, as others have done for me.

So I commit to sitting like the Buddha in the writer’s smoke until water runs from my eyes, awaiting some wisps of truth to wind their way through my circulatory system and form an image in my brain.  I will accept a flimsy adjective and awkward syntax if they drive my story forward until “The End.” Maybe I won’t have to check into Adjective Rehab after all.

by: Little Star