Congratulations to Carol Boyer, winner of EVERYBODY RISE by Debutante Ball guest Stephanie Clifford.
Check back next week, where we will announce the winner of this weeks giveaway–THE SPARROW SISTERS by Ellen Herrick!
From the 2016 Debs
Louise Miller, a theatre geek, is just back from a road trip to NYC where she saw the play HAND TO GOD. She is looking forward to starting a nine-month writing workshop this week with author Lisa Borders called Novel Generator. It’s a workshop structured to help support novel writers while they are working on a first draft. Since she will be writing book two while revising and marketing book one, all the while working a very full-time job, Louise thinks she can use all the support she can get!
Jennifer S. Brown is hiding inside on a beautiful New England fall weekend, working on her author’s questionnaire. The questionnaire is all the information the NAL publicity team needs to help her start marketing her book. She’s also excited because this week she begins a program at Boston’s Grub Street, called Launch Lab, which is designed specifically for writers with a book coming out in the next year. She’s hoping to learn lots of great things that she’ll be able to share with all of the Debs and you!
Heather Young is spending the weekend at a spa, celebrating the 50th birthday of a dear friend and the fact that she completed her second round of revisions on Friday. Her book also got a new title this week: THE LOST GIRLS.
Abby Fabiaschi is cranking on book 2 revisions. She has two choices for a working title: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LUCY BISCARO? and RAISED BROKEN. If one speaks to you, let her know!
Aya de Leon finished “the big hack,” on Friday, in which she edited 15,000 words from her manuscript by cutting down extra words at the sentence level. It is now acceptably below 95,000 words. Last night, she hosted the San Francisco Foundation literary awards. Two awardees are former students/student teachers of hers whom she nominated (and were judged blinldy–no cronyism!)
For Writers
We stumble across so many things that would be of interest to other writers that we thought we’d share a few here:
Contests
SmokeLong Quarterly is accepting submissions until October 15 for a flash fiction fellowship. The 2016 Kathy Fish Fellowship, for writers who have not yet published a book, includes a position as a virtual writer-in-residence, four flash fictions published, and $500. There is no submission fee. Visit the web site for details.
Another contest—and this one includes a trip to a lovely warm locale in winter—for those who have yet to publish their first book is the Key West Literary Seminar‘s Emerging Writer’s Awards. Full tuition to the seminar, airfare, lodging, and an honorarium to three lucky winners. But you have to hurry on this one: the deadline is this Wednesday! Details on the web site.
Writing Prompt
Jennifer is a fan of the quirky novel THE LOVER’S DICTIONARY by David Levithan, in which an entire love story is recounted as a dictionary, with snippets of the lovers’ lives as the definition of words. Write a poem, flash fiction, or flash essay that plays with definitions. Use a definition as a prop in the story, style your story as a definition, or create a piece around a definition. If you try the prompt and post it on your blog, feel free to link to it in the comments (or if it’s short, simply post your piece in the comments).
