Newsletter of the Society of Southwestern Authors|
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Newsletter of the Society of Southwestern Authors |
Vol. 2, No. 15 Aug-Sept. '98 |
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SSA Offers Mini-Workshops
In an effort to utilize the multitude of talents inherent in the members
of the Society of Southwestern Authors we are offering a day of
mini-workshops instead of just one main speaker for our August 16th luncheon.
As you can see from the impressive list to the left, we have volunteers
from many diverse fields to share their expertise with other members. The
sessions will involve a presentation then a question & answer session at which
you can discuss problems that are plaguing your writing. Many of the
presenters are also mentors for our Society, so if you need help beyond the
time available or you want one-on-one help please refer to our mentor list on
page six.This is a new program being offered by the Society, so please drop us a line to let us know if you liked or disliked it and how we can improve. We are always looking for ways to get members involved in helping other members get published, making our Society one of the best in the country.
Writing Contest Announces Winners
We broke new grounds in this year's contest by offering three new
categories for competition--Memoirs, Personal Essays, and Poetry were added to our
long-running Short Story Contest. There were over 300 entries in this year's
contest with many close races for the top prize. It is always hard to pick a winner out
of all the wonderful entries but the choices were made and on September 20th
we will celebrate the winning stories at our luncheon. We will also get to meet
and talk with the writers. The SSA holds this yearly contest to encourage writers
to write and we are thankful that so many allowed us to read their stories.
SSA Member Wins National Award
LaVerne Harrell Clark, Tucson writer and former, first director of the UA Poetry
Center, has won a national fiction prize for the novel upon which her 1992 thesis for her MFA degree in creative writing from the UA was based.
She received the Best First Novel of 1997 award for her book, Keepers of The Earth, on June 25th from the Western Writers of America.Though Keepers of The Earth, published last August by El Paso's Cinco Puntos Press, is Clark's first novel, her credits already include a prize-winning collection of stories, The Deadly Swarm (Hermes House, N.Y.C.), as well as They Sang For Horses (UA Press, 1966) about Navajo and Apache Lore. The latter, actually her first book, won the University of Chicago Folklore Award. "I'm stunned and delighted," she said. "I'm lucky, since this isn't the first time either that I've written a thesis for the UA that's been published. No, I got my M.A. in English there back in 1962 for They Sang For Horses. Still I can say that even if it's fiction and my latest book, Keepers of The Earth, contains just about as much folklore as my first does. Like it, it's also got a Southwestern slant. It could have happened out here, too." They Sang For Horses, in print with the UA Press for over 27 years, will be reprinted next year in a 4th edition by the University Press of Colorado and will also include Clark's photographs. The prize for Keepers of The Earth was presented at a WWA awards' ceremony banquet in Colorado Springs. Clark attended with her husband, UA Professor Emeritus L.D. Clark, also a novelist.
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RECENT SUCCESSES
Michael Alvarez's full-length, mystery novel Deliver Us From Evil
is due out this summer from The FictionWorks, Inc., as an AudioBook.Eileen Birin published two articles in June: "Got An Urge To Write? It's Not That Hard -- Get Started" for Arizona Senior World and "A Woman For All Ages" in Get Up & Go. Pearl G. Burk sold her short story "Jake's Legacy" to a leading Catholic magazine. Laverne Harrell Clark has been named the winner of the 1997 award for "Best First Novel" by Western Writers of America. The honor, known as "The Medicine Pipe Bearer's Award," was awarded to Clark on June 25th for her first novel, Keepers of the Earth, published in August1997, by Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso, TX. Marjorie Coffey's first published book, EPAMINONDAS, was also illustrated by her beautiful fabric collages scanned into a computer for printing. It is a traditional American folk story that Marjorie re-tells in its original "un-politically correct" version in order to save it for the enjoyment of future generations. Signed and numbered editions are available for $80 from Pequeño Press or by sending your order to Marjorie at 502 East Deone Circle, Tucson, AZ 85704. Ph: 742-0143 ($2 postage & handling). Rebecca Cramer's new novel Mission to Sonora, was released by Book World, Inc. of Sun Lakes, Arizona. It is an anthropological murder mystery set in Tucson and on the nearby Indian reservation at San Xavier del Bac. The book's cover is an impressionist rendition by Glen Johnson of Ventana Canyon where much of the story's action occurs. Roz Denny Fox has released a new Harlequin Superromance® novel, Having It All. Her next novel, Mad About The Major, will hit the bookstores in January of 1999. Stan Gordon, author of How to Get Out of Debt . . . and You Can Too, was on KVOA Channel 4, Thursday July 23rd to promote his book. "The only trouble with the TV appearance," says Stan, "was that they forgot to mention where to get the book!" You can obtain one by contacting Stan at 760-6760. James R. Hine and Wayne F. Peate, MD, co-authored a book called On the Serendipity Road: Exploring the Unexpected. They have collected a series of inspiring essays from around the world into a book that offers dozens of vignettes of varied life experiences that can be helpful to others. It was published by Development Publications and can be ordered by calling 798-1513 or 1-800-711-3988. Dorothy McGuinn's new book, To California on the Southern Route, 1849: A History and Bibliography, published by The Arthur A. Clark Company, will be coming out in the next few months. Howard Sheldon has a non-fiction article in the July issue of DesertUSA Magazine (http://www.DesertUSA.com). The title is "Arizona's Stoneman Lake" (http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/july/stories/stoneman.html). There will be another article in the August issue "Montezuma's Well: A Living Desert Oasis." He also has a new website (http://www.reel-one.com) featuring articles from the last three years. Martin E. Silverstein teamed up with H.I. Geneste and J.P. Sullivan to write an article "Chemical and Biological Terrorism: Upping the Ante" for The Police Chief.
The Write Word
President
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