Poetry and Short Fiction festival in 2019 - plan now to attend

The Press 53 Gathering of Poets is now . . . The High Road Festival of Poetry and Short Fiction Saturday, March 23, 2019 Embassy Suites, downtown Winston-Salem, NC   Since October 2005, Press 53 has been finding and sharing remarkable voices in poetry and short fiction, and now after eight years of hosting the Press 53 Gathering of Poets, we are extending an invitation to short fiction writers to join us for a weekend of learning, writing, and sharing.  Why poetry and short fiction? These two disciplines sometimes overlap and are often overlooked by bookstores and other publishers, but writers of poetry and short fiction know these communities are vast and supportive, and The High Road Festival celebrates this as the first festival in the United States devoted exclusively to poetry and short fiction. Workshop offerings: We will have several one-hour and fifteen-minute workshops for poetry and short fiction and a small number of three-hour master classes. Workshops are $25 each to attend and limited to twenty participants; master classes are $100 each and limited to nine participants. We will also offer twenty-five-minute One-on-One Critique Sessions by experienced writers and editors of poetry and short fiction for personal feedback and instruction at a cost of $30 each. Free to the Public: Besides our workshop rooms, we have a large vendor room for journal, magazine, and book publishers of poetry and short fiction, and a large reading room featuring two open mic sessions and faculty readings throughout the day. The vendor room and reading room are open at no cost to the general public. Register for all workshops, master classes, and critique sessions à la carte and design your own day! Our website will be up for early registration in September! Location: We have secured the lower level of the Embassy Suites (across the street from the downtown Marriott) with plenty of space and privacy. Hotel Rooms: We have rooms at a special rate at the Marriott for $129 per night and at the Embassy Suites for $149 per night. There is more to come, including a Friday night event for those arriving early, and our Sunday Morning Seminar with Tom Lombardo from 10 a.m. till noon. Please contact Kevin Watson (kevin@press53.com or 336-770-5353) for vendor information or with suggestions, comments, or questions.  We are looking forward to seeing you at The High Road Festival of Poetry and Short Fiction!

Writers and poets seem to have one question these days. NCWN-West will answer on December 12, 2015 at a Panel Discussion in Hayesville, NC.

Wally Avett

Deanna Klingel

“How do I get my writing published?” And then they have another question. “How do I sell my book?”

We hope to have some answers for them on Saturday, December 12, 2015 from 1 – 3 p.m. at Moss Memorial Library, 26 Anderson Street, Hayesville, NC.  No charge to attend.

We will have a panel of three novelists and me, Glenda Beall. Cherokee County resident, Wally Avett, journalist and author of four novels, Deanna Klingel, of Sapphire, NC, author of nine books for young and young at heart readers, and Tom Davis, who lives in western NC, an author who also owns Old Mountain Press. Each of these writers will have a story to tell about their publishing experiences and the way they promote their writing careers.

Glenda Beall, moderator of the panel discussion

Recently I asked Scott Owens, well-published poet and teacher from Hickory, NC to share his publishing experiences and his ideas on marketing and publishing. He publishes a new book of poems about every two years. His latest is from Main Street Rag Press. 

Scott Douglas, owner of Main Street Rag Press, was generous with his answers to questions I posed to him on these topics. He has built his small press into a well-established business with some of the best poets on his author list. He once told me that he publishes books for people he is confident are good readers who can promote their books. That is one thing a writer will not get from a small press – book promotion. They don’t have the staff or time to do that. It is up to the author to build a readership and promote his work.

Kevin Watson, founder of Press 53, in Winston-Salem, NC  answered my questions as well and gave me great insight into what it takes for a small press to accept your manuscript and publish your book. 

Press 53, which opened in 2005, quickly began earning a reputation as a quality publishing house of short fiction and poetry collections.

With all the information from Scott Owens, Main Street Rag and Press 53, I will be able to speak to those who want to publish poetry books as well as short fiction.

Today, writers are often in a hurry to get their first book out to the public. They can do this by paying for the publishing or printing themselves. Tom Davis helps people self-publish, and his website fully explains what a writer needs to know about that process.

We ask that everyone hold their questions until the end when we will have a question and answer session. Nothing is more irritating to the audience than people who interrupt the speakers with personal questions.

We will have a short break when audience members can talk with the panelists.

We hope all local writers will mark December 12, 2015 on their calendar. Our speakers will have their books for sale and will be happy to sign them for you.

This event is sponsored by the North Carolina Writers’ Network—West, a program of the state literary organization, the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

GATHERING OF POETS IN WINSTON-SALEM

On April 9, Press 53 and Jacar Press (in Durham) are sponsoring a day-long gathering of poets, featuring workshops with Fred Chappell, Val Nieman, Alex Grant, among others, and a faculty reading in the afternoon, including Isabel Zuber. I will also be doing a workshop. This sounds like a lot of fun, so please visit http://www.press53.com/GatheringofPoets2011.html to view the schedule and sign up to participate in this collaborative effort for the cause of poetry in our state!

Tired but Inspired in Greensboro

I sit here in Greensboro, NC tired, but inspired after spending all day at the Elliot Center at the UNC-G campus. NCWN held the 2008 Spring Conference here and it is the first time I've attended the annual spring conference. I usually make it a priority to register for the Fall Conferences in Asheville and last November we drove to Winston-Salem.
Most presenters for the conference today were on faculty at UNC-G.
My favorite part of the day was the Publishing Panel consisting of Scott Douglas of Main Street Rag, Kevin Watson of Press 53, Jeanne Leiby of Southern Review and a man from the Georgia Review, but I never understood his name. After a short talk by each member of the panel, I realized once again how important it is to know your market. Read the guidelines carefully and follow them. While the writer may not know it, the guidelines are specific for a reason. Douglas said it is a matter of resources. He hires editors to read submissions therefore, he makes it clear he does not want simultaneous submissions. The reason is obvious. After he has paid an editor to read work that he cannot publish because it has been accepted somewhere else, he is out that money with nothing to show for it. I can't blame him. Although Scott has grown MSR into quite a good business over the years since I first met him, he says he still sweeps the floors and binds the books. "It is easier to find a person to read submissions than to find someone to bind books," he said.
I didn't know until today that he prints books for a number of other magazines. He is still a rebel in this business and not so snooty as the Georgia Review. Their representative said don't send your poetry to them unless you don't mind letting them "meddle" with it. I got the impression that they "edited" or "meddled" with everything that goes in the magazine.
Scott, on the other hand, wants the work you send him to be ready for the printer when he gets it. He doesn't want to have to rewrite or work too much to make changes to a submission. And don't try to make changes after he has it ready to print.

Listening to some of the stories they told today made me a little more understanding of the editor's and publisher's problems with writers who are inconsiderate and hard to work with, who won't follow guidelines and seem to have no understanding of how a book is made..

This panel covered everything a writer wants to know about submitting and publishing. I sat in on about an hour of Ed Southern's session on publishing and found a good discussion going there. I wish I had been there for the entire session.
Congratulations to Ed Southern and Virginia Freedman for the work they put in to bring us this great conference. Even though they had some challenges, no one knew it and things went off well.

I worked with Virginia and Ed at the registration tables and enjoyed meeting the writers, greeting them and seeing friends like Valerie Nieman, Katherine, who was in my JCCFS class in March, and Marlyn who came to Hayesville for our Lights in the Mountains conference and stayed four days. I enjoyed meeting Jan Parker and hope she is reading this blog now. I wish more of our Netwest members would attend the NCWN conferences. They are always interesting and fun.

Sheryl Monks at Press 53 on blogs

Glenda, we actually published an entire blog. Joseph Anderson, a trial attorney in WS, kept a travel log of his trip across India during/shortly after the great tsunami. He was writing home to his mother. His father had just died and the trip became a great spiritual pilgrimage. Kevin came across the blog and couldn't stop reading it, so he thought it would make a great book, and it did. We published The Light Within: A Travel Log of India about a year later. Granted, we don't have the time to read as many blogs as we did then, but we think the internet is a truly fabulous organism and we use it every way we can.

When writers are considering whether or not they should post work on their blogs, my advice is this: Think like a publisher. Will the exposure help the publisher or hurt the publisher? Are you giving a publisher the opportunity to jump onto something that's getting a lot of attention (or has the potential to get some) or are you asking a publisher to promote work that everyone has already seen? Will a publisher be able to sell your work now that it's been made available online? I think that's the bottom line for most publishers and small presses. It's a tough call. Many folks say don't do it. Some suggest you may "get discovered." You have to realize, though, that it's a rare thing for any writer to find a short cut. It happens, yes, but I think the best thing writers can do is keep at it. Keep writing and submitting your work and learning the ins and outs of the industry. I honestly believe that good work bubbles up to the surface one way or another.

As for contests, I think the safest bet is to read each one's guidelines carefully before submitting work that's been posted on a blog or elsewhere. Generally, I think "unpublished" means not published by another publisher, but it's always best to read guidelines and ask contest administrators for clarification.

Hope this helps. Thanks for asking!

Merry Christmas to everyone at NCWN West~~

sheryl

Sheryl Monks
Publisher/Editor
Press 53
http://www.press53.com/