New Writing Group

This posting came to me via Ann E. Horvath, from the Plymouth Gathering of Writers series.
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Want to write but never joined a writing group? Are you already writing memoir/ travel pieces/essays and/or poetry? Want to start new work or get published? This class is right for you! Spend six stimulating evenings with us. Winter won’t seem bleak anymore! Participants receive prompts/reading material, write a piece each week, receive feedback from the class and guidance from the instructor --Zilka Joseph, an award winning, Pushcart- nominated writer.

WHERE: At the Valley Ranch Apartments Clubhouse, 1315 Oak Valley Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48108. (Behind Meijers on Ann Arbor-Saline Road.)

FEES: Non members -- $150. Members -- $100
Metro Detroit Writers’ Membership fee --$40. You will receive a monthly newsletter and free entry to an annual contest, readings and performances, special rates for workshops by visiting writers, and discounts for the Springfed Writers’ Retreats in Harbor Springs.

CONTACT: Director of Springfed Arts, John D. Lamb at www.springfed.org
email johndlamb@ameritech.net
Phone 248-589-3913.Register early! Space limited.


*Zilka Joseph, teacher and writer, has been published in journals such as Review Americana, Rattle, the MacGuffin, and the Connecticut River Review, andnominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her chapbook of poems Lands I Live In, wasnominated for a PEN America Beyond Margins Award in 2007. She was awarded a Zell Fellowship to pursue an MFA at the University of Michigan, where she won the Elsie Choy Lee Scholarship and a Hopwood award.Currently, she is circulating a book of poems, collaborating on a project with a photographer and a dancer, and working on a memoir.

Action for Earth

If anybody knows Westland families with kids in K-8th grade, here's a great environmental/art program happening at the library:

Action for Earth is an innovative environmental and art program combining the hands-on science of the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, the art of area children, and a community-wide environmental event to raise awareness in the Westland community of environmental awareness.

Families with children in K-8th grade that sign up will need to commit to 4 events (all on Saturdays), all held at the Westland Public Library except for the March 20th event:

1. Jan. 30th, 1-2 p.m.: Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum Workshop titled "Good Earth, Great Food" (more info on these workshops on the website);
2. Feb. 27th, 1-2 p.m.: Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum Workshop titled "The Uninvited" (about non-native plant species);
3. March 20th, 11 a.m.-12 p.m.: Community Event involving seed-planting for the new Westland Community Garden (event held at the Bailey Center); and,
   
4. March 20th, 12-5 p.m.: Environmental art creation and collection at library (don't have to stay for full 5 hours, only as long as art is created). All pieces of art work will be incorporated into a mural/mosaic that will be donated to the library.
   

There are 5th and 6th events on Earth Day that we would love the families to attend, but are not requiring them:

5. April 22nd, 4-5 p.m.: Grand opening of new Westland Community Gardens (will be located near AT&T building on Cherry Hill and Hix); mayor will be there, press, etc. Should be fun.
6. April 22nd, 6:30-8 p.m.: Earth Day concert at the library featuring the Biakuye Percussion Ensemble. All children who create art for the March 20th event will receive a free poster of the library mural so they can show off their artwork to family and friends.

Feel free to pass out my email (andy.schuck@westlandlibrary.org) or call me if people have questions which are not answered here. Thanks!

Rent-a-reviewer

I came across this today as I was reading another poet's poem: it's a writing service through Dzanc Books in Ann Arbor where you can email your work to a professional reviewer and they will give you an honest opinion about where it needs work.

The rates are totally reasonable (20 bucks for an hour, 30 bucks for two hours) and go from Fiction to Poetry to Novel-writing. Plus all the proceeds go to the non-profit organization's writing program. Almost too good to be true. I am intrigued.

Anybody who tries let us know how it goes (if I don't beat you to it first!). Here's the website:

http://www.dzancbooks.org/creative.html

Gathering of Writers- Plymouth

I normally send these to everyone in an email but thought that since I received so early I might as well put it in a place where it couldn't be erased. Come February, check out the Gathering of Writers in Plymouth at that awesome little coffee shop that could (and can- and will), the Coffee Bean. Here's the featured author info, c/o Ann E. Horvath (email me if you would like her email address):

A GATHERING OF WRITERS FEATURES: MARY JO FIRTH GILLETT

(PRESENTER: OLGA KLEKNER)

Thursday, 02-18-2010 at 7:30 P.M Mary Jo Firth Gillett poetry book Soluble Fish, won the Crab Orchard Series First Book Award and she's also published three prize-winning chapbooks: Not One (The Writer's Voice of Metro Detroit), Tiger in a Hairnet (Small Poetry Press), and Chandeliers of Fish (Poetry West Press). She co-edited with Diane DeCillis an anthology of Mona Lisa related poetry titled Mona Poetica. A Gathering of Writers Meets at the Plymouth Coffee Bean, 844 Penniman Avenue, Plymouth, MI and is associated with the writing group -- A Gathering of Writers Write. Instructor: Ms. Lisa Rye, MFA, Vermont College and assistant Co-Host. Hosts: Jane Saylor, Donna MeMeyer. - No cover charge. Open Mic. All are welcome. Direct questions to Director Annie Horvath CLOSED JANUARY, JULY, AND AUGUST.