Writers' Room of Boston

2012 Exquisite Corpse at the Boston Book Festival

writersroomofboston — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:28:34 +0000

Every year at the Boston Book Festival we put out an antique typewriter and start a game of Exquisite Corpse.

Did you pound out some words when you visited our tent? Curious to see how the Exquisite Corpse turned out? Here it is, in all its surreal glory! WROB Exquisite Corpse 2012

When good things happen to good writers!

writersroomofboston — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 14:50:27 +0000

“Despite the fact that I recited the pledge of allegiance at school each morning, despite my blue US passport, I never self-identified as American while growing up; it had never occurred to me that I was.” Alumna Patty Park makes space for “hyphenated Americans” in her latest column for The Guardian.

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“The Revolution may not have been televised, but it was certainly recorded.” Leah Triplett reviews artist Wendy Richmond’s latest exhibit “Wendy Richmond Rocks TVs,” for WBUR.

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OMG, this bit of humor lit from our own Jason Kaufman has it all: Philip Roth, Siri, and a cameo by that “goyishe yutz” Jonathan Franzen. Read it here at Defenestration.

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“Last year I burned my father.” Priyatam Mudivarti’s short story, “Blue Flame,” appears in the Winter 2013 issue of the Baltimore Review.

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2012 Writers’ Room of Boston Fellow Shuchi Saraswat received a 2012 Gulliver Travel Research Grant to conduct research for her novel from The Speculative Literature Foundation. The foundation awards one $800 travel grant annually.

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Great news for alumna Diana Renn, who got a two-book deal with Viking for YA mysteries: Latitude Zero will be published in 2014 and Blue Voyage will come out in 2015. Diana also got a movie option deal for her first book, Tokyo Heist—which was written in the Room—with the production company Anonymous Content.

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Mazel tov to WROB alumna Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, whose short essay “Cello” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The essay was originally published in TriQuarterly Online.

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We’re so thrilled that our own Ken Calhoun sold his first novel, Black Moon. The novel examines “how society loses its grip on itself through the lens of an insomniac epidemic.”

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“Buds and Bells, and Stars Without a Name” is the gorgeous title of our own Lisa Perkins’ short story, which won the 2012 New Millennium Prize for Fiction. You can read the story here.

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Congratulations to Eric Grunwald, alum extraordinaire, whose short story appears in the most recent issue of Prick of the Spindle.

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Our own alumnus Gary Roma was featured in the New York Times Magazine’s column, Who Made That?, answering everything you wanted to know about dental floss (but were too afraid to ask).

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WROB reviews The Green Shore by Natalie Bakopoulos: our own Rebeeca Tuhus-Dubrow on Natalie Bakopoulos’s debut novel in the New York Times; WROB admin Anne Gray Fischer’s review appears in Ploughshares online.

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Anne Gray Fischer also has a review of Good Girls Revolt by Lynn Povich in Bookslut.

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Our own Wendy Wunder’s novel, The Probability of Miracles, is out in paperback! Buy it today!

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We are so proud of our WROBers who won Massachusetts Cultural Council grants this year: Lisa Gruenberg for fiction, Danielle Georges for poetry, and our once-upon-a-time WROBer Caitlin O’Neil. Full list of MCC grantees is here.

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Congratulations to our own Rebecca Givens Rolland, who won two prizes this year: the 2011 May Sarton New Hampshire Book Prize for her poetry collection, The Wreck of Birds. She received $1000 and her book was recently published by Bauhan Publishing. AND Rebecca won the 2011 Dana Award for her short fiction, “You’d Rather Be Tender.” So proud to have Rebecca as our own!

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Literary happenings near us

writersroomofboston — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 14:39:51 +0000

May 17-18

First annual Dorchester Fringe Festival (!)

May 17th at 7 pm

Savin Bar and Kitchen, 112 Savin Hill Ave, DOT

May 18th from 11am to 6pm

Erick Jean Center for the Arts, 157 Washington St, DOT

Fringe festivals take place in cities around the world and the Dorchester Arts Collaborative is sponsoring festival in Dorchester—the perfect place for a Fringe to call home. Featuring local artists from Dorchester and surrounding neighborhoods in Boston and Cambridge. Lineup and full listings here.

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Monday, June 3 at 6 pm

Kay Ryan

The First Parish Church, 3 Church Street, Harvard Square

$10

Go hear Kay Ryan read. When you least expect it, when you’re just chuckling at her light and clever turns, that’s when she’ll change your life, violently and forever: “Her only levity is patience,/the sport of truly chastened things.” (From “Turtle”)

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Friday, June 7, at 8 pm

Dire Literary Reading Series featuring Randy Susan Meyers, CD Collins and Anne Champion

Out of the Blue Art Gallery, 106 Prospect Street, Cambridge

Free and open

WROB alumna CD Collins, Emerson alumna Anne Champion (author of the recently released and brilliantly erotic Reluctant Mistress), and novelist Randy Susan Meyers summon the summer.

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Sunday June 9 at 12 pm

The Art of Words/Mike Amado Memorial Series

The Plymouth Center for the Arts, 11 North Street, Plymouth

January O’Neil and WROB alum J.D. Scrimegour will read. June is a lovely time to be in Plymouth and hear some poems!

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Those were some highlights from our monthly newsletter—but not the whole shebang! Want to get these newsletters directly to your inbox? Email us at info@writersroomofboston.org and write “Newsletter, please!”

Deadlines: Our most faithful source of inspiration!

writersroomofboston — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 18:01:56 +0000

May 18, multigenre New Letters is running its annual contest for fiction, poetry, and essays. $1500 + publication. $15 entry fee. Guidelines.

May 31, multigenre work about “threes” The Baltimore Review is running its summer contest. The theme is “threes.” Prizes are $300, $200, and $100, and all entries are considered for publication. Entry fee is $10. Final judge is Michael Kimball. Guidelines!

June 1, multigenre Mid-American Review is running its annual Fineline competition for prose poetry, short shorts, and everything in between! Limit 500 words for each previously unpublished piece. $10 per entry of up to 3 pieces. Multiple entries are welcome. Final judge is Richard Garcia. The prize is $1000 + publication. Guidelines.

June 1, multigenre spiritual writing Tiferet Journal is running its annual contest for poems, stories, and essays. $400 + pub (?) “Our mission is to help raise individual and global consciousness, and we publish writing from a variety of religious and spiritual traditions.” Caroline Leavitt, Dawn Raffel, J.P. Dancing Bear judge. Guidelines here.

June 3, poems Boston Review is running its annual poetry contest. $1500 + publication. Judged by Linda Gregerson. $20 entry fee. Guidelines here.

June 30, poetry books Bauhan Publishing is running its annual May Sarton Poetry Prize. Last year, our own Rebecca Givens-Rolland won—who’s next?? Judged by Jeff Friedman. $1000 + publication + 100 copies of the newly-published book. Guidelines here.

July 1, multigenre writing about health Bellevue Literary Review is running its annual contest for exceptional fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body. $1,000 + publication in the Spring 2014 issue of theBellevue Literary Review. Nathan Englander, Helen Benedict, and Tina Chang judge. Entry fee is $15 per submission. Guidelines here.

Those were some highlights from our monthly newsletter—but not the whole shebang! Want to get our newsletter directly to your inbox? Email us at info@writersroomofboston.org and write “Newsletter, please!”