And the winning continues

I'm a member of the Foothills Writers' Guild and every spring and fall a members' only contest is held. In the fall, the following categories are available to compete in: Poetry (Guild Prize, Muses Prize, Jean Brabham McKinney Prize, and Children's Poetry Prize), Prose - Fiction (Arrows to Atoms Priza) and Nonfiction (Freedom Prize and President's Choice Prize). In the spring the following categories are available to compete in: Poetry (Archibald Rutledge Prize, Pegasus Prize, Dramatic Poem Prize, and Carolina Prize) and Prose Fiction (Betsy Byars Prize, Sandlapper Prize, O. Henry Prize) and Nonfiction (Gus Wentz Prize).

I entered the Betsy Byars Prize this past spring and won second place (since there were only two winners, I can only guess that only two of us entered this short story for children category as I understand that in some of the past years there have been no entries in this category), which pays out $20.

I'm having fun - lol - see you all in the postings - E :)

Foothills Writers' Guild Workshop and owls?

This weekend was the annual Foothills Writers' Guild workshop. Keynote speaker Friday night was Richard Speight and Saturday lunch was Edie Melson. Guest speakers included Pam Zollman (Children's author), Jill Jones (Therapist who uses poetry in her therapy), Christopher Branch (musician), and Jane Freidman was supposed to be there but apparently there was a problem with her flight on Thursday so she didn't get to make it this time (she's pretty awesome as she speaks about ways to market and network on the internet). So what do owls have to do with the Foothills Writers' Guild workshop?

We have owls on our property and I've heard them many times "hoot-hoot-hooting" but I've never seen them. The kids have made claims of seeing them before. When I was putting my stuff in my car Saturday morning to head to Anderson University (the place where we hold our conference every year), I heard several owls. Didn't really think about it until I was near the end of the driveway and one flew over my car. I looked to my passenger seat to get my camera and take a picture but had forgotten my camera. I turned my car around and came back to get it. By time I came outside, the owl had flown to a different tree. I saw him and snapped the following picture of him: . Glory be. My first owl. After I snapped a second picture of him, he flew to another tree and lo and behold, a second owl flew up to the same area he was. They hoot-hoot-hooted at each for like 2 seconds and then they squawked like crazy birds. The second one flew away from the first one but in the same tree, just a couple of branches over.

Then the first one took off and flew to a tree closer to my driveway; the second one followed and I tried snapping a picture of the two of them on the same branch in that tree but I wasn't steady enough. While tryng to snap the two together, I heard another one to the side and glanced over and sure enough, a third one had flown into a tree but he was hidden; I didn't get to see him.

So my excursion to participate in the Foothills Writers' Guild workshop this past weekend was well worth getting up earlier than I'm used to as I got to finally see the owls on our property.

The workshops was awesome too. I sat in Richard's, Edie's and Pam's classes and then during Pam's second workshop, I wrangled my adopted daughter who is a student at AU to help me practice my workshop presentation I'll be doing at the homeschool conferences. She brought her boyfriend so I got to do it for an audience of 1 plus her since she had already done part of my presentation before (she's played the game before). After we had our refreshment break, they called some more friends in (four young ladies), and so I did my workshop presentation again for them. I found out that I was incorrect in my "Road Trip" game as there are possibly many more routes than the eight I had originally figured. Now I need to go through the game again and come up with all the possible ways to make it across the United States without entering any state more than once. Thanks to Jess and Vincent and all the young ladies at AU for helping me out.

So now you have it - Foothills Writers' Guild workshop and owls! - E :)

"Tritium" anyone?

The word that was challenged (team spelled it "tridium") and the pronouncer said they were correct; our team challenged and the judges allowed them to get a new word to spell. The difference between winning team and tied for 2nd place. (If the team that got this word had not won, Anderson County Library table would have won.) We did score 18 points and two other teams scored 18, with Anderson County Library scoring 19 and the winning team, Wachovia Bank reps with 20 points. So you can see it was close.

The hors d'oeuvres were really good, and dessert was wonderful too. I'm glad I got to participate in this event and hope to do it next year.

Here are the tables before people started coming in:

- this is the table where I was sitting along with a doctor, a volunteer and two other members of the Foothills Writers Guild. We could snack on the M&Ms sitting on the table if we wanted to - lol




The winning table - as you can see, no one told them they could decorate their table. Maybe next year they will have something fun on their table. Of course, they have to defend their title.




This is the Anderson County Library table, which as you can see I moved when I snapped the picture so it is a little out of focus. I would have liked to see them have some bookmarks and some fake books on their table - make it worthy of a library table - lol.


This is the Cardiologist table and they had a player come in late (who apparently was their speller), but when you get level 2 words like "eulogy", who needs a good speller on your team?




This group came in decorating. Another bank sponsored table. But when a group of women call themselves "The Wild Bunch" you know you are in for some fun.




This is the Anderson University table. They were pretty good. They did try and I think may have been one of the teams that was tied with 18 points.





This is one of the other bank people present. Do you think they are trying to tell us something by putting all this pirate stuff on the table? The People's Bank are pirates? Only kidding. This made the table fun and they seemed to be having a good time. Very good spellers as well.


From the pictures, I'd say this was advertisement for an old movie. With a name like "Spellbound," they were headed in the right direction to a spelling bee. How appropriate.




Last year's winning team. Simple and no decorations. I believe they came in 8th or 9th this year (only 9 tables total). As they say, the luck of the draw?




I think everyone had a good time. I hope to participate next year. Judith and Hugh can be at the same table again with me. They were both pretty much on target. The biggest problem was that a lot of the level 3 words being thrown out there were like German or Italian or some other origin that with a slight mispronounciation can cause a decent speller to become a poor speller in a heartbeat.

This was a successful night for the Anderson County Library in conjunction with Anderson University raising money for the Storyteller's Festival which is held in October for rural students in our county. With all the sponsored tables and the guests and other donations, I heard that they raised $8750 (only about $7000 last year), so I would say it was a very successful event. Way to go all participants of the 9th Annual Starburst Spelling Bee. E :)

Anderson County Library Spelling Bee

The Foothills Writers Guild members were invited to participate in the Anderson County Library's 9th Annual Starbust Spelling Bee. A few of us responded and will be at the M&M's table (all things to do with the candies since the sponsor of the table loves M&Ms).

You are invited to come support the local library raise funds for the Starburst Storytellers festival, which over 2800 students in Anderson County benefitted from. This is sponsored by the Friends of the Library in cooperation with Anderson University.

WHAT: 9th Annual Starburst Spelling Bee
WHEN: Saturday, March 6, 2010
TIME: 6 p.m.
WHERE: Anderson County Library, main branch, 300 N. McDuffie Street, Anderson, SC
COST: $20 per person (gets you heavy hors d'oeuvres and desserts; helps support the Starburst Storytellers' Festival)

Come support your local authors and other friends of the library. See you there - E :)

Local writer's conference is a hit!

I attended the Foothills Writer's Guild 2009 conference the last weekend of March. I found out about it a bit late but was lucky enough to get registered and even a bit luckier that one of the members had something come up so I actually could get the conference at their cost. I think someone was looking out for me. This is local and held at Anderson University every year (this was the 20th annual conference). It is a 2-day conference with about 70 or so attendees. What, you may ask, was offered for such a small group?

Keynote Dick Cote started the dinner off discussing censorship (I was hoping he so would incorporate issues with CPSIA in his speech when I saw that he had changed his address as listed). He also offered several workshops Friday night and Saturday of interest to writers of many different types of writing.

Children's author Kate Salley Palmar offered sevveral workshops pertaining to a writer's and illustrator's life with things on writing memories (in children's books, of course), writing nonfiction and several others.

There were a couple of poetry workshops offered (I didn't attend any of these since I'm not a poet and read very little poetry).

And then there was Lisa Earle McLeod of the Forget Perfect newsletter. Talk about hilarious. This woman was so good, I attended almost every one of her workshops, even though the topics didn't necessarily apply to me. I did bring home some information that I found useful for another of my writer friends this week and so I'm glad I did attend the getting published in magazines, et cetera - workshop. Lisa has grassroots in the area as her father is a member of the Foothills Writer's Guild and he was right there with her, supporting her all the way. She was the Saturday luncheon speaker and I think she garnered a few laughs. I really enjoyed her workshops and would probably attend more if she were to come back next year.

We also had a general session about getting yourself out there and using the technology available to promote yourself with Jane Friedman of the Writer's Digest publicity. She was interesting, but I don't think she had enough time to really get all the information in that she wanted to do. I believe she's already been asked to come back next year.

Some local authors got to pitch their books and I was one of them (yay me!) but it is really hard to pitch to other writer's and especially children's books when the average of those attending was about 55 or older (not that that's a bad thing, but not knowing if they have kids in my target range is difficulty to gage).

I will be attending the meetings (even though they conflict with the SCWW meetings once a month) and see what they are all about. I think the group is small enough that I should benefit from it. Next meeting is in a couple of weeks - so any of my friends in the local area who may be interested, check out their website for more information.


Hope you all enjoy - see you in the postings soon - E :)