FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: NOVELIST AND SCREENWRITER KARL ALEXANDER TO SPEAK AT MARCH 8TH MEETING OF VCWC Meeting will be held in temporary new location in Thousand Oaks at Glen Kendall Ballroom (Ventura, CA – February 26, 2011) How to take life experiences, both positive and painful, and develop them into characters will be the topic that novelist and screenwriter Karl Alexander will discuss at the March 8th meeting of the Ventura County...

1st Annual Ridge to River Contest   1st Prize is $100, an Osprey pack and publication. 2nd prize is a gift certificate for La Sportiva Mountain Running Shoes and publication.   Adventum, a new biannual online literary magazine, welcomes the finest contemporary outdoor adventure writing from new and established writers, as well as seasonal haiku and high quality digital photography. Accepts creative nonfiction, essays, and memoir pieces of no...

Dream Weekend Designed for Aspiring Screenwriters and Playwrights Ojai, CA (February 25, 2011) Ojai has been attracting authors and writers to its mountain valley for centuries. Its newest attraction, WordFest-a nexus of diverse reading and writing events held over nine days in March-is announcing the latest addition to its robust lineup: a VIP ‘Stage & Screen’ Writers Package. Held the last weekend of Ojai WordFest...

With a nod to spring, Writing.com has partnered with Gotham Writers’ Workshop to present a Tweet Writing Contest. Following the Twitter craze, we challenge you to dazzle us with a piece of writing that is no more than 140 characters (characters = letters, punctuation marks, and spaces). You may write on any topic and use any form—fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. As Strunk and White say, “Vigorous writing is concise.” Here’s an example, a...

Submit a Short Story We’re having a National Grammar Day short story contest! The winner will have his or her story read on the Grammar Girl podcast on National Grammar Day, and the story will appear on the Grammar Girl website. The winner will also receive my only-used-once-and-returned-to-factory-condition iPod Shuffle (woohoo!) and a handwritten thank-you note. If I can figure out how to load a congratulatory message on the Shuffle,...