Do you enter writing contests? If you do, please share your experience here or on the Writers Forum Facebook page. If you don’t enter writing contests, why not? Share your reasons here or on the Writers Forum Facebook Page. “Writing contests give me short pieces to concentrate on, in between my bigger works. Contests allow me to write in genres that I never would have otherwise, causing me to do research, which helps me to grow as a writer. Contests motivate me to write and challenge me to meet a certain word quota. This forces me to pare down my story to its essentials, choosing my adjectives very carefully, and paying close attention to my word choices.” — Jeanne Jusaitis, First Place Winner of The 2016 Steampunk Contest, sponsored by Redwood Writers, a branch of the California Writers Club. Links to Writing Contests: Fan Story Writer’s Digest The Writer Poets &…
Tag: Poets & Writers
Writing about place
Kevin Nance’s interview of August Kleinzahler in the Nov/Dec 2013 issue of Poets & Writers shows how to describe character and setting. “One bright afternoon in San Francisco, Kleinzahler joins me for a spot of lunch at his favorite Chinese restaurant in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, once a hippie haven and now well into the process of gentrification, full of trendy shops and high-end hipsters. He cuts a fine figure in sunglasses, a banded hat, and a jaunty scarf tied haphazardly around his neck. He is, in some ways, a Californian now, a San Franciscan. ‘It agreed with me instantly,’ he says of the city he first encountered more than three decades ago. ‘The look of it, the feel of it, the bookstores, the bars, the Chinese food—all good for me.’ On the other hand, ‘It’s not home,’ he says, ‘The people don’t talk right here, they don’t walk right, their…