Savannah Writers Group

Greetings from Sasha, your friendly neighborhood SWG blogger. How are you? I'm fine, thanks. Actually, this week, I'm feeling inspired. Please allow me to share why. One of the many hats I wear is the hat of "local film reviewer". As such, I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly magazine. I was surprised to come across a blurb in the last issue, in the book section, about one Hugh Howey, author of Wool . Hugh is my new hero. I think you'll find his story quite remarkable. According to the blurb, Hugh went from a veritable nobody to a literary super hero almost over night. He self-published a 12 thousand word novelette on the Kindle Store about a year ago. The title of the piece is Wool . It's a dystopian story about the future, in which the remnants of society live deep underground. You can find it on Amazon . Well, here comes the miraculous part. Even after zero advertising, readers couldn't get enough of Wool . They demanded more, so Hugh turned t...

One hurdle short story writers face is finding markets. Who is publishing short stories these days? Who is paying authors to publish their short stories these days? On my writer's journey, the website Duotrope has been an invaluable resource. The site is free to use. You do have to sign up with an email address and password, but they never send SPAM. In fact, I get about one email a week from Duotrope, and the email lists upcoming themed submissions, which is helpful to me. This information can also be accessed on the site under the "Calendar" page. For example, clicking there today tells me at a glance that the fledgling market called Wild Age Press is holding an "Anything Goes" contest for fiction of any length! That means short stories, poems and novellas are all game (up to 20,000 words)! The deadline for submissions is June 15th. There is no reading fee. http://www.wildagepress.com/submissions/ I wouldn't have this information without...

UPDATE: Apologies, folks. We will meet on May 22nd, however, due to unforeseen circumstances, our speaker, Mr. McAleer will be unable to attend. (05/21/12) Dear Colleagues, I am delighted  to announce that we will have Jim McAleer, a distinguished author, as our speaker at the May 22 meeting of the Savannah Writers Group. Jim enlisted in the Marine Corps at the age of seventeen. He served during WWII in the Pacific theater, and again during the Korean War. Jim was admitted to the Georgia Bar in 1953, where he was an attorney for fifty years. He was the President of the Savannah Bar Association, and a director of Memorial Hospital. His first book was published in 2003 and was the best-selling book in Savannah for two-weeks. The book was about a company of Marines (Dog Company) based in Savannah. Jim is currently finishing his second book. Please make sure to thank our colleague, Steve Goldberg, for arranging Jim’s appearance with us! ~Sa...

Get ready! We will meet Tuesday, May 8th at 7:00 PM at Barnes & Noble. As current SWG Members will have read in Sally Klein's last email, we will discuss the Cheat (Critique) Sheet and our web presence. It would helpful if you come with your own print outs from Sally's email. What's that you say? You aren't already a member of the Savannah Writers Group? That's okay! All meetings are free and open to the public. See you there!

Every once in a while in the publishing community, writerly folks get together at one website and auction their services for a good cause. Just such an auction is going on now. It's called Crits for Water and you can check it out now by following the link. How does it work? Over at the website an author, editor, agent, or some such person offers a service. Here are two examples: Numero Uno: Kicking off our adult fiction and non-fiction month is the Evil Genius Andrew Shaffer , the cackly and clever mind behind the upcoming satire Fifty Shames of Earl Grey . He is offering a critique of the first 2500 words of any adult non-fiction book proposal . Numero Dos: Rounding off the Romance month of April (a little extra, ’cause it’s awesome) is multiple RITA-Award winning Sherry Thomas , whose new historical Beguiling the Beauty releases today (so excited!!). Sherry also has a young adult fantasy series that will hit the shelves starting Fall, 2013. She is offeri...