Now Accepting Submissions! (+ Guest Speaker Tony Morris!)

The Savannah Writers Group will meet again on 10 February, 2015 @ 7 PM. Remember, our meetings, which are free and open to the public, take place every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month! As usual, we will be meeting at the Atlanta Bread Company in the 12 Oaks Shopping Plaza.

On 10 February we are pleased to welcome guest speaker, Mr. Tony Morris! Tony runs the Ossabaw Writers Retreat and heads the Southern Poetry Review.

Before we dive into Tony's bio, allow me to remind all SWG members that we are now accepting submissions to the as of yet untitled 2015 Savannah Writers Group Anthology!

If you are a member of the Savannah Writers Group (meaning you have already attended 2 or more meetings), this is your opportunity to have your written work published in our book.

You have until 6 March 2015 to submit!!!

Here are the abbreviated Submission Guidelines. For a full, detailed packet, check your email, SWG members. If you are not on our email list, then why aren't you?? Let us know if you wish to be added to the email list, ASAP!

1.    Each SWG Member who wishes to submit to the anthology can choose to submit up to TWO pieces of prose AND up to SIX poems. This means each member can potentially submit up to EIGHT pieces. These works will undergo the scrutiny of the Selection Team. Multiple pieces from each SWG Member may pass the selection process and become a part of the anthology. If you write only prose, you are still limited to submitting only TWO pieces.

2.    Each piece of prose will be 3,000 words in length or fewer. Each poem will be 4 pages in length or fewer.

3.    The anthology will accept previously published material (reprints), but Sasha will need the publication history for such pieces. We will also accept excerpts.

4.    Please note that submitting to the anthology offers the SWG express permission to publish your work in print and in e-format. Upon selection for publication in the anthology, submitting SWG Members will be asked to sign a publication agreement. Contributors whose submissions are chosen for inclusion into the anthology will have the opportunity to approve any grammatical changes made to their work.

5.   Content: Let’s stay PG-13, folks. No gratuitous sex or violence.

     Gratuitous (adjective): uncalled for; lacking good reason;   unwarranted

6.  Email your submission to: storybysasha@gmail.com

7.   Please email each submission separately. In other words, if you choose to submit two pieces, send two separate emails.

8.   Please ensure the subject line of your email reads: TITLE OF PIECE – YOUR LAST NAME

9.   Please save your submissions in Rich Text Format (RTF) and attach them to the email. (Open your document and go to “Save As.” In the window under the title, click to see a dropdown list which will include “Rich Text Format.” Choose that and save. If you find this confusing, you may opt to copy and paste your piece into the body of the email.)

10.  Please include a BIO of 60 words or less. You may include your website or blog address. (An example Bio is provided on slide #8.) You may type this Bio in the body of the email.

11.  Also, please, type in the body of the email your word count.

12. For reprints, please tell Sasha the year and the market in which the work was previously published.

13.  If you wish to submit an excerpt from a larger piece, please tell Sasha it is an excerpt, the title of the larger piece and its publication history. Ensure your excerpt has a beginning, middle, and end and will stand on its own.

14. Sasha will know the author of each submission, but the selection process will be anonymous to the rest of the Selection Team.

15. You will receive a confirmation email to notify you that your submission was received.

16. Do proofread your work!

17. Do tell me your name (and the pseudonym you wish to be identified as in the anthology, if applicable).

18. Do tell me the word count. (To find your word count in Word, click on “Review” and in the drop down, click on “Word Count.”)

19. Do tell me the title of your submission.

20. Do number your pages.

21. Do double space your work!

22. Do use an easy  to read font, such as Times New Roman, Courier or Calibri.

23. Use black font  color only. 11 or 12 point font is sufficient.

24. Do indent the beginning of each paragraph. (In Word, this can be achieved simply by pressing the Tab key one time. PLEASE
DO NOT PRESS SPACE BAR 30 TIMES TO INDENT.
USE YOUR TAB KEY.)

25. You may underline words you want to ensure will be italicized. This is not necessary. Italics should appear just fine.

26. Use a single hash tag ( # ) to indicate a scene break.

 

PS - *scratching your head* Hey, what is an anthology, anyway?

It's a book! We're self-publishing a book of our collected written work!



And now, as promised, let's take a gander at the bio of Mr. Tony Morris.

Tony Morris was born in North Carolina, and spent his childhood years in the Appalachia Mountains of North Georgia and Eastern Kentucky. Much of his poetry and fiction reflects this region's influence on his imagination. He moved to California in his early teens then headed back to North Carolina in his early twenties, where he's spent the past twenty-five years of his life. Until his mid-thirties, Morris worked a series of odd jobs (bicycle repairman, window glazer, and encyclopedia salesman) and ended up spending the last ten years before he started writing as a machine operator in a paper factory.

In 1992, Morris quit the factory job, started to college, and found a life in journalism. He began writing poetry in 1995, and decided to apply to a writing program to give himself more time to work on his creative writing. He earned a Ph.D. in English from Florida State University, and currently works at Armstrong-Atlantic State University, in Savannah, GA where he teaches creative writing and journalism, and works as the managing editor of Southern Poetry Review.

Publications: Pulling at a Thread (Main Street Rag, 2015), Back to Cain (The Olive Press, 2006), and two chapbooks, Greatest Hits (Puddinghouse Press, 2012), and Fugue's End, (Birch Brook Press, 2004). His work has been widely published in anthologies: Georgia Poetry Anthology (Negative Capability Press, 2015), Southern Poetry Anthology: North Carolina (2014), What Matters (2014), Southern  Poetry Anthology: Georgia (2012). Morris was a 2003 Sewanee Writer’s Conference Tennessee Williams Scholar, and his poems have been awarded the Louisiana Literature Poetry Prize, and the Tennessee Writers Alliance Poetry Award and have three time been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Poems have appeared in Spoon River Review, Hawai'i Review, River Styx, Meridian, The Sewanee Theological Review, South Dakota Review, Connecticut Review, Mississippi Review, Green Mountains Review, and others. He is the managing editor of Southern Poetry Review, and director of the Ossabaw Island Writers’ Retreat.

Reviews:

Barbara Hamby, author of Delirum writes that Tony Morris's Pulling at a Thread is a tour de force cross-country car trip through America. From the first pulse of heartbreak and hope in "Radar Love" to the beautiful sonnets on the seasons at the end of the book Morris takes us on the terrifying and tender journey of the heart's road to wisdom. Parents grow old and die, children are born, lovers are lost and found in these lush and sensuous poems. There is a fullness and music that that will lift you up.  Tony Morris is a true son of Whitman, but he has been nurtured by Dickinson. His voice is America singing. 

David Kirby, author of The Ha-Ha, writes that Morris’s voice “seems to echo from the oldest caves and hills, like those of the ancient poets who wandered in the wilderness; on the other  hand, it sounds as contemporary as this morning’s headlines.”

Mark Jarman, author of To the Green Man , writes of Morris’s work that in “poem after poem, he shows himself to be the most sympathetic of observers as the world—mainly the small town and rural South—goes on its headlong, headstrong way.”

Bibliography:

Books:

Fugue’s End (poetry chapbook, Birch Brook Press, 2004)

Back to Cain (The Olive Press, 2006)

Greatest Hits (Kattywampus Press, 2012)

Pulling at a Thread (Main Street Rag Press, 2015)