Nina McConigley reads from "Cowboys and East Indians" on Aug. 2 at Wind City Books in Casper

Nina McConigley on Medicine Bow Peak, August 2010 (from Nina's Facebook photo album)

Wyoming author Nina McConigley will be reading from her short-story collection COWBOYS AND EAST INDIANS, at Wind City Books, 152 S. Center St., Casper, at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 2. She was the 2010 recipient of the Wyoming Arts Council’s Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Award. She read from her work – and served as emcee – for the Wyoming Arts Council’s annual fellowship reading at the 2010 Equality State Book Festival at Casper College. Nina was born in Singapore and grew up in Wyoming. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston. She has received scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She also received a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for The Best New American Voices 2009. Her work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction, Slice, Asian American Literary Review, Puerto del Sol, and others.

Epiphany Magazine publishes new story by Lori Van Pelt

Lori Van Pelt sends this good news:

My short story, "Slivers," is now online at http://www.epiphmag.com/ in Issue 14 of Epiphany Magazine. You can find the story by scrolling down to "Contributors" and clicking on my name, Lori Van Pelt. This story is included in my short fiction collection, ACCELERATION, which I've just completed and am in the process of submitting to book publishers.

Postmark deadline Oct. 31 for 2012 Blanchan/Doubleday writing awards

Postmark deadline is Oct. 31 for the 2012 Neltje Blanchan and Frank Nelson Doubleday memorial writing awards.

These awards are designed to bring attention to writers in Wyoming who have not yet received wide recognition for their work, and to support emerging writers at crucial times in their careers. Poets, fiction writers, essayists, and script writers who have published no more than one book in each genre and who are not students or faculty members are invited to apply by submitting manuscripts and an entry form by the Oct. 31, 2011, deadline.

The Neltje Blanchan Award, $1,000, is given for the best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or script which is informed by a relationship with the natural world.

The Frank Nelson Doubleday Award, $1,000, is given for the best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or script written by a woman author.

POSTMARK DEADLINE IS OCTOBER 31, 2011

Printable applications are available on the WAC web site at http://www.wyomingartscouncil.org.

FMI: Michael Shay, 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov

Blanchan/Doubleday judge is Susan J. Tweit

Susan J. Tweit was trained as a field ecologist. But over the years, while she mapped grizzly bear habitat, wildfire patterns and sagebrush communities, she had a revelation: “I loved telling the stories behind the data more than collecting the data.”

Susan is the author of twelve books that explore the interrelationships that form what Aldo Leopold called the "community of the land." Barry Lopez had this to say about Susan’s 2009 book, Walking Nature Home: A life’s Journey: “It's a lovely, brave, inspiring book.... Sometimes I think the highest praise you can give a book is to say that it helped. This book does that.”

Her work has appeared in magazines and newspapers from Audubon and Popular Mechanics to High Country News and the Los Angeles Times -- and has been heard on the Martha Stewart Living Radio Network.

Susan has taught workshops at colleges, universities, and writing festivals from University of California-Riverside and Miami University of Ohio to Wofford College in South Carolina, as well as at home and online. Audiences as diverse as the International Xeriscape Conference, Collegiate Peaks Forum, Monte Vista Crane Festival, and the Walking Words Writing Festival have called her talks "inspiring" and "insightful." She coaches individual writers, reviews manuscripts for university presses, and contributes to “The Perch” blog of Audubon magazine and Story Circle Network's “Her Stories.” Her own blog is at http://susanjtweit.typepad.com/walkingnaturehome.

She belongs to an informal network of writers and artists who speak for the land, and to Story Circle Network, Women Writing the West and Colorado Author’s League.

She is a passionate gardener who grows her own vegetables, fruits and herbs, and also enjoys the challenge of native plant restoration and "wildscape" design. She lives with her husband, sculptor Richard Cabe, in a house heated and powered by the sun, on a reclaimed industrial parcel in a high-desert valley tucked in the shadow of the tallest stretch of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

University of Wyoming MFA student Callan Wink publishes short story in The New Yorker

A year ago, Callan Wink submitted a short story to The New Yorker and waited to hear back from the weekly magazine's editors. A long wait ensued before the University of Wyoming student heard back, saying his piece was rejected. 

But the editors of the long-running publication, known for its illustrated and often topical covers, commentaries on popular culture and eccentric Americana, told Wink they liked his style and asked if he had any other works worthy of submission. The New Yorker has more than one million subscribers and is published 47 times a year.

It was encouraging for Wink, a second-year student in UW's nationally-recognized MFA Program in Creating Writing. He had just completed a short story, "Dog Run Moon," which he quickly submitted to The New Yorker's editors. They bought his short story and the piece was published in the Sept. 26 edition. He also was interviewed in the magazine (link:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/09/this-week-in-fiction-callan-wink.html )

Not bad for an aspiring writer who calls himself a "fly fishing guide in real life."

"This was the most recognition I have received," Wink says. "The New Yorker is one of the few publications that still regularly runs short fiction -- and pays -- so it was quite exciting to have my work appear there."

MFA Program in Creative Writing faculty member Brad Watson says being published in The New Yorker is quite an accomplishment for a young writer.

"Callan is an all-around good guy who also happens to be a terrific fiction writer, one of the best we have had through this program. He has taken his own raw talent and worked very, very hard and this is a great reward for him," Watson says. "A story in The New Yorker really can help launch a publishing career for a young writer. And, of course, it's great for the UW program for roughly one million New Yorker readers to see one of our writers in that magazine."

Watson says many of the program's young writers are publishing fiction, poetry and essays in prestigious national journals and magazines, winning national contests.

"This high-profile publication -- well-deserved -- by Callan only adds to our pride at how well our students are doing, and have done, in the six years we've had our MFA program," Watson adds.

"Dog Run Moon," is about a sawmill worker who steals another man's dog.

"Usually when I'm working on a story I save it on my computer using just a few words that seem to be indicative of where I want the story to go," Callan says. "In this case, those words, ‘Dog Run Moon', ended up sticking as the title."

His New Yorker piece follows Sid, a man who recently experienced a rather painful relationship breakup who moves to a different town and begins working at a sawmill. He ends up stealing another man's dog and is then pursued by the man and his accomplice, through the desert -- at night, naked and on foot.

"It is a fairly straightforward chase story in which the main character runs and thinks about his problems," Wink says.

Wink was born in Michigan but considers Montana his home, residing in Livingston the past eight years. He received his B.S. degree from Montana State University (MSU) in Bozeman where he started honing his writing skills. He has had a few of his non-fiction essays published in small magazines, but none as prominent as The New Yorker.

After graduating from MSU, Wink wanted to find a writing program that could help take him to the next level. He was attracted to UW's MFA Program in Creative Writing because of its national prominence and the potential to receive funding.

UW's creative writing program recently moved into the top 30 programs nationally, according to Poets and Writers Magazine's yearly list. UW also was the top-rated program for student/teacher-ratio.

"I decided to come to UW's MFA program initially because of the funding they offer. Factoring in cost of living, the program here is one of the best-funded programs in the country," he says. "Besides that, when I came to visit, I was struck by the enthusiasm and talents of the faculty members. The opportunity to work with writers such as Brad Watson, Beth Loffreda, Alyson Hagy, Rattawut Lapcharoensap and Joy Williams factored in to my decision. Also, location was a large issue for me. I knew I wanted to stay in the west."

When he completes UW's creative writing program, Wink will return to his "real job" as a fly fishing guide, but will continue to write.

"My goal is to revise my story pile into a book-length collection within a year," he says. "After that, a novel, hopefully before I'm 30.  And then, of course, the goal is to find someone crazy enough to publish these things."

Photo: University of Wyoming MFA Program in Creative Writing student Callan Wink. 

Montana native Shann Ray reads from his book American Masculine at Billings YMCA Writers Voice

Not in Wyoming but just a few miles north of the border in Billings:

THE YMCA WRITER’S VOICE presents 2010 BAKELESS PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER SHANN RAY reading from AMERICAN MASCULINE, 7 p.m., Thursday, July 14, third floor Parmly Billings Library, 510 N. Broadway, Billings, Mont.

American Masculine, is a muscular debut story collection that reconfigures the myths of the American West; a deeply felt and fiercely written ode to the country we left behind. “Ray’s collection has an unsettling power as his roughened characters incrementally come to terms with their humanity, fallibility, and their realized capacity for atonement. This is a highly accomplished and intensely lyrical debut.” – Publishers Weekly

Shann Ray Ferch holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Alberta. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Story Quarterly, and other publications. He grew up in Montana, spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne reservation and was a part of two state championship high school basketball teams at Park High in Livingston, coached by his dad, Tom Ferch. He played college basketball with his brother Kral at Montana State University, then played at Pepperdine University and professionally in Germany.

Call for entries: Wyoming Writers, Inc., writing contest

Wyoming Writers, Inc., announces contest guidelines:

Hard copy entries much be postmarked by April 9, 2011.

Entry fee:  $10.00 for each entry from members of Wyoming Writers, Inc., $15.00 for non-members,

Member fee for poetry is $10.00 for 3 poems, non-members $15.00 for 3 poems. We encourage non-members to join the organization. Information and membership form are available on www.wyowriters.org. Contest entry forms are also available on the web site, and from flyers in libraries and bookstores, and in the WyoWriters newsletter.  You may photocopy an entry form.

No limit on the number of entries, but there is an entry fee for each manuscript and every 3 poems. Include one check for the total amount. No entry fees will be refunded. 

Eligibility: The contest is open to all writers. All works must be the unpublished and the original work of the   submitter. All works must be in English. Work accepted or under consideration for publication elsewhere, or entered in another contest simultaneously is not eligible. Work that has previously placed or received an honorable mention in a Wyoming Writers, Inc. contest is not eligible. Work may be submitted to other contests or for publication after the contest deadline.

Categories

Adult Fiction: (No horror or erotica) 3000 words maximum

Fiction for Children/Juveniles:  3000 words maximum

Non-fiction:  Personal experiences and Memoirs3000 words maximum

Non-fiction:  Articles and Essays., 3000 words maximum

Traditional Poetry:  28 lines maximum; up to 3 poems per submission.

Free Verse Poetry:  28 lines maximum;  up to 3 poems per submission

Prizes:   First place: $50, Second place: $30,  Third place $20. Each will get a certificate. There will be no Honorable Mentions.  Winners will be notified the latter part of May. Winners will be announced at the WWInc 2011 Conference to be held at the Ramada Plaza Riverside,Casper, WY June 3-5, 2011.

Call for entries: Ohio State University Press

This listing from Poets & Writers (via The Bloomsbury Review):
Deadline: January 31, 2011

Entry Fee: $20

Web site: www.ohiostatepress.org

A prize of $1,500 and publication by Ohio State University Press is given annually for a collection of short fiction. Submit a manuscript of 150 to 300 pages of short stories, novellas, or a combination of the two with a $20 entry fee during the month of January. Send an SASE or visit the Web site for complete guidelines.

Ohio State University Press, Prize in Short Fiction, 180 Pressey Hall, 1070 Carmack Road, Columbus, OH 43210-1002.

Call for entries: Warren Adler Short Story Contest

Warren Adler
Short Story Contest
Deadline: January 15, 2011
Entry Fee: $15
Web site: www.warrenadler.com/writing-contest.shtml


A prize of $1,000 and publication on the Warren Adler Web site is given annually for a short story. Warren Adler will judge. Submit a story of up to 2,500 words with a $15 entry fee by January 15. Visit the Web site for complete guidelines.

Call for entries: Crazyhorse

The Crazyhorse Fiction Prize and the Lynda Hull Memorial Poetry Prize

Winners receive $2,000 each and publication in Crazyhorse.

The deadline to enter this year's prizes: January 15, 2011.

Enter by uploading a file of your manuscript online or by mailing in a paper manuscript. Each manuscript entered should consist of up to twenty-five pages of fiction or up to three poems (up to 10 pages total of poetry). For each manuscript entered, include a reading fee of $16 per manuscript, which includes a one-year/two-issue subscription to Crazyhorse. More than one manuscript may be entered. For each additional fiction or poetry manuscript entered and entry fee paid, your subscription to Crazyhorse will extend by one year/two issues. Subscriptions begin with Crazyhorse Number 79, Spring 2011; the winning manuscripts will be published in Crazyhorse Number 80, Fall 2011.

To enter, go to http://www.crazyhorsejournal.org/page.php?id=108

Reviewers praise new collection of stories by UW prof Brad Watson

From a University of Wyoming press release:

Southern literature in the tradition of Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty is alive and well and living in -- of all places -- Wyoming.

Come again? Wyoming?

Reviewers are praising the southern literature heritage found in "Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives," the recent collection of stories written by University of Wyoming English Professor Brad Watson.

The book's popularity comes as no surprise to Watson's readers, who got a taste of his unique southern perspective in Watson's previous works, "Last Days of the Dog-Men," and "Heaven of Mercury," for which he was nominated for the 2002 National Book Award in Fiction.

Writing in Esquire, Daniel Torday notes, "Brad Watson's third book is a clear reminder that Southern literature will always rise again."

Torday continues, "Watson's South is modernized, but it breathes the same gothic, aesthetically precise breaths as the finest Southern writing. The ability of a writer like Watson to emigrate from his South and migrate his Southern sensibility into his writing keeps Southern literature breathing. It's not lost on a reader that Watson himself lives and teaches in Wyoming today, not Alabama or Mississippi."

Boston Globe book reviewer John Freeman ranks Watson's work among the year's best fiction books.

"They (the stories) plainly depict the importance of resilience in a world determined to undermine it," he writes. "Brad Watson's characters foul up their lives, as fathers, as sons, but they keep on."

But Freeman thinks too much is made of Watson writing about the South.

"The setting is the American South, but ... like Welty and O'Connor before him, he simply writes -- and that's why he gets it right."

Originally from Mississippi, Watson teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at UW. He previously taught at The University of Alabama, Harvard University, The University of California-Irvine and The University of Mississippi, and has held fellowships through the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lannan Foundation.

For more information and links to additional reviews, visit http://www.bradwatsonfiction.blogspot.com/ 

Photo: Author Brad Watson plays with his dog Maji at a ranch near Laramie. (Katie Watson Photo)

C.J. Box's "geezer noir" story in new anthology

News from Cheyenne writer C.J. Box:

A new short story by C.J. Box will be published in December 2010.

"Damn Near Dead 2: Live Noir or Die Trying"

Edited by Bill Crider.

Introduction by Charlaine Harris.

Trade paperback original / $18 (Canada $21.95) December 2010 / 978-1-935415-21-3)

Features original "geezer noir" stories by Ace Atkins, C. J. Box, Christa Faust, Ed Gorman, Carolyn Haines, Joe R. Lansdale, Denise Mina, Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini, Cornelia Read, Kat Richardson, S. J Rozan, Don Winslow, and more!

C.J. Box's contribution is called "The End of Jim and Ezra."

FMI: http://www.cjbox.net/

"Working Words" anthology features Cheyenne story

Michael Shay, Wyoming Arts Council staffer and one of your trusty wyomingarts bloggers, has one of his stories in the new anthology "Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams," fresh from Coffee House Press in Minneapolis. Editor is Detroit's M.L. Liebler, who's been to Wyoming several times (and may travel this way again -- stay tuned). Check out the book at http://www.coffeehousepress.org/working-words.asp

The story, "The Problem with Mrs. P," was in Mike's first collection, "The Weight of a Body," published by Ghost Road Press in Denver. The story is set in Cheyenne.

Call for entries: NPR's "Three-Minute Fiction"

Enter your story (600 words or less) to NPR's "Three Minute Fiction" contest.

Each round, our judges throw out a challenge. This time, your story must begin with the line, "Some people swore that the house was haunted." It must end with, "Nothing was ever the same again after that."

Author Michael Cunningham is the judge (and he also came up with the opening and closing lines.

FMI: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129752769

Meet the Equality State Book Festival presenters: Jaimee Wriston Colbert

Jaimee Wriston Colbert is one of the presenters for the Equality State Book Festival Sept. 24-25 in Casper.

Here's some info about Jaimee:

Jaimee Wriston Colbert is the author of a new novel, Shark Girls, nominated for the ALA Notable Books of 2010 List and a finalist for the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Awards; a linked stories collection, Dream Lives of Butterflies, which won the gold medal in the 2008 Independent Publisher Awards; a novel in stories, Climbing the God Tree, winner of the Willa Cather Fiction Prize; and the story collection Sex, Salvation, and the Automobile, winner of the Zephyr Publishing Prize. Her stories have appeared in numerous journals, including TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Tampa Review, Connecticut Review and New Letters, broadcast on “Selected Shorts,” archived in “New Letters on the Air,” and anthologized. Two recent stories won the Jane’s Stories National Short Story Award, 2008, and the Isotope Editors’ Fiction Prize, 2009. Originally from Hawai’i, she is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at SUNY, Binghamton University.

Jaimee will wrap up the festival with “Stories that Bite Back: A Reading from Shark Girls” from 8-9 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 25, in the Aley Fine Arts Center, Durham Hall, Casper College. The event is free and open to the public.

Shark Girls has been nominated for the ALA Notable Books of 2010 List and as a finalist for the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Awards. The novel takes place in Hawai’i and follows the lives of two sisters, from Hawai’i to Maine, in the aftermath of a shark attack in Oahu. Books will be available for purchase and signing at this event.

For a full schedule of bookfest events, go to http://www.equalitystatebookfest.com/

Call for entries: Ruminate Magazine

From Ruminate Magazine in Fort Collins, Colo.:

We are now accepting entries for the 2011 Short Story Prize. We are proud to announce that our annual short story prize is now being sponsored by the William Van Dyke Charitable Fund and is being renamed The William Van Dyke Short Story Prize. The prize award has also been generously increased to 1,000.00. We are so grateful for this generous gift.

The entry deadline is October 15th, 2010.

FMI: http://www.ruminatemagazine.org/contests/short-story.html

Call for entries: Fish Short Story Prize

From the Fish Publishing web site:

The Fish Short Story Prize for 2010/2011 is open for entries. We are delighted to announce that Simon Mawer, author of "The Glass Room" (and seven other novels) will judge the prize.

Fish Publishing runs the short story competition each year, the winners of which are published in the annual Fish Anthology.

Roddy Doyle, Colum McCann and Dermot Healy, previously judges of the Fish Short Story Prize, are honorary patrons.

The Fish Short Story Prize welcomes stories on any theme written in English, with a maximum of 5,000 words. The Anthology will be launched during the West Cork Literary Festival, July 2011.

Fish have been running the short story contest since 1995. Publication in the anthology has been a stepping stone for many into successful writing careers.

One Story offers summer workshop

One Story magazine will be offering an intimate 6-day writers workshop to help emerging writers answer the question our editors get asked regularly: Should I get an Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree?

The workshop will be held in Brooklyn July 25-30.

The week will include morning workshops, afternoon craft lectures, and evening panels with writers and editors, agents, and MFA directors. All events are designed to give students the practical advice they need to either apply for an MFA or to launch their career outside of academia.

For complete details, click here.

"New West" reviews Alyson Hagy's new book

Jenny Shank reviewed Alyson Hagy’s new story collection, “Ghosts of Wyoming,” in New West.

She concluded the review this way:

With the stories in “Ghosts of Wyoming,” Alyson Hagy makes a convincing case that restless and unquiet spirits haunt her home state. Or maybe it’s just the wind.

Alyson teaches at UW and is the winner of a 2006 creative writing fellowship from the Wyoming Arts Council. She will read from “Ghosts of Wyoming” at the Albany County Public Library in Laramie on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2 p.m. She also will participate in a reading of Graywolf Press authors at the AWP Conference in Denver in April.

Read the entire New West review at http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/things_that_go_bump_in_wyoming_alyson_hagys_ghosts_of_wyoming/C39/L39/

Reclusive author J.D. Salinger dies at 91

Reclusive writer J.D. Salinger died today. He was 91.

Salinger didn't publish much. But with him it was quality, not quantity. He wrote one of the best-selling novels of all time, "Catcher in the Rye," also one of the most-banned books in U.S. schools.

He also wrote one of the best American short story collections, "Nine Stories." As a young short story writer, I read each one of these over and over in an attempt to absorb their magic.

Here's what New York Times writer Charles McGrath had to say on the subject (images above also from NYT):

The stories were remarkable for their sharp social observation, their pitch-perfect dialogue (Mr. Salinger, who used italics almost as a form of musical notation, was a master not of literary speech but of speech as people actually spoke it), and for the way they demolished whatever was left of the traditional architecture of the short story — the old structure of beginning, middle, end — in favor of an architecture of emotion, in which a story could turn on a tiny alteration of mood or irony. Mr. Updike said he admired “that open-ended Zen quality they have, the way they don’t snap shut.”

--Mike Shay

Essence -- 2010 VSA Arts "Call for Writing"

The VSA arts Call for Writing invites students, ages 11–18 years, to interpret their world through the use of creative writing in the form of short works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Writers may use their own experience for inspiration or base their writings on fictional events. Students submitting writing must have a disability or a connection to people with disabilities.
The selected pieces will become part of the VSA arts online writing journal, Infinite Difference.
All submissions must be submitted by Friday, November 20, 2009.
Entry guidelines and forms: http://www.vsarts.org/x889.xml