Corry's a Winner!

Congratulations to Corry, who placed in the Writers of the Future annual contest with her story Shutdown.

Check out the story about Corry in the <a href="http://www.redmond-reporter.com/news/148012155.html">Redmond Reporter</a> for a picture of our favorite writer-physicist receiving her award.

Shutdown appears in Writers o the Future Volume 28.

Announcing... the Writers' Workshop at Westercon 65

We're pleased to announce that we will be running the Writers' Workshop at Westercon 65 in Seatac from July 5-8, 2012.

The guidelines have not yet been posted to the Westercon website (but we hear they'll be up soon).  Until then, you can find them right here.

Because we have less lead time to oraganize and a different roster of attending pros, we will be accepting fewer manuscripts for this workshop.  We will accept only one submission per writer, and manuscripts should not be over 8,000 words.  All short stories will be scheduled for round robin sessions, and all novel excerpts for individual sessions. 

The deadline for the Westercon 65 Writers' Workshop is April 29, 2012. 

Norwescon Fairwood Social

When you're at Norwescon next weekend, be sure to stop by our social! You don't have to be part of the workshop already--you can come and find out about us for next year, bond with fellow writers, or make connections to set up your own local critique group. Refreshments and writer camaraderie provided.

Saturday, April 7
1:30-3:30
Presidential Suite (Room 1360)

Norwescon 35 Writers Workshop - Update #2

As of this morning, all schedules and manuscripts have been mailed to our participants (both the writers who submitted, and the pros who will critique manuscripts). 

If you are a writer who did not receive your workshop schedule, OR if you received a schedule but did not receive a handbook or (for Round Robin participants and pros) did not recieve manuscripts along with your schedule, please let us know ASAP.

This year, we scheduled 28 individual manuscript sessions, 2 individual sessions for short-shorts which included 2 stories per session, and 5 Round Robin sessions, each including 3 writers and their manuscripts. This is a record number of sessions and required record numbers of volunteer hours from our professional critiquers. 

We will also be hosting a social for our workshop participants and anyone interested in the workshop. The social will be Saturday afternoon from 1:30 until 3:30 in the Presidential Suite.

The marvelous wonder duo Ken Scholes and J. A. Pitts will leading one teaching workshop this year which will be held Saturday afternoon. Email us if you're interested in attending!

Norwescon 35 Writers Workshop - Update #1

As of the workshop deadline on November 30, we received a total of 47 submissions from 34 individual writers--a new record!  Submissions included:

• 16 novel excerpts
• 31 short stories (8 of these 2500 words or less)
• 25 fantasy
• 5 horror
• 13 SF
• 4 that are hard to classify
• 9 YA (or "could be YA") manuscripts
• Ages: between 17 and post-retirement
• Skill levels: writers who have never submitted before up through writers who have sold to pro-level magazines

We're pleased to confirm that we should be able to schedule workshop sessions for all manuscripts this year.

We're also pleased that we will be scheduling a record of 5 Round Robin critique sessions this year. In Round Robin sessions, participating writers will offer to and receive critique from peers as well as receiving critique from professional volunteers. Learning to read critically and compose manuscript critiques is a useful skill that will help writers improve their own work, and are always happy to give participants the option to participate in Round Robins.

We'll  be working with the Norwescon programming department later this month to begin scheduling dates, times, and panel rooms for our workshop sessions.

Writers Workshop Guidelines Now Available!

We are pleased to announce that the guidelines for the Writers' Workshop at Norwescon 35 in April, 2012 are now available!  If you participated in the workshop in 2010 or 2011, or inquired about the workshop in 2011, you should have received a copy of the guidelines in your email.  If not, visit the Norwescon website.

Here are the basics:

• In most circumstances we accept 2 pieces from any one person, only one of which may be a novel excerpt, and neither of which may be more than 10,000 words.
• Submissions will be critiqued in private, live sessions at Norwescon in 2012.  Most sessions use 4 critquers who are professional guests at the convention (almost always professionally published genre writers).
• We have certain requirements for submissions, including that you use proper manuscript format (and we WILL critique your format), send a cover letter, and that all stories be completed.
• Our deadline is VERY EARLY this year compared to past years: November 30.  So if you'd like to submit, get hopping!  We set the deadline as late as we can each year and are not able to accept late submissions.
• We fill all the slots we can handle every year, so if you want to participate, we encourage to you to submit as early as possible.

Don't worry if you haven't been to a critique before, or if you don't feel that your work is perfect.  Writers at all levels are welcome to submit to the workshop!

Congratulations, Corry!

Congratulations to Fairwood member Corry Lee, whose short story placed third in the Writers of the Future Quarterly Contest for the 2nd Quarter (January - March) 2011.  Corry's story will appear in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, volume 28 in Spring, 2012.

Erin A. Tidwell's short story also placed as a silver honorable mention for the same quarter.