J-Job Alert: Book Festival Director Sought (Atlanta)

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

The Marcus Jewish Community Center (Atlanta) is looking for a Book Festival Director: “As one of the MJCCA’s most critically-acclaimed and high profile programs, the two-week Book Festival of the MJCCA has a strong national and local status that allows the agency to attract best-selling authors and some of the country’s best speakers. Each November, the book festival engages more than 10,000 festival-goers with 45+ authors, speakers, and celebrities. Throughout the year, the festival hosts ‘Page from the Book Festival’ events that create year-long excitement for Atlanta’s readers.” For position details and application instructions, check JewishJobs.com.

The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
2
  • Faye Rapoport DesPres recently published such a good post on rejection on her blog that she inspired me to go back and dig up a short essay of mine on the same subject.
  • On the Fiction Writers Review blog, Celeste Ng reflects on naming practices in fiction–and provides some links to online name generators you may want to try.
  • I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I have sometimes managed to turns peeves and annoyances into fee-garnering writing (for one example, see this essay). So naturally, Midge Raymond’s latest writing prompt caught my eye.
  • Kelly James-Enger suggests “5 Things for Freelancers to Do Before Year’s End.”
  • Feeling a bit crunched? Worried that you aren’t writing during this holiday season? Lori Ann Bloomfield shares tips for making sure you don’t neglect your writing practice.
  • If you haven’t heard about the latest Facebook changes, Robert Lee Brewer will help you get oriented.
  • It has been quite a long time since I’ve shared a New York Times “After Deadline” post (on grammar, usage, and style). Here’s an example of what you’ve been missing.
  • From David Abrams: A gorgeous look at the year in book covers.

    • Please tune in tomorrow, when I’ll share the story behind my first commissioned short story, “Fidelis,” which is currently airing on NPR.

    Monday Markets/Jobs/Opportunities for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • Call for submissions on “Southern Sin”: “Creative Nonfiction and the Oxford Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference & Workshop are looking for essays that capture the South in all its steamy sinfulness–whether you’re skipping church to watch football, coveting your neighbor’s Real Housewife of Atlanta, or just drinking an unholy amount of sweet tea. Confess your own wrongdoings, gossip about your neighbor’s depravity, or tell us about your personal connection to a famous Southerner headed down the broad road to Hell. Whether the sin you discuss is deadly or just something that would make your mama blush we want to hear about it in an essay that is at least partially narrative–employing scenes, descriptions, etc. Your essay can channel William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker or Rick Bragg; it can be serious, humorous, or somewhere in between, but all essays must tell true stories, and must incorporate both sin and the South in some way. Usually the wages of sin is death, but this time we’re making an exception. The best essays will be published in Creative Nonfiction #47, and CNF and Oxford will be awarding multiple cash prizes (amount TBA).” Deadline: May 28, 2012.
  • From The First Line: “We are looking to fill some slots for our Favorite First Line section for 2012. Between now and the end of January, send us a 500-800 word critical essay about your favorite first line from a literary work. Payment is $20 for an accepted essay.”
  • Attention, DC-area writers! Leslie Pietrzyk has kindly posted the following: “The Jenny McKean Moore Free Community Workshop is one of the best deals in the DC writing world. Each year, a writer comes to DC to be in residence at George Washington University, and part of their obligation includes teaching a FREE, semester-long writing class. Yes, FREE. All you have to do is follow the application directions and keep your fingers crossed that your manuscript will be accepted. That’s right, even the application process is FREE! (Thank you, Jenny McKean Moore.)” You’ll find all of the details and application instructions here.
  • Interesting WritersWeekly.com article on “lucrative niches in children’s writing.”
  • “New to the 2012 Muse and the Marketplace conference, Grub Street is soliciting “Hour of Power” suggestions from presenters all over the country. We are looking for authors, editors, agents, publicists or literary industry professionals with a compelling topic they’d like to share with a group of up to 50 aspiring and emerging fiction and non-fiction writers. You can lead a lecture with Q&A, a discussion class, a panel, a series of writing exercises, or a combination of the above. Accepted presenters receive free tuition to the conference on the day of their presentation, breakfast and lunch, invitations to a private Kick-Off party. If you have books, we will sell those at the event. Travel and accommodations are not included. To apply: first, read some samples of previous Muse sessions here: http://www.grubstreet.org/index.php?id=687. Then, fill out our online submission form: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HOP2012 by January 16th, 2012. Winners will be notified by January 23rd. This year’s conference will be held May 5-6, 2012 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel.”
  • From Emerson College (Boston): “The Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing seeks a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor in the area of Magazine Writing and Publishing to teach a range of magazine publishing courses. The initial appointment is for the 2012-13 academic year beginning September 1, 2012.”
  • Simmons College (Boston) seeks a Writer/Editor, Tulsa World (Okla.) is looking for a Feature Writer, and the Center for Fiction (New York) invites applications for a Webmaster position.

    • Words of the Week: President Barack Obama

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    In fact, I am proud to say that no U.S. administration has done more in support of Israel’s security than ours. None. Don’t let anybody else tell you otherwise. It is a fact.

    Source: President Barack Obama’s keynote address before the Union for Reform Judaism’s Biennial.
    Read the text online, or (even better), watch the President give one of his best speeches ever. (IMHO, as the kids say.)

    It didn’t hurt that he wished the group a “Shabbat Shalom”; mentioned that “NFTY, I understand, is in the house”; shared his fatherly concerns over the skirts and curfews involved when his daughter Malia attends Bar and Bat Mitzvah events these days; credited the Reform movement for its essential, foundational work on civil rights; and gave a D’var Torah worthy of a pulpit rabbi.

    But in the end, he needed to convince his readers that he supports Israel.

    He convinced me.