The Southern Sin Essay Contest

Creative Nonfiction (CNF) and the Oxford Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference & Workshop are looking for essays that capture the South in all its steamy sinfulness. For example: skipping church to watch football, coveting your neighbor’s Real Housewife of Atlanta, or just drinking an unholy amount of sweet tea.

Contest sponsors invite writers to confess their own wrongdoings, gossip about their neighbor’s depravity, or tell them about the writer’s 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.

The submission deadline is July 31, 2012. The selected essays will be published in Creative Nonfiction #47, and CNF and Oxford will award $5000 for Best Essay.

Creative Nonfiction #47 will be launched at the 2013 Oxford Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference & Workshop (March 2013).

To submit, visit: www.creativenonfiction.org

Village Writers L’Audible Art at The Woodlands May 14

The Hot Springs Village Writers’ Club will present their 15th Annual L’Audible Art event on Monday, May 14, from 2-4 p.m., in the Ouachita Room at the Ponce de Leon Center (The Woodlands) of Hot Springs Village.

In a café setting offering complimentary wine, cheese, and soft drinks, twenty members of the Village Writers’ Club, [...]

Help with Microsoft Word Available to Authors

Arkansas writer Linda Rigsbee and the Elkins Writers’ Group are presenting “Word for Authors,” a series of mini-classes at their monthly meetings to help writers get the most out of Microsoft Word.

The May 12 session will focus on using Word to build an author bio and prepare it to be uploaded to the web.

Linda Rigsbee [...]

Travis Lee featured Whodunits speaker May 12

Detective Travis Lee

The Whodunits Club will meet Saturday, May 12, at noon at Restaurant On The Corner at 3582 N. Hwy. 112, Fayetteville.

The guest speaker will be Travis Lee, a Fayetteville Police Detective for ten years who has also served on the Swat Team, and has been influential in passing legislation regarding adoption practices [...]

How to Submit to ArkansasWriters.com

Considering that this is a site for writers, I am often dismayed to receive unprofessionally-written announcements from [...]

May 14 Deadline for Fiction500 Contest

Contest Writing Prompt

The entry fee is $12, the window for submission is May 1-14, and the first prize is $500.

The Fiction500 contest is sponsored by the not-for-profit Fiction500 Foundation (status pending) in San Diego, California. According to its website, the contest was inspired by the Three-Minute Fiction Writing Contest that National Public Radio began in [...]

Pulp Fiction is Back!

A resurgence of the writing style associated with Dick Tracy, The Maltese Falcon, and Doc Savage will be celebrated at Pulp Ark 2012 at the Independence County Fairgrounds in Batesville, Arkansas April 20-22.

Called “New Pulp,” this writing style emphasizes linear storytelling, creative use of language, and plenty of action.

To learn more about New Pulp, make [...]

New Critique Group Formed in Bentonville

Writers in the Bentonville area have formed a critique group that meets the first and fourth Thursday from 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. at Taco Bell on 14th Street in Bentonville.

Members may submit poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Writers who wish to be critiqued email their submissions in advance of the meeting.

For further information, [...]

Lorian Hemingway Release Good Example of How Not to Ask for Publicity

I just got a lengthy email asking me to announce a short story contest. Naturally I wanted to pass the information on to Arkansas writers, but when I started reading the announcement, I found myself wandering in a morass of irrelevant material, looking for information that should have been presented in the first 300 [...]

Robyn Leatherman publishes book about Trail of Tears

Arkansas author Robyn Leatherman’s novel Summer Rain tells the story of a young Cherokee woman named Rain who comes of age at the time of the Cherokee [...]