78 Writers Conference at Ocean Park (Maine)
Some of our presenters this year include:
Teri Grimmis a fourth generation Floridian. She received her BFA in poetry at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and her MFA at Vermont College. Her poetry collection, Dirt Eaters, was chosen for the University of Central Florida’s contemporary poetry series and was published by the University Press of Florida. Her second collection, Becoming Lyla Dore, was published by Red Hen Press in the spring of 2016.
Her writing has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Green Mountains Review, The Rumpus, Indiana Review, South Dakota Review, Connecticut Review, Sugar House Review, EAT and Homegrown in Florida: An Anthology of Florida Childhoods, among other journals and anthologies and she is a contributor for the podcast, Swamp Radio. She is the recipient of a Nebraska Arts Fellowship and has been awarded residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Hambidge Center. She teaches in the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s low-res MFA program.
Nominated in 2008 for a Pushcart Award in fiction, Bruce Pratt’s debut novel,The Serpents of Blissfull, was published by Mountain State Press in March of 2011. Pratt won the 2007Andre Dubus Awardin short fiction, and was a runner up or finalist for the 2007 fiction award fromGeorgetown Review, the 2007 flash fiction prize fromMindprints, the 2006 Ontario Prize, the 2005 Rick DeMarinis Short Story Award, and the 2003 Fiction Award fromDogwood, A Journal of Poetry and Prose.His short fiction has also appeared inThe Greensboro Review,TheBoston Fiction Annual Review,The Dos Passos Review,WordSmitten Quarterly Journal, Briar Cliff Review, Portland Magazine, Watchword, The Staccato Literary Magazine, The Gihon River Review, The Dalhousie Review, Puckerbrush Review, Cooweescoowee, Existere, Vermont Literary Review, Hawk and Handsaw, The Blue Earth Review, Diner, Roanoke Review, Potomac Review, The Wisconsin Review, The Platte Valley Review, The Binnacle, Apocalypse, Crosscut, Stolen Island Review, andThe Trust and Treachery Anthology.
Deadline for Early Registration is July 1, 2018
Deadline for Contest Entries is July 1, 2018
Additional forms will be available on the Ocean Park website shortly.
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News about our attendees
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Peggy Elliott recently had a short story accepted for Where's My Tiara?,an anthology of women's writing. She also won an honorable mention in the Topsham (ME) Library's annual Joy of the Pen contest. That story will be published online. Both stories had previously won prizes at the Writers Conference at Ocean Park.
Jane Sloven’s mystery,Termination of Benefits, will be coming out in March/April through an independent publisher, Maine Authors Publishing Service (MAPS). On April 18, Jane’s first reading will be sponsored by the University of New England’s School of Social Work and the Maine Writers Collection on the Portland campus.
Compassionate Journey: Honoring Our Mothers’ Stories, co-authored by Maggie Butler, Cheryl Gillespie, Jenny Radsma, Martha Rice, and Jane Sloven will come out in May, also throughMaine Authors Publishing Service.
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Prompts
Write a story, poem, or personal essay using one of the following prompts:
1. It wasn’t until I moved to…
2.He was in his late thirties…
3. Use the words: outrageous, lyrics, keyboard, bewilderment &
tension.
4. Simon turned up the volume...
5. The constellations beckoned...
6. Use the words: moth-like, forgetting, dream, flickering, hollow,
and witness.
We look forward to seeing you in August.
Jim & Donna