Free Movie Screening!

For foreign film aficionados, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will be showing a series of Korean director Lee Chang-dong's films from Thursday, January 3rd, to Saturday, January 5th. His debut film, "Green Fish," which follows a young man who returns home from military service and joins a criminal gang, screens at 5:00 PM on January 5th, and admission is free! Just click on the link, and scroll down for details.

Find the Fastest Respondiing Literary Agents

Do you have a manuscript and are you looking for an agent? Submit to the fastest responders first by checking out who has the fastest response rate at LitMatch - Literary Agent Directory, Response Times and Submission Tracking

From their blog:

"Up ‘til now, we’ve been focused on making the site as useful as possible for the individual user tracking submissions in our system. But now that we have a strong base of submission information to draw from, we’re proud to be able to add these statistics to our ever-growing set of literary agent research tools and offer them to our registered and unregistered users alike!
This upgrade covers all the basics, breaking down the responses for both agencies and individual agents, with separate stats for email and postal mail responses."

Writing Anger -- Some Helpful Insights

Writing about emotions can be more difficult than experiencing them. In Emotional Rollercoaster: Writing Anger, professional freelance writer Apryl Duncan makes clear the reasons why every writing teacher we've ever had says, "Show, don't tell."

Summarize What You Read For Fun And Profit

Brijit is a privately-owned, angel-financed online media startup with teams based in Washington, DC, Mountain View, CA and Beijing. Founded in 2006, they employ a distributed team of editors and writers.What they do is publish on-line summaries of magazine articles and TV news shows in order to provide guideposts to readers who simply don't have much spare time. Their goal is to make it easier for all of us to discover and access the world's best content, quickly and inexpensively. You can go to their website, search for topics that interest you to find a brief summary and a link to the article referred. Toward this end, they will pay $5 for your summaries of 100 words or less.

Killer First Lines

A good first line gets your attention by striking a nerve. In this informative article, Susan Sundwall shares some insightful pointers on writing a first line that will get your reader's attention and quickly pull them into your story, making them want to learn more.

Agni Literary Magazine

"Agni" is not only the name of the Vedic guard of fire. It's also the name of a print and online publication that accepts submissions of poetry, short fiction, and essays between September 1st and May 31st. The print magazine is published twice yearly, in spring and in fall, while their website is updated monthly with new, online-only, fiction, poetry, essays, reviews, and interviews. They pay $10 per printed (or printed-out) page for prose, and $20 per printed page for poetry (with $150 maximum). They will consider novel excerpts provided they are cohesive enough to stand alone.

Clean Sheets Erotica Magazine

If sexuality is featured in your writing, you may be able to market your work to Clean Sheets Erotica Magazine. They are accepting submissions for their upcoming Sex & Spirituality anthology, to be published next summer. They are looking for stories and poems that invoke spirituality along with sexuality. Stories should be less than 5000 words and can be much shorter. Payment is $50 per story, $25 per poem, plus 2 copies of the book. Deadline is March 1, 2008.

Reverse Dictionary

I just discovered this fabulous online writing tool, a reverse dictionary! Type in a concept and out pops related words. I'm sure everyone in the world already knows about it, but I just discovered it - it's mucho fun!

OneLook Reverse Dictionary

Apple Valley Review Accepting Submissions

Apple Valley Review, an online literary journal, is published twice a year, in spring and in fall. They accept submissions of poetry, fiction, and essays year round and are looking for work that has both mainstream and literary appeal. Prose should be from 100 to 3000 words (shorter pieces stand a greater chance of being published), novel excerpts must be self-contained, and preference is given to non-rhyming poetry under two pages. The deadline for submissions to their spring issue is February 15, 2008. Although they are not currently a paying market, all work published in the Apple Valley Review will be considered for the annual Apple Valley Review's Editor Prize of $100 plus a book of poetry or fiction.

Premier Book Awards

Premier Book Awards is now accepting entries for the 2008 Awards in both fiction and non-fiction.

With so many new titles published every year it is increasingly difficult for any given title to stand out. One of the best ways for a book to gain credibility, exposure, and increased sales is to win an award for writing excellence.

These awards were established to recognize meritorious works by writers who self-published or had their books published by a small press or independent book publisher. POD books are welcome. The contest is open to selected book length fiction and non-fiction titles with a 2007 or 2008 copyright, published in the English language and targeted for an adult audience in the North American market. There are $100 cash awards for the winners in each category, plus a $500 award each for the best fiction and best non-fiction of the year. Winners also receive a certificate suitable for framing and Premier Book Awards will issue a press release to announce the achievement. Check out the website for details: www.PremierBookAwards.com

Poets&Writers Submissions Calendar

Quick reminder to check out the Poets&Writers, Inc. Grants & Awards Submissions Calendar. Lots of great stuff listed there!

Groovy Writer Hangout: Cafe Muse in Los Angeles

Cafe Muse, a groovy cafe/coffeehouse in Hollywood, just wrote us to let us know about her newly opened we-heart-writers-and-artists cafe:

"I am writing because I wanted to let you know that we just opened a new writer-friendly cafe/coffeehouse in Hollywood. It's called Cafe MUSE, and it's located at 6547 Santa Monica Blvd, in the heart of Hollywood's Theater Row. I wanted to let you know that it's a great place for writers to work because we keep it very quiet, we have free Wi-Fi, and some electric outlets for patrons to use. We are an artist's cafe, being the Muse and all... and so I'd love it if you'd pass it on to your writers that we welcome them at the cafe!! We also have really great food (healthy, mostly veg) and really yummy organic coffees & teas. We always hope that all patrons will buy food and beverages, of course, so we can continue to keep our doors open, but we welcome the coffee-refillers, as well! It's a beautiful, serene, and comfortable environment, with a very creative vibe. There are a lot more details, as well as pictures and our menu, up on our website... www.CafeMuseLA.com."

Call for Film and Video Interpretations of Poetry

Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Call for film and video
"Deadline: postmarked by January 30th, 2008
Entry fee: $15.00 (non-refundable)
Notification by February 15th, 2008
Festival dates: March 20th-23rd, 2008
Poems of Provocation & Witness
Poets have long played a central role in movements for social change. Today, at a critical
juncture in our country’s history, poetry that gives voice to the voiceless, names the unnamable, and speaks directly from the individual and collective conscience is more important than ever. The festival will explore and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change:reaching across differences, considering personal and social responsibility, asserting the centrality of the right to free speech, bearing witness to the diversity and complexity of human experience through language, imagining a better world.

Film & Video Submissions:
We are looking for artistic, experimental, and challenging film/video interpretations of poetry
that explore critical social issues. Selected work will be screened during the Split This Rock
Poetry Festival film program. Entries must be submitted on DVD (NTSC only) or CD (.mov format only), no HD formats. Please note: videos with h264, divx compression or any format not mentioned above will not be accepted.

• Running time for entries should not exceed 15 minutes.
• All entries must be in English.
• All work submitted must be original. If portions of the submitted work contain material from
• third parties, author must have and be able to provide written permission to use such material.

All entries must include:

• - Completed entry form
• (download at: http://www.poetrycenter.org/calls/Split_this_Rock-ENTRY.pdf)
• - $15 entry fee (check made payable to: The Poetry Center)
• - A short synopsis, artist's bio, and artist's statement (on one page only)

Please label all DVDs and CDs with title, running time, director’s name and contact email.
Please mail entries to: For more information:
The Poetry Center of Chicago www.SplitThisRock.org
37 S. Wabash, Suite 704
Chicago, IL 60603
info(at)splitthisrock.org
www.poetrycenter.org
Attn: Francesco Levato/Split This Rock submission
NO PHONE CALLS ACCEPTED"

Call for Submissions: Cold-Drill

cold.drill: "cold-drill is published annually by the MFA Department of Boise State University and is actively looking for fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction from the traditional to the experimental for our 38th issue. We strive to publish work that goes beyond the obvious and that provokes and stimulates us and our community of readers. We are also interested in innovative and interesting visual art. We take great pride in our design and the finished product, which includes first-time published writers side-by-side with established authors and poets, and feel that a journal should be both visually appealing and mentally stimulating. Submissions are read from September 15 through January 5."

Call for Poets: 2008 Julia Peterkin Award

Information on the Julia Peterkin Award from the English Department of Converse College: "2008 Julia Peterkin Award The winner of the 2007 Julia Mood Peterkin award is Sharon May of Paradise, California. Eligibility The 2008 Julia Peterkin Award is open to all poets. Works previously published in periodicals are eligible for inclusion in the submission. Only original works in English may be submitted. Manuscript Format Guidelines Entries must be typed on quality paper, 8 1/2 by 11. Photocopies or copies from letter-quality printers are acceptable. Each entry should include up to 10 pages of poetry (blind submissions ), along with a cover page including the writer’s name, address, daytime phone number, and titles of submission. Also include a one-paragraph biography. Entry Requirements
* A handling fee of $15 made payable to: Converse College English Department.
Deadline: February 15, 2008.
* Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you would like direct notification of contest results. Results will be mailed in May of 2008. No manuscripts can be returned.
* Send one copy of the manuscript prepared according to format guidelines.
* The winner will receive $1,000 and travel expenses for a reading at Converse College. Winner should be willing to read at Converse during Fall 2008."

Tongue & Groove: Reading in Los Angeles

"Tongue & Groove"
A monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word and music. This month featuring: Jose Montoya "In Formation: 20 Years of Joda", Richard Montoya -Culture Clash, Luis Rodriguez "Always Running", Mario Rocha and Pocho Joe.

Sunday the 9th of December
6:00-7:30 pm
The Hotel Café
1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
1/3rd of a block below Hollywood Bl.
Hollywood, Ca 90028
$5.00

Leave yourself time to find parking and get there early. Seating is limited and we're starting at 6:05!

* For more info on the writers go the blog on www.tongueandgroovela.com

Conrad Romo (323) 937-0136
www.hotelcafe.com

Bluecat Screenplay Competition

This just in from the folks at BlueCat:

2008 BlueCat Screenplay Competition CALL FOR ENTRIES

The BlueCat Screenplay Competition is open for entries of feature length scripts for our tenth year!
*Grand Prize:$10,000
*Four Finalists: $1500
*Every writer who enters receives written script analysis

EARLY BIRD DEADLINE: JAN 2, 2008
All screenplays submitted by JAN 2 will receive their analysis by FEB 1
(entries must be received by midnight Wed, Jan 2)

Entry fee $50
SUBMIT NOW: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com

Since 1998, BlueCat has become the screenwriter's screenplay contest, with unmatched and genuine support for all writers. More community than contest, BlueCat writers rally, stopping, listening and looking for their space to grow as screenwriters.

BlueCat Screenplay Competition
Hollywood, CA 90038
www.bluecatscreenplay.com
www.myspace.com/bluecatscreenplay
info@bluecatscreenplay.com

So Many Contests, Plenty of Time ~

You name it, ByLine has a contest for it. Poetry? Fiction? Articles? Creative Non-fiction? Character Sketches? Genre fiction? Humor? Memoir? Regarding eating or guilt, it's all there on their website. Entry fees are low: from $3 to $5, and prizes range from $10 to $40, plus publication. And what particularly appealing, they have contests scheduled all the way up until June 2008!

Franklin-Christoph Free Poetry Contest

Plenty of time left to fine-tune up to 3 of your poems and submit them to the Franklin-Christoph Free Poetry Contest: the deadline isn't until December 31st. First prize is $1000 and publication on Franklin-Christoph.com. 5 Merit Award winners will each receive a $290 1901 fountain pen (or alternate FC product of your choice of equal or lesser value), and publication on Franklin-Christoph.com. They are open to all poetry, on all subjects, short or tall, large or small. No fee? Possible $1000? Maybe a really cool pen? Being published? Nothing to lose!

Wild Violet's Poetry and Short Fiction Contests

Wild Violet, an online literary magazine, in it's quest to bridge the gap between academia and pop culture, is sponsoring its fifth annual writing contests. Deadlines for online entries is December 31st. There's a $5 entry fee for poems (up to 200 words, please), and stories (up to 2,500 words). First prize for both poetry and fiction winners is $100 cash and publication. Two Honorable Mentions will also receive publication.
In addition, they accept submissions year-round, but, since they are a non-profit enterprise, payment is in the form of a bio on their contributors page and a link to your website, if you have one. They accept submissions of:

• Poetry
• Fiction
• Creative Non-Fiction
• Political Essays
• Humorous Essays
• Artwork
• Photography
• Reviews
• Interviews
• Cuttings (thoughts and observations)

Don't Trust Anyone Over ... ?

Do you remember turning 30? Looking forward to it? Dreading it? Well, Arc Poetry Magazine turns 30 on December 31, 2007, and they are accepting submissions for a reflective issue on what turning 30 is all about. Unpublished poems of any age, size or shape are welcome, as long as they reach them by their 30th birthday, and they pay $40 a page!

J.D. Vine Publications Writing Competitions Are Now Open!!

Looking to get your work into print and maybe pick up some money for it as well? J.D. Vine Publications offers unique writing competitions for publication in The Creative Writer. If you have good pieces of fiction and poetry they want to see them published! The winner of each competition also becomes the Featured Author or the Featured Poet of the next edition, but not only the winners get published! The books are composed of pieces by many of the writers who enter the competitions! You may submit online or via regular mail. The deadline is December 31, 2007. There is a small entry fee: Fiction $5.00, Poetry $2.00, and there are no word count limitations.