Michigan Writers

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, August 26th 7:00 PM

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, August 26th 7:00 PM

The Playwrights Project with Michigan Writers Special event.
Tuesday, August 27th, we have a zoom table read of two short plays by the multi-talented MPP co-founder, Rick Plummer.
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82239091723

The Eight:is a short, one-act play. A Civil War veteran and a disfigured WWI veteran meet at a cemetery in 1920. In a Grand Army of the Republic plot in that cemetery, there are Civil War graves surrounding a monument. Among those graves are the headstones of eight Unknown Soldiers from that war. The recently returned soldier suffers from severe PTSD, survivor guilt, and is suicidal. His best friend was killed, alongside all members of their gun grew--only he survived. He is comforted by his late friend's fiancé, the GAR veteran's widowed sister, and a mysterious man. Who is this stranger and how is the veteran's su***de prevented?

Auf Seherin:is 20-minute play. 83 year-old Elfriede Rinkel, a widowed grandmother living in her home in San Francisco at Chanukah, 2006, is haunted by the ghosts of three female French resistance fighters who were executed at the N**i female concentration camp, Ravensbrük. Elfriede has married a Jewish man and has lived as a Jew herself since her immigration from Germany to the United States in the late 1950s. It is discovered that Elfiede was a guard at that notorious camp. Elfriede must decide whether to reveal to her married son and his family her disgracefully past, or keep it a secret as she has done all these years.

Please come! It's sure to be fascinating and Rick really looks forward to your impressions and insights.

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Dunes Review launch reading Sunday, Aug. 25, 2pm - https://mailchi.mp/cb20031c6285/michwriters-10343733

Poets Meet Musicians, August 26th, 7pm, MiddleCoast Brewing Company - https://mailchi.mp/3e8a28c1f1e2/poets-meet-musicians-august-26-7pm-middlecoast-brewing-company-17681350

"Transformational" free launch and reading Wed., 7pm - https://mailchi.mp/d7b8cddb02d3/openwindow-10343225

Where does art come from?: August Michigan Writers Newsletter - https://mailchi.mp/76dbab922118/michigan-writers-newsletter-10343118

Intro to the works of Nandi Comer, MI's Poet Laureate - https://mailchi.mp/017942f8c47d/openwindow-10342999

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, July 29th 7:00 PM

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, July 29th 7:00 PM

Find your people this Thursday at 6pm! - https://mailchi.mp/2208b1c2e621/openwindow-10342833

Poets Meet Musicians, July 29th, 7pm, MiddleCoast Brewing Company - https://mailchi.mp/b8b6754b8970/poets-meet-musicians-july-29-7pm-middlecoast-brewing-company-17653182

Find Your People in July: Michigan Writers Newsletter - https://mailchi.mp/adf316e0bb31/michigan-writers-newsletter-10342389

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, June 24th 7:00 PM

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, June 24th 7:00 PM

Poets Meet Musicians, June 24th, 7pm, MiddleCoast Brewing Company - https://mailchi.mp/db728ae364f3/poets-meet-musicians-june-24-7pm-middlecoast-brewing-company-17649526

Join the chapbook celebration + Writers Retreat readings! - https://mailchi.mp/d74a53b6a690/openwindow-10341612

A Cold Plunge: Michigan Writers June Newsletter - https://mailchi.mp/11343c850949/michigan-writers-newsletter-10341460

Register now for "When Writers Meet the Storm" workshop with Michigan Writers - https://mailchi.mp/8e016477c542/openwindow-10340983

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, May 20th, 7:00 PM

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, May 20th 7:00 PM

Poets Meet Musicians, May 20th, 7pm, MiddleCoast Brewing Company - https://mailchi.mp/996e530680a7/poets-meet-musicians-may-20-7pm-middlecoast-brewing-company-17645138

The next free workshop happens on May 25. See below for details. Links appear in the newsletter, and on the Traverse Area District Library events page.

“When Writers Meet the Storm”
Workshop with Jenifer DeBellis, May 25
Saturday, May 25, 2:00 pm, Traverse Area District Library

In this workshop, poet and author Jenifer DeBellis invites writers to utilize natural phenomena—in the form of severe storms, disasters, or other weather patterns—as unifying motifs to generate writing that juxtaposes extreme forces of nature with one’s identity politics and/or past experiences. Writers will examine (wo)man versus storm/phenomenon through prompt writing to uncover what happens when memory collides with forces of nature. Some major themes this workshop will explore include modes of tension, place-based inspiration, and mining memories that reveal identity and how these help poets and writers tap into the story within the story.

Further explanation: Ask yourself: What can happen when memory collides with forces of nature? A variation of this prompt was used to develop the opening poem in New Wilderness, “After the Rain,” which shows writers the power the storyteller brings to the finished work. It’s a rich connection to what we see happening with storytimes on TikTok, Reels, and YouTube, not to mention the variety of creative work that poets and writers bring to stages everywhere (like The Moth, TEDx, open mics, poetry festivals, readings and performance events).

Registration is free but seating is limited for this in-person event, so please do not register unless you plan to attend. Please register through this Eventbrite link or through TADL’s events site.

Jenifer DeBellis, M.F.A., is author of New Wilderness (a 2023 International Book Awards finalist), Warrior Sister, Cut Yourself Free from Your Assault, and Blood Sisters. Her freelance career spans over two decades, allowing her to ghostwrite and edit literary and mass media content. She edits Pink Panther Magazine and directs aRIFT Warrior Project and Detroit Writers’ Guild (501c3). She's featured in Psychology Today and Seattle's My Independence Report and her writing appears in AWP's Festival Writer, CALYX, the Good Men Project, Medical Literary Messenger, Solstice, and other fine journals. A former Meadow Brook Writing Project fellow, JDB facilitates summer workshops for Oakland University as well as teaches at Macomb Community College. JeniferDeBellis.com

Those members in the Ludington area, don't miss this opportunity.

Keys to Creativity: Michigan Writers May Newsletter - https://mailchi.mp/757da56172da/michigan-writers-newsletter-10312710

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, April 29th, 7:00 PM

Poets Meets Musicians meet tonight, Monday, April 29th, 7:00 PM

Poets Meet Musicians, Monday, April 29th, 7pm, MiddleCoast Brewing Company - https://mailchi.mp/459848d26046/poets-meet-musicians-april-29-7pm-middlecoast-brewing-company

Celebrate Poetry Month with a tribute/originals reading April 20! - https://mailchi.mp/323d0dc455a5/openwindow-10311046

Meet MichWriters Chapbook winners Melissa Seitz & Ruth Zwald! - https://mailchi.mp/b64ca0e2bfe3/openwindow-10289070

Michigan Writers Cooperative Press Announces 2024 Chapbook Contest Winners

Michigan Writers Cooperative Press (MWCP) is proud to announce the winners of our annual chapbook competition. This year we received many excellent manuscripts and are excited to publish two winners in two different genres.
Ruth Zwald’s Bones and Breath was named the poetry winner. In creative nonfiction, Melissa Seitz is the winner for her memoir, Brain Aura Blues.
These chapbooks will be published and released at a celebratory reading and reception on Sunday, June 9, 2024, at 7 p.m. This event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at the Writing House of the campus of the Interlochen Arts Academy to kick off the annual Writers Retreat. Mark your calendars and join us to celebrate the work of these fine writers.
Words have always been a focus in Ruth Zwald’s life. From high school forensics to a spoken word choral group in college, to her professional life as pastor and social worker --words have been honored. When an astrologer told Zwald several years ago she had no "earth" in her birth sign, she set about to find ways to ground. Zwald plants gardens and helps raise sheep and chickens on her farm in West Michigan. She became a student of indigenous spirituality and now never misses a solstice or equinox turning. Zwald also began digging up words like she digs potatoes - unearthing thoughts and reconnecting to the creative and healing use of language.
You can find out more about Zwald on her website: www.spiritlinkservices.com

Zwald’s Bones and Breath was selected by poetry judge Anita Skeen. Skeen has published six volumes of poetry and is Professor Emerita in the Residential college in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. She has taught classes on Appalachian literature, and in her founding of a center for poetry at MSU, worked to create programming that brought the university and community together. Her poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. Bones and Breath, Skeen notes, “takes us on a spiritual journey that begins with the death of (Zwald’s) father and concludes with what she believes it will be like ‘when it is my turn to go. . . .She joins her ancestors with this collection of poems, preserving their bones and stories through poetry.”

Raised in Dodge City, Kansas, Melissa Seitz completed her graduate studies at Michigan State
University. She taught composition, literature, and creative writing for many years at Saginaw
Valley State University, where she also served as the student editor and faculty advisor of the
award-winning publication Cardinal Sins. A writer of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction,
Seitz is also a photographer. Her written and visual art has been published in numerous
venues. She is currently revising her memoir Lost in Time in Michigan. Seitz lives with her
husband, Jim, on Higgins Lake, Michigan.

Seitz’s Brain Aura Blues was chosen by nonfiction judge Christine Maul Rice. Rice’s novel-in-stories Swarm Theory is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Independent Publisher Book award and a National Indie Excellence Award. Rice founded and is the executive director of the literary arts nonprofit Hypertext Magazine & Studio and is the editor of Hypertext Magazine. She currently teaches creative writing at Valparaiso University and has served as faculty at conferences, including the Interlochen Writers Retreat. Rice says Seitz writes with “remarkable humor and candor. . . (Brain Aura Blues) “investigates the mysteries of illness, the crippling whirlwind of grief, and the ways we reclaim, as best we can, the glories of life unfurling all around us.”

Established in 2006, the MWCP seeks to recognize emerging writers by publishing limited edition chapbooks. Past winners have gone on to receive fellowships, residencies, and have their full-length collections accepted for publication at larger presses. For more details about Michigan Writers or the annual chapbook contest, visit www.michwriters.org.

Michigan Writers Newsletter: Writing Together in April - https://mailchi.mp/760d35f6986e/michigan-writers-newsletter-10288918

Free workshop "Revising Short Fiction" with John Mauk - https://mailchi.mp/16f93dd4ca4c/openwindow-10288222

“Revising Short Fiction” Workshop with John Mauk, Apr. 6
April 6, 2:00-4:00pm (virtual)

So you’ve written a story but feel like it can get better. Or maybe you’ve submitted a story multiple times and still haven’t found an audience. You’re not sure what to do, where to tighten, what to change, what to develop. Or perhaps you’re just too close to the content, to the characters and what they believe. You need some help. If any of this sounds familiar, this workshop is for you. In our two-hour discussion, we’ll work through three crucial strategies that make short fiction more vibrant, more intense, more engaging to readers. Participants should come with a completed story. Even though we’ll be online, we’ll share passages, insights, and questions. And we’ll work to get beyond the obstacles to strategic revision.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/revising-short-fiction-workshop-with-john-mauk-apr-6-200-virtual-tickets-872546840087?aff=oddtdtcreator

Or go to Eventbrite and search “Revising Short Fiction” Workshop to register. Zoom link will be sent to you.


John Mauk taught college writing courses for twenty-four years. Over the course of his academic career, he developed several widely used textbooks, worked closely with teachers around the country, and was twice elected professor of the year. Along the way, he studied fiction, attended conferences, and learned whatever possible. In 2010, he won Michigan Writers Cooperative Press Chapbook contest in fiction and kept writing from there. His stories have appeared in journals such as Salamander, Arts and Letters, The Forge, New Millennium Writings, Main Street Rag, and The Dunes Review; his nonfiction in Rumpus, Beatrice.com, Writer’s Digest, and various anthologies. He has two full-length story collections, Field Notes for the Earthbound and Where All Things Flatten, which publishes in April 2024. He has judged for national writing contests, consulted for publishers, and read for magazines. He currently hosts Prose from the Underground, a free video series for active writers.

“Revising Short Fiction” Workshop with John Mauk, Apr. 6 , 2:00, virtual In our two-hour discussion, we’ll work through three crucial strategies that make short fiction more vibrant, more intense, more engaging.