December 2013 Newsletter

Newsletter

Volume 20 Issue 4

December 2013

Greetings!

In the midst of seasonal preparations, holiday festivities, family visits, and everything else life has in store for you, we'd love to help you sneak in a little time to inspire your writing. Our December meeting will be held on the second Tuesday of the month (December 10) with Cathy Pickens, author of the Southern Fried Mysteries series. That is also the deadline for submitting manuscripts for consideration in our annual Selected Members Reading in January 2014. Hope to see you there!

Cathy Pickens Visits in December

Pickens successfully uses her own courtroom experiences and the backdrop of the small-town South in her fiction. Southern Fried won St. Martin's Press Malice Domestic Award for Best Traditional Mystery. Set in a small South Carolina hill country town, it was called an "assured debut, a cozy with some sharp edges" by Publishers' Weekly and was one of five finalists for RT BookClub's 2004 best new mysteries award.

In her other life, Pickens is a lawyer and business professor at Queens University of Charlotte, where she teaches business law and a popular MBA course and workshop on developing the creative process. She is national past-president of Sisters in Crime, a 3000-member organization of crime writers and readers. She also serves on the national board of Mystery Writers of America and as president of the regional Forensic Medicine Program.

Selected Members Reading

Submissions are due by our next meeting to be considered for our annual showcase reading of CWC members. About a dozen writers will have an opportunity to regale us with their literary talent, reading from their best work on Tuesday, January 21, 2014.

To be considered for this special event, email two poems (no more than two pages) or up to 600 words of prose as an MS Word or RichText attachment to gch3631@gmail.com by Tuesday, December 10, 2013. Do not include any identification on the manuscript; provide contact details in your email.

We aim to showcase a diversity of CWC writers in a variety of genres, and preference will be given to those who have never presented. However, excellence is a must.

"Recalling Memories for Your Family or the Public" Course Offered

For anyone ready to write memoirs or considering doing a non-fiction book or short stories, the Charlotte Writers' Club is sponsoring its annual six-week course: "Recalling Memories for Your Family or the Public," taught by Margaret Bigger, author/editor of 24 books.

Classes will be held 2-4 p.m. on Wednesdays January 22-February 26 at Christ Episcopal Church, 1412 Providence Road. Cost for CWC members is $60; non-members pay $72.

In This Issue

Cathy Pickens

Selected Members Reading

Non-Fiction Course Offered

2013 Calendar of Events

2013 Contest Calendar

Kudos

2013-2014
Calendar of Events

CWC Charlotte

Dec. 10, 2013

Queens University Conference Center, 2229 Tyvola Road, 7 p.m.

Southern Fried Mysteries series author Cathy Pickens will present.

Click here for map.

CWC Charlotte

Jan. 21, 2014

Queens University Conference Center, 2229 Tyvola Road, 7 p.m.

Our annual Selected Members Reading showcases new work in our midst.

Click here for map.

2013-2014

Contest Calendar

Children's Short Story Contest. Stories written for readers 8-12 years old.

Deadline: Jan. 21, 2014.

Kudos

Charles Israel, Jr., has published two stories recently: "Tennis in a Dozen Easy Lessons" in The Cortland Review and "Fireworks" in Waccamaw Journal.