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News
$2,000 Awaits Winners of Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition
Entries are now being accepted for the 28th annual Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, created to recognize and encourage the efforts of writers who have not yet achieved major-market success. Writers will compete for a $1,000 first prize, $500 second prize, and $500 third prize in this internationally acclaimed competition. Several honorable mentions are also awarded each year. Stories in all genres of fiction are welcome. Maximum length is 3,000 words, and writers retain all rights to their work. The final deadline is May 15, 2008; winners will be announced at the end of July.
For complete guidelines, please visit www.shortstorycompetition.com, e-mail shortstorykw@aol.com, or send an SASE to the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, P.O. Box 993, Key West, FL 33041.

Call out to Alaskan communicators: Show us your best from 2007
Enter the Alaska Professional Communicators 2008 contest to see how your work (from 2007) stacks up against the best in Alaska and the U.S. Winners will go on to compete nationally. Open to all Alaska resident communicators across 78 categories, including print journalism, books, broadcasting, the Web, and more. Visit www.akprocom.com, and click on "Contests" for full details. Deadlines are Jan. 31, 2008, for books and related entries, Feb. 8, 2008, for all other materials.

NFPW Job Bank Now Open
NFPW, parent organization of Alaska Professional Communicators (members of AlaskaWriters.com), just launched its new job bank. This is a new Web-based service for NPFW members only that lists a wide variety of jobs in journalism and public relations located throughout the nation, along with contact information for each. Go to the NFPW home page and check it out!

• Welcome to new member, Rupert Pratt, author of Touching the Ancient One: A True Story of Tragedy and Reunion, which tells of the deadly crash of an Air Force C-47 north of Talkeetna, Alaska, in 1954. Pratt was one of six survivors of the crash, which killed 10. His account won the Military Writers Society of America 2006 Silver Medal Award for Biographies. Rupert, who now lives in New York State, plans a July 2007 Alaska book tour, including signings in Anchorage, Palmer and at Veterans Memorial Park at mile 147.1 on the George Parks Highway. Check out Rupert Pratt’s Website for more information.

•The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society, announces the 2007 AAAS Science Journalism Awards. The deadline for submissions is 1 August 2007. The contest year is July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007. Each category winner will receive $3,000. For information, visit the AAAS site. Writing contest deadlines
Don’t be caught unaware when writing contest time comes around. Many entry deadlines fall around the beginning or end of the year, but the organizations often don’t give the early warning we’d like. Here are a few contests Alaska writers may want to keep on their calendars, along with when their deadlines fell last year.
>>Northwest Excellence in Journalism Awards (SPJ): Not yet announced, but was early/mid-February in 2006.
>>Society of Professional Journalists SDX Awards: Early February.
>>UAA/ADN Creative Writing Contest, 20+ categories (including new blogs category), cash prizes; winning pieces published in a special insert. Entries must be received by April 13, 2007.
>> Alaska Professional Communicators 2007 communications contest (formerly Alaska Press Women): February 1/February 12, with earlier deadline applying to book entries. Now open to all Alaskans.
>>Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards, mid-December.
>>Alaska Press Club, mid-January.
>>LitSite Alaska Postcard Contest, mid-August
>>Other Alaska writing-related links

Writer’s Digest Short Story Competition Call for Entries
Missed the local fast fiction contest by the Anchorage Press? The 7th Annual Writer's Digest Short Short Story Competition is accepting entries for the best fiction you can write in 1,500 words or less. The deadline is December 1, 2006. Grand prize: $3,000. Find guidelines online.

• We're proud to welcome the Alaska chapter of Romance Writers of America, which is hosting a Halloween writing contest for members, deadline October 31, 2006. Visit their site at www.akrwa.org for more about the contest or how to join.

• Closed for repairs: The AlaskaWriters Forum was attracting too much spam, so we have closed it while researching other solutions.

3/3/06 - Welcome to new member Lesley Thomas, author of the novel “Flight of the Goose: A Story of the Far North.” Lesley now lives in Seattle, but grew up in the Arctic. She returns to Alaska “to visit family, go to fishcamp, pick berries and climb hills.” She’ll soon add “sell books” to that list. She visits Anchorage and Fairbanks April 5-8 for a book tour.

• 2/10/06 - Congratulations to Elise Patkotak, our newest AlaskaWriters member, and the first to take the plunge into blogging. Elise is an Anchorage columnist and author of “Parallel Logic,” the tale of her 30 years living in Barrow. Her new AlaskaWriters site is located at www.elisepatkotak.com.

• Welcome to AlaskaWriters member Marguerite Reiss-Kern, a chronicler of life’s journeys and adventures, both physical and spiritual. She is co-author of Bear Attacks of the Century (2005) as well as Holy Nudges, published following a 17,000-mile “faith pilgrimage — destination unknown” with her youngest son, aged 10.

• Welcome to AlaskaWriters member Barbara Brown, who created a spectacular site where you can both read—and listen to—her writing!

Romano-Lax: Success in six figures!
Charter AlaskaWriters member (and longtime nonfiction writer) Andromeda Romano-Lax can stop biting her nails over how her first novel will sell. The Spanish Bow has been greeted with six-figure enthusiasm in the publishing marketplace. Oct. 27 on theBookSeller.com (subscription required), Nicholas Clee called Andromeda's book "The Continental novel in most demand," and reported a six- figure deal with Harcourt Brace, with multiple foreign rights also being sold or being negotiated. The book is a fictionalized account of the life of the Spanish-born cellist Pablo Casals. (Check out also how the column by Anchorage Daily News reporter Mark Baechtel made use of Andromeda's Web site.)

Andromeda has also agreed to be the first guest-host in the AlaskaWriters new bulletin board/discussion area. Look for a special message and invitation to take part after Nov. 20 2005, or you can sign up early and leave your own message or writing question now.
>>See Andromeda's site
>> Visit discussion area

USA Today boosts Lende’s new book
Ever since a spring run-in between her bicycle and a truck, Haines writer Heather Lende has been focusing more on recuperation than book promotion. But, despite her canceled book tour, Lende’s new release popped up on a recent USA Today list of five summer sleepers. In the words of reviewer Bob Minzesheimer, Lende’s book, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name (Algonquin, June 3) has “a shot at joining the big-time this season.” He also said: “Who knew a writer could find so much human drama, simple pleasure and thorny issues in such a remote place? If you like the stories on Prairie Home Companion or Northern Exposure, you’ll love some real news from small-town Alaska.”
>>Visit Heather Lende’s site
>>Read the review

Armchair Daredevil’ Sandi Sumner celebrates Alaska’s women pilotsSpring 2005 —Though not a pilot herself, Sandi Sumner believes she was destined to tell the tale of Alaska’s women pilots. “I'm never going to climb in the cockpit of an aerobatic plane ... or skydive out of a perfectly good airplane,” she’s said, “but it was great fun to meet women who live to do this very thing!” Her book, Women Pilots of Alaska, was released January 2005 by McFarland Publishing. She’s using her new AlaskaWriters Web site to announce her appearances as well as feature a different Alaska pilot each month.
>>Visit Sandi Sumner’s site

Archived Stories & Briefs

Organizing tips for writers
Alaska “Mess Arrester” Linda Herr, author of “Organizing the Disorganized,” offers 5 simple steps for writers and other creative types.

Get thee to a writers colony, advises Nancy Lord
So, no one shares your peculiar obsession for losing yourself in voices and under scraps of paper? You need to run away to a writers colony! Check out this fun tip submitted by the author of Beluga Days.

Showing your stuff — when it’s no longer yours
Do you have the right to post your own stories on the Web? Maybe not.

• Don’t let sleeping sites lie!
Once you put a site up on the Web, you need to let editors, readers, reviewers and others know it’s there

• One interview, many stories?
The interview process changes when you’re planning to produce multiple stories. Some tips for how to conduct an interview worth recycling.

• Contest comments are your friend …
Contests aren’t all about prizes. Their real benefit is the feedback you get from qualified judges. Sonya Senkowsky explains why sometimes, even bad comments can be good. And, on a related note: How to “win” every time, even when you don’t!

• Digital images 101
Your editor wants you to ask your interview subjects for a snapshot. Your subjects want to know if you want that as a J-peg or gif, 200 dpi or 72? Huh?

Don’t wanna write ‘Alaskan’?
“The drive to dig for the facts and write nonfiction that involves people, places, and things outside Alaska shouldn’t stop us,” writes Anchorage writer Justin Oldham. More along that line in What if I don’t Want to Write About Alaska?

Homegrown publicity
Charles Hayes went from retiree to self-education expert with coverage by USA Today and NPR — mostly without leaving his Wasilla home. Learn how in “Book Promotion for Introverts.”

Freelance staff meeting
Never mind that attendance would be limited. One week into fulltime freelancing, I decided to hold a staff meeting.

Practical Poetry: An ode to getting published
Try Paula Sanders McCarron’s no-nonsense, four-step plan to get your poems in print.

Book author’s to-do list
The world may seem to spin more slowly while you’re waiting for your manuscript to be published, says Andromeda Romano-Lax. But it speeds up soon enough.

Web mistakes writers make
Your Web site is often the first impression that your potential customer gets of you. But Sharon Romine says many writers still make these five mistakes.

Commonly confused words
Insure yourself against word confusion; this list by grammar guru John Edmonds ensures you get it right.

Newsletter led to book ideas, says self-publisher Hayes
Wasilla author and self-learning advocate Charles Hayes talks about how he turned his personal passion for “self-education” into an enterprise that includes a 1,000-plus-subscriber newsletter and a self-publishing company. >>Story

Graphics resources
Alaska sunsets, for free!
Need an Alaska photo for your Web site or print project? Check out the US Fish & Wildlife Service Alaska Image Library, source of this beautiful Kanuti Refuge sunset photo. All images are public domain; just credit the source. Hint: One of these would make a great home page photo on your AlaskaWriters Web site.

Free Alaska clip art
The flag used here came from the Alaska Native Knowledge Network, at www.ankn.uaf.edu, which provides royalty-free art for free (Reduce the image size if using on the Web, and be sure to credit the source!)

• Do you present talks or writing workshops? Want to share your wisdom (and get publicity)? Submit a brief item (250-450 words) for the AlaskaWriters tips page, and get a link to your Web site, photo and bio listing: editor@alaskawriters.com.

Editor’s note: If you have been here before, you may be wondering what happened to the old News & Tips page formats. I plan to replace the news/tips pages with a blog, which will make archiving and viewing easier. In the meantime, I did not want to take down any content that has proven useful to others, so it is here in a new format.

Unfortunately, our AlaskaWriters Forum had to close due to too much spam.