CWG presents River Valley Readings

The Chesterfield Writers Guild has started a monthly reading series on the second Wednesday of every month. These readings feature two area authors and are free and open to the public. Each evening includes refreshments and a chance to mingle with writers and literary enthusiasts in West County. Bring your friends, colleagues, and students to River Valley Readings at The Gallery at Chesterfield Arts, located near the Chesterfield Mall across from Wapango restaurant.

Wednesday, May 13

Authors: Sally Van Doren & Pamela Garvey

Time: 7:00 to 8:30pm

Location: The Gallery at Chesterfield Arts

Free and Open to the Public!

More Information: Contact Janessa Toro at janessa@chesterfieldarts.org

More About the Authors

Sally Van Doren

In May 2008, Louisiana State University Press published Sex at Noon Taxes by Sally Van Doren, winner of the 2007 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. August Kleinzahler writes in his judge’s citation, “Sally Van Doren’s poetry gathered in Sex at Noon Taxes, both a palindrome and the title of a painting by Ed Ruscha, is everywhere alive. . . . Her poems are delicately made, intriguing in conception, unpredictable, balletic and swift in their turns, altogether most stimulating and memorable, and very much her own.”

Robert Nazarene, founding editor of Margie, praises, “Van Doren’s poetry is as ground-breaking as Plath or Sexton—with the play and wisdom of D.W. Winnicott’s effect on psychoanalysis. Her control is seamless. Through soaring atmospherics and the grit and grift of a life, her work is both disturbing and consoling—the rarest and finest of combinations.”

Born and raised in St. Louis, Van Doren attended Phillips Academy, Princeton University, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she received an M.F.A. in 1999. Her poems have appeared in American Poet, Barrow Street, Boulevard, Colorado Review, Delmar, LIT, Margie, Poetry Daily, River Styx, Southwest Review, 2River, Verse Daily and elsewhere. Her poem, “The Sense Series,” was the text for a multimedia performance at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. She has taught creative writing in the St. Louis Public Schools and curates the Sunday Poetry Workshops for the St. Louis Poetry Center. She divides her time between St. Louis and Cornwall, Connecticut.

Sex at Noon Taxes by Sally Van Doren

Published by LSU Press, March 2008

Pamela Garvey

Pamela Garvey’s chapbook Fear (Finishing Line Press, 2008) was a finalist for the New Women’s Voices Competition. She has published poetry in many literary journals including Margie, Cimarron Review, RATTLE, The North American Review, Sonora Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Pleiades and many others. In 2007 she was a finalist for Erskine J. Poetry Prize from Smartish Pace, in 2006 won first prize in the Words and Pictures poetry contest and has received numerous other honors including semi-finalist for the “Discovery”/The Nation prize. She is Assistant Professor of English at St. Louis Community College-Meramec and co-founder of the Words on Purpose benefit reading series.

Ruth Ellen Kocher said of her work, "In Fear, Pamela Garvey makes new familiar things. The voice of the poet here is also the voice of the child, the sleepless, the fugitive, the mother, the forgotten, and the unnamed—and in each instance, that voice comes to us with stark revelation about the emotional landscape where we each intersect...."

Fear by Pamela Garvey

Published by Finishing Line Press, 2008

Check out event photos from the wildly successful Scrabble Mania Fundraiser,

March 6 at Chesterfield Arts!

click here to visit flickr and see the fun!

Write a Story Workshop

Write a Story Workshop presented by Jud Miner
April 25
1 to 2:30pm
The Sachs Branch of the St. Louis County Library
Ages 8-14 (grades 4-8)
Free!
Call The Sachs Library to Register: (636) 728-0001

Join The St.Louis County Library and the Chesterfield Writers Guild for this FREE workshop with published author Jud Miner to learn how to write a winning story this spring! Stories started at the Write a Story Workshop can be submitted to"The Big Write Contest" this fall, sponsored by The Big Red Festival, the St. Louis Writers Guild, and No Waste Publishing for grades 4-8. So don't miss the chance to sharpen your writing skills and create the perfect story in April!

Copies of Jud Miner's books Amos and the Wild Welshman and The Search for the Sangreal will also be available for sale and to be signed by the author!

Want to learn more about "The Big Write Contest" this fall 2009? Click here

Open Call

Spread the Word

Calling all professional writers and those working in the publishing industry! The Chesterfield Writers Guild is now accepting workshop proposals from authors and those in the publishing industry for 2009. Please submit a bio, proposed workshop topic, outline of workshop details,  a sample of handouts, and a bibliography (if applicable) to Janessa Toro janessa@chesterfieldarts.org or via mail 444 Chesterfield Center, Chesterfield, MO 63017. With your help, we are looking forward to planning some exciting, practical workshops as a service to the talented St. Louis writing community! Questions? Feel free to e-mail or call 636-519-1955.

Join a Peer Writing Group

CWG Fiction Group
Second Tuesday of Each Month at 7 pm
Join the Fiction Writer's Group Today! This group is designed to give both aspiring and established authors a peer environment in which to share their works in progress
To join the Fiction Writer's Group, become an individual Chesterfield Writers Guild member at the $35 level or higher. Try a meeting before you commit to see if the group is a good fit for you!
Contact Janessa Toro at 636-519-1955 or e-mail janessa@chesterfieldarts.org for further

information.

LINK OF THE MONTH:

The Academy of American Poets

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41

Celebrate National Poetry Month!