Starting tomorrow night at midnight, Hunger Mountain, a publication of Vermont College of Fine arts, is offering the coolest fund-raising event – an Ebay auction for manuscript critiques!  Since their website states it’s okay to share the posting about the information, I’ve copied/-pasted it below. Before you get there, though, check out some of these incredible folks who are offering the critiques:

• Michelle Poploff, Executive Editor at Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
• Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart
• Jedediah Berry, editor at Small Beer Press, and author of The Manual of Detection
• Tanya Lee Stone, author of teen and young adult fiction, picture books, and children’s nonfiction
• Tanita Davis, writer of experimental, short fiction, who then shares it with the world

In a word?  WOW!!!  See you on the auction floor…

This author needs some help - in the form of a "Hunger Moutain" critique!

Okay, here’s the posting…

Please join us for the Hunger Mountain Spring  Fundraising Auction beginning at midnight EST on Thursday, April 29, featuring manuscript critiques with outstanding authors, editors, and agents.

This auction will feature a full length Middle Grade novel critique with Michelle Poploff, Executive Editor at Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books; Creative nonfiction critique with Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart; fiction critique with Jedediah Berry, editor at Small Beer Press, and author of The Manual of Detection; full-length picture book critique with Tanya Lee Stone; and full length YA mansucript critique with Tanita Davis.

Also offered are opportunities to work with authors David Jauss, Philip Graham, Allegra Huston, Baron Wormser, Deborah Wiles, and Jacqueline Kelly, author of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.

All purchases are charitable in support of Hunger Mountain’s non-profit mission to cultivate engagement with and conversation about the arts by publishing high-quality, innovative literary and visual art by both established and emerging artists, and by offering opportunities for interactivity and discourse.

All items will be available at: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/The-Hunger-Mountain-Store beginning at midnight EST on Thursday, April 29th. Bidding ends at midnight EST on Sunday, May 9th. This is a great way to study with a writer you admire and support non-profit literary publishing!

Thanks for your support and please pass this announcement along far and wide!

The MFA program run through the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts has a sister. Her name is the Whidbey Island Writers’ Association and is renowned in the Pacific Northwest for hosting the Whidbey Writers’ Workshop, one of the best writers’ conferences in the country.

Sadly, with our current economy, the conference had to be canceled for 2010.

The good news is why it was canceled: the organization has wisely decided to raise monies up front, have them “in the bank,” before the conference is mounted again. So 2010 is going to be a year full of fund raising events and wonderful, educational, classes.

How can you be involved? Easy! Click here to learn a bit more about the fund raising and how YOU can support the arts in our beloved Pacific Northwest.

Also for 2010, there are a multitude of one-day workshops being offered under the heading of Whidbey Island Writers Conference Workshop Series – stop by and check them out! There is a wonderful variety of topics offered by talented, published authors as well as specialists – like Tom Masters on blogging – and a return of one of the favorite aspects of the traditional conference: the chat house series. Truly incredible offerings.

Additionally, Whidbey Island Writers’ Association (WIWA) also offers some creative and challenging courses, from poetry to memoirs – taught by a truly gifted group, and from authors to agents – like Andrea Hurst of Andrea Hurst & Associates. Definitely worth your time to investigate the possibilities.

Some of us hope for inspiration – some of us are out making it happen every single day.

Sunset on Whidbey Island

Sunrise in Penn Cove

It’s been too long since I’ve been able to post – but it’s great to be back.

Have recently been attending my creative writing MFA residency on Whidbey Island and it’s terrific for finding muse in the moment.  There were some fabulous guest speakers in attendance – like literary agents Regina Brooks and Elizabeth Wales and writers Bob Mayer, Craig English, George Shannon, Melissa Hart and poets Kelli Russell Agodon and Tess Gallagher as well as jack-of-all-trades, Lori A. May – that my head is spinning. I filled an entire spiral notebook with the scribbles and scratches from their collective shared bits of wisdom. So much to take in, in such a condensed time frame.  But it’s an experience I’ve had the fortune to share with my other MFA students for the last few years.  Hard to imagine that, as long as I finish my thesis (big wish with that one!), there is only one more residency for me to experience.  It’s going to be so hard to say good-bye…

So I won’t think of that now.  For now I’ll enjoy the bald eagles that have formed a nest not far from my bedroom; I’ll relish the lapping surf as I take my morning jog around Penn Cove; I’ll savor the seal that decided to pop his head above the surface in the early morning hours as my friend and I sipped our morning coffee.

The above photo is another friend, kayaking her way to class at the Captain Whidbey Inn, paddling her way toward the sunrise.  It’s a moment captured on digital that I can use to reflect as I continue to plow my way through this thesis novel.