"Writers Who Play" features words & music & fun March 28 in L.A.

This comes from traveling troubadour and poet Ken Waldman:

In Los Angeles the end of this month, my NOMAD co-editor, Rachel White, and I will be getting our new NOMAD literary journal out in the world, and I'm producing a Friday, March 28, show at the fabulous 1642 Bar at https://www.facebook.com/1642beerandwine/ .

Here's the poster:

The event is being held off-campus you might say from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference at Los Angeles Convention Center this week. Consider it a break from AWP sessions and the magnificent bookfair where you can buy books and have books thrust upon you. Also a good time to schmooze with editors and publishers. I haven't attended AWP in a number of years but it always was fun and where I recruited writers to come to Wyoming. And always brought an extra bag to haul books home.

Great line-up of writers and editors for WWInc Conference in Cheyenne

In a Dec. 8 post, I wrote about Colorado poet Aaron Abeyta coming to Cheyenne June 5-7 as the keynoter for the Wyoming Writers, Inc., annual conference.

What I forgot to mention are the other fine writers and editors serving as faculty at the conference. Fiction writer and essayist Laura Pritchett from Fort Collins will be there, as well as Kent Nelson, a great short story writer from Salida, Colo. Editor Patrick Thomas will represent Milkweed Editions, one of Pritchett's publishers ("Hell's Bottom, Colorado") and one of America's great non-profit presses based in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Other editors include Tiffany Schofield from Five Star Publishing and Meghan Saar, senior editor of True West Magazine.

The WWInc conference launches the summer art season in Wyoming. School's out, the flowers are in bloom, and the snow is mostly over. People enjoy the outdoors all day and sip Wyoming-made IPAs on the front porch in the evening. Air Guard C-130s and Blackhawks buzz our house and the neighbor kid pops wheelies on his dirtbike. Al over the state, people dig music festivals, art fairs and brewfests. The mountains, too -- can't forget those.

At the writers' conference, I've agreed to serve as emcee for Friday and Saturday night's open readings. I enjoy the job. Each writer (me included) gets five minutes for their prose or poetry. Some accompany themselves on guitars or kazoos. When the timer sounds at the end of five minutes, the writer has to sit down. The hook comes out if they don't. You don't want to get the hook. It goes on your permanent record.

See you in June in Cheyenne.

Wyoming Writers, Inc., members gather June 6-8 for 40th anniversary conference

 

This is a great organization that puts on a great conference. I'm a member. If you're a writer in Wyoming (or vicinity) you should be too.

Here's the lowdown:

Anyone interested in writing will learn more about the art at the 40^th Anniversary writing conference of Wyoming Writers, Inc. June 6-8, 2014 in Sheridan.

Keynote speaker, Mark Spragg (pictured above), Cody author and screenwriter; opening speaker Chuck Sambuchino, editor and author from Writers Digest; Lee Gutkind, editor of Creative Nonfiction; and Wyoming poet Echo Klaproth will present workshops. Agents April Eberhardt and Jessica Sinsheimer conduct workshops on publishing and are available for pitching that favorite manuscript.

Join others at critique tables or open mic nights. Get tips from a paddle panel. Buy a book offering resources on writing or choose one authored by faculty and member authors.

Students attend at a reduced rate.

For more information on joining Wyoming Writers, Inc. or attending the conference, call Neva Bodin, 307-234-4535 or go to www.wyowriters.org.

Comic book writers are writers by any other name

I spent last weekend hobnobbing with writers and poets and editors.

One of the most intriguing ones was Kelly Sue DeConnick. She writes for Marvel Comics. Once upon a time I would have said that wasn't real writing. Comic books? Nah!

I've changed my mind. Not because I've read a bunch of recently-published comic books. I will, I swear, just as soon as I get over to the local comic book store. But it was DeConnick's talk at the Casper College Literary Conference that got me thinking about the comics and the literary world.

The literary world is M.F.A./fiction workshops/writers' retreats/coffee house poetry readings/small presses/chapbooks/NEA/grants/fellowships. Maybe some graphic novels based on cool books or short stories. But not comic books. 

The non-literary world is blockbuster best-sellers/romance/hobby writers/agents/New York Times Book Review/hard-boiled mysteries/big publishers/Barnes & Noble/advertising/marketing/film rights. And comic books.

We turn comic book superheroes into special effects-laden films. Batman/Superman/Spiderman/Avengers/The Incredible Hulk. And so on.

Kelly Sue DeConnick told a literary conference audience on Friday that she got her first jobs in comic books "by being a loudmouth on social media."

DeConnick is not only is on Facebook and Twitter (with 20,000 followers). She has a cool Tumblr site at kellysue.tumblr.com and her stand-alone western, "Pretty Deadly," which is set for an Oct. 23 release, is at pretty-deadly.com.

DeConnick, 43, grew up on military bases. "Very much a part of military culture to have comic books," she said. "It makes sense that people who sign up to give their lives for their country might see themselves in the heroic themes of comic books."

She loved "Wonder Woman" comics, although she noted that "Wonder Woman spent a lot of time in chains in the '70s."

Which brings us to the gender issue. Male writers and illustrators might feel compelled to portray a female superhero in bondage. DeConnick, now a member of the Comic Book Boys Club, has no such inclinations.

She writes Captain Marvel and Avengers Assemble for Marvel Comics. The Captain is now a woman, Carol Danvers. DeConnick wanted Danvers to be a real woman, one with flaws and good female friends, one who could also set right the universe when necessary.

This Captain Marvel in a long line of Captain Marvels began to gain a following. A group of fans called the "Carol Corps" grew with each issue. They submitted fan art based on the character, and they began to send Carol Danvers stories to DeConnick.

Then came the merch, such a Carol hoodies and dogtags.

"I got a letter from a civil rights attorney who wears Captain Marvel dogtags under her clothes every time she goes to court," DeConnick said. "I've heard from a doctor who wears dogtags when she goes into surgery."

The Carol Corps raised $2,000 online for the Red Cross after Hurricane Sandy. And it appears that a CarolCon-style ComicCon is in the works.

Issue No. 15 is out and DeConnick is working on the next installments. "The Internet doesn't know this, but she [Carol Danvers] gets her first kiss in issue 17."

DeConnick said that she works hard to present real women in her comics. She tries to avoid the Smurfette Principle -- the lone female character must represent all female traits. To avoid stereotyping, she applies the Sexy Lamp Test to her stories: "If I can replace one of my female characters with a sexy lamp and the plot still functions, I might need another draft."

DeConnick seems to enjoy her role as one of the few female comic book writers. Of the top 300 books produced in June, 6 percent were produced by women. Some of them were written by the same women, so DeConnick estimates that women might make up 2 percent of her industry.

However, when Marvel Comics asked her in 2009 to write the next saga of Norman Osborn, a.k.a. the Green Goblin, she was "proud to have been asked to pitch on a boy book." The result was "Osborn: Evil Incarcerated."

Still, it gets a bit old always being asked the same question: "What does it feel like to be a woman writing in a man's field?"

"I used to joke -- 'I write through my vagina'."

She's married to another comic book writer, Matt Fraction. who's never asked similar questions.

"I don't want to be He-Hulk," she said, "I want to be She-Hulk."

As is the case with most writers, DeConnick wrote a lot before getting published. She said that she may leave the comic book world behind some day in favor of novel-writing.

She often gets letters from young writers who ask how to get started in the biz."I ask them what they're written and they'll say 'nothing.' Nobody is going to ask you to fix a sink if you've only washed your hands."

Spider-Man's nemesis, steampunk fiction, edgy poetry and hair-raising memoirs all part of Casper literary conference

For a sparsely populated state, we have an amazing amount of arts events. Casper College and ARTCORE have been putting on their fine literary conference for 27 years. This time out, organizers have seized on the college's 2013 theme of "Powerful Women!" and have planned presenters that embody that theme in some interesting ways. Kelly Sue DeConnick, for instance is the top woman writer at Marvel Comics. She is thriving in this male-dominated world with “Osborn: Evil Incarcerated,” featuring Spider Man’s arch-enemy, and a series of Japanese manga adapted into English. Tiffany Trent is best known for her steampunk novel, “The Unnaturalists.” that gives new meaning to "alternative energy." Connie May Fowler writes fantastic novels but will talk at the conference about memoir writing. She’s brought her own experience with an abusive relationship into a powerful memoir and support for orgs that support abused women. Annette Chaudet runs her own successful small press out of small-town Wyoming and Layli Long Soldier transforms her experience on a South Dakota Reservation into edgy poetry.

Quite a line-up.

The 2013 Casper College/ARTCORE Literary Conference will be held Sept. 13-14 in Casper. The events are free and open to the public.

Here's the schedule:

Friday, September 13

Craft Talks:  Second floor, Gateway Building

9–10  AM: Annette Chaudet  Session

10–11 AM: Kelly Sue DeConnick  Session

11–12  AM: Tiffany Trent Session

11-12 AM: Layli Long Soldier Session

Lunch on your own

2–4 PM: WAC creative writing fellowship winners Mary Beth Baptiste, Chad Hanson and Heather Jensen join fellowship judge Connie May Fowler for a reading, Second floor, Gateway Building. FMI: Michael Shay at 307-777-5234 or mike.shay@wyo.gov

7 PM: Tiffany Trent event at the Natrona County Public Library

8 PM: Poetry Slam MC’d by George Vlastos at Metro Coffee downtown

Saturday, September 14

Workshops:  10 AM to Noon, Second Floor, Gateway building. Workshops are free, but space is limited. Please contact jcampbell@caspercollege.edu to sign up for workshop in poetry (Layli Long Soldier) or fiction (Tiffany Trent or Kelly Sue DeConnick).

Participants can sign up to take a workshop with one of the following authors:

Tiffany Trent  (fiction):  Author of YA novel, The Unnaturalists, from Simon & Schuster

Kelly Sue DeConnick (fiction/scripting):  Writer of Marvel Comics’ “Captain Marvel,” “Avengers Assemble” and creator-owned comic, “Pretty Deadly.”

Layli Long Soldier (poetry):  Postmodern Poet, author of the chapbook Chromosomory (Q Ave Press, 2010)

Noon-2 PM:  Artist Talk by Jeanne Stern, “Book Art,”  with reception-style lunch in the Goodstein Gallery

2–3:30 PM: Young Authors award ceremony and reading w/George Vlastos at the Star Lane Center

4-5 PM: Connie May Fowler Master class, “Lifewriting,” Second Floor, Gateway Building

This writer wants to know: Have you ever read a short story on a smartphone or tablet?

As a presenter at the annual Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference June 7-9 in Laramie, I see that the schedule has me concurrent with two heavy hitters: Novelist and mystery writer Margaret Coel and nonfiction author Tom Rea. Margaret writes the very cool Wind River mysteries and Tom has written about the famous "Bone Wars" that were fought partially in Wyoming and a great book about the religious kerfuffle that erupted over Wyoming's Devil's Gate site. Tom's also an award-winning poet and one-time small press publisher.

I do have kind of a cool topic for my presentation: "Short Stories on Small Screens." Here's a description:

Mike will discuss the latest markets for short stories –- smart phones and tablets. Learn writing techniques that will enliven your stories to make them more marketable to outlets such as Kindle Singles and Byliner.

Read the full conference schedule here. 

I might try to boost attendance by staging a giveaway. Win an iPad! Win an e-book by Tom Rea! Go to dinner with Margaret Coel!

I'm not above stooping to such tactics. Problem is, I'm not sure if Apple or Tom or Margaret will donate to the cause. That means I'll have to fork over some dough for prizes and I'll be broke and probably have to hock my laptop.

I'll just have to take my chances. Meanwhile, you're invited to take a short poll (see right sidebar).

I'm pleased to join line-up of presenters at this summer's Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference

Gayle Irwin sent out a Facebook message today that the Wyoming Writers, Inc., 2013 conference brochure was going out in the mail. She urges poets and writers in the region to come out to the conference set for June 7-9 in Laramie. I'm pleased to be one of the conference presenters along with Colorado author Margaret Coel (author of the Wind River mysteries and Catherine McLeod novels), poet and essayist Rick Kempa of Rock Springs, children's and young adult writer and educator Gene Gagliano of Buffalo, Casper author and historian Tom Rea and literary agents Sandra Bond and Katharine Sands. Additionally, Chris Madson, editor of Wyoming Wildlife magazine will be speaking on Friday evening, June 7. I will be talking about short stories, online publishing and blogging. Get registration info at http://www.wyowriters.org.

One more thing about the conference... My old pal Page Lambert will be conducting a pre-conference workshop at the Vee Bar Guest Ranch near Laramie June 1-6. If you can't make it for the six-day workshop, check out the special two-day "Mini-Retreat" June 6-7 prior to the Wyoming Writers Conference in Laramie: Literature and Landscape of the Horse. Learn more at http://www.pagelambert.com/horse_literature.html

I'm big on writing and eating and campfires and camaraderie but not much of a horse guy. But if you are, you can't go wrong with this mini-retreat near the ramparts of the Snowy Range that moves right into the conference a few miles away in Laramie. 

Nov. 10 Cheyenne conference outlines steps to getting your novel published

Joanne Kennedy's new novel

Some of my local writing pals are staging a one-day conference "designed to help you navigate the next steps toward the publication of your novel." It will be held on Saturday, Nov. 10, 10:15 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Laramie County Public Library, 2200 Pioneer Ave., Cheyenne.

Presenters include members of my writing group, Mary Gillgannon and Liz Roadifer, and an emeritus member of the group, Joanne Kennedy. Mary writes historical novels, as well as Celtic and Regency romances. Liz writes mysteries and sci-fi fantasy. Joanne is the well-known author of cowboy romances set in Wyoming.

Also presenting are Amanda Cabot, a Cheyenne author of Christian romances; teen novelist and library board member Tina Ann Forkner; "Saucy Lucy" series mystery novelist Cindy Keen Reynders; and memoirist and sci-fi writer Marjie Smith.

That's one heck of a line-up. I attended a recent presentation by Mary, in which she outlined the steps to getting your work published as e-books. I learned a lot and took lots of notes (see my blog about it here).

The workshop is free. The day includes a lunch-hour book signing, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Laramie County Library Foundation. You can brown-bag it, or get a delicious lunch at the library cafe (I eat there often).

FMI: 307-634-3561.

Happy Mama Conference in N.C. for mothers of kids with real, but invisible, brain-based disabilities

This sounds like a fabulous retreat for mothers (and possibly fathers) of kids with ADHD, OCD, SPD, and so on. From the "Easy to Love but Hard to Raise" blog that I write for occasionally:

The Happy Mama Conference & Retreat will take place July 28–29, 2012, at the Rock Barn Golf & Spa, in Conover, North Carolina. Here’s what the retreat is all about, as described on the Happy Mama website, www.if-mama-aint-happy.com :

What: A CONFERENCE that focuses on your needs as the mom to a child with a very real, but invisible, brain-based disability, like ADHD, ADD, OCD, ODD, FASD, PBD, SPD, PDD, or one of the many other overlapping conditions that make parenting your child an extra challenging situation, and a RETREAT, where we’ll provide you with wonderful food, spa opportunities, fun activities, and camaraderie with other moms who know exactly where you’re coming from.

Why: Because parenting children with invisible disabilities is an extremely stressful, isolating, and emotional job and one which can impact your health and well-being in a negative way.

The retreat, hosted by DRT Press (publisher of Easy to Love but Hard to Raise) and the website {a mom’s view of ADHD} (founded and edited by Penny Williams) and supported by a growing list of sponsors, including CHADD and the Catawba Valley Medical Center, will offer the perfect blend of education, support, and pampering.

Saturday’s speakers will cover: “Parenthood, Stress, Health, and Resiliency,” “Advocating for Your Child in School,” and “How to Be Happy: Calming Techniques for You and Your Child.”Sunday will be devoted to fun and pampering, which may include spa treatments, relaxing by the pool, gem mining, hiking, yoga, horseback riding, or kayaking.

Doesn’t that sound fabulous? I can hardly wait!

Sharon Barbary Bryan registered for the conference, but has since found out that she’s unable to attend. Sharon is donating her conference registration and on-site lodging, approximately a $350 value, to a deserving mom! The retreat organizers are running a contest to determine what lucky mama will be the recipient of Sharon’s generous gift. Here’s how it works: Follow this link. Nominate a special needs mama whom you feel deserves to attend the retreat, by writing a sentence or two in the comments field (of that post, not this one!) explaining why she needs a break. The contest will run June 1 – June 22.

If you are interested in attending whether you win this contest or not, please don’t hesitate to register now. Registration is just $129 until July 1. If you are “in the business” of ADHD, FASD, ASD, or other brain-based disorders and wish to become a retreat sponsor, email happymamaretreat@gmail.com

for their sponsorship package

No Wyoming panel at Netroots Nation 12 -- but we are sending at least one progressive blogger to Providence

I'm a bit disappointed that Democracy for America has turned down our panel proposal for Netroots Nation 12. More than 400 panels were proposed for the June 7-10 gathering of progressive bloggers in Providence, R.I. Ours was one of 150 proposals that made it to the final round, but it wasn't selected for one of the 70 panels to be presented at the conference. We still think it's a pretty cool idea, one that comes with an embedded literary reference. So, the Southeast Wyoming Progressive Blogosphere may only be sending one of our group to NN12, and that's Meg Lanker-Simons from Laramie. In case you haven't noticed, Meg is number two in the NN12 scholarship sweepstakes. Top three vote getters get scholarhips. Go vote for her now! Have your entire family vote for her. I did.

Here's the NN12 proposal. See what you think.

Panel proposal: “Where I’m Blogging From: On-line Progressives in Red State Wyoming”

It’s mighty red out here, people!

In 2008, Wyoming voters went for John McCain over Barack Obama by a 65-33 percent margin. This was the lowest percentage of “blue” voters in any state, outdoing even neighboring Utah and Idaho (34 percent). In 2010, Republican Matt Mead was elected governor by a 3-to-1 margin. All five elected offices were swept by Republicans and the GOP-dominated Legislature upped its “R” margin to 76 out of 90 seats.

Democrats are an endangered species in Wyoming. This is a state where sporting an Obama bumper sticker is a radical act. Many Democrats are afraid to speak up in public because they are so tragically outnumbered. In some cases, jobs are on the line.

The four bloggers in this proposal are not the state’s only outspoken progressives, but they represent voices unheard in Wyoming’s mainstream media. While they have been active in Democratic Party politics (one has served in the legislature), they often find themselves at odds with a party structure that is timid in the face of Republican onslaughts.

In this session, the presenters will speak about our prog-blogging journeys, and offer tips about making on-line connections in the wide-open conservative spaces. They also will discuss those ground-breaking bloggers in neighboring states who nurtured them.

Presenters

Jeran Artery, Cheyenne, blogs at Out in Wyoming, LGBT activist and Director of Social Change for Wyoming Equality, actor and visual artist, a native of Wheatland in very conservative Platte County, Wyo. Blog: http://outinwy.blogspot.com

Meg Lanker, Laramie, blogs at Cognitive Dissonance, hosts a radio show by the same on KOCA FM every Friday night. Meg brought a successful lawsuit against the University of Wyoming when it refused to let 1960s radical turned education reformer Bill Ayers speak on campus. She also organized a fund-raiser for LGBT groups when ultra-conservative commentator Ann Coulter spoke in Laramie earlier this year. She’s a member of the National Writers Union and a U.S. Navy veteran. Her web site is included in Tumblr's featured politics and government directory at http://www.tumblr.com/spotlight/politics and her site has over 3,000 followers. Blog: http://cognitivedissonance.tumblr.com/

Rodger McDaniel, Cheyenne, former Wyoming state legislator, one-time director of Habitat for Humanity in Nicaragua, retired director of Wyoming Mental Health and Substance Abuse Division, ordained minister, Blowing in the Wyoming Wind blogger. Sponsors a Monday night “Beer and Bibles” get-together each week at a Cheyenne bar where Bible stories are explored from a social justice angle. Rodger is a frequent guest columnist for the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. Blog: http://blowinginthewyomingwind.blogspot.com

Michael Shay, Cheyenne, fiction writer, essayist and blogger on hummingbirdminds since 2005. One of Michael’s short stories is featured in the 2010 anthology “Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams” from Coffee House Press. Other poets, writers and musicians in the anthology include U.S. Poet Laureate Phil Levine, Wanda Coleman, Diane DiPrima, Bob Dylan, Eminem, Li-Young Lee, Dorothy Day and Daniel Berrigan. Michael’s blog was recently named by the Washington Post as one of the top state-based political blogs in the U.S. He was a scholarship attendee at NN11 in Minneapolis. Blog: http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com

Wyoming Farmers' Market Conference set for April 27-29 in Riverton

Here's a sign that farmers' markets are really taking off in Wyoming (thanks to Nancy Sindelar's newsletter for the listing):

Friday-Sunday, April 27-29, Riverton: Wyoming Farmers Market Conference. Three tracks of programming for farmers, market managers and vendors. 10 AM Friday, Market Manager Certification, 8 AM Saturday, Seminars, Holiday Inn, 900 E. Sunset Blvd. 9 AM Sunday, High Tunnel Workshop, Riverton Fairgrounds, 1010 Fairgrounds Rd. Info & RSVP: wyomingfarmersmarkets.org, Brook, 777-5612, brook.gerke@wyo.gov, Renee, rking10@uwyo.edu, Linda, 777-6592, linda.stratton@wyo.gov. Cost: $25-100, 75% scholarsips available.

Anti-racist author Tim Wise is keynote speaker for UW Shepard Sumposium

 From a UW press release:

Tim Wise, anti-racist essayist, author and educator, is the keynote speaker Wednesday, March 28, for the University of Wyoming's 16th annual Shepard Symposium on Social Justice. Wise will speak from 4:30-6 p.m. in the Wyoming Union Ballroom. "Identities: Dismantling the Boxes" is the theme of this year's Shepard Symposium, which runs March 28-31. 

Wise, who is among the nation's most prominent anti-racist writers and educators, has been called "one of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics of white privilege in the nation," by best-selling author and Georgetown University Professor Michael Eric Dyson. 

Wise is the author of six books, including the highly acclaimed memoir, "Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White"; an essay collection, "Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama"; and his recent book, "Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority." 

In 1997, former UW College of Education faculty members Omawale Akintunde and Margaret Cooney organized the first symposium, then called "The Symposium for the Eradication of Social Inequality." Since then, the symposium has evolved into a major national conference that engages participants in discussion and analyses of strategies and actions that can eliminate social inequality. 

Honoring the work of the Shepard family and the memory of their son, Matthew Shepard, a UW student and social activist who was murdered in 1998, the symposium's name was changed in 2002. That spring, the Shepard Symposium received funding from an anonymous endowment given to UW to pursue social justice activities throughout the campus. 

The symposium is a living reminder of the need for information and dialogue about social justice concerns in America and beyond. 

"We want people to deconstruct and interrupt the ways in which proscriptive identities are forced upon members of marginalized groups by society," says Chair Angela Jaime in explaining the latest theme for the symposium. "Specifically, we hope that attendees will critically examine the ways in which society forces people to identify with certain membership groups." 

Various presentations will be made during the symposium. Highlights include: 

Beth Loffreda, UW Department of English associate professor, will present the plenary speech, "The Consequences of Identity," at the noon luncheon Thursday, March 29, in the Wyoming Union Ballroom. She is the author of "Losing Matt Shepard."

Bridget Kisling, a junior music therapy and psychology student at Anna Maria College (Paxton, Mass.), will use a life-size version of the 1950s Barbie doll to shed light on how the media plays a significant role in shaping a young girl's sense of body image. Her presentation is Friday, March 30, 1:45-3 p.m., in the Wyoming Union Big Horn Room. 

An endnote student panel discussion, "Boxed In," will be presented Friday, March 30, at 11:30 a.m. in the Wyoming Union Ballroom. UW students will discuss complex and misunderstood identities. 

The second annual Shepard Symposium Friday Night Party is from 10 p.m.-1:30 a.m. at the Library Bar and Grill. All proceeds benefit the recognized student organizations that have contributed time and efforts to the Shepard Symposium. Tickets are $5 at the door or $4 in advance, and can be purchased at the symposium.

For more information about the Shepard Symposium, visit the website at http://www.shepardsymposium.org/, or contact Jaime at (307) 766-3991 or email jaimea@uwyo.edu.


Here's some info on Tim Wise's book, "Dear White America":

In America, being white has long meant never having to think about race. Whites have been able to assume that the culture, political leadership and their own neighborhoods would “look like them,” and the economy would work for them, so long as they played by the rules. Now, facing chronic economic insecurity, a multicultural pop culture, a black president and a future in which they will no longer be the majority, whites are growing anxious. This anxiety has helped create the Tea Party phenomenon and is characterized by the call to “take the country back” to a mythologized past. Using racialized nostalgia, the right seeks to enlist fearful whites in a movement for reactionary social and economic policies. But as Tim Wise explains, such an agenda will only further harm the nation’s people, including most whites. Only by embracing a progressive, multicultural future, can the hope of American democracy survive.

Thanks for the cordial invitation, Pikes Peak Writers Conference

One of my Cheyenne critique group colleagues, Liz Roadifer, received this e-letter from the Pikes Peak Writers organization. Liz has been involved with this group for awhile and says they put on a great conference each spring. I may attend in 2012 for the first time. Some fine writers on the PPWC presenters' list, including Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale and Robert "Elvis Cole" Crais. 

The link below takes you to a user-friendly web site.

This is such a simple and appealing invitation. Maybe other regional writing groups could take a page from PPWC: 

Dear Elizabeth,

You're cordially invited to the 20th Annual Pikes Peak Writers Conference, which will be held April 19-22, 2012, at the Colorado Springs Marriott.

Come help us celebrate 20 years of success with four jam-packed days of informative workshops, motivational speeches, networking opportunities, Read & Critique sessions, and the chance to pitch your manuscript to some of the most sought-after editors and agents in the business.

Some of this year's featured speakers* are:

Robert Crais
Jeffery Deaver
Susan Wiggs
Joe R. Lansdale
Donald Maass
...and more!

*Faculty roster subject to change without notice.

Find out why PPWC is known as one of the friendliest and best- organized writers conferences. 

Registration is now open

Questions? Contact registrar@pikepikespeakwriters.com

Outnumbered and outgunned but unstoppable -- progressive bloggers in the West

Meg Lanker-Simons

Our roundtable session Saturday at the John R. Milton Writers' Conference at the University of South Dakota was entitled, “Snarky Slacktivists or Online Outlaws?: Leftie Bloggers in Red State Wyoming.”

Presenters were Michael Shay (me), hummingbirdminds prop.; Jeran Artery, author and editor of Out in Wyoming; and Meg Lanker-Simons, the power behind Cognitive Dissonance. The fourth member of our team, Rodger McDaniel of Blowing in the Wyoming Wind, couldn't make it to USD due to a family emergency.

We were a bit of an odd fit at a writers' conference. Even though its theme was "Outlaw: Law and (Dis)Order in the American West," ours was the only roundtable session in a schedule of literary readings and academic papers. Attendance was sparse. Yet we raged on. Our session even had a soundtrack.

I was appointed chair of the session so I dutifully chaired it (and what fine chairs they have at the new USD student center). The last time I presented at this conference, events were scattered all over campus. The U now has a second floor conference center that includes a ballroom. It reminded me of the conference center facilities UW added to its student center during its renovation several years ago.

Meg's blog came out of her "Cognitive Dissonance" show on KOCA Radio in Laramie. Meg is probably the most outspoken one in this ragtag band. A neo-Marxist who says she would fit right in in Berkeley but is a little out of her element in Laramie, Still, she believes strongly in the issues and has to speak out. She's almost as angry with Wyoming liberals as she is with conservatives due o the fact that they don't speak out and give in so easily to criticism from the roaring conservative majority. Recently, one of our merry band, Rodger McDaniel, has blogged and editorialized about the death of the Wyoming Democratic Party.

Meg is a techie and knows how to set up a radio show playlist. On her blog, her posts are an amalgam of writing, video, photos, music and animation. She actually knows how to push blogging limits. I am a writer who blogs. Meg is an activist who uses blog as bullhorn, maxing out her message with all the tools of technology. She also does her research, which drives her critics crazy.

Jeran Artery

Jaren is also an LGTB activist who blogs. He grew up in Wheatland, one of the most conservative communities in our part of the state. He was married, the father of a daughter, a successful financial adviser, when he came out. His friends and family were critical yet supportive. "What took you so long," was the message he got from most of them. He moved south 70 miles to Cheyenne, where he runs his company and also is director of social change of Wyoming Equality. I got to know Jeran this past winter during the struggles against anti-human legislation proposed by our whackadoodle legislators. That's when Jeran began blogging. He's an actor and artist and not necessarily a writer. He used photos and videos to make his points. His main target has been WY Watch, a group of right-wing fundie nuts who were behind most of the anti-gay, anti-immigrant and anti-women legislation. WY Watch stalks all of our blogs and we will be seeing its minions at the upcoming legislative session. They better be ready for another fight.

My presentation centered around a writer's metamorphosis into a blogger. The outline of my presentation is presented below for your edification.

I love my fellow bloggers. We spend our time speaking out about important issues. We all are tiny voices in an immense state. Outnumbered and outgunned yet unstoppable -- we wouldn't want it any other way.

We have talked about making presentations locally about our roles as denizens in Wyoming's underpopulated progressive blogosphere. Any suggestions on possible venues?

One more thing: thanks to our supporters who contributed to the ChipIn! campaign to send us to the Milton conference. Meg lists the contributors on her blog. We thank you all.

Here's the draft outline of my presentation, "Return of the Diary of a Failed Blogger::

I created a blog on Blogger in 2001. It looked interesting and I thought it could serve some purpose in my writing career, such as it was at the time. 

I prowled around the blogs or web logs as they were originally called. Most of them were on-line journals featuring the detailed doings of 15-year-olds in the suburbs. Shopping at the mall. Who likes (and doesn’t like) whom. Teen angst. The precursor to a lot of what you eventually saw on Facebook and Twitter.

In 2005, political blogs began popping up. I was interested on the ones from a Liberal or Progressive perspective: Daily Kos, Digby, Bartcop, Talking Points Memo, Left in the West from Missoula. I began to blog about Wyoming politics, writing, ADHD, etc. At work, I transferred my e-mail newsletter for writers – WyoLitMail – to a blog. It was a place to showcase WAC programs for writers and to billboard literary events around the state. It wasn't really exciting. We have a better blog now called Wyomingarts that I edit.

My personal blog was hit or miss at this time. In the summer of 2006, the events planner of a writing organization in Denver contacted me about appearing on a panel about “Writers Who Blog.” Leslie Petrovski had a blog about knitting and it was booming. The other presenter was writer and musician Larry Borowsky, founded of Viva El Birdos, a St. Louis Cardinals site (Cards flying high this weekened, eh Larry?). I looked at both of their blogs and they were wildly popular. I looked at my blog and saw tumbleweeds rolling across the screen surface. Not much action.

My 15-minute talk to the Denver group was entitled “Diary of a Failed Blogger.” It was funny, I guess, but also a little sad. But through my knitting and baseball colleagues, I learned a few things about getting and holding readers.  Find you focus and write original stuff on that topic.

I subtitled my blog “Prog-blogging Wyoming.” That was some sort of focus. I zeroed in on the state’s crazy politics as seen in the eyes of a lifelong Democrat, one of the few self-proclaimed Liberals in a truly Red State. I was an officer in the county Democratic Party but I tried to keep my independence from the party line. In the spring of 2008, Howard Dean sent me a nice video saying that I had been chosen to blog from the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. That was a great opportunity to meet my fellow prog-bloggers and exchange tips. We put each other’s links on our blogrolls and exchanged info. Over the next couple years, other progressive bloggers began popping up in Wyoming. Now we have a great group of people blogging from southeast Wyoming, some of whom are up her with me today. 

Last spring, I was voted in as a scholarship recipient at Netroots Nation in Minneapolis. It's great to be a scholarship student at the ripe old age of 60. At NN11, I was among my people. I plan on returning to NN12 in Providence, this time with my fellow outlaw bloggers. 

I blog on Daily Kos as Cheyenne Mike. In August, Chris Cillizza, editor of the Washington Post’s political blog “The Fix,” recently named Hummingbirdminds one of the best of the state-based political blogs in the U.S. Not bad for a failed blogger.

Now here comes the hard part. My fellow writers in my critique group in Cheyenne get on me often about spending too much time blogging and not enough time on my book projects. They are correct. However, I see blogging as a publishing project. Most of it is original work and not re-posting. I’ve started to put together chapbooks featuring my work through Blog2Print. My first effort is the chapbook, “The Chronicles of Tea Party Slim”). The idea is to use these chapbooks as thematic showcases of political essays, satire, humor and even short fiction. I can have them at readings and either sell them at cost or steer people toward the online publishing link where they can order copies for $18.99. It’s good to have your work out there, no matter in what form.

Michael Shay

I remember fondly the former poet laureate of Denver, Lalo Delgado. Lalo passed away 10 years ago. To my knowledge, he never blogged. Yet he published his own work in photocopied chapbooks. He sold them at his readings and gave them away. He went to events and wrote poems on the spot. On a trip to Wyoming in 1999, he and I were driving to a gig at Central High School when we witnessed a plane crash a few blocks away. A girl referred to as “America’s youngest pilot” crash-landed on take-off from the Cheyenne airport. She and her flight instructor were killed. At the end of the day, Lalo had written a poem about it and was reading it to another group of kids.

Lalo Delgado probably would be having a great time with social media if he were alive today. He was already doing it, you see. It was called “being a writer.”

Last chance to chip in for WY outlaw bloggers SD road trip

The ChipIn! widget goes down Wednesday, Oct. 26. We're almost at the $500 mark! Chip in now for the Wyoming outlaw bloggers road trip to the John R. Milton Writers Conference at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. You'll be glad you did -- we will!

See the widget on the right sidebar. Or on the blogroll at Cognitive Dissonance and Out in WY.

Get the details of our trip here.

Snarky Slacktivists join other Wyoming presenters at 2011 Milton Conference in Vermillion, S.D.

This year's John R.Milton Writers’ Conference Oct. 27-29 at the University of South Dakota has a decidedly Wyoming flavor.

You can't get much more Wyoming that Mark Spragg of Cody, who's the keynote speaker. Mark is the author of Where Rivers Change Direction, a memoir that won the 2000 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers award, and the novels, The Fruit of Stone, An Unfinished Life, and in 2010, Bone Fire. All four were top-ten Book Sense selections and An Unfinished Life, was chosen by the Rocky Mountain News as the Best Book of 2004. Spragg’s work has been translated into fifteen languages. He lives in Cody with his wife, Virginia, with whom he wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film version of his novel, An Unfinished Life, starring Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman.

Other presenters with Wyoming ties: Conference director and USD creative writing program prof Lee Ann Roripaugh, Laramie native; Robert Roripaugh, Wyoming Poet Laureate emeritus; Paul Bergstraesser, poet and UW prof from Laramie; Val Pexton, Laramie; Julianne Couch, Laramie (now in Ames, Iowa); Meg Lanker, Laramie; Jeran Artery, Cheyenne; and Michael Shay, Cheyenne (me).

Yes, I realize that Wyoming is not the center of the universe. It's just the place where I look out on the universe. I also spend my days promoting the state's writers, poets, essayists, visual artists, performers and musicians. I know them pretty well after 20 years on the job. We are pleased to share our views of Wyoming with our colleagues in South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota.

My role at the conference is as a free-range political blogger from The Equality State. Jeran Artery and Meg Lanker will join me for the presentation: "Snarky Slacktivists or Online Outlaws: Leftie Bliggers in Red-State Wyoming." Drop in to hear us 10:30 a.m.-noon on Saturday at the conference. Details here.

The three-day literary conference will include readings and book signings by award-winning featured authors, scholarly panel sessions exploring the conference theme of “Outlaw!: Law and (Dis)order in the American West,” as well as creative writing panels and pop culture sessions.  Other conference highlights include a showcase presentation of USD graduate creative writing students, a conference book fair, as well as a poetry slam sponsored by the Vermillion Literary Project at the Muenster University Center pit lounge featuring poet Kristin Naca.

Other featured presenters are Sherwin Bitsui, Kristin Naca, Karen Shoemaker, William Trowbridge, and USD visiting writer David Chan, who will give readings and book signings along with permanent USD creative writing faculty Ed Allen and Lee Ann Roripaugh.

FMI: http://miltonconference.wordpress.com or contact the Department of English at (605) 677-5229.

SocialWyo: Take Three Point Oh!

Juliette Rule speaking to Laramie County Dems Monday evening. She's also putting on the SocialWyo conference. More info: SocialWyo: Take Three Point Oh!

Tribes of creatives gather for WY Convergence conference

There are two terms that I’ve been hearing a lot lately: “creatives” and “tribe/tribal.” I guess that’s actually three words, although “tribe” and “tribal” are often intermingled when the subject is brought up.

“Creatives” are people in the creative industries of visual arts, writing, performing, humanities, historic preservation, filmmaking, culinary arts, etc. Only recently have they all been lumped under the heading of “creative industries.” The State of Colorado now has a Creative Industries Department. These entities are engaged in “creative placemaking” on a local level and statewide. Together they power the “creative economy” that includes “cultural heritage tourism.”

You may now curse me for writing (in parentheses) every single buzz phrase swirling around in the 2011 arts world. That’s a lot of creative juju.

Meanwhile, we’re all in these tribes grouped according to our passions. Wine-makers, computer gamers, poets, Americana musicians, progressive political bloggers, Tea Party activists, traditional knitters, cyclists, etc. There are innumerable subsets to these groups.

Tribes are nothing new. Most of our relatives lived in tribal cultures. We banded together for mutual interests, mainly food and shelter. That’s real basic tribal stuff. I heard "tribal" a lot over the weekend at the Scottish Irish Highland Festival. The leader of the Aussie Celtic band Brother announced several times that the band was about to go "tribal." That mainly consisted of beating on drums. Arbannach is a tribal Celtic band from Scotland that gets tribal on every one of its songs. Scottish clans are tribes. In olden times, they banded together for safety against other Scottish clans whose main purpose, it seems, was hacking each other with huge swords. You can still buy the swords and wear them proudly, although hacking of neighbors is usually frowned upon.

These days, clans have gear. My wife Chris's Cumming clan has a brand in its ancient crest, its own tartan and several varieties of scotch. It offered for sale a book about its 13th century clash with ancient enemies in the Bruce clan. You can get bumper stickers and other cool stuff at its web site. And you can join if you have roots as a Comins, Cumming, Cummings, or about 50 other versions of the name. This is important, I think, this sense of belonging to a group, a tradition, a family. That's what we seem to need.

There were many tribes at the Celtic fest. Pipe band tribes, herding dog handler tribes, music tribes, Guinness-drinking tribes (Slainte!), the U.S. Marine Corps, Society for Creative Anachronism, full-armor jousters, and many others.

Entrepreneur Michael Hyatt does a pretty good job of putting this all together on his web site. Here’s part of a post entitled “Marketing is Dead:”

Most creatives I know hate marketing. They want to write, speak, or entertain. But they hate the thought of promoting themselves or selling their art. If this describes you, I have good news. Marketing is dead. Okay, maybe I am overstating my case.

Marketing may not be dead, but, in the world of social media, it has morphed. Dramatically.

Tribe-building is the new marketing.

Marketing is no longer about shouting in a crowded marketplace. It is about participating in a dialogue with fellow travelers.  

Marketing is no longer about generating transactions. It is about building relationships. 

Marketing is no longer about exploiting a market for your own benefit. It is about serving those who share your passion—for your mutual benefit.

In his groundbreaking book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, Seth Godin defines a tribe as “a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.”  

I reviewed this book right after it came out in 2008. It is just as relevant today as it was then. It is the first book I give to new authors. It is must reading if you are serious about building an enduring career as a creative. 

Seth says that a tribe only has two requirements:
1. A shared interest
2. A way to communicate.

I bring this up because arts and humanities groups around Wyoming are addressing these issues Oct. 6-8 at its Convergence Conference in Cody. Keynoter is well-known "creative economy" guru Steven Tepper from the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and public Policy at Vanderbilt University.

One of my tribes, the Wyoming Arts Council, is offering travel stipends for individual artists and staffers, board members of volunteers of arts organizations. To get a stipend form, call the WAC at 307-777-7742. Get the complete schedule at www.convergencewyoming.com.

I’ll see my fellow tribal creatives Oct. 6 in Cody.

Bring your drum.

Wyoming's Snarky Slacktivists hit the road to Vermillion in October

I'm pleased to announce that the John R. Milton Writers’ Conference Oct. 27-29 at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion will be featuring the roundtable, "Snarky Slacktivists or Online Outlaws? Leftie Blogging in Red State Wyoming”

Panelists include Cheyenne's Rodger McDaniel, Jeran Artery and Mike Shay and Laramie's Meg Lanker-Simons (see their links on the right sidebar blogroll).

We are definitely snarky slacktivists. One has only to look at my sitting-in-front-of-the-computer-all-day waistline to deduce that. But outlaws? Probably not. We are progressives in a decidedly non-progressive state. Putting us in the same camp as Butch Cassidy and Wild Bill Hickok automatically gives us some Wild West creds.

Bang, bang!

We first began thinking about pitching a panel to the Milton conference back in July. Lee Ann Roripaugh, director of the creative writing program at USD, put out the call for proposals early in the summer. Lee Ann is a Wyoming native, offspring of Robert Roripaugh, Wyoming Poet Laureate Emeritus, and Yoshiko Roripaugh, native of Japan and one of the nicest people in the universe. As often happens, Lee Ann escaped her home town of Laramie to do some amazing things. She earned a music performance degree from Indiana University and went on to earn an M.F.A. in creative writing at IU working with Yusef Komunyakaa, a prize-winning poet, Vietnam vet and Colorado State University (my alma mater) grad.

So had did we make the case for outlaw online slacktivism? Read this:

In 2008, Wyoming voters went for John McCain over Barack Obama by a 65-33 percent margin. This was the lowest percentage of “blue” voters in any state, outdoing even neighboring Utah and Idaho (34 percent). In 2010, Republican Matt Mead was elected governor by a 3-to-1 margin. All five elected offices were swept by Republicans and the GOP-dominated Legislature upped its “R” margin to 76 out of 90 seats. 

Democrats are an endangered species in Wyoming. This is a state where sporting an Obama bumper sticker is a radical act. Many Democrats are afraid to speak up in public because they are so tragically outnumbered. In some cases, jobs are on the line. 

The four bloggers in this proposal are not the state’s only outspoken progressives, but they represent voices unheard in Wyoming’s mainstream media. They have been active in Democratic Party politics, and one has served in the legislature as a Democrat. But they are not party functionaries. They often find themselves at odds with a party structure that is timid in the face of Republican onslaughts. It may be a stretch to label them “virtual outlaws.” But they do represent voices that fall into four of your suggested conference categories:
• Outlaw as Other
• Gender outlaws, and/or queering the American West
• Borders, border crossings, and boundary transgressions
• Virtual outlaws, and/or outlaws in the “new frontier” of cyber-space 

In our roundtable session, we will speak about our prog-blogging journeys. It will include a multimedia presentation of our work. All of us will be blogging from the conference.

Presenters: 

Jeran Artery, Cheyenne, blogs at Out in Wyoming, LGBT activist and Director of Social Change for Wyoming Equality, actor and visual artist, a native of Wheatland in very conservative Platte County, Wyo. Blog: http://outinwy.blogspot.com

Meg Lanker, Laramie, blogs at Cognitive Dissonance, hosts a radio show by the same on KOCA FM every Friday night. Meg brought a successful lawsuit against the University of Wyoming when it refused to let 1960s radical turned education reformer Bill Ayers speak on campus. She also organized a fund-raiser for LGBT groups when ultra-conservative commentator Ann Coulter spoke in Laramie earlier this year. She’s a member of the National Writers Union. Her web site is included in Tumblr's featured politics and government directory at http://www.tumblr.com/spotlight/politics and her site has over 3,000 followers. Blog: http://cognitivedissonance.tumblr.com/

Rodger McDaniel, Cheyenne, former Wyoming state legislator, one-time director of Habitat for Humanity in Nicaragua, retired director of Wyoming Mental Health and Substance Abuse Division, ordained minister, Blowing in the Wyoming Wind blogger. Sponsors a Monday night “Beer and Bibles” get-together each week at a Cheyenne bar where Bible stories are explored from a social justice angle. Rodger is a frequent guest columnist for the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. Blog: http://blowinginthewyomingwind.blogspot.com 

Michael Shay, Cheyenne, fiction writer, essayist and blogger on hummingbirdminds since 2005. One of Michael’s short stories is featured in the 2010 anthology “Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams” from Coffee House Press. Other poets, writers and musicians in the anthology include new U.S. Poet Laureate Phil Levine, Wanda Coleman, Diane DiPrima, Bob Dylan, Eminem, Li-Young Lee, Dorothy Day and Daniel Berrigan. One of Michael’s essays is in “Easy to Love but Hard to Raise,” due out in November from DRT Press. Michael’s blog was recently named by the Washington Post as one of the top state-based political blogs in the U.S. Blog: http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com

Go read the blogs. What would Judge Roy Bean think: snarky slacktivists or online outlaws?

Find out more about the Milton conference at http://miltonconference.wordpress.com

Keith Olbermann first confirmed speaker at NN12

Netroots Nation has announced that Keith Olbermann is its first confirmed speaker for the 2012 conference June 7-10 in Providence, R.I.

Great news. I plan on being there. Hope I have an opportunity to discuss James Thurber with Mr. Olbermann. Thurber was a favorite of his late father's and Keith read excerpts to close out each Friday's show on MSNBC. That was before he was cancelled by corporate giant NBC. I also am a big fan of the man's righteous anger, which I miss these days. I'll have to check and see if Optimum (formerly Bresnan) carries Keith's network.

More on NN12 at http://www.netrootsnation.org