Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Local Notes: DC-Area Events

--The Writer’s Center is offering a chance to win a free registration to the big confab of writers, the AWP Conference, which descends upon DC in early February 2011. Here’s the info from their newsletter:

To enter the AWP registration contest, you must be a current member of The Writer’s Center. If you are interested in attending the conference for free, register for a Winter/Spring workshop before November 15. Then write a 50 word précis explaining why you deserve to go for free. In it, please explain how the conference will help you enhance your writing career. If you are not a member but still wish to enter the contest, please click here to join: https://www.writer.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=340&tab=1

Please e-mail (awp.contest@writer.org) your précis by November 15. Winners will be notified via e-mail on Friday, November 19.

--The Baltimore Writers’ Conference is set for November 19 & 20 at Towson University. The keynote speaker will be Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of The Thing Around Your Neck, Purple Hibiscus, and Half of a Yellow Sun. She will give a reading on Friday, November 19, at 8:00 PM in Lecture Hall 238. For more details, including an excellent line-up of presenters, please go here.

-- And here’s an interesting event about a hot topic, sponsored by the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA):

In Between the Panels: DC's Emergence on the Graphic Novel Scene
A Panel Discussion


When: Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Where: Busboys & Poets, 5th & K Streets location
Cost: FREE and open to the public

About the panel:
Carolyn Belefski is the mastermind behind the web comic Curls. She is also one of the creators of several other comic books: Kid Roxy, Black Magic Tales, and The Legettes, and an indefatigable (nightly) poster to her blog, Sketch Before Sleep. Her work has appeared in USA WEEKEND Magazine, The Commonwealth Times, Virginia Living Magazine, Magic Bullet, CROQ Zine, and The Pulse on COMICON.com. Ms. Belefski is a nominee for the Kim Yale Award for Most Talented Newcomer for 2010.

Matt Dembicki is a DC-based cartoonist whose work includes the award-winning nature parable Mr. Big, The Great White Shark Story, Xoc, and The Brewmaster's Castle, about legendary DC brewer Christian Heurich. His latest anthology, Trickster: Native American Tales: A Graphic Collection, has received rave reviews from Booklist, Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal and has been nominated as one of the Young Adult Library Services Association's 2011 Great Graphic Novels for Teens. In addition to his own work, Dembicki also hosts kids' workshops in the DC area and beyond on making comic books.

Molly Lawless, a Boston native, moved to the DC area in 2005. She has self-published mini comics as well as a compilation, Infandum! Ad Infinitum. She is currently working on a full-length graphic novel for McFarland Publishing titled Hit by Pitch. She is an avid blogger and includes stories about her family in her daily posts.

Mike Rhode, panel moderator, is co-author of the comics research bibliography, editor of Exhibition and Media Reviews for the International Journal of Comic Art, and a contributing writer for Hogan's Alley. In 2008, he was named Best (Comics) Art Blogger by the Washington City Paper for his Comics DC blog. Rhodes edited Harvey Pekar: Conversations, a book of interviews with the late underground comic book writer and author of American Splendor published by the University Press of Mississippi. He has written for the Comics Journal and was selected as an RFK Journalism Awards judge for the editorial cartoon division of Comics Journal in 2009 and 2010.Rhodes currently writes about comics for the City Paper.

For more information on the panel, please see our events page: http://www.wnba-books.org/wash/events.php

Work-in-Progress

DC-area author Leslie Pietrzyk explores the creative process and all things literary.