Sunday, July 6, 2008

Some good news on the writing class front and publishing opps...

If you live in Arlington or near Arlington, Grub Street is now offering classes at the Arlington Center for the arts. I'm psyched about this - with my crazy schedule, it will now actually be possible to take a Grub Street class without schlepping into Boston and trying to park! I'm happy.

I've also just added some helpful publishing links to the site for anyone looking to get published. I was inspired to do this after participating in a panel for MFA creative nonfiction students a week or two ago at Lesley. They seemed to be thirsting for these kinds of resources...

Newpages.com offers a rundown of all the literary magazines out there; MediaBistro is a great resource if you're trying to get published in magazines...The How to Pitch articles are really helpful, plus they have a section called Pitching an Agent with interviews and information directly from the mouths of literary agents (To get access to this information I do believe you have to become an AvantGuild member which is about $50 year); Poets and Writers magazine lets you know which literary magazines, anthologies and contests are currently going on - they have a submission calendar online and in their magazine and you can sign up for their online newsletter...for free; Writer's Market gives you access to tons of publishing information. Perhaps you're already familiar with their books? Anyway, here they give an overview of what you get if your subscribe: http://www.writersmarket.com/LearnMore.aspx. Anyway, I'll keep adding to this list as stuff comes up.
Oh, and I wanted to share with you a great listserve of publishing opps for poets, fiction and nonfiction writers (Is listserve the right term? I'm not so good with the tech lingo). Anyway, it's called creative opportunities list for writers. You join by sending an email to CRWROPPS-B with the subject line Subscribe, I think.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Who me, a blogger?

I'm the one who walks around saying 'there are too many blogs out there...' and here I am starting another one. What is my motivation? To write. This blog is called the MFAMama because that happens to be my identity at the moment. I'm a writer with an MFA in creative writing, and the mom of two boys under three. So I have my hands full, and like many writer moms out there, I'm trying to figure it all out. Trying to divide my love of my two living and breathing babies with that other baby, the written word. I want to use this blog to reflect on my life as a mama, and also my life as a writer. I also want to provide resources for other writers and students and graduates of MFA programs. So there's the boring explanation, out of the way. Not that anyone's reading this. Yet...