Did you know? There is a booklist in our catalog for local authors. Click here to see it! These books also have special stickers on their spines, even though they appear in all different parts of the library collection.
Support for writers:
In addition to organizing a biennial Festival, the Southwest Festival of the Written Word gathers and connects local writers for support, workshops, and more. Click here to visit their website and learn about supportive writing groups.
The Southwest Festival of the Written Word also administers our local Poet Laureate program.
The WNMU Writing Center is located in the J. Cloyd Miller Library. They also accept questions at writing.center@wnmu.edu.
WNMU Writing Across the Curriculum is a collaborative effort to teach writing skills, offer writing-intensive classes, and support students in writing.
National Novel Writing Month “National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000-word (approximately 175-page) novel by 11:59:59 PM on November 30.”
Ways to get your writing “out there”:
The Silver City Quarterly Review literary magazine spotlights local authors in Silver City and southwestern New Mexico. To contribute, authors are requested to submit short original works of less than 1000 words. This can include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, a chapter from a novel or a review of another author’s published works. Authors retain full rights of any unpublished works.
Thank you to Beate Sigriddaughter for providing this list of places to submit work:
- Poets & Writers, www.pw.org Look under “Publish your writing” to investigate magazines and small presses, as well as other resources.
- Trish Hopkinson, https://trishhopkinson.com/where-to-submit/ Eclectic, focuses on poetry, but uses very nice categories for submissions, e.g. “paying markets for emerging poets,” “where to submit reprints,” and the like.
- Clifford Garstand Ranking—Literary Magazines: cliffordgarstang.com Ranks magazines according to Pushcart Prize standings of magazines. See “Literary Magazine Ranking” under the Blog section of the menu.
- John Fox’s Bookfox: http://thejohnfox.com/ranking-of-literary-journals/ Ranks literary magazines according to how often their stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories. Focuses on fiction, but includes a link to a similar non-fiction ranking.
Avenues for self-publishing and services that help writers publish are listed in our two-page guide, which can be downloaded here: Self Publishing Resources (PDF, 344KB).