Love letters ~ Where your fellow writers are getting published

X5 by Diana Stager, who's also in the
Thursday evening Next Step class in
Georgetown. X5 is available from
Evernight Teen  here.

Hi, Brian.

I wanted to officially share with you news of my recent success.  I have signed a contract to publish my first YA novel with Evernight Teen. Exciting times ahead!  This is just a first step in the write direction and I am looking forward to the journey ahead in the company of my newfound "critical friends" and fellow writers in the Thursday night course in Georgetown.

Susan Thomas

For information about submitting to Evernight (erotic romance) and Evernight Teen, see here.

For details of upcoming weekly courses, see here. For the list of all upcoming workshops and courses, see here.

Brian,

More great news! I am now a FINALIST in the John Kenneth Galbraith Literary Award competition. There are three of us. My story is titled "The Violinist." I will attend their event this Saturday and find out whether I win. So wish me luck!  

By the way, I got the idea about entering this contest from your recent email/blog. So for that I also thank you.

Bye for now,
Doreen M McFarlane

Note: As it turns out, the winner of the 2013 John Kenneth Galbraith Literary Award (and the $2,000 prize) is Alyssa Foulkes of Guelph. Alyssa was a finalist for this contest three times before finally winning this big prize. So congratulations to her! But congratulations also to Doreen for making it into the final round. Doreen, I hope you have better luck next time!

A correction:

Hi, Brian.

The winner of this year’s John Kenneth Galbraith award was Gord Grisenthwaite. {Alyssa Foulkes won in 2012.} I was the third finalist along with Doreen McFarlane and Gord. This is the third time I’ve been a finalist. Can’t seem to make that final leap.

Ruth Zavitz

Hi,  

This is to let you know that Nancy Clark at commuterlit.com has emailed me to say that the anthology with my short story “Speak Softly” is now available (here).  The Anthology is called CommuterLit Selections Fall 2013: A Month of Reading For Your Transit Commute.  It's $21 and I understand that might be more than some people want to spend.  I am just thrilled to be a part of it.  

Thanks for you support!

Cathy Hendrix

CommuterLit Selections
is available here.

Hi, Brian.  

Our local newspaper, the Lakefield Herald, interviewed me last week to promote CommuterLit's anthology of short stories, which included my story, “Time's a Wasting.”  The interview is in today's newspaper and is also on-line here.

Nancy Boyce

For more about the CommuterLit anthology, see here.

Hi, Brian.

I hope the summer has been kind to you. It has been rewarding for me in many respects.

Nancy Kay Clark at CommuterLit.com will publish my short story submission, “Study in Bitch.” This was a story that I read one evening in the Intensive Creative Writing course last fall. I took your, and my two reviewers', comments to heart and revised the piece to make the antagonist, Troy, more sympathetic. It worked. (See details of upcoming weekly courses, see here.)

I also received good news from Wynterblue Publishing. "Snowfall" placed first in their April WynLit2Four contest, "Death on the Bus to Lucknow" placed second in their March contest and another submission, "Normal for Norfolk" (originally submitted as "The Song of Soloman") received an Honourable Mention in June (I think).

"Café Traumerei" comes out in a paperback anthology of thirteen short stories this fall, published by Red Tuque books in Penticton, B.C. I have ordered a copy for you.

I can't speak too highly of the worth of your workshop on editing, revision and rewriting that I attended in January 2012. The results above, and earlier, speak for themselves. Your workshop on short story writing (and novel writing) in Brampton in June ranks with the editing workshop. Feel free to quote me. (I will quote you! And if anyone’s interested, I’m offering this workshop in Ottawa on Nov 17 here – Brian)

The one thing that continues to puzzle me is why new writers believe they must start out their literary by writing The Great Canadian Novel before they have attained even a modest degree of success writing short stories.

And now, I really must start the short story beginning, "Blood is supposed to be red..." that you set for us in your June workshop and told us to submit that week to CommuterLit. I have been known to procrastinate, though I like to think of it as setting priorities.

See you in Brampton on December 7 at the “Writing Dramatic Stories” workshop.

Regards,
Michael Joll

For information on submitting to CommuterLit, see here. To read Michael’s story, “Study in Bitch,” see here.

Good morning, Brian.

I hope you remember me out of all the faces of your students. Brock’s Railroad just won the Gold Medal for Wartime Fiction from the Independent Publisher’s Awards. Could you post this on your blog? As you well know, it’s tough generating publicity for novels.

Cheers,
Tom Taylor

Congratulations, to Tom. He’s had great success with his Brock’s series, starting with Brock’s Agent, then Brock’s Railroad, and most recently, Brock’s Traitor.

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Bolton, Caledon, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.