The 19th annual Cochise Community Creative Writing Celebration is officially accepting submissions for its annual writing contest. Participants are invited to enter the writing contest in three categories: poetry, short story (fiction) and memoir (nonfiction). In addition to cash prizes, first-place winners of the writing contest have their work published in The Mirage, Cochise College’s literary and arts magazine.
Both artists and writers are also invited to the 2017 Creative Writing Celebration, set for Thursday, March 30 through Saturday, April 1, 2017, at the Cochise College Sierra Vista Campus. This annual event brings published writers in several genres, such as poetry, novels, creative nonfiction, juvenile fiction and screenwriting, to present hands-on workshops to aspiring writers from Cochise County.
Katherine Towler will be this year’s keynote speaker. Towler earned an M.A. in Writing at Johns Hopkins and an M.A. in English Literature at the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. She teaches in the M.F.A. Creative Writing Program at Southern New Hampshire University. She is author of The Penny Poet of Portsmouth: A Memoir of Place, Solitude, and Friendship, and the novels Snow Island, Evening Ferry, and Island Light, a trilogy set on a fictional New England island. She is also co-editor with Ilya Kaminsky of A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith.
Other visiting authors who will be presenting at the Creative Writing Celebration include editor J.L. (Jessica) Powers. Powers has worked in the small independent publishing world since 2002. Currently, she works as a publicist for Cinco Puntos Press, moonlights as an editor for Akashic Books, and runs her own small press, Catalyst Book Press. Powers is the award-winning author of seven books for children and young adults. Her eighth book, Broken Circle, which she co-wrote with her brother, is due out in 2017.
Mary Sojourner, who will be this year’s fiction presenter, is author of three novels: Sisters of the Dream, Going Through Ghosts and 29 and also short story collections. She reviews books for KNAU’s Southwest Reviews, and she was chosen as a Distinguished Writer in Residence in 2007 by the Virginia C. Piper Center for Creative Writing, ASU.
Ken Waldman will be this year’s poetry presenter. Waldman is a writer, musician, and educator. He has published six full-length poetry collections, a memoir, and over 400 poems and stories in journals and anthologies. He also performs Appalachian-style string-band music combined with original poetry, and Alaska-set storytelling.
The writing contest deadline is Monday, March 6, 2017. To enter the writing contest, authors must also register to attend the 2017 Creative Writing Celebration. For more information about the Creative Writing Celebration and the visiting authors you can visit the creative writing website athttps://www.cochise.edu/cwc/. You can also contact Beth Orozco at (520) 255-6060 or email at creativewriting@cochise.edu.