Introducing BHWA Community News
including an emergency workshop with Michele Gilliam
News feels like something to avoid these days, but there’s all kind of news! Here come some. And community news related to community news.
The Work Room had an unexpected hiatus last week for a few reasons, but we are back in full swing tomorrow. If you haven’t registered yet, here’s the link.
If you are in need of some writing time and to be in community with others who are committed to and seek peace, Michele Gilliam, who many of you know from NYWC, is leading an Emergency Writing Workshop for Peace on Zoom this Tuesday, June 17 from noon to 3 PM Eastern Time.
Michele writes: “This country is addicted to war and the fascist regime underway is harming us in unimaginable ways. Let's get together and write again. I'll prepare two writing prompts and we will be using the New York Writers Coalition writing method. Only difference is that I'll allow for an extra hour for either free writing or open discussion about peace. The human in me recognizes the need for people to be in community, however the unionist in me wants to be strategic on how we effectively organize against increased warfare.”
Email me by 11:30 am on Tuesday (half an hour before the workshop) at badhabitswritingacademy via gmail and I will send you the link.
Bad Habits Writing Academy continues to slowly evolve, and it finally dawned on me to share news from and for our community on a regular basis. This idea came about from a series of emails with Work Rook regular Annie Meitchik, whose book, "The Little Book of Sleep Meditations," was published on June 12 in Europe, Australia, and Canada, and the book is available for pre-order in advance of its US publication in November! Congrats Annie!
We all need news like this from our community, and you all are an amazing bunch of people doing lots of great things. We hear about some of these things fleetingly in Work Room. So from now on, I am going to share Community News once a month. Just email me your writing or adjacent news at badhabitswritingacademy via gmail. Send things like publications, upcoming opportunities for writers, readings, acceptances of all kinds and the like. Please include relevant links and as much info makes it easiest for me (I have Bad Habits ok?) and ideally put Community News in the subject line. I will probably come up with a simple form next month that will make it all easier for everyone. Anything you send me between now and the last day of the month will (at my discretion, of course) be included in the next Community News post, about halfway through the month.
One more BHWACN (this will never catch on) item that will expire quickly, so act fast: Blaise Allysen Kearsley’s forthcoming How I Learned Magazine is accepting submissions of nonfiction essays of 900 to 2000 words and flash nonfiction essays of up to 800 words. The soft deadline is Monday, June 16 (aka tomorrow) and a hard deadline of June 20. Get the deets here.
That’s it for now. I haven’t taken a nap today so this was quite the effort. (I get a lot of fan mail asking for more nap content so snuck that in.)
Looking forward to seeing your news and perhaps even your face in Work Room!
Aaron