SHAMc's First Conference Scheduled!

Dear SHAMc friends, supporters, and curious onlookers,

With thanks to the Safety Harbor Library Foundation for their support.

I am writing with great news. On November 8, 2015, the Safety Harbor Writers & Poets Conference 2015: A Focus on Craft, will be SHAMC's very first major event. I am thrilled to be facilitating something so worthwhile and I know that the building and the people who have helped to make it happen will also make it a success.

For those who don't know me, I run Safety Harbor Writers & Poets. I facilitate two writers groups, one of which is open to the public every 4th Thursday of the month at the Safety Harbor Library. I am also going to start a Teen Writers Group at the library in October. I host Safety Harbor's own Writers & Poets Open Mic Night. Our next event will be at Tapping the Vine on October 14th at 7 p.m.

But let's talk about the conference. We have two amazing Keynote Speakers: Roy Peter Clark and Ray Arsenault. These accomplished authors have the ability to attract the masses, but I won't stop there! There are going to be workshops from completing a novel,  turbocharging your sentences, to publishing, to writing your life purpose.

The cost for this full day conference is $65 if you register by September 30. As of October 1, the price will change to $75. and $85 the day of the event. If you are a student with valid ID, you qualify for the student rate of $45. If any of you would like to sponsor a writer, I know several who'd sincerely appreciate a scholarship, including teens. Any help is appreciated and your name will be publicly recognized.

My root dream for this conference is to help others find their happiness. I am living the life I always wanted and if I can help other writers to grow, it's all worth it. Space will be limited, so please take advantage of the early price ticket if possible. I hope to see you on November 8th at the amazing Safety Harbor Art and Music Center!

Words change lives. It's your time to write.

The Future’s So Bright

We’ll have to wear our SHAMMIE SHADES.

As I write this Todd and Kiaralinda are scouting musicians for future house and SHAMc  concerts. What better place to do THAT then South by Southwest (SXSW), a once-a-year music event in Austin Texas that draws musicians of every genre imaginable? Whew…THAT was a long sentence.   And since music is as primal in our DNA as the need to survive, it is the place to rub elbows with all kinds of people who flock there to let the music wash over them.  Can I Get a WITNESS?   Halleluiah brothers and sisters!   I can’t wait to hear about the possible acts for us to experience in the future. I also want to hear about celebrity sightings.

And in the world of theatre, The Safety Harbor Writers and Poets are very proud of one of our own, Julia Rudgers, who has been knocking them dead in a play called "Radium Girls"  at the West Coast Players.  Unfortunately, there are only a couple more performances to see.  I believe they are next Friday and Saturday the 23rd and 24th of March.  Go to the Players Web site @ wcplayers.org to read up.  They’ve been getting awesome reviews.  In a nutshell, the play is about actual circumstances surrounding a radium plant in Orange, NJ, where young women were poisoned by wetting brushes tainted with radium on their lips--a requirement for their jobs painting watch dials.  Julia plays four characters.  GO JULIA!

Those of us in the Safety Harbor Writers and Poets are really excited about SHAMc and the home it will provide for writers, musicians, actors, and artists. We can barely STAND it.  We’re like dogs at a table waiting for someone to drop the prime rib, our tails wagging in anticipation.  We’ve been leaving anonymous little poems everywhere we go to spark curiosity and keep ourselves it shape creatively.  We’re also having fun writing a conglomerate novel that is going to be really silly and quirky.  Imagine about ten or eleven writers of VASTLY different styles and temperaments.  One writes a chapter, then passes it to the next.  And so on and so on.  This is like a parlor game for writers.  A famous example of this is a novel called Naked Came the Stranger, which started as a hoax  to make fun of American Culture in the sixties.  Twenty four prominent journalists put together a novel, (in a way that we are attempting), and they published it under the name Penelope Ashe.    We’re having fun with it.  Maybe we’ll publish it!  Wouldn’t it be great to have a little store in SHAMc where people could sell their art, CDs, and self-published books?   How fun would THAT be?

I’m going to go for now, but things are really coming together in a very good way…

Deb