Sheryl Monks

Clapboard House: Okay, so this little gem has been around for a couple of years. But it's new to me, and I LOVE it. Check out the new essay "Plot is Fiction: or How I Confuse Students to Write Well" by Laura Valeri. An upcoming issue will feature work inspired by Eudora Welty.

Still: The Journal: This new beauty features contemporary writing about Central Appalachia and the Mountain South. Headed up by Silas House, Marianne Worthington, and Jason Howard. Nice debut, guys.

Southern Women's Review: Inspired by (but not affiliated with) the Berry College Southern Women Writers' Conference. The debut issue features work by Kat Meades, Beebe Barksdale-Bruner, Andrea Selch, Jessie Carty, Susan Meyers, and many other talented writers. Check it out.

Woke up this morning to find a sight for sore eyes: an email from Rusty Barnes, editor of the blogozine Fried Chicken and Coffee, saying that he is nominating my story "Justice Boys" for a Million Writers Award.

How 'bout that?

I'm proud to be nominated with fellow FCAC contributors Jim Parks, for his amazing story "Blind Lemon," and Sheldon Lee Compton, for his brilliant story "Bent Country."

Read all three nominated stories here.

Million Writers Award

I'm very pleased to have stories appearing recently in the new issue of Surreal South, edited by Laura and Pinckney Benedict, and Fried Chicken and Coffee, a blogazine of rural and Appalachian literature maintained by Rusty Barnes. I'm also happy to announce that another story will appear in an upcoming issue of Night Train, which currently features two superb stories by Vanessa Gebbie and Eric Bosse.

Surreal South '09 features work by a slew of brilliant writers, including Pinckney and Laura Benedict themselves, along with Alexander Lumans, Becky Hagenston, Dan Mueller, Heather Fowler, J.T. Ellison, Jedidiah Ayres, Jessica Glass, John McManus, Josh McCall, Josh Woods, Kurt Rheinheimer, Kyle Minor, Lee K. Abbott, Melanie DeCarolis, Michael Garriga, Michael P. Kardos, Okla Elliott & Raul Clement, Oscar Hokeah, Steve Patten, and Tantra Bensko. I'm thrilled to be included with such fine company.

If you haven't yet discovered Fried Chicken and Coffee, now's a good time. After you read Jim Nichols' new story "The Chickens," check out mine ("Justice Boys") in the archives for July 2009.

I have decided to participate in the Dzanc Books Write-A-Thon, which will take place December 17-20. I plan to write for the entire weekend, only taking breaks to eat and sleep.

Not only will it be a treat for me to have a dedicated time for my writing, but hopefully this will also benefit Dzanc. Dzanc is a wonderful non-profit independent publishing company that supports literary magazines and small presses, and publishes fantastic work. Also, Dzanc funds writing programs in public schools in both Michigan and New York where creative writing classes are not offered. They also sponsor the Dzanc Prize, which benefits not only the writer awarded the prize, but also pays for a community-based project lsuch as writing workshops in prisons or cancer centers.

I would be honored if you would sponsor my writing this year. Your dollars will help Dzanc Books to continue to support great writing and foster the creative talent of public school kids. If you'd like to pitch in, please click on the following link which will take you to a page where you can make a donation: Dzanc Write-A-Thon Sheryl Monks

If you would like to get involved in the Write-A-Thon, please email Dan Wickett at dan@dzancbooks.org

Well, I've come to a screeching halt on the novel writing. For the time being anyway. I happily accepted a position to teach English at Wilkes Community College mid-semester, so I'm having to play catch up. I love my classes, by the way. I have great students, which makes all the difference.

I'm not counting off nano just yet, though. I have 12,000 more words than what I started with, and for that I'm extremely pleased and inspired. There's a lot of rubbish in there, but still and all. There's probably no chance I'm going to make the 50K mark, at this point. Not by Nov. 30. But I plan to modify nano into a 3-month marathon. So hopefully by the end of January, I'll meet that goal. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

I decided to attempt NaNoWriMo this year. I've made the word count goal for the past two days, but I've lost lots of sleep. Feeling like a zombie, but my friends say that's good for letting go of my very strong impulse to self-edit. I need a jolt, though, so I'm hoping this helps me establish a disciplined daily writing regimen. I have a tendency to do anything except plant my butt in the chair and write. So if you have the same problem, maybe nano will work for you, too. Check it out: www.nanowrimo.org. Add me to your buddy list.

My copy of Velva Jean Learns to Drive by award-winning author, and dear friend, Jennifer Niven has been shipped! I read a very early version of this novel a couple of years ago when Jennifer was drafting it, so I'm super excited about reading the finished book. I can't even begin to relay to you how many exciting things are going on in Jennifer's ultra-glam writing life these days. You'll have to visit her website yourself for the lowdown on her new memoir The Aqua-Net Diaries: Big Hair, Big Dreams, Small Town and the sitcom based on the book, which she and best friend Joey Kramer (yes, of course I'm jealous) are writing right now!

Go check it out: JenniverNiven.com

Just a reminder to writers in the Wilkes, Surry, Yadkin county areas. Please join us at the Yadkin County Arts Council tomorrow night, July 23rd, at 6:30 to help us grow a thriving local literary community. If you want to help shape things, now's the time to get involved. 226 E. Main Street, Yadkinville. See you there.

Good friend and fellow Queens MFA grad Jessica Handler will be visiting a great local bookstore in Kernersville. Jessica is the author of the memoir Invisible Sisters, the compelling story of a girl who must navigate the loss of her two sisters before she can discover herself.

Publisher's Weekly calls the book a "clear-eyed, candid work [that] portrays the immense emotional toll that two daughters' illnesses take on a family living in Atlanta."

Jessica will be reading from Invisible Sisters at Shakespeare & Co. on Saturday, June 6, at 1:00 pm. Please, please join us. You'll be so glad you did!

For more info., visit www.shakespeareainkernersville.com or www.jessicahandler.com.

Before I leave for Paris, I'm doing a six-week writing blitz. Author Patry Francis over at Toil, Solitude, Prayer has been inspiring me with her 100 Days of Discipline advice. I'm hoping to get a 60 page novelette (a condensed version of the novel I'm working on) finished, which I can begin expanding in August. So if I don't answer your emails, it's only because I'm training for a marathon.