2013 Writers' Conferences in the Southeast

January 6-12, 2013
Blue Flower Arts Winter Writers' Conference
New Smyrna Beach, Florida

January 19-27, 2013
Eckerd College Writers’ Conference: Writers in Paradise
St. Petersburg, Florida

January 24-28, 2013
Fun in the Sun Conference
Florida

January 26-27, 2013
Cocoa Beach Writers’ Conference
Cocoa Beach, Florida

April 4-6, 2013
Tennessee Mountain Writers Conference
Oak Ridge, Tennessee

April 5-6, 2013
Blue Ridge Writers' Conference
Blue Ridge, Georgia

April 13, 2013
NC Writers' Network Spring Conference 2013
Greensboro, North Carolina
(I assume they had this but the website link doesn't work.  Not sure if it was a conference or just workshop)

April 18, 2013
Conference on Souther Literature
Chattanooga, Tennessee
(Held every other year)

April 19-20, 2013
Kentucky Writers’ Conference and Southern Kentucky Bookfest
Bowling Green, Kentucky

May 4-5, 2013
DFW Writers Conference
Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas

May 10-12, 2013
Atlanta Writers Conference
Atlanta, Georgia

May 17-18, 2013
Tallahassee Book Festival and Writers Conference
Tallahassee, Florida

May 18, 2013
Red Clay Writers' Conference
Kennesaw, Georgia
(This may have replaced Springfest which used to be held in Kennesaw in the spring)

June 23-28, 2013
Chesapeake Writers' Conference
St. Mary's City, Maryland

July 17-20, 2013
Romance Writers of America Annual Conference
Atlanta, Georgia

July 23-Aug 4, 2013
Sewanee Writers' Conference
Sewanee, Tennessee

August 22-26, 2013
Killer Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee

August 30, 2013
The Writers' Conference at the Decatur Book Festival
Decatur, Georgia
(The Decatur Book Festival typically has a one day writers' conference at the start of the festival, but the website currently has no details about it.  Poets and Writers has this blurb)

September 25-28, 2013
Chattahoochee Valley Writers' Conference
Columbus, Georgia
(I don't have much hope for this one, they even misspelled their own name on their website, and they have no details of an event coming in a few months)

September 26-28, 2013
Scribblers Retreat and Writers' Conference
St. Simon's Island, Georgia
(This may not be happening in 2013, they have no details or schedule on their website.  But they do allow you to pay for it online right now)

October 4-5, 2013
Moonlight and Magnolia's 2013
Norcross, Georgia

October 18-20, 2013
Florida Writers Conference
Lake Mary, Florida

October 19-20, 2013
James River Writers' Conference
Richmond, Virginia

November 7-10, 2013
Sanibel Island Writers' Conference
Sanibel Island, Florida

November 15-17, 2013
NC Writers' Network Fall Conference 2013
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina
(No website for this yet, and not sure if it's a true conference or just a workshop)

November 16, 2013
Baltimore Writer's Conference
Baltimore, Maryland
(Website has info from 2011 conference, no details on anything newer except a "save the date" message)

January 5-10, 2014
Blue Flower Arts Winter Writers' Conference
New Smyrna Beach, Florida

January 18-25, 2014

Eckerd College Writers’ Conference: Writers in Paradise
St. Petersburg, Florida



sources: Poets and Writers, Stacey O'Neale, Google

Finding a Writers' Conference

Finding a comprehensive list of writers' conferences was no easy task.  There was no single place I found that had all the ones I came up with for my list, 2013 Writers' Conferences in the Southeast.

Writers' conferences in New York are different.  You can expect everyone in the writing and publishing industry to poke their heads in at some point.  But Georgia?  Sure, we've got a lot of talented writers, but several conferences seem to be either defunct or not well advertised.

Manly Months Report

With only two weeks left in our Manly Months the pressure is on to deliver more of that manly stuff!  Don't worry men, there are plenty of other manly 19th century books out there, even if I can't get to them all.

I've reviewed four books and am working on two more.

• King Solomon's Mines
• Captains Courageous
• Heart of Darkness
• The Red Badge of Courage

• The Black Arrow
• The Frozen Pirate

I think I can squeeze in at least one more after this.  But there are many others I wish I had time for.  So much adventure literature of the 19th century took the form of either true war stories, or sea tales.  Here are some of the others I hope to read.

• W. Clark Russell - various sea stories
• Captain Frederick Marryat - various sea stories
• Victor Hugo - Toilers of the Sea (1866)
• Stephen Crane - The Open Boat (1897)
• Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast (1840)
• Winston Churchill - various war stories including The River War (1899)

Inferno, by Dan Brown - Predictions

I'm not planning to read this book, not for a while.  Based on his last book, The Lost Symbol, which had a plethora of plot holes, Dan Brown seems to have lost steam.  I don't know anything about Inferno, all I did was glance at the cover on Amazon without even reading the blurb.  So here are my predictions.

Book Review: The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (2009)

[I originally posted this review in 2009 on another site.  I'm reposting an updated version of it here because Dan Brown's latest book, Inferno, has just been released.]

The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (2009)

Dan Brown has one good skill in particular I'd like to mention.  He's good at puzzles and codes.  That became obvious in The Da Vinci Code.  It's his thing.  I usually enjoy when he incorporates that into his books because he does it well.

I'll start this review of The Lost Symbol by discussing a few points that most critics predicted for this novel.  Then I will discuss the bad points of this book.  The four things that many critics expected before the book even hit the shelves: poor writing skills, formulaic storytelling, predictability, and factual mistakes.

Book Review: The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1888) First Thoughts

I stopped reading this book.  Well into the third chapter I had no idea what was going on because of that crazy vernacular.  It was written in the late 1800's, but it took place in the 1400's so Stevenson wrote it in that God-awful style straight out of Canterbury Tales.  It's hard to understand, and it makes it difficult to follow.

However, I could tell the storyline was worth reading,

Music is Feeling with Sound

I don't usually post videos on this site, but this one deserves to be enjoyed.  The quote, "Music is Feelings with Sound" comes to mind when I watch this.

Book Review: The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane (1895)

Tom Sawyer goes to war.

I won't be flip about this book, but I'm probably too old to have read it.  I can now understand why it is so often assigned as a book report in school.  It gives wonderful insight into the mind of a teenager who goes into battle and wants to be a hero.  The descriptions of the main character's thoughts took me back to my own teenage years, describing well the myriads of trifling things that occupy the mind of a guy that age.

It's a coming of age story, as our main character - referred to as "the youth" - is worried that he will run from the battle.  Will he stand and fight?  Will he run like a big chicken?  That's his worry.  It's perfect.  Looking at the Civil War from a distance, looking at the battles as an outsider, we see cause and purpose, we see strategy, we see a fight against slavery maybe, an insurrection perhaps, a great upheaval.  We see all those things.

Audible for Audiobooks

Is audible a good deal?  That's what you want to know.  The answer is a mixed bag, so here's what I found out.

Audible sells audiobooks, but not on CD.  You download them from their website.  The problem is they are in a special format.  It ends with ".aa".  What this means is you have to use special Audible software to play these files.  That's the problem people have with using Audible.

I'll start with the good.