Saturday, Nov. 10: Poetry Writing Workshop--The Path of Surprise

Poetry Writing Workshop:
The Path of Surprise
Saturday, Nov. 10
10 a.m. till 2 p.m.
Waccamaw Center for Higher Education
160 Willbrook Boulevard
Pawleys Island, SC 29585
Susan Meyers, instructor


Writing poems should be more than telling anecdotes from a life you already know or describing something you’ve seen. It should take you down a path of surprise. “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader,” Robert Frost wisely noted. In this class we’ll use writing activities and handouts of published poems, as well as discussion, to take us farther down that serendipitous path. We’ll study poems that leap, swerve, and follow their particular logic—then we’ll write our own.

Lunch can be purchased at a nearby deli, or bring your own.
Registration, $30: Coastal Carolina University Lifelong Learning,
843-349-4032 or www.coastal.edu/outreach.

My poem featured on the Poetry Foundation's "Harriet" blog

Thanks to Rigoberto Gonzalez for featuring my poem "Contraries" on his Wednesday Shout Out at the Poetry Foundation blog.

Saturday, October 6: Workshop on Writing about the Natural World

Take a Step in the Write Direction: Explore Nature Writing
Saturday, October 6, 10 a.m. - 12 noon
Charleston County Public Library
Calhoun Street, Charleston, SC


Poets Susan Meyers and Marjory Wentworth offer a workshop on writing about the natural world. Writing activities will focus on the Lowcountry landscape in all its manifestations, the spiritual connection to place and the ways in which the natural world incorporates life and death simultaneously and continuously. A recommended bibliography will be provided to all participants. Open to writers of both poetry and prose. Registration is requested.

Marjory Wentworth’s poems have appeared in numerous books and magazines, and she has twice been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. Noticing Eden, a collection of poems, was published in 2003. Her next collection, Despite Gravity, has just been released by Ninety-Six Press. She is the Poet Laureate of South Carolina.

Susan Meyers is the author of two poetry collections that turn to the natural world for subject, imagery, and inspiration. Her book Keep and Give Away (University of South Carolina Press, 2006) won the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize, the SIBA Book Award for Poetry, and the Brockman-Campbell Book Award.

Recent events: August & September, 2007

The Book Stall signing & reading--Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2007,
12-2 signing; 6:30-8:30 reading & open mic.
413 Hayne Ave. SW, Aiken, SC

NC Poetry Society Brockman-Campbell Book Award reading--Saturday, Sept. 15, 2007, 10 a.m. Weymouth Center.
555 East Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines, NC

Emrys Reading Series--Monday, Sept. 24, 2007, 7 p.m.,
The Handlebar, Greenville, SC

A Cappella Books reading--Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007, 7 p.m.,
Moreland Ave. NE, Atlanta, GA

SIBA Book Awards lunch--Friday, Sept. 28, 2007, noon. Atlanta, GA.

Eastern North Carolina Literary Homecoming--Sept. 28-30, 2007. East Carolina University, Greenville, NC. On Saturday, Sept. 29, I'll be participating on a panel on the use of personal and community history in writing poetry.

2007 SIBA Book Award for Poetry

I'm grateful that Keep and Give Away has been selected for this year's SIBA Book Award for Poetry. This honor, presented by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, goes not only to my book but to its publisher, the University of South Carolina Press, as well. Much gratitude, too, to the South Carolina Poetry Initiative, which sponsors the book prize that enabled the book to be published.

Congratulations to the other category winners, whose company I'm honored to be in:

Fiction--Thirteen Moons, by Charles Frazier (Random House Trade)
Nonfiction--Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, by Charles J. Shields (Henry Holt & Co.)
Children's--Alabama Moon, by Watt Key (Farrar Strauss Giroux)
Cookbook--I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, by Amy Sedaris (Warner Books)

I'm looking forward to attending the Book Awards luncheon at the SIBA Trade Show in Atlanta on September 28.

Thank you to SIBA, USC Press, and the SC Poetry Initiative. Learn more about them at their sites:

SIBA
University of South Carolina Press
South Carolina Poetry Initiative

Tuesday, May 8: Sunset, Poemrise -- Reading by Published Members of the Poetry Society of SC

As a part of the 2007 North Charleston Arts Festival, several published poets of the Poetry Society of South Carolina will give a reading of their own work--plus memorable selections from poets Dana Levin, Yusef Komunyakaa, Eavan Boland, Lucille Clifton, Li-Young Lee, Nazim Hekmet, Miklos Radnoti, and others:

Tuesday, May 8
6:30 p.m.
Otranto Road Regional Library
2261 Otranto Road
North Charleston, SC
843-572-4094
Book signing
Free & open to the public


Poets reading:

Linda Annas Ferguson
Ed Madden
Susan Meyers
Dennis Ward Stiles
Marjory Wentworth, SC Poet Laureate
 
North Charleston Arts Festival events
 

Sunday, April 1: Reading at Malaprop's, Asheville, NC

I'm reading, with two other poets, in Asheville on April 1:

Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe
55 Haywood Street
Asheville, NC
Poetrio: Susan Tichy; an Asheville poet (so far unnamed); me
SUNDAY, APRIL 1
3 p.m.
http://www.malaprops.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents

Thursday, March 29: Reading at Joseph-Beth, Charlotte, NC

Val Nieman and I are reading together in Charlotte:

Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Charlotte, NC
SouthPark Mall
THURSDAY, MARCH 29
7 p.m.
Valerie Nieman--Wake Wake Wake (Press 53, 2006)
Susan Meyers--Keep and Give Away (Univ. of SC Press, 2006)
http://www.josephbeth.com/Default.aspx?tabindex=2&tabid=3&storeId=10