West Virginia Writers Podcast

Episode 37 is a recorded live reading of the historic Appalachian Inquisition Panel recorded at the WV Writers 2010 Summer Conference. The panel featured WV literary notables: Irene McKinney, Denise Giardina, Kirk Judd, Norman Jordan, Daniel Boyd, Gretchen Moran Laskas and Tim Poland fielding questions about the state of Appalachian literature, as pitched by moderator Cat Pleska.

For Episode 36, we speak again to our favorite resident of Memory Lane, Rhonda Browning White, concerning our Memories of Conferences More Recent 2010. In this, we talk about the most memorable parts for us of the 2010 WVW Summer Conference. If you were unable to attend, this will give you some highlights. (For more such memories, see our other Memories of Conferences Past episodes.)

This week we're podcasting a recorded live reading of the Publisher's Panel we produced at Taylor Books in Charleston as the first of three events West Virginia Writers is participating in for Charleston's FestivAll 2010. The panel is moderated by incoming WVW president Cat Pleska and features Abby Freeland of WVU Press, Brian Hatcher & Michael Knost of Woodland Press, and Cathy Teets with Headline Books. Our thanks go out to Taylor Books for inviting us to put this panel together. It's a great store, located on Capitol Street in downtown Charleston. We've split the recording up into two parts for faster downloading.

This week we're podcasting a recorded live reading of the Publisher's Panel we produced at Taylor Books in Charleston as the first of three events West Virginia Writers is participating in for Charleston's FestivAll 2010. The panel is moderated by incoming WVW president Cat Pleska and features Abby Freeland of WVU Press, Brian Hatcher & Michael Knost of Woodland Press, and Cathy Teets with Headline Books. Our thanks go out to Taylor Books for inviting us to put this panel together. It's a great store, located on Capitol Street in downtown Charleston. We've split the recording up into two parts for faster downloading.

This week we present our much heralded interview with Christine Witthohn from Bookcents Literary Agency in Charleston. Christine is a guest at this coming weekend’s 2010 WV Writers Summer Conference. There, she'll be joining fellow agent Kelly Mortimer and Sourcebooks, Inc, editorial manager Peter Lynch to take pitches from conference attendees for potential representation or publication. To prep our attendees for the sessions, Christine and one of her clients, writer S.G. Redling, will be leading a workshop on Saturday morning on how to pitch to agents and editors. However, I thought it would be good to get a podcast preview of that information here so that our listeners who want to pitch can go into the conference with a heads up on the process. Christine also explains what kind of material she is looking for at Book Cents.

This week, we speak with Belinda Anderson, writer, journalist, nomination for WV Writers' parliamentarian and presenter at the 2010 WV Writers Summer Conference. We cover Belinda's extensive past history with WV Writers, what she will be teaching at the conference and cover some of her current and past writing projects that she's involved with, including an oral history project detailing the history of a lost community located atop Wolf Creek Mountain, near Alderson, WV.

This week we present WV Writers 2010 ConferenceCast 2 (a.k.a. Episode 32), detailing all the updates we have on the 2010 Summer Conference. Among the choice bits of information presented is an update to the workshop presenters list, including some unfortunate deletions to the roster and some fortunate replacements. We also talk about the Friday night entertainment and how you can possibly participate, our plans to Tweet the Saturday Night Awards Banquet, some new information about the editor and agent pitch sessions and how in the very near future this podcast will help you prepare for such a session.

MOMCAST 2010 is our celebration of Mother's Day, featuring stories, poems, essays and memories as phoned in by our listeners. Featured on this episode are mom pieces from: Terry McNemar, Tracy Seiffers, Sandra Klein, Barbara Wittington, Llewellyn McKernan, Sal Buttacci, Kate Dooley, John Nagle, C.J. Farnsworth, Diane Tarantini, Tim Armentrout, Susan DeVan, Elvera Denning, Charlotte Sneed, Linda Hoagland, Barbara Smith, Cat Pleska, Heidi Hartwicker and Eric Fritzius.

Concluding our National Poetry Month celebration, this week for the WVW Podcast Bonus Show 11, we play a rebroadcast with poet Mary Lucille DeBerry, originally posted as Episode #13 last July. In it we speak to Mary Lucille about her poetry collection Bertha Butcher's Coat. The interview also features several readings from that work as well as discussions of the techniques Mary Lucille has used to inspire those poems.

We continue our celebration of National Poetry Month with more Recorded Live Readings. This two-part episode features poetry recorded at the Spoken Word Event sponsored by the Independent Theatre Collective in Wheeling, WV, as part of the Oglebay Institute's Imagination Celebration 2010. In Part 2 we feature Independent Theatre Collective president and co-founder Jeremy Richter reading Mark Twain's posthumously published The War Prayer. We also have a recording of a moving poem by a young Wheeling poet named Creighton Hill.

We continue our celebration of National Poetry Month with more Recorded Live Readings. This two-part episode features poetry recorded at the Spoken Word Event sponsored by the Independent Theatre Collective in Wheeling, WV, as part of the Oglebay Institute's Imagination Celebration 2010. In Part 1 we feature John E. Reilly reading from Diane Gillian Fisher's Kettle Bottom, and some original poetry by Wheeling poet Duncan Kinder.

We continue our celebration of National Poetry Month in WV Writers Podcast Episode 29. We also celebrate our own 1st anniversary as a podcast. (Whoo hoooo!) This week we have part 2 of our recorded live poetry reading from the Greenbrier Valley Theatre's Poetry Literary Tea this past November. Featured poets this week include Ellen Broudy, Tim Armentrout and your host Eric Fritzius, reading a Cheryl Denise poem as recorded at a reading in Mercer County this past December.

Continuing our National Poetry Month Theme, this week's bonus show is a rePodcast of our interview with Georgia-based poet Dana Wildsmith from Episode #5. In it Dana speaks about her journey to becoming a poet, her time spent as a Writer in Residence around the country, her love of music and Garrison Keillor's reading voice, she recites some of her own poetry, and tells us about the workshops she was preparing for the 2009 WVW Summer Conference. We're happy to say that Dana will be a returning presenter for the 2010 WVW Summer Conference. You can find out what she'll be presenting by visiting our conference page and checking out the full Workshop Descriptions.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, this month the podcast will be featuring all things poetry. For WV Writers Podcast Episode 28, we feature part 1 of a recorded live poetry reading done as part of Greenbrier Valley Theatre's Literary Tea series poetry edition this past November, in Lewisburg. Featured poets this week include the Tea's featured poet, WVW 2009 Writing Contest winner Sarah Crickenberger, and WVW member Sammye Lewis.

For our 9th Bonus Show we talk comedy with WV Writers Writing Contest Coordinator Steven Goff. Steve's a comedian who did standup at the 2009 Summer Conference. We talk about our favorite comedians of today and yesteryear plus tell a couple of stories about encounters with famous comedians (or at least with professional wrestlers who once worked with famous comedians, who one of us once interviewed at a Kia dealership grand opening in Columbus, MS).