Rashidah Ismaili Abu-Bkr judges poetry

Rashidah has recently joined our team as one of our poetry judges for East Meets West, American Writers Review.   Our contest is underway, and the poets are in the lead, sending in more poetry than fiction or nonfiction writers.

So let's get the word out there in cyberspace: East Meets West, American Writers Review is a bi-annual print journal that will feature emerging writings, veteran writers, and all those in between.   We want to shake things up in the publishing world by focusing our attention on American Writers, with generations of great American writers who have preceded us to look up to.   Let us know who some of your favorite American writers were or are.

Enter our contest at http://www.serapublishing.com/  and click on the contest link.   

Writing Contests Gets Your Name Out In The Community

Writing contests really do work to get your name and your work out into the creative community.  I finished my M.F.A courses in January at Wilkes University, which now leaves me plenty of time to create. I sit myself down at the computer several times a week, revising my Thesis/Memoir My Two Mothers, writing query letters, getting  my work out in the mail, but I save time to write new and different stories for contests.

While on vacation in Florida this week, I received an email from Phyllis Scott Publishing announcing that I took third place in a short story contest, that my fiction piece called All in the Game would be published in print, and that I would also receive a small percentage of royalties from the book, which I believe Phyllis Scott is titling All in the Game and Other Short Stories.  I was so excited!  How could I not be?

I've been writing for a long time, almost twelve years, and while I've published in newspapers under commentaries and travel and did speciality profile pieces, coming in third in this contest was the most terrific news I'd received in a long time. 

I recommend contests to emerging writers, writers who are already published, brave writers, scared writers, and writers of every sort to take a look at our contest guidelines.  There's definitely something there for you.  If it's for you, give it a shot.  You  have nothing to lose.  We are looking to publish writers who are passionate about their work.   This is a print review and your passion will come through on the page with the help of our very artistic crew to lend design to your words. 

Submissions Being Accepted for Writing Contest

East Meets West, American Writers Review is now accepting submissions for our literary contest. Not only will you possibly win cash prizes but you stand a very good chance of being published in our Review journal. All the finalists will be included in the journal. What a great accomplishment to say you've been published!

Our judges are exceptional, with a creative background of published authors, MFA graduates, screenwriters, award winning writers, columnists, and more.

East Meets West was started by Sue Richter and Patrica Florio. Sue lives on the West Coast and Patricia on the East Coast of the USA. Sue has had a love for words since junior high school and has continued to pursue that love through creative writing, travel writing, speech writing and much more.

Sue Richter is the owner and president of SERA Publishing located in Southern California. She has worked for independent international best selling authors and giants like McGraw Hill in San Francisco. She's been in the publishing business for nearly 20 years. "Publishing has really changed in the past twenty years and it will continue to evolve.  We've only seen the beginning of how interactive the publishing world will be in the near future. The sky is the limit," says Sue.

For more information on the contest visit www.serapublishing.com. Submissions are now being accepted. Get in early and you may get a free critique of your work!

Keep on writing and enjoying the written word!
EMW (East Meets West)

An Introduction of East Meets West, American Writers Review

So who is EAST MEETS WEST, AMERICAN WRITERS REVIEW?

East Meets West, American Writers Review are two women, Patricia Florio and Sue Richter, who want to share a great publishing idea for fiction, creative nonfiction, personal essay writers and poetry writers.  In our complicated world, how often are we told we need experience before anyone can consider publishing our work?  How can you gain experience and know if you have any talent if no one is willing to give you a chance? That’s where Sue and I come in. 

While I was working on my M.F.A. degree in creative writing at Wilkes University I had this idea for a literary review.  Since the students at Wilkes are separated into what's called cohort groups, I named the journal The Cohort Review and solicited writing submissions from the all the groups, from the first-year students to the alums, the mentors/faculty. 

The program at Wilkes is relatively a new low residency program.  I think my class was the sixth graduating class in January 2011.  I believed in my project as a journal for Wilkes, but soon found out that The Cohort Review would only be a limited edition to prove that I could handle the publishing aspect of my course work.  That’s where Sue came in.

Both Sue and I write for different online news services, Examiner.com and travel articles for Stripedpot.com.  Sue owns and operates Sera Publishing Company in Temecula, California on the West Coast and I live in the Historic Town of Ocean Grove, the Jersey Shore, on the East Coast.  Because of technology, we managed to find each other. 

I got an email from Sue interested in my project.  She said she’d love to be the publisher of this new literary journal that I had running around in my head and gave me an offer to print The Cohort Review that I couldn’t refuse.

So now that East Meets West, Patricia met Sue, we decided we wanted to continue our love of creative writing and publishing American creative writers to entertain the masses.  We decided to offer prizes by running a writing contest that my M.F.A., The Cohort Review inspired. You can register for the contest at www.SeraPublishing.com  

We hope you’ll be as excited as we are about our bi-annual journal. Please respond by entering our contest.  And sharing your creative writing thoughts on this blog.  I know that we will enjoy reading your work and so will our judges (whose names will be posted soon).