News Releases

Writers Monthly Welcomes Jill Badonsky, Writing and Creativity Coach! February 2004 Jill Badonsky, M.Ed. is a humorist, playwright, artist, creativity mentor, and international author of the book The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard): 10 Guides to Creative Inspiration for Artists, Poets, Lovers and Other Mortals Wanting to Live a Dazzling Existence (Penguin Group 2003). Jill joins the Writers Monthly staff to contribute a monthly column, Coaching Creativity. The column will address, in a decidedly non-linear fashion, obstacles to the elusive process of creativity, as well as provide profound—to down-right-odd—sources of creative inspiration. Jill Badonsky is a free-lance writer who has taught hundreds of creative writing workshops, and published her first book on a fun, inspired and practical approach to creativity with Penguin Group in 2003. Jill also wrote and performed in the play, I Can’t Always Handle Reality But It’s Really the Only Place to Get a Good Cup of Coffee. She has also written book review columns and creativity columns for a variety of San Diego magazines. Jill Badonsky can be contacted at: JillBadonsky@WritersMonthly.com Writers Monthly Welcomes Christine Westwater, Book Review Editor February 2004 Writer's Monthly, an online writing forum and community in its third year of publishing tomorrow's best writers—today, has announced that Christine Westwater has been added to the List of Usual Suspects. Ms. Westwater becomes the Second Ever Book Review Editor for Writers Monthly, replacing Ms. Melanie Jennings, who ran away to Portland, Oregon. (From Portland, Ms. Jennings is continuing her work as a freelance food and restaurant critic, while contributing a regular column, On Writing Books, to Writers Monthly. Ms. Jennings will also work to trick the best new writers in the Northwest to contribute their work to Writers Monthly, following the pattern set by her fellow columnist, Christopher Mahon, when he moved to Los Angeles. Both Ms. Jennings and Mr. Mahon are dedicated to fulfilling the Writers Montly Mission Statement: Total World Domination.) Christine Westwater has a BA in Creative Writing and Professional Writing from Carnegie Mellon University. Christine has performed in numerous poetry and fiction readings, and has published her work in the Oakland Review. Christine has also organized successful writing workshops and book clubs in San Diego. About her role as Book Review Editor, Ms. Westwater has said, "I am thrilled to join such a fantastic team of creative individuals, and to be part of San Diego's vibrant writing and artistic community. I'm excited about meeting regional authors and reviewing their books." About Ms. Westwater, David Boyne, the only person to publicly admit responsibility for Writers Monthly, has said, "Christine will be a huge asset to our organization. She has energy, ambition, and a dedication to San Diego's writing community. She brings a decade of writing experience with her. Beats the heck out of me why someone with Christine's talents and experience would want to get involved with us. But hey, I ain't complaining!" Christine Westwater can be contacted at: ChristineWestwater@WritersMonthly.com >>Back to top<< Writers Monthly Welcomes Suzanne M. Schweikert, M.D., Columnist, It's About Time News release July 2003 As an Ob-Gyn, Dr. Suzanne Schweikert has had experience (more than she would like) with extreme time demands, not to mention sleep demands and stress demands. She recently left private practice to pursue public health, clinical research, and writing. This decision inspired her to get involved in the upcoming celebration of Take Back Your Time Day (TBYTD), happening on October 24th, 2003. This date was chosen to remind us that Americans work 9 weeks longer each year than Europeans, which is the same number of days from TBYTD to the end of 2003. Dr. Schweikert wrote a chapter on the health effects of "time poverty" for the TBYTD book (see www.timeday.org), which is being released in August. She is also the author of a non-fiction book, The Pregnant Traveler, and is currently working on a children's novel. Dr. Schweikert's Writer's Monthly column, It's About Time, will explore the impact of time (and how we spend it) on our health, wealth, happiness, and writing, each of which seems to be competing for an ever larger share. Comments, thoughts, and personal experiences on time related topics are welcome. Email: Dr.Schweikert@WritersMonthly.com

writersmonthly.com Welcomes
Elizabeth Baldwin, Submissions Editor
News release
April 2003
Elizabeth Baldwin joins Writers Monthly as Submissions Editor

Elizabeth Baldwin has had a fascination with the written word since grade school. Growing up as a "Military brat," Elizabeth learned early that she could always count on two things wherever she went—libraries and books.

Now, her life is filled with the written word: from her collectable books business to her buying expertise with a local, independent book store, to her freelance editorial and manuscript development service.

Give Elizabeth something good to read and she is in heaven on earth—and the author of that good read will be in Writers Monthly.

As submissions editor for Writers Monthly, Elizabeth aims to build the publication into a showcase for original, well-written fiction and non-fiction. With her many connections within the San Diego book community, Elizabeth is confident that she will be able to connect a wide range of writers with a large and growing audience for their work.

"I am excited to be on the staff of Writers Monthly and to making this the place to submit original works of fiction and non-fiction."

Elizabeth can be contacted at elizabeth@wordcount.net
For the Writers Monthly guidelines, click here
Submission can be sent to: submissions@WritersMonthly.com

writersmonthly.com Welcomes
Leah Peterson, Columnist
Stories Overheard
April 2003
New Column: Stories Overheard
by Leah Peterson

About Leah...
Leah Peterson either doesn’t know, or refuses to choose, what she wants to be when she grows up.

A mother of four, she now lives in southern California where she writes, paints, illustrates and shoots photographs, takes clog dancing lessons, plays the piano and clarinet, makes benches out of knotty pine, weaves, sews, covers cherries with chocolate, embarrasses her 12-year old daughter by singing really loud, consults on mortgages and actively listens for the stories being told all around her.

In her column, Stories Overheard, Leah will share revelations and resonations gained through her highly developed skills of eavesdropping on strangers.

writersmonthly.com Welcomes Christopher Mahon,
Columnist
March 1, 2003
New Column:
Writing Life: The Memoir
by Christopher Mahon

About his new column, Christopher Mahon says, "We need memoirs—to honor the genuine—important when you live in an artificial age (or an age that, at least, is artificial in many ways). Memoirs by American writers are especially important at this time because the very definition of what it means to be an "American" is up for grabs. Who gets to define what it means to be an American in these times? Our politicians? Or our writers? We need a lot of memoirs now, and from this great collection we can deduce the true identity of Americans.

"I am interested in the nature of the "real," the "genuine," and "the artificial." I'm intrigued at how the nature of these things have changed since the 19th and early 20th centuries—since the onset of television, automobilies, and shopping malls—and how the nature of literature has changed since the nature of "reality" has changed. Sometimes I think literature was more profound when such "artificial" things as television, autos, and shopping malls did not stand in between us and the "physical world," the world of nature. And so I say that perhaps memoirs can help us get back in touch with the very reality of our lives."

Christopher Mahon grew up in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, the high central plains of Colorado, and the tree-lined, lake-infused suburbs of southeastern Michigan. He has been a Californian since graduating from the University of Notre Dame in 1978.

He has published fiction in The Jessamyn West Review, poetry in the anthology What Have You Lost? and numerous articles in San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California newspapers. He works as a freelance editor and substitute teacher in northern San Diego County, where he lives with his wife and their two Jack Russell terriers.

An excerpt from Christopher's memoir-in-progress has been published at www.toasted-cheese.com

Christopher can be reached at
christophermahon@writersmonthly.com

January 2003—writersmonthly.com Welcomes
Melanie Jennings, Columnist

Diamonds and Raspberries
A monthly column by Melanie Jennings, Ph.D.

As writers we may cringe at the sound of "marketing-speak" but when we use the right buzzword in our proposals and queries editors take notice.

Writers can spend monthssometimes yearslaboring in isolation. But writers who don™t take the time to stay current with what's actually selling to the American publicmay be laboring in vain.

Diamonds and Raspberries
Melanie Jennings' monthly book review column, will provide readers of writersmonthly.com with two or three fast and pithy reviews of selected New York Times bestsellersfiction, non-fiction, and advicesaving writers and readers time while keeping them abreast of the latest trends.

Diamonds—
Ms. Jennings will consider the great and not-so-great books that American readers are buying. What made the book a diamond? What about it was innovative, seductive, well done?

and Raspberries—
Ms. Jennings will also consider what made the book a raspberry
just a re-hashed or overworked mound of words.

Melanie Jennings is the principal of Lighthouse Communications, a technical and marketing writing business in San Diego. She has an MFA in fiction from Mills College and a doctorate in American Literature from UCSD.

Melanie has taught creative writing and published her own poetry and fiction in such publications as Walrus, In the Grove, spelunker flophouse, Crab Creek Review and chicklit.com

November 2002— writersmonthly.com Welcomes Chris Baron, New Columnist

Letters to My Eighth Grade Teacher
A monthly column by Chris Baron, MFA

Letters to My Eighth Grade Teacher began as spoken performance pieces at Common Grounds Café in La Jolla.

Now presented as written essays and published for the first time, the delightful, musing, wondering-out-loud "letters" are written to Chris Baron's extraordinary eighth grade teacher— Mr. Deprado.

Come explore the world— through the eyes of a young boy—as he tells his teacher of the wonders, the dangers, the shames and the mysteries he discovers.

These wide-roaming essays explore humor, love, fantasy, science, faith, sex, social class, racism, growing up and not growing up.

If you've ever had—or wanted to have—a mentor, a teacher, a guide through the chaos of your journeys, you will want to read Chris Baron's Letters To My Eigth Grade Teacher.

Background
Chris Baron began his journey in New York City.

Born into the tumultuous life of an artist's family—he survived. He also became equipped for a life of discovery. Naturally, this means he has transformed into a loyal Californian—having lived in the Bay Area, Laguna Beach, and now, San Diego.

Chris is passionate about the importance of art as a practical resource for discovering truth—and as a means of survival—in our every day lives. He completed his MFA in Poetry in 1998, and is now a professor in the English Department at San Diego City College. His work has appeared in a number of literary magazines and journals including, Pearl, Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature, Sierra Club Press, City Works, and more…

Chris has worked extensively in the San Diego Writing Community, serving on the Executive Board of the Border Voices Poetry Project. This 10-year-old project currently sends 20 poets into 200 schools in San Diego County. The non-profit program is supported by a consortium of major institutions, including The San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego State University, the County Office of Education, and a majority of San Diego school districts, including San Diego Unified. Donors include the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, the California Council for the Humanities, and other state and local agencies and individuals.

The project publishes annual anthologies of poems by students as well as major poets; students interact with internationally acclaimed poets on Border Voices TV specials and at the annual Border Voices Poetry Fair at San Diego State University.

But when Chris is not doing any of this, he spends his time surfing, playing basketball, or with his wife.

July 2002—writersmonthly.com
Announces Release of Terrie Leigh Relf’s
Lap Danced by The Muse—
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Tease


Press ReleaseFor Immediate Release
Contacts: David Boyne, Publisher
http://www.writersmonthly.com
davidboyne@writersmonthly.com

Terrie Leigh Relf MA
tlrelf@cox.net
terrie@writersmonthly.com
writersmonthly.com has released
Lap Danced by The Muse,
a collection of poetry by native San Diegan, Terrie Leigh Relf.

Illustrations by San Diego artist,
Rosalina Damicog

Prepublication reviews include comments by the following poets, editors, and publishers:

Lap Danced by the Muse is true to its title in more ways than one. It’s abook about being bitten by the poetry bug. More than that, it’s an in-your-face explosion of the heart and the senses laced with music, sex, food, humor, love, spite, imagination, doubt, and perception. This is one dance you won’t forget.
--Bruce Boston, author of Quanta: Award Winning Poems

Clever, playful, sexy, intelligent…poetry that reads like espresso feels and tastes—stimulating, with a bit of lemon rind.
--Rayn Roberts, Poet

A woman’s worth, measured in eggs. The thoughts that dribble from the corner of our mouths. Alien Abductions and Sartre. Did I forget to mention sex? Terrie Leigh Relf doesn’t… Physical, and metaphysical; unlaced, straightlaced, tightlaced sex – by, for and with the muse, the reader and the author herself. In Lap Danced By the Muse Terrie Leigh Relf dresses for poetry. Join her.
--John E Carley, Poet, The Poetry Works (UK)

,,,a blend of erotica, fantasy, and science fiction that mesmerizes you from the first poem to the last…you’re never quite sure where Ms. Relf will take you next: From the erotic thoughts of a coffee shop customer to the mind of a lobster…
--J Alan Erwine, Promartian Editor of The Fifth Dimension and The Martian Wave

,,,sings with electricity…surrounds you and then pulls you into its wonderful kaleidoscope of sound.
--Chris Vannoy, Editor
Poet’s Tree Press


Background
Terrie Leigh Relf was born in Coronado, California, and grew up in La Jolla, California. Relf is the Poetry Editor and Poet's Workshop columnist for writersmonthly.com. She also writes the monthly Mistress of Rhetoric column for The Espresso, San Diego’s Magazine of Coffee and Café Culture.

An internationally published and award winning poet, Relf is also an English Instructor at San Diego City College.

Her work has appeared extensively both on and off-line in such publications as The La Jolla Light, ComputorEdge, Moxie Magazine, Personal Journaling, The Espresso, Driftwood Highway, Musings, Sex and the Single Alien, City Works, Manifold, Nightingale, The Walt Whitman Hypertext Poem Project, The T.S. Eliot Hypertext Poem Project, Aoife’s Kiss, The Fifth Dimension, Martian Wave, Sol-Magazine, Poetic Voices, the Pennine Poetry Works, Writers On-line, Frogfest, Star Leaper, Electric Wine, Transparent Words, Pegasus Dreaming, In Buddha’s Temple, Lucy Westenra, Blood Coven, The World Haiku Review, Star Fish, Writers Hood, Vision Magazine and others.

She will appear in Artemis Exodus and Drone to Mars, two anthologies from Promart Writing Labs, due to be released later this year.

Relf has co-authored two screen plays and is near completion on a vampire saga novel with Henry Lewis Sanders. Currently, she is working on three new poetry collections: Sitting on Einstein’s Lap and Other Poems of Place, Ad Astra! A Collection of Science Fiction and Speculative Poetry, and Frogs Croaking: A Collection of Haiku, Senryu, and Other Short Verses. She is also nearing completion on The Missing Piece of Sky, a collection of Sci-fi, Speculative, and Fantasy short stories, and el café de la Noche, a vampire novel.

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