Friday Morning Open Genre | Special Guest

Each week at 10:30 am (EST), I invite you to join with a cadre of fellow writers to share, read, and discuss all manner of our creative writing. This is a sounding board, a test bed, a place to measure the reader response to your work. Everyone is encouraged to voice their honest reactions to the works presented in our weekly revue sessions in a respectful manner.

Join Zoom Meeting:
Link will only become visible to people who RSVP. Look in the right sidebar under the date and time.

THIS SESSION:

I am very pleased to announce that Steve Thorp, editor of Unpsychology Magazine, will be our special guest for the entire session. Steve is a writer, activist and psychotherapist working with themes of ecology, complexity and soul-making. He is the author of Lifesongs, published in 2021 by Raw Mixture Publishing, as well as previous titles Soul Meditations, Soul Manifestos and Pieces of Joy, Blue Marble and PoetryMix. He also runs writing/poetry workshops, alongside his soulmaking and climate psychology work with individuals and groups.

Call for submissions: Unpsychology Magazine's Issue #8 Warm Data, due by December 30, 2021. I encourage the Green Mountain Writers Group to devote some time throughout the month of December to write and workshop pieces for submission.

Here's a full feature on the upcoming event. You might call this the "required reading" for the session... https://greenmountainwriters.com/workshops/warm-data-challenge/

Important steps to prepare in advance:
Reading material for upcoming sessions is provided for your review in advance. There may be work that “triggers” a negative response. You may choose to attend and contest the work by presenting your reaction to it as part of the process, or you may choose to skip that discussion. We do not impose content restrictions upon participating authors.

Register for a free account (or login) at Green Mountain Writers website at https://greenmountainwriters.com/register/ to gain access to the private, topical Discussion Board: https://greenmountainwriters.com/discussion-boards/open-genre-discussions/

How Friday live sessions work:
The submitting author is typically placed in a virtual “isolation booth” while we discuss the work as if they are not in the Zoom. We try to focus on specific elements of craft and give honest responses in open discussion. All are welcome to join, from readers to writers at any level of accomplishment (including all types of wannabees). Preserving respect for each other is the intention. Providing constructive criticism is the goal.

Submitting your own work:
We typically accept submissions from 2-3 participants each week, depending upon length. Participants are expected to read and markup the works in advance, posting review comments online for the authors in preparation for the Friday live discussion of the submissions.

After you have attended one session, you are eligible to submit your own writing. Prose submissions should be approximately 5-20 pages (Times New Roman font, 12 pt., double-spaced, PDF, with page numbers please). Poets typically submit 1- 3 poems and they read them aloud before we discuss them. Sometimes, we split an hour between two prose authors who each wish to submit short “sketches” consisting of approximately 5-10 pages or flash fiction (1000 words). Please use the following naming convention by date and author: MMDD-OpenGenre-AuthInitials.pdf.

I am glad to help answer any questions.
Stephen.Kastner @ gmail