Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Alan Zweibel will lead a summer workshop on writing and producing situation comedies from July 25-29.

Zweibel, one of the original writers of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” also co-created the innovative series, “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” and has written for numerous television programs, including “Monk,” and served as consulting producer on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

He will teach workshop participants how to write, rehearse, shoot and edit an original, professionally produced situation comedy.

The workshop will take place in the Ed McMahon Mass Communications Center, which has an all-digital, high-definition television studio. Those interested in writing, producing and acting for television are encouraged to attend.

The program is being conducted by Michael Calia, director of the Ed McMahon Mass Communications Center. For more information, please contact Calia at 203-582-3414 or e-mail michael.calia@quinnipiac.edu.

The Fine Line’s inaugural short story competition is now open for entries.  Whatever your taste, style or inspiration, submit your tale and you could win £200 ($320/EUR230) and publication in The Fine Line Short Story Collection.  A percentage of all entry fees goes to charity so you’ll be doing good while getting your work out there.

Entry Fee: £5 ($8/EUR6).

Deadline for entries: May 31, 2011.

To read on and enter, please go to: http://shop.editorial-consultancy.co.uk/shortstorycompetition/

Ann Herrick’s newest YA novel, All’s Fair in Love and Words, is now available from Books We Love Publishing.

Book Blurb:
“Laurel can’t handle her new authority as editor of the yearbook, especially when it comes to Matt, the new guy at school who has her head spinning!”

Author’s Web Site: http://annherrickauthor.com

More about All’s Fair in Love and Words, including purchase links: http://bwlpp.com/herrick.php

A book like no other is what you’re holding in your hands at this very moment.  An incredible true story of a life lived like no other. It is a story of one man?s journey that begun in New Zealand.

Written in two volumes, the first which is what you’re about to read starts from the very beginning of a childhood that speaks honestly about the destruction that a child experiences from witnessing first hand domestic violence between his two parents.

Parents who at one stage did very much love one another but an affair soon rocked that marriage and pulled the family apart.

The onslaught of heavy drinking by a father who lost his grip on his own family and became a violent man. Something any child should never have to witness.  Watching a father who was always such a loving man but towards their mother, he would turn anger into fists of fury.

Christian escaped his broken home into a world of gangs. A gang culture that is ripe throughout the land of most of New Zealand. Gangs, which can at times become like another family where a young lost soul can find a sense of belonging within. But with gang culture comes trouble.

He was in trouble with the law, trouble with others and most of all trouble with himself. With no father figure at home to keep him in line but only a loving mother who now couldn’t cope. Christian had become the man of the house protecting his sister and mother but also running wild living a life of danger and corruption.

Read through this epic tale of one child’s struggle to belong. The battles that life presents him with and the heartache of such sorrow and sadness that any person will find upsetting. read more »

The Rena’s Promise International Creative Writing Camp. Created to further the vision of Holocaust survivor Rena Kornreich Gelissen and in honor of her memory, Rena’s promise is a promise to create a more ecumenical world unhindered by prejudice, racism or hatred by bringing young people together from all walks of life and providing them with a place to develop the cultural and creative voices of Generation NEXT. This one week intensive writing program is for young people between the ages of 14-17, who want to explore their own unique gifts as writers by working with professional writers.   The camp will be held July 2-8, 2011 in Shelter Island, New York.  For more details about the camp you can go to www.renaspromise.com

California - March 2, 2001: Aging is our universal full time job. The real inner self can be much more successful than previously imagined. Now is the time to make peace with your past so you don’t mess up the present!

Author Marcia Casar Friedman, having honorably fulfilled all the author requirements imposed by the powers that be, is hereby presenting the release of her book “Aging Is A Full Time Job.”

Take this encouraging journey of reading and writing to open the window to your soul, while exploring and processing the depths of past events. Get ready to go on an optimistic highway to self-awareness. Learn more about the unique person you are aging into, no matter what you identify as your chronological age number.

This distinguishing book provides valuable insights into appreciating the truth of not being perfect. The keys to being courageous with self-acceptance are presented in an easy to read, professional page format. With such a unique approach, the reader can review past events, their effects, and how to work in a positive manner with “Who am I?” instead of the usual negativity from judgmental reactions.

Ms. Friedman was a teacher for the Pittsburgh Public Schools, Los Angeles School District, and a Cal State University master student teacher.

Writing, sociology, and psychology have always been her passions. She conducted adult training programs in English as a Second Language, created “feelings workshops,” behavior modification classes and was a trainer for various businesses. Her enduring belief is that “learning never ends!”

Life changes gave Ms. Friedman the opportunity to follow her interests, to use these experiences to help others. She initially planned to write a life script, resume, or memoir, however was motivated to better understand and improve the present in order to move forward to the future. Then she realized it was important to share the learned tools so others could be rewarded by discovering their own path and be encouraged to pass the torch.

Marcia Casar Friedman: marcia@agingisafulltimejob.com

BURBANK, CA: The Motion Picture Company, Inc. is honored to announce its participation in the development of a tribute and biography of famed science fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton.

Sue Stewart, literary executor of the Andre Norton Estate, is collaborating with MPCI to produce an hour-long biographical tribute, profiling the prolific author’s life story.

Norton was the recipient of several respected honors, including being the first woman to win the Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy Award and the Nebula Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement, the later a title she shared with Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury.

In the early 1950s, Norton broke genre gender barriers with her stories that were initially only thought to appeal to young male readers. She went on to pen The Beast Master, the Witch World series, and more than 130 other novels in 67 languages during her long career. She operated High Hallack, a library for genre writers, in Murfreesboro, TN, as she provided opportunities for new writers and collaborative efforts with her expanding collection of stories.

The documentary-tribute working title: “THE LADY’S QUILL, A TRIBUTE TO ANDRE NORTON” will scan the early days of Alice Norton, as she began writing children’s books, continuing after she changed her name to “Andre” at a publisher’s request to be more marketable with readers in fantasy and science fiction. The broadcast will include sound bites of Andre Norton interviews from friends and other famous authors in the genre, and personal insights of her private life.

MPCI will begin pre-production and development of the documentary with further announcements on March 17, 2011, the six-year anniversary of Norton’s death at age 93. Clips, photos, and interviews of Norton are being cataloged. Many other authors and friends from around the globe will be participating with on-camera comments as they share stories and remembrances of the Lady and her Quill.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TO ALL MEDIAS
DATE: FEBRUARY 21, 2011
For additional information contact:
John Cummings
Chairman/Producer MPCI
818.480.4001 ext. 101
jcc@tmpc.us

RUMINATE Magazine invites you to enter our annual poetry, short story, and nonfiction prizes–the Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize and the William Van Dyke Short Story Prize, and the Ruminate Nonfiction Prize.

Ruminate is thrilled to announce our first annual Ruminate Nonfiction Prize. The first place story will win a $500 prize and the runner-up will win a $50 prize. The entry deadline has been extended to February 15th, 2011 and the finalist judge is award-winning author, Al Haley. (Haley is the published author of Home Ground: Stories of Two Families and the Land and Exotic: A Novel, winner of the John Irving First Novel Award, and his work has been published in publications including The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly.)  For more information about the contest go to www.ruminatemagazine.org/contests

Details for the 2012 edition of Rhyme & Reason, with the theme of ‘TIME’, have now been launched. Contributions for the publication can be made through one of two competitions: a new Prose Competition, to be judged by author Fay Weldon, and a Poetry Competition, now in its fourth year, to be judged by poet Gerard Benson. We are awarding prizes in both categories, and hope to publish as many entries as possible, so even if you are unsuccessful in the competition, you have a very good chance of being published in the diary. Details about both competitions and how to enter can be found by going to www.irhh.org/sitehome/fundraising

The first ever Guernsey Literary Festival is taking place from May 12-15, 2011 and will be featuring writers inspired by Guernsey. Just some of the speakers and performers Guernsey will be welcoming are Annie Barrows, Tim Binding, Mary Horlock, Edward & Olivia Chaney and John Cooper Clark.  For full Festival information go to www.arts.gg