Get Lit! at First Night 2010

This year Eastern Washington University's Get Lit! Programs will be ringing in the New Year with talented students from our Writers-in-Residence program at RiverCity Leadership Academy, Barker High School, and Havermale High School. These young writers have been discussing literature and working on creative writing with Get Lit! professionals. Since 2004, Get Lit!'s Writers-in-Residence program has helped inspire over a thousand young writers in K-12 schools in and around Spokane.

Join us to hear what these budding writers have been working on with our visiting authors! We look forward to seeing you at the NEW Auntie's Bookstore Annex at the River Park Square Mall on the 2nd Floor near the Macy's skywalk. The event will start at 7pm and go until about 9pm. Click here for a complete First Night schedule of events, or here for complete information. Buttons are $12 advance purchase and $15 the day of the event. Their website has a listing of all the locations buttons are available for purchase. As usual, children 10 and under are free with a paying adult.

Have a safe and arts filled New Year's Eve!

Writing = Change

As we face another new year with its call to action in the form of personal resolutions and all of its promise, the thought that comes to mind is how words play a role in effecting our future.

Here at Get Lit! we work year round to showcase poets, authors, essayists, journalists, songwriters, screenwriters, playwrights, and graphic novelists that are contributing to the larger conversation--or rather conversations, since there are many dialogues in process--that impact our understanding of the world we live in. We make a point to bring at least one leading environmental thinker to the festival each year such as Paul Roberts, David Suzuki, and Maude Barlow. In the past, we have hosted political voices like bell hooks, Naomi Wolf, and Reza Aslan. And we have had nearly 100 poets and 100 fiction/nonfiction authors share their work over the years. The goal is to spark discussion within the community and introduce new authors to people in our region.

We also host many educational outreach programs in K-12 schools in Eastern Washington with the hope that our professional writers and authors can help teachers show students that their pens/pencils have a little bit of magic in them. With a pen, a piece of paper, and a point, these young writers are given the opportunity to share their ideas with others. Writing no longer feels like an assignment. Instead, many students have noted having fun, feeling powerful, and getting excited about learning more about themselves and others through sharing. With our "Telling the American Story" theme for 2011, we are also expanding on our usual workshops and panels with a focus on getting local writers of all ages creating and publishing their words. So watch in February for more information on our workshop options!

Meanwhile, we've come across a few articles by Paul Haeder in downtoearthnw.com that address this idea of the power of words. For those of you who don't know, downtoearthnw.com is committed to reporting and sharing environmental news and sustainability information from across the Inland Northwest. Here are the articles that sent us down this road:

Power of the Pen: Memory of Earth, Wind and Fire Environmental writing from the edge of the world; fiction and poetry brings truth

Power of the Pen II: Can poetry bring truth? Modern environmental movement welcomes creative thinkers

We invite you to share your thoughts about writing as an agent for fostering change. What have you read lately that compelled you to action? What have you written lately out of passion? In this fast, faster, fastest world, words can serve as a necessary stop light, encouraging contemplation, a new perspective, and even a call to action.

High Desert Journal's 2011 Obsidian Prize in Fiction

The High Desert Journal is announcing it's 2011 Obsidian Prize in Fiction, offering a $1,000 prize plus publication! Submissions are due February 18, 2018 and must not exceed 6,000 words. Entries will be accepted online. There is a $15 entry fee.

The judge for this competition is Gretel Ehrlich, author of This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland, The Solace of Open Spaces, and Heart Mountain. She has also written other works of nonfiction, fiction and poetry.

High Desert Journal is a literary and visual art magazine dedicated to further understanding the people, places and issues of the interior west. Its pages help define this region in literary and artistic terms and represent a collection of work that charts the changes of this distinctive, unique region. It accepts work from residents of the region and from anyone living outside the region creating work with high desert themes and elements.

Weekly Nielsen BookScan Data Available for Authors in Amazon's Author Central Service

For the first time, authors can track their books' weekly print sales, including geographical distribution, as recorded by Nielsen BookScan (widely regarded as the best source for industry print book sales.) Author Central also launches tracking of historical Amazon bestsellers rank for each of an author's books. This is a free service provided by Amazon that helps authors promote their books and reach more readers. In addition, authors who use Author Central have the opportunity to share the most up-to-date information about themselves and their work with readers. Authors can view and edit their bibliography, add a photo and biography to a personal profile, upload missing book cover images, add video, information about speaking events and use a blog to connect with readers. Authors only need a book listed in Amazon's catalog to be eligible to join Author Central. Authors can learn more about Author Central and these new features at http://authorcentral.amazon.com.

Montana Artists Refuge Scholarship Opportunities

Montana Artists Refuge

The Refuge, founded in 1993, aims to serve as "a quality environment in which to work and provides an opportunity for artistic collaboration in a creative community." Their residencies are open to all kinds of artists and they also have spaces for artists to do art shows, concerts, readings and performance pieces.

Current Vacancies and Scholarships

The Montana Artists Refuge has received a scholarship grant. They are offering scholarships to help with residency costs from Jan – April 2011. Please apply now for the following vacancies:

January – one vacancy (Front Dyott apartment, $625/month rent)

February – one vacancy (Middle Dyott apartment, $550/month rent)

March – one vacancy (Back Dyott apartment, $925/month rent)

April – one vacancy (Front Dyott apartment, $625/month rent)

Add one of their large studios for $300/month.

Download applications and find more information about them at their website, http://www.montanaartistsrefuge.org/

New Workshop at Tincan

Family Video Library Workshop

Do you have dozens of MiniDv cassettes, CDs or thumb drives sitting around your home gathering dust, filled with video memories from birthdays, holidays, weddings and vacations?

Have you ever thought about doing something with them?

Why not make a short film with all of your special vacation moments set to music, or pull out all of the highlights about your family from the past year and send it out instead of your usual Christmas letter...with you narrating it!

You could create a personal biography for a child or relative OR build a video memorial for someone who has passed on.

In this workshop you’ll learn how to collect those moments using state of the art video editing software and manipulate them into a short film that you can burn onto a Dvd, CD or upload to the web to share with family and friends around the world.



To participate in this workshop you must have video on miniDv, CD, thumb drive or hard drive to participate in this workshop. Video on CD, thumb drive or hard drive must be in a compatible format such as a .mov, avi or .wmv.