Thank you to all our local writers who have been participating in our monthly Poets’ Group hosted via Zoom! We have TWO more meetings, July 28th & August 25th. If you’d like to register for one or both of these, shoot us an email at ccw@svsu.edu! (Those who have already registered do not need to register each month).

Want more opportunities to share your poetry? We are still accepting submissions to our 2020 edition of Still Life, our local literary journal, and are also still sponsoring our Bay County Poetry Postcard contest! For more information on submission guidelines, check out https://www.svsu.edu/writingcenter/contestspublications/

Dear writers,

We are happy to announce that the judging for the "Saginaw, I Believe" Postcard Poetry Contest is complete! Congratulations to our three winners, and thank you to everyone who participated in this contest! It was a joy to read so many poems about our Saginaw community.

As we are unable to hold an in-person celebration, we are currently working with the Ezekiel Project to plan a virtual celebration via Facebook that will take place some time within the next month. We will announce the winners at this time. We are also planning to post some of the submissions in the SVRC Marketplace by our Little Free Library. More details will be posted soon.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at writingcenter@svsu.edu or ccw@svsu.edu. If you participated in the contest and did not receive an email notifying you of the results, please email us so we can provide that information.

Again, thank you all for your participation!

We're very excited to be launching our new Bay County Poetry Postcard Contest! This is an opportunity for anyone who lives, works, or studies in Bay County to share their thoughts on this area through poetry! Participants have the opportunity to submit up to 3 poems, 20 lines or less, virtually or on a physical postcard mailed to the Diane Boehm Writing Center at SVSU.

This contest runs through July 30, 2020, and
participants have the opportunity to receive cash prizes!

Check out the poster below for submission guidelines and details!

How are you documenting these unusual times? "The Quarantine Chronicles" is a place for you to share the way you are creativity recording life through the COVID-19 crisis. We hope to gather perspectives from across the Great Lakes Bay Region through artwork and writing. Whether you are drawing, crafting poetry, creating a journal, or making audio/video recordings, we want to bring individual voices together to connect a shared experience across our community.

To learn more and participate, visit www.saginawartmuseum.org/quarantinechronicles

This project is lead by the Saginaw Art Museum and the SVSU Center for Community Writing. We are welcoming other partnering organizations throughout the region!

Dear writers,

As we enter our second month of shelter-in-place here in Michigan, I want you to know that we miss seeing you at our Bay and Saginaw Community Writing Centers! As you already know, we’ve started to offer online consultations for your writing projects via email. This means you can send in any piece of writing (a resume, a poem or short story, a section of your novel-in-progress) and get feedback from one of our writing tutors sent back to you. I admit, it’s not as nice as having a face-to-face conversation with each of you, but it’s still a way to connect – and keep writing!

Also, I wanted to remind you of two amazing writing contests we have going on right now – that come with cash prizes! First, our “Saginaw, I Believe” Poetry Postcard contest is now accepting submissions online! Write a short poem (20 lines or less) about Saginaw, and submit it here: http://svsu.edu/ccw/writingcontests/

Second, our “Start with Art – Write” Contest is a cool collaboration with the Saginaw Art Museum. Visit this site to view a piece of art from their collection, and write a short story or poem based on the artwork. Detailed submission guidelines, along with the submission link, can be found here: https://www.saginawartmuseum.org/event/startwithart-write/

Both contest deadlines are April 30 – so start writing today!

We hope to see you again this summer, and we’ll certainly keep you posted as soon as we know when we are able to re-open. In the meantime, stay safe and stay healthy.

Sincerely,

Helen Raica-Klotz, SCWC/BCWC Co-Director

We are extremely excited to be partnering with the Saginaw Art Museum to offer a new writing opportunity this coming month!

This is a fun opportunity to spark your creativity while being able to explore the Saginaw Art Museum from the comfort of your own home! Simply visit the Museum's website, choose a piece that inspires you, and start writing!

Specific submission guidelines can be found at https://www.saginawartmuseum.org/event/startwithart-write/

P.S. This contest runs from March 30th until April 30th, and we are offering CASH prizes!

As many of you may know, SVSU has cancelled all face-to-face instruction on its campus for the remainder of the semester, effective March 16th, due to the coronavirus. Unfortunately, this also means that we will have to temporarily close both the Saginaw and Bay Community Writing Centers through the end of the semester, therefore cancelling all of our upcoming consultations and workshops. We hope to resume our work again in May/June for our summer semester.

We are very sorry for this inconvenience, but we value the health and safety of this community, and we feel at this time that cancelling upcoming one-on-one consultations and workshops is the best course of action.

We will continue to update you regarding the state of the Community Writing Centers, and will continue to let you know about writing opportunities as they become available. For any community writers wishing to receive feedback on their writing pieces during this time, we are offering limited online hours where you can email a draft to scwc@svsu.edu and a SCWC consultant will offer you feedback on your writing piece. We please ask that you limit writing submissions to a maximum of 15 pages and that you allow approximately one week to receive feedback on your piece.

In the meantime, please keep writing and continue to watch our website saginawcommunitywc.weebly.com. Please feel free to contact us at scwc@svsu.edu with any additional questions you may have.

It was standing room only with over 100 attendees last night at the Saginaw Art Museum to celebrate the 3rd annual edition of Still Life! It was a wonderful night of inspiring poetry and powerful performances as community members shared their pieces with the audience!

A special shout out goes to Ben and Sebastian for emceeing the event, and for the three winners of our poetry slam: Train, Flow-it, and Serena! We loved hearing attendees share their poems about life, Saginaw, love, and family - it truly was a showcase of the diverse and wonderful talent in the community.

Wasn't able to make it to the release party but still want a copy of Still Life 2019? Copies will be available at the SVSU Writing Center, the Saginaw Community Writing Center, and the Bay Community Writing Center! (An online version will also be available within the coming weeks)

Just a reminder that we are already accepting submissions for the 2020 edition of Still Life!

Hello everyone!

My name is Elizabeth Kennedy and I'm very excited to be taking on the Community Writing Center Coordinator position! I've worked as a tutor at Saginaw Valley State University's Writing Center since September 2018, and more recently I have been co-facilitating a creative writing workshop for inmates at the Saginaw Correctional Facility. While I'm new to the Community Writing Centers, I'm eager to meet all of you and invest myself more fully in the Saginaw community!

I'm a writer myself, and am currently majoring in Professional & Technical Writing at Saginaw Valley State University, with the hopes of working as a professional grant writer for a nonprofit organization after graduation. That being said, I'm very enthusiastic about writing for a purpose, and hope to use my skills to support my passion for advocacy and social justice in my local community.

I'm looking forward to this new experience, the amazing individuals I'll get to meet, and, most importantly, the writing projects I will get to workshop with you!

Elizabeth Kennedy
Community Writing Center Coordinator