I am delighted to announce the publication of our first Wordshop anthology, Prompted:  Stories, Poems, Essays from Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio from PS Books.

This volume, edited by Elizabeth Mosier, Therése Halscheid and myself explores the human condition through work from 39 contributors who have participated in the first 13 years of GPWS workshops:  Marsha Pincus, Julialicia Case, Liz Abrams-Morley, Kristin Stitz, Joyce Meyers, Lourdes Fernandez, Valerie Reynolds, Julie Compton, Mark Ax, Gretta Moorhead, Eileen Cunniffe, Matthew Jordan, Maria Casale, Jeanne Obbard, Sonia Arora, Jennifer Beaumont, Christy Schneider, Maurya Walsh Johnson, Ellen Jensen Abbott, Rosalind Kaplan, Kay Peters, Kasey Edison, Deborah Derrickson Kossmann, Lisa Mazinas, Jill A. Belack, Jenny Lentz, Aimee LaBrie, M. Ferra, Janet Spangler, Richard L. Mandel, Roberta Greifer, Jyoti R. Lajmi, Kathleen Furin, Linda S. Koenigsberg, Todd B. Stevens, Ilana Stanger-Ross, Susanna Greenberg, Sande Smith and Jim Mancinelli.

Thank you to all who sent work to be considered.  My co-editors and I faced some tough decisions.  You are to be commended for your hard work, your courage, and skill.  Happy reading!

Alison

Ellen Jensen Abbott  (Delco/Main Line workshop) has been working on a series for young adults that began in the workshop, the first volume of which, Watersmeet, is due out from Marshall Cavendish in April, 2009. To learn more about the book, and pre-order, check out her blog at www.ellenjensenabbott.com. She teaches at Westtown School, and three of her students were finalists in The Autobiography Project in spring 2006.

Liz Abrams-Morley (Delco/Main Line workshop) who has recently made the move from suburbs (Wynnewood) to city (Queen Village), has published a chapbook, What Winter Reveals with Plan B Press of Philadelphia, www.planbpress.com.  A story, “Mitzraim,” can be found in the archives of Literary Mama, www.literarymama.com. She is teaching in the MFA program at Rosemont, and will be reading at Visions & Voices on October 21 and at the Free Library November 13.

Doug Arnold (Delco/Main Line workshop) has poems forthcoming in the Atlanta Review, The Literary Review, and the Sulphur River Literary Review. His essay, "Reading Kay Ryan's Poetry" appeared in the Fall 2007 edition of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. His second poetry chapbook, The Midas Plague, was published in January 2008 by FootHills Publishing (click here to preview/order).

Jennifer Beaumont (Center City workshop) has started a blog in which she will update her adventures while on vacation each day. She invites you to check it out and leave a comment: http://www.comeseetheworldwithme.blogspot.com/.

Jill Belack’s (Delco/Main Line workshop) story, "The Bell," revised in the workshop, was selected for Interact Theatre’s “Writing Aloud” February 9, 2009 program.

Sharon Bisaha (Center City workshop) has poems forthcoming in Philadelphia Poets and Mad Poets Review.

Judilyn Brown’s (Center City workshop) essays appear in the anthology Letters to Fathers from Daughters (www.lettersforhealing,com) and Philadelphia Stories (in Spring 2007 under the name Victoria Christian, and under her own name in Winter 2008-2009). The most recent essay, “The Witch and the Clown,” also received Honorable Mention in the 24th annual New Millenium Writings competition.

Seetha Burtner, pen name Seetha Narayan (Delco/Main Line workshop) recently made a career switch from philosophy professor to writer. Last November she moved to Boston, where she works as a freelance journalist and copy-editor. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe and Improper Bostonian magazine. Seetha also published her first book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Long-Distance Relationships, in November 2005, and before that, won grand prize in the 2004 Memoirs Ink writing contest.

Corrie Ann Gray (Calderon) (Delco/Main Line workshop) and a writing partner are excited to have a feature film screenplay under option in Hollywood. Still missing PA, she continues to work as a freelance writer, continuing her work in fiction, copywriting, editing, and other projects. 

Eileen Cunniffe's (Delco/Main Line workshop) piece "Pilgrimages to the Edge," previously selected as a Silver winner in Travelers' Tales first-annual Solas Awards for travel writing, now appears in the print anthology A Woman’s World Again: True Stories of World Travel. You can read Eileen’s essay online (click here to view) and purchase the anthology here). Eileen's essay, "The Great Butter Caper of Chartres," previously published in "Wild River Review," was selected as a gold winner in the third annual Travelers' Tales Solas awards (click here to view). Eileen’s work also appears in “400 Words” under the topic of “Work” and in SN Review under Creative Non-Fiction.

Beverly Dale (Center City workshop) writes, "After years of collecting memoir stories and poems, I finally gathered them together to perform my first one-woman show at the Fringe Festival in Philly in September. The show is called "An Irreverent Journey from Eggbeaters to Vibrators." Through the experiences of ten women (including two little girls) I explored the sexual repression in our culture and specifically in Christianity. I used music, poetry and stories to express the poignancy and the humor of the topic. While looking for other venues to perform this body of work, I am now considering a sequel performance on the issue of the control of women's bodies and sexuality."

Minna Duchovnay (Center City and Delco/Main Line workshops) writes, "I am 'retired' now and have been able to spend more time writing and thinking about the process. More experimentation! Two poems, “On the MTA,” and “Last Day at Anne’s,” appear in the 2007 Mad Poets Review. I'm pleased especially because "On the MTA" is an older poem that was recently revised. It pays to save everything, even snippets. I'm also making good progress translating a 19-poem cycle from the 16th century from Latin into English. 

Liza Ewen (Center City workshop) and her partner and bought a house in Germantown two years ago now and spent the summer of 2004 gutting and renovating it. Liza continues to teach at Friends Central, where the son of Rosalind Kaplan (Delco/Main Line workshop) has been one of her students.

Kate Filicky (Delco/Main Line workshop) is living near Pittsburgh. Her poem "As We Could" is featured on the blog chicagonow.

Brian Foley’s (Center city workshop) satirical self-help e-book A New Financial You in 28 Days is the #2 humor bestseller at Mobipocket and has reached #15 on Amazon Kindle Parodies. It’s available for immediate download in various formats at Gegensatz Press. Jay Wexler says “There are few books that will both revolutionize your life and also make you laugh so hard that you will nearly choke to death on a peanut while flying from Boston to Cleveland. This is one of those books.”

Kathleen Furin (Delco/Main Line workshop) has an essay “Album” in the recent anthology, Operation Homecoming:  Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S, Home Front in the Words of Soldiers and the Families.  Her story “Bridge,” drafted in the workshop, appears on the Philadelphia Stories website, www.philadelphiastories.org. Kathleen is the co-founder and co-director of the Maternal Wellness Center (winner of Best of Philly 2006). She is a regular contributor to the holistic parenting mag The Mother.  Her work has appeared  in Literary Mama, The Mother’s Movement Online, Mamazine, and other journals.

Adele Greenspun (Center City workshop) has completed a young adult novel, Promises.  Adele writes that many of the scenes were written in workshop.

Hanoch Guy (Center City workshop) received 12th place in the 2007 Mad Poets Review competition, judged by Kate Northrop. His poems have also appeared in Feile Feste, Schuylkill River Journal, Visions International and Poetry Motel.

Kim Hemminger (Delco/Main Line workshop) writes that she had a terrific summer traveling in China and Tibet for two and a half weeks.

Maurya Johnson (Center City workshops) has completed the Villanova program in theater.  Her play was read before an audience in Spring 2005.

Matt Jordan (Center City and Delco/Main Line workshops) has attended the Iowa Summer Writing Program for the past two summers, and is enrolled in the graduate writing program at Rutgers Camden.  He’s also on the nonfiction editorial board of Philadelphia Stories (see his essay, “Pierce Street” on the website, www.philadelphiastories.org), and teaches English at Holy Ghost Prep.

Rosalind Kaplan (Delco/Main Line workshop) attend the Goucher Creative Non-fiction Writers Conference this summer, where she attracted the attention of an agent interested in representing her non-fiction manuscript about her experiences contracting and treating Hepatitis C as a physician.

Sheldon Kleeman (Center City workshop) is working on poetry and short stories.  Maria Casale (Center City workshop) is working on her second novel, House Dreams.  Their joint project, Hannah Rose Kleeman, was born April 24, 2006, and has not yet identified a preferred literary form. 

Deborah Derrickson Kossmann (Delco/Main Line workshop) won the Short Memoir Competition at the 2007 First Person Arts Festival in Philadelphia. Her essay, "Why We Needed a Prenup With Our Contractor" was published as a "Modern Love" column in The New York Times on 10/28/07. As a result of this publication, she signed with a NY literary agent. When not overwhelmed with house renovation chaos, she is hard at work on a book proposal and a collection of essays. Other highlights this past year included a two-week artist residency at the Ragdale Foundation, and poems published in Runes: A Review of Poetry, and the Cape Cod Literary Voice.

Work by Jenny Lentz (Center City workshop) has recently garnered the following honors: third place in the Baltimore Review 2006 Short Fiction Competition (click here to view); Honorable Mention in ReadMyWords.com (a division of Cedar Hill Press) Short Fiction Contest (story and bio here ); and 15th place in the Writer's Digest Short Short Story Competition.

Galen Longstreth (Center City workshop) and Katie Mather (Delco/Main Line workshop) are enrolled in Vermont College’s MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

Jim Mancinelli’s (Center City workshop) latest chapbook of poems, In Deep came out from Plan B Press in 2004.  Jim is a frequent reader in the Philadelphia area; catch him at the 215 Festival in October.  He also writes that he has recently resumed playing the guitar, so possibly a multi-media performance may be in the offing. Jim can be heard reading with four other Plan B Press poets on the air on Monday, November 20 at 8 pm at 88.5 on WXPN Live! hosted by Michaela Majoun.

Phyllis Mass (Center City workshop) has two poems, The Inferno and I Remember Everything, forthcoming May 2011 in hard copy and online editions of Spot Literary Magazine, www.spotlitmagazine.net.

Joyce Meyers (Delco/Main Line workshop) writes, “Although I have found it difficult to attend Monday night workshops, I have tried to continue writing.  I have attended two week-long retreats with Patricia Lewis, one in Costa Rica and one in Yelapa , Mexico .  She is a wonderful inspiration, and I recommend these retreats to anyone who writes.  More recently, I have been attending Saturday poetry workshops with Leonard Gontarek and have had the pleasure of working with Alison in that group.  I have had some of my poetry published in various journals, including White Pelican Review, Mad Poets Review, Endicott Review, Philadelphia Poets, Mobius, and others. High points in my writing over the past couple of years have been receiving an International Merit Prize from Atlanta Review in 2004, winning a $100 prize for a sonnet in the Margaret Reid Traditional Verse Contest, and having a chapbook submission make it to the finals in the Blue Light Press Chapbook Competition last year.  In between I have amassed a large collection of rejections.  Currently, I have poems forthcoming in Pearl , Mad Poets Review, and Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts.”

Donna Miceli (Delco/Main Line workshop) continues her career as a freelance medical writer, and since moving to Florida has ghost written four books, on such topics as breast cancer, preventive cardiology, substance abuse, and sleep disorders, and contributed a chapter on Childhood and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders to another book. An essay started in workshop, “Speaking of Sex” has just been published in the American Medical Writers Association Journal.

Pauline Michel’s (Delco/Main Line workshop) essay "Grief Walking" appears in the anthology Voices of Breast Cancer published by LaChance Publishing LLC. Information on this and other anthologies in the Healing Voices series can be reached at www.thehealingproject.org.

Gretta Moorhead’s (Center City workshop) response to the Literary Reflections Writing Prompt, about a person who showed her that “books are more than a text printed on a page” was featured on the Literary Mama blog for February 18, 2011, http://www.literarymama.com/blog/.” .

Pam Nagy (Center City workshop) writes, “I'm still defending criminals in Connecticut (while living in Philly) and I still love doing it.  As someone who has never liked to run, I had the crazy idea that I wanted to run one marathon in my lifetime, which I did this past January in Phoenix.  My husband Joe and I have been in the process of adopting a baby from China for 14 months now, and hope to go to China next January or February to get her.  As for writing?  I'm still hoping that one day I'll become disciplined enough to write on a consistent basis, but it hasn't happened yet.”

Nehru Nelson (Center City workshop) has four poems in the on-line journal The Tookany Review, Vol. III Summer 2007, and Vol. IV Winter 2008.

Maggie Nerz ( Center City workshop) has left her job advising at Temple University and has finally fulfilled her goal of being a high school English teacher. She is teaching 10th and 11th grade English at CHAD, The Charter High School for Architecture and Design at 7th and Chestnut. Teaching has put writing on a backburner for now, but as soon as she comes up for air Maggie hopes to resume her short story writing.

Clare Novak (Delco/Main Line workshop) published her book, Never Rule Without a Magician, a Sage, and a Fool with XLibris in Spring 2006, a wise and witty take on leadership.  Alison read and commented on early drafts. See here or www.novakassoc.com.

Tim O’Connell (Delco/Main Line workshop) has his first published essay, “Night Moves,” in the June ’09 issue of Literary Mama, http://www.literarymama.com.
 
Amy Popp (Center City workshop) is currently pursuing an MS in Information and Library Science at Drexel University.

Minnie Reichek, aka Minati Singh (Center City workshop) is living in San Francisco and is enrolled in the MFA program at California College of the Arts.  Her poem, “Ode,” first drafted in the workshop, won the Second Prize in the Rhino Editors’ Awards for 2005. (see here).

Valerie Reynolds (Center City workshop) is working on her novel, renamed Portions.  Valerie writes that its first chapter and premise began in the workshop.

Ilana Stanger-Ross' (Center City workshop) first novel, Sima's Undergarments for Women is due out in February 2009 from Overlook Press and available from www.amazon.com. Ilana's work has garnered much praise from advance reviews. Publishers Weekly: "From the very first page, this is an assured narrative with an even surer voice; readers will know that they are in the hands of a real storyteller . . . much more than a novel of female bonding-it's a subtly powerful treatise on friendship, trust and love, written with plenty of verve." Kirkus: "Charming...filled with gentle uplift." Library Journal: "In the end, this is a tale about appreciating one's life, and isn't that what life is about?" It's even been nominated for the American Library Association's Sophie Brody Medal for Jewish Literature. For more on Ilana appearances in the Philadelphia area, as well as Toronto, New York, Washington DC and Victoria BC, check out Ilana's website at www.ilanastangerross.com.

Christy Schneider (Center City workshop) has written with GPWS since 1999 when she wrote with the bright colors and large alphabet of the Unitarian Church Day Care Center (Wednesday workshop.  She appreciates the encouragement of Alison and the friends she has met in GPWS.  Recently she wrote CHAPBOOK in black Sharpie marker on the tab of a red file folder that she is filling with poems and prose for a collection called Fabrications, to be completed in 2006.

Todd Stevens’ (Center City workshop) first published poem, “Echo Kin,” appears in Mad Poets Review, Vol.22. Another poem, “Ritual for a Threshold,” will appear in the Summer 2009 issue of Off the Coast.

Trish Szuhaj (Center City Workshop) reports a number of new publications: flash fiction (under the pen name Kaye Sebastian) and memoir pieces in the June ’09 issue of ragazine (www.ragazine.cc); a flash fiction piece, “Creature Comforts,” in the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette (December ’08), and a short story, "Truth and Consequences," a finalist in the ’08 Scribes Valley Publishing short story contest, in Road to Elsewhere in January ‘09.

Sallie Warden (Center City workshop) writes, “My spring and summer were paved with good intentions and we all know where that gets us.    My daughter-in-law had given me the most beautiful book with blank pages of lovely thick sort of textured blank paper for Christmas.   Perfect, I thought.    And this was going to be a big year - lots to write about, in a journaling way, at least.    A big move from the house on Pine St that we’ve loved to an apartment not far away.  AND a grandchild due at the end of October. An exciting (probably last) big vacation to Turkey in July.  Somehow instead of all this inspiring me to write it has had me bewildered, exasperated, and exhausted and I CERTAINLY didn't want to defile that beautiful paper with immature, whining complaints.  .      Well, of course it's just what I should have done. Might have made for some interesting tales. . . I write a lot of LETTERS.  I love the process of writing (pen to paper, not word processor).  Maybe I should put that energy into writing for me.  I hope to rejoin the workshop in January.” 

Jennifer Williamson (Center City workshop) recently quit her boring day job to pursue acting and writing ful- time.  She’s supporting herself as a freelance commercial writer and was cast in a Fringe Festival play, “The Shrink,” in summer 2006. On the writing end of things, she reports “toying with a novel for a while now.”

In spring 2006, 15 GPWS participants and alumni participated in The Autobiography Project:  The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the most widely published autobiography of all time, and in honor of Franklin’s 300 birthday, Philadelphians were invited to submit 300-word autobiographical pieces to the Project, presented by the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary and One Book, One Philadelphia.

A panel of judges, including GPWS alumna and current participant Sonia Arora (Center City workshop) and myself, selected twenty autobiographies to appear on posters at bus shelters throughout the city.  All autobiographies are posted online at www.theautobiographyproject.com.

Phyllis Mass’ (Center City workshop) piece, a longer version of which was initially drafted in workshop, was selected for a poster, as were the works of three students of Ellen Jenson Abbott (Delco/Main Line workshop), a teacher at Westtown School, and one student of Marguerite Ferra, who teaches ESL at Lannon Square School in Camden. In addition, Marguerite’s mother, Marguerite Wunsch, was also chosen.  Marie Field (Delco/Main Line workshop), chair of One Book, One Philadelphia served as a key cheerleader.

Many other entries from GPWS folks were finalists and in contention until the bitter end (to avoid conflict of interest, I did not officially rate or cast deciding votes on GPWS entries—though it now can be revealed that I was secretly pulling for all of you.)

Since December 2005, I’ve been privileged to be a fellow student at a poetry workshop, Making Poems that Last, led by Leonard Gontarek, with Hanoch Guy, Christy Schneider, Minna Duchovnay and Janet Spangler (Center City workshop), and Joyce Meyers (Delco/Main Line workshop).

I hope you will enjoy reading about what your friends and compatriots from workshop are up to.  Keep in touch!

--Alison