I've been writing since childhood - mostly poetry and short fiction. I finally have enough self-confidence to share my work with others :)

I have never submitted any of my work before, but I think I'm ready to start doing so. I'm looking for some honest feedback on my writing and any guidance you may have. I'm excited to learn & hear from some lovely poets & writers!

I've written since I was young, but once I got busy making a living as an educator my writing was most often set aside. Over the years I've had a few short pieces, non-fiction and fiction, published. I took an early retirement four years ago and have been writing more than ever before. I am looking for a writers' group where I can get feedback on my writing as well as read and learn from the writing of others. I have a BA in English, a MA in Education and a MFA in Film/Video.

Hello everyone....I'm Charley Springer and in 2019, had my first collections of poems entitled JUICE published by Regal House Publishing. You can visit my website at https://www.charlesspringer.com and get a taste of what's inside JUICE. It is totally non-alcoholic but as you read some of its poems, you may have doubts! Cheers

These past few years I have written and published mostly prose poems. This form works for me ninety percent of the time. They reflect how the poem is born and I so much enjoy the process.

HOW I WRITE      

It's rare I read without being led to write, which some might say prevents me from simply enjoying another writer's words. The writers, most often poets, particularly prose poets whose work I cling to over and over will see me stop in the middle of a passage to grab a pencil and piece of paper to get my thoughts down as quickly as possible for they can be fleeting and I forget easily anymore. Friends say it's age! These thoughts are usually the beginning of something of my own, something big, reflective of a real experience or as I soon discover, something I've probably made up. Sometimes it's hard to tell! With this all happening, I've put down the book and may not pick it up again for days. This book and others I keep by my bed, I usually only read at night and some nights, they read me and themselves to sleep. When I get up in the morning and over a cup of something hot, I type what I have scribbled in the dark into Word, the Office program, not the sacred text and this Word file is what I'll read and edit and revise for days. Half the time I'd say it finishes into something good. What doesn't, get tossed.

HOW I FEEL ABOUT NOT WRITING

For years I belonged to a local writer's group, mostly poets, a few short story writers, a memoirist or two and all were academics except me. I learned so much from them by simply listening and I came to love them all. We were, for the most part, eager and very productive, bringing something we've written to nearly every Thursday night meeting to read aloud and have critiqued. I recall one spring I hadn't written anything for weeks and the group got a little concerned. I finally told them, hey, it's okay, it'll happen when it happens. And it did late that summer and I couldn't stop. Writing was all I did. My point is write when you want, write when you can and when you can't, go mow the lawn or wash the car. Particularly the lawns and cars of those in the writing group who are too busy writing.

Megha Sood is a New Jersey-based Pushcart Nominated Award-winning poet, editor, writer and blogger. She earned her Postgraduate Degree in Computer Application (M.C.A)and Bachelors in Computer Sciences (B.Sc.) from India. She is an Assistant Poetry Editor for the UK-based Arts and Literary Journal MookyChick, Literary Partner in the “Life in Quarantine” Project by Stanford University, USA, and Associate Editor with Literary Journal “Life and Legends”. She is the author of a chapbook (“A Potpourri of Emotions”, Local Gems Press, NY). Chapbook ( “My Body is Not An Apology”, Finishing Line Press, 2021) and Full Length ( “My Body Lives Like a Threat”, Flower Song Press,2021).She co-edited anthologies (“The Medusa Project”, Mookychick) and ( “The Kali Project”, Indie Blu(e) Press).

Her 600+ works have been featured internationally in literary journals, magazines, anthologies, newspapers, podcasts like Rising Phoenix Review, SONKU, Better than Starbucks, Poetry Society of New York, WNYC Studios, HUDSON Reporter, LILIPOH, PBS American Portrait, Kissing Dynamite, Adelaide Awards Anthology, American Writers Review, Dime show review, Rainbow Project among others where she received her Pushcart 2020 Nomination.

Her literary partnership “Life in Quarantine” with Stanford University has been presented in the Open Education Global Forum 2020 and received mention in Stanford Daily.Her sonnet publication with Poetry Society of New York has been accepted as a Summer Reading curriculum in University High School, Indiana, USA.  She also has been featured on the PBS American Portrait. Her works has also been selected in the literary publication of various US universities like (Temple University, Philadelphia), Stanford University, University of Albany, Kent State University, Chicago University and Arkansas University.

Megha is a Three-time NAMI NJ State Level Poetry Contest 2018/2019/2020 winner and National Level Spring Robinson Lit Prize 2020 winner. Shortlisted in Pangolin Poetry Prize 2019(USA), Adelaide Literary Award 2019 (USA), Erbacce Prize 2020(UK), iWomanGlobalAwards 2020(India), TWIBB Beyond Black Sakhi Awards 2020(USA), Poetry Super Highway 2020(USA).Nominated for “Publication of the Month” and “Author of the Year 2020” by Spillwords Press Awards 2021,NYC.

Her works have been selected numerous times by the Jersey City Writers Group and the Department of Cultural Affairs for the Arts House Festival. Chosen twice as the international panelist for the Jersey City Theater Center Online Series “Voices Around the World”. and “The Box : Reinvention 2021”. 

She has been a featured poet in Oceanside Library Poetry reading 2020 , NY alongside Brooklyn Poet Laureate and Fellow of Academy of American Poets Maria Lisella. She was also a featured poet in BrownStone Poetry Reading 2020 along side LA Based Joshua Corwin and Chad Parenteau.

Anthologies featuring her works have been mentioned in the Huffington Post and showcased in the Poets House, Manhattan as part of the summer reading 2019. Anthology (“SMITTEN” , Indi(e) Blue Press) has been a Finalist in the Indie Excellence Awards 2020.

I am primarily a fiction writer who has written and published several short stories. I have written two as yet unpublished novels, and my current WIP is also a novel. I have also written and published creative nonfiction and journalism. Literary fiction is my preferred genre to both write and read. I have an MFA in Creative Writing.

I am looking for a writing group to share my work with and to receive feedback from. Of course, I'll, in turn, offer my input too. I currently am not involved in a writing group and would like to be. I think it could be beneficial to my writing process.

Here's my full bio:

Charles G. Thompson, a Pushcart Prize nominee, lives in Los Angeles, California where he writes fiction, nonfiction, plays, and memoir. His work has appeared in Business Insider, Advocate.com, The Los Angeles, Times, The Washington Post, The Independent (UK), Kelp Journal, The Maine Review, STORGY Magazine, Writers Resist, Five:2:One, Cowboy Jamboree, Full Grown People, The Offbeat, The Chicago Tribune/Printers Row Journal, Reunion: The Dallas Review. His work also appears in the anthologies Made in L.A., Vol. 2 and Writers Resist: The Anthology 2018. Four of his short stories were included in the 2017 New Short Fiction Series. He was named a finalist in the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival’s 2015 Fiction Contest. His short play “Cherry” won two playwriting awards. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside/Palm Desert. He is the founder of Pen & Paper Writing Workshops. Follow him on Twitter @cgregthompson and Instagram @cgregorythompson.

A Best New Poets, Pushcart, and Best of the Net nominee, John Bonanni is a Cape Cod based writer who founded the Cape Cod Poetry Review in 2011. His own poems have appeared in Foglifter, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Hobart, and Gulf Coast, among others. His book reviews have appeared in DIAGRAM, Tupelo Quarterly, and the Kenyon Review. His research on poetry as an intervention for writing attitudes among learners with severe disabilities can be found in The Graduate Review (Bridgewater State University).  

I'm looking to work with BIPOC and folx in the LGBTQ+ communities.