Please join us in congratulating the winners of the AWC’s 2022 Writing Contests! Winners will receive certificates and cash rewards, and they will also be published in our upcoming anthology. Congratulations again, writers! It was a pleasure to read your words.

Short Story

First Place: "When Worlds Collide" by Octavia Kuransky, Center Point, AL

Second Place: "Grimm’s School for the Morally and MeToo Challenged" by Tay Berryhill, Birmingham, AL

Flash Fiction

First Place: "Grandpa Versus the Giant Gorilla" by Vic Kerry, Oakman, AL

Second Place: "Lucky" by Kate Duthu, Mobile, AL

First Chapter of Novel

First Place: "Inescapable" by WB Henley, Indian Springs, AL

Second Place: "Blame it on the Moon" by Kathleen Thompson, Birmingham, AL

Memoir

First Place: "Saint Chris, Protect Me" by Doug Gray, Fayetteville, TN

Second Place: "The Reliquary" by Christopher Jay Jones, Anniston, AL

Formal Poetry

First Place: "Writer at Mill Creek" by Emma Fox, Birmingham, AL

Second Place: "Afternoon in the Old Harshaw Cemetery, Haiku One" by Anne P. Wheeler, Birmingham, AL

Free Verse Poetry

First Place: "A choreography of almost" by Miriam Calleja, Birmingham, AL

Second Place: "Salt on a Bird's Wing" by Catherine Hall Kiser, Fairhope, AL

Prose Poetry

First Place: "Forsythia" by Karen McAferty Morris, Pensacola, FL

Please join us on Saturday, August 27, for a slate of virtual activities in lieu of our in-person annual conference.

Admission is free for AWC members and contest winners, but registration is required. You can register via Eventbrite using this link. The Zoom link will be sent in a series of reminders starting on Saturday, August 21. 

Here’s the schedule of activities:

12 p.m. – Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones’s Keynote Address: “Poetry as a Path to Reparations: The Role of Art in the Justice Struggle”

1 p.m. – AWC Contest Winners Announced

2 p.m. – AWC Annual Business Meeting (all members encouraged to attend, as we’ll be electing new board officers)

Hope to see everyone there!

The AWC Board of Directors recently met to discuss the viability of this year's in-person conference as it is currently planned. For what are likely a variety of reasons, our registration numbers are down relative to pre-Covid conferences. Unfortunately, projected costs for the conference are the same or higher. In the interest of fiscal responsibility, the board voted to alter our plans for this year's conference with an eye toward positioning the organization to host a well-attended and dynamic in-person event in 2023, which is our 100th Anniversary year. 

Here are the changes we decided are necessary for this year:

• We will no longer meet in person at the O'Neal library later this month.

• We will promptly refund all conference registration fees already paid.

• The annual writing contest will proceed as planned (with winners announced virtually on August 27, as enumerated in the next bullet point).

• In lieu of an in-person event, we will instead host a smaller virtual event on Saturday, August 27. We'll kick off at 12 p.m. with Ashley Jones's keynote address, "Poetry as a Path to Reparations: The Role of Art in the Justice Struggle," followed by the announcement of the AWC contest winners at 1 p.m.. Then, at 2 p.m., we will hold our annual business meeting, at which time the membership will elect incoming board officers.

• Admission to the virtual events on August 27 will be free and exclusively available to current AWC members and contest winners (though registration will be required -- stay tuned for details on how to register). We will proceed with the free agent pitch sessions and manuscript consultations as planned for those registrants who have already signed up for them, still on a first come, first served basis.

• We are in the process of reaching out to all panelists and presenters to reschedule them, either for next year's in-person conference or as part of a series of virtual events to be scheduled in the coming months.

• We will use these virtual events as a way to "nurture and engage" our membership (for free or at low cost to them) and to promote the in-person conference next year, which will double as a celebration of the organization's centennial.

• We will announce the dates and location of the 2023 conference on August 27.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Our main goal is to offer value to our members while being good stewards of the organization's limited resources. We believe this is the best way to do that. While we will miss the opportunity to see everyone in person later this month, we're excited about what's in store for the coming year. 

We’re two weeks away from the start of our first in-person conference since 2019! We’ll be at the O’Neal Library in Mountain Brook, Alabama, from August 26 through August 28. If you haven’t registered already, here’s a link to our conference page where you can get the complete schedule and scroll to the bottom to register online. The deadline for Full Registration, Full Student Registration, and Saturday Specialty Admission Only is Monday, August 15 at 5:00 p.m. 

Here’s a link to a great feature article posted this morning in al.com, with all kinds of great quotes and information about the conference. Please read and share it!  

We’re really looking forward to seeing folks in person again. Our keynote speaker with be our very own Ashley M. Jones, and we’re excited for our panel celebrating the life and work of E.O. Wilson, along with other presentations from Sue Walker, Jennifer Horne, Jackie Trimble, Don Noble, Lee Rozelle, Tina Mozelle Braziel, Heidi Carroll, Karim Shamsi-Basha, Charlotte Pence, Brooke Champagne, and others! We’re also looking forward to announcing the winners of this year’s contest, including the brand new Roger Williams Peace Award for Writing, which goes to writing of any genre that best promotes peace among human beings and carries with it a prize of $1,000!  

Questions can be directed to conference chair, JJ Jones (jjsayspoetryplz.com).

Hope to see you in Mountain Brook in a couple of weeks!