In partnership with the Birmingham Arts Journal and Reed Books, the ASFA Creative Writing Department will once again host the Birmingham area's My Favorite Poem event. 

My Favorite Poem invites poetry lovers from throughout central Alabama to share their favorite poems and to offer what they love about them. 

A reception, hosted by the parents of ASFA Creative Writing students will follow the reading. This event is free and open to the public.

Friday, September 28th at 7:00 pm
Alabama School of Fine Arts
Creative Writing Auditorium
Birmingham, AL

Rebuilding With Poetry

The Booker T Washington magnet school for the arts in Montgomery burned down last month. They lost much of their campus, the library, and a great deal of expensive Visual Arts and Media Arts equipment/supplies. They’ve been displaced to a dormant elementary school, and they’re trying to salvage this school year as they recover/rebuild for the future.

As a result, this year the My Favorite Poem team invited the BTW-CW students to join them at the annual reading event. Eleven students, three parents, and the chair of the Creative Writing Department, AWC’s very own Foster Dickson, will attend; two of their students will join the group of readers. There will be a Poem-on-Demand donation table in the lobby during the reception.

If you’d like to assist the students and teachers of Booker T Washington, you can donate online to the FAME Foundation for fire-related donations. But most direct way for folks in the Birmingham metro area to show their support – especially for the BTW writers -- is to attend the MFP event at ASFA later this month!

Image source: Atlas Obscura

"What's Old Is New": The Fitzgerald Museum Contest

Every year, the F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum hosts two annual writing competitions: Poetry & Short Story, in an effort to encourage writers of all ages to carry on the literary legacy of Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald. 

AWC member and author Foster Dickson, who serves on the board of the Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery,  has been working with Executive Director Sarah Powell to bring the jazz onto the page for the Museum's Literary annual contest.  

“2018 is the hundredth anniversary of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald meeting in Montgomery. Rather than being a simple fiction or poetry contest, the Fitzgerald Museum Contest will seek out works that are genre-bending, multimedia, and otherwise unique.”

— Foster Dickson

F. Scott and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald were daring and revolutionary in their lives and in their art and writing. Today, one hundred years after the couple first met in Montgomery, Alabama, the Fitzgeralds’ literary and artistic works from the 1920s and 1930s are still regarded as groundbreaking, and The Fitzgerald Museum is seeking to identify and honor the daring and revolutionary young writers and artists of this generation.

Contest Guidelines:

The Fitzgerald Museum’s annual Literary Contest is seeking submissions of short fiction poetry, and multi-genre works, especially those works that break boundaries and defy tradition, that are highly original in style and scope, and that use literary and artistic techniques in innovative ways. Works with traditional forms and styles will be accepted, yet writers are encouraged to send works that utilize innovative forms and techniques. Literary works may include artwork, illustrations, font variations, and other graphic elements, with the caveat that these elements should enhance the work, not simply decorate the page.

Genres: Fiction, Poetry, Multi-Genre Categories

Grades 9–10, Grades 11–12, Undergraduate

Due to issues of compatibility, all works should be submitted electronically as PDFs to ensure that each submission appears as the author intends. PDF files should be named with the author’s first initial [dot] last name [underscore] title. For example, J.Smith_InnovativeStory.pdf. All submissions should be made using the form on the Fitzgerald Museum website. Each student may only enter once.

Submitted literary works will be judged in three separate age categories, so please be clear about that category. Prose submissions should not exceed 3,000 words. Poetry submissions should have 50 lines or fewer. Multi-genre works should not exceed ten pages. The submissions period is open from September 1 until December 1, 2018.

The Literary Contest will be judged by a panel of writers and artists. Award announcements will be made on March 15, 2019. In each age category, a single winner and honorable mentions will be named.

For more information, you can reach out to thefitzgeraldmuseum@gmail.com.

To learn more about the Museum and the role of the McPhillips family in its preservation, visit the  Encyclopedia of Alabama.