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Nineteen-year-old Victoria Kasten has crammed more writing time into her busy schedule than most people manage in a lifetime.  Author of nine books, she is a sophomore at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato and a newlywed!  (On June 12, 2010, she married Benjamin Tecken, a young writer who co-authored Ink on Their Fingers.) Home-educated through her elementary and high school years, Victoria speaks at writing conferences across the United States.

I first heard of Victoria in the fall of 2007, shortly after the Sinclair Lewis Writers Conference in Sauk Centre.  A former student of mine attended the conference and raved about a teenager who presented a topnotch writing workshop.  As the LRWN started planning our “Writing Through Life, Life Through Writing Conference,” I remembered the glowing recommendation and checked Victoria’s website <http://www.epicscrolls.com>.  To my delight, she was scheduled as a workshop leader for the Spring 2010 Young Writers Conference in Fergus Falls.

Being resourceful, I phoned our children’s school and volunteered to chaperone a group of young writers to the conference.  It took just a few minutes sitting in Victoria’s workshop for me to reach the same conclusion as my former student.  Victoria (Kasten) Tecken is a gifted educator as well as a seasoned writer!

Now, Lake Region Writers Network is delighted to include Victoria as one of our three keynote panel members for our October 2, 2010 conference, “Writing Through Life, Life Through Writing.  In addition, she’s teaching workshops on character development and description.

Read more about Victoria at <http://www.epicscrolls.com> and <http://www.homeschoolhalloffame.com/bio_kasten.html>.

Advance registration for the conference is only $35, so do it today at <http://www.lakeregionwriters.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Advance-Registration-Form.pdf>.

Written by:  Gerri Stowman, Vice President of the LRWN

So what of fate?

To Henry Miller: “We create our fate every day we live”

In the cheesy (apologies to any fans of this movie for that editorial descriptor) The Mummy 2 fate is such:  “My friend, there is a fine line between coincidence and fate.”

One quote is from a fine mind, another from a playful romp.  At Lakes Area Theatre we hope we can collaborate with area writers to combine the two and have a fun and fulfilling time producing live radio theatre.  As fate goes…now is the time!

Lakes Area Theatre is a start-up production company whose focus is on developing radio theatre productions.  We are located in Alexandria, MN and overlook beautiful Lake Geneva.

Our goal is to produce at least 26 radio shows during our 2010-2011 season.  The shows will be performed live every other Friday night before an audience, recorded, and played back on the following Sunday afternoon on KXRA A.M. from 12:30-1:00 p.m.

We would like to be producing shows by local writers. Below is our script submission policy.  I am happy to work with writers in editing suggestions, etc.  Please note the writer will retain all rights to his/her work while LAT retains the replay rights to the recorded production.

Format: Your script must be a radio play format which differs from stage plays and screenplays.  There are no stage directions, visual cues, lighting directions.  The scripts should include only easily discernible audio cues such as dialogue, sound effects (sfx), and music cues.

Content:  The broadcasting time slot for our show is Sunday afternoon from 12:30-1:00 p.m. on KXRA A.M. (1490).  We ask that content be suitable for all ages.  If you include innuendo and/or adult humor, please keep in mind some “children’s shows” which appealed to adults as well Rocky and Bullwinkle, Fractured Fairytales, and the like.

Length: LAT has a 30-minute broadcast space to fill every other week.  Plays should be a maximum 28 minutes which usually means about one page per minute.

• We will accept scripts for single shows (25-28 minutes).
• We will accept scripts that would run for two or more installments (with each installment filling the 25-28 minute time commitment).
• We will accept a series of shorter plays which would then add up to fit the 25-28 minute timeframe.

We do pay a royalty fee of $30 for use of scripts.  This is based on input from radio script authors from around the United States as well as a BBC radio script author.

Royalty Agreement:  If we accept and use your script, we will send you a writer’s agreement.  This agreement will grant us the right to produce the script; it will grant us the right to reproduce as many copies of the script as needed to produce the script; it will grant us the broadcasting rights to the taped production (radio and podcasts); and the writer retains all rights to their original work.

Return Policy:  We may not take the opportunity to use your script.  There could be a number of reasons for this such as its length, content not deemed suitable for our audience, or just that we believe it needs more work.  We will try to give feedback so that writers can edit and resubmit their work.

Script Submission:  We accept hard copies and electronic copies of scripts.  Electronic copies are preferred.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.  We look forward to long and profitable collaborations with you all.

Ann C. Hermes, Artistic Director
Lakes Area Theatre
2214 Geneva Road NE
Alexandria, MN 56308

Email: lakesareatheatre@gmail.com
Phone: 320-808-8584

Kristin Naca will be at MSU-Moorhead on Thursday, April 15, 2010.  At 4:30 p.m. she will present a talk on the writer’s craft and at 8:00 p.m. a reading from her work.  Both events are held in King Hall Auditorium 110.  Both events are open to the public.

Bird Eating Bird (Harper Perennial, 2009) is Kristin Naca’s first collection of poems.  It is also the winner of the 2008 prestigious National Poetry Series mtvU prize, chosen by Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa.  Naca holds a BA from the University of Washington, an MFA from the University of Pittsburg, and a PhD in English from  the University of Nebraska.  Playful and serious all at once, Naca’s poetry explores the richness of her Puertao Rican and Filipina cultural and linguistic heritage.  She is a Consortium for Faculty Diversity Fellow at Macalester College where she teaches Asian American and Latino poetry and creative writing.  She lives in Minneapolis.

For more information on Kristin Naca, go to <http://www.kristinnaca.com>.  To watch Kristin’s interview with Yousek Komunyakaa on mtvU, go to <http://www.mtvu.com/shows/my-shot-with/yusef-komunyakaa/>.

Information for this blog entry was provided by Dr. Thom Tammaro, but it was posted by Linda Lein, a LRWN Board Member.

Dear contributing authors and friends:

I am happy to announce the debut Fergus Falls reading event for Otter Tail Review, Volume Three! It will be at the Victor Lundeen Company, 126 W. Lincoln Ave. (phone 218-736-5433), on Saturday, December 12, 2009, from 2:00 – 4:00 pm. Buzz Lundeen and staff will be our hosts, and the store will have a reading/ signing area set up for us.

If you would like to participate, whether by reading one of your pieces, assisting with publicity, or in any other way, please let me know, by reply e-mail or phone (218-998-0780).

I look forward to seeing you there. Please bring friends and family, and tell anyone else whom you think might be interested!

Thanks again, Tim Rundquist

Noted poet, Heid Erdrich, will read at the University of Minnesota, Morris, on Monday, November 16 at 7:00pm. The reading, sponsored by the Briggs Library Associates, will be held in Oyate Hall, located in the student center on the UMM campus.

Heid E. Erdrich, is author of three collections of poetry, The Mother’s Tongue and Fishing for Myth, and National Monuments as well as co-editor (with Laura Tohe) of Sister Nations: Native American Women on Community. A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, she was raised in Wahpeton, North Dakota where her parents taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school. She co-founded the Turtle Mountain Writing Workshop and Birchbark House, a non-profit indigenous language and literature clearinghouse, with Louise Erdrich, her sister. Her books have each been nominated for the Minnesota Book Awards and her most recent poetry collection, “National Monuments”, won the award in 2009. Heid Erdrich’s writing has received numerous grants and honors. Her degrees are from Dartmouth College and Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars.

A long-time college teacher, Heid Erdrich taught for more than a decade at the University of St. Thomas where she was tenured. In 2007 she left full-time teaching to concentrate on writing, working with Native artists and serving as a Visiting Writer at colleges and universities across the country.
In 2009-2010, Heid Erdrich will travel to read and teach at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Haskell Indian University, Park University, The Associated Colleges of the Twin Cities, Kenyon College, University of Minnesota Morris and elsewhere.

In August of 2010, Heid will teach at the seventh annual Turtle Mountain Writers Workshop in Belcourt, North Dakota.

“Writers Helping Writers,” the October 3rd kickoff event of Lake Region Writers Network, drew more than 70 writers from Minnesota and North Dakota.

Provost Wasescha

Dr. Anna Wasescha, provost of M State, welcomed attendees to the college. 

Hale meets attendees

 Keynote speaker, Jocelyn Hale, executive director of The Loft Literary Center, encouraged writers to help each other and take advantage of networking opportunities across the state.

 The conference featured distinguished panelists and published authors Mark Vinz, Athena Kildegaard, Tim Rundquist and Scott Stewart. They shared ideas – low tech and high tech – for networking.

Panel on Networking

Stewart

Over lunch, writers brainstormed ways to keep in touch and support each other in the writing endeavour. Ideas included online classes, list of writers in the region with photos and biographies, notice of contests, a question and answer feature on the blog, want ads, and an anthology.

Getting published is no easy task. Leon Ogroske, Editor of Writers’ Journal, took workshop participants through the nuts and bolts of preparing a manuscript for publishing.

Lein

Meanwhile, Dean Hulse, author of Westhope: Life of a Former Farm Boy, and Linda Lein, writer, instructor and publisher, led a workshop on the many routes to getting published.

More than 70 attendees

Writers came from twenty-seven locations across the region. The conference “network” came from Fergus Falls, Dalton, Underwood, Battle Lake, Clitherall, Vining, Ottertail, Henning, Ashby, Richville, Dent, Perham, Erhard, Sebeka, Park Rapids, Nevis, Vergas, Borup, Pequot Lakes, Alexandria, Morris, Dilworth, Moorhead, Marshall, West Fargo, Fargo and St. Paul.