I wanted to share pieces of PoetryDances.com's newsletter with everyone.  PoetryDances is a fabulous new site that searches blogs and writing communities to find great poets and poetry.  They then showcase the works of these writers on their site and possibly in their press releases.  They have found several of their favorite writers here at WritingRoom.com and mentioned some of them by name in their recent newsletter.  PoetryDances also accepts submissions and reading requests.  I highly encourage all poets to check them out; the more exposure you get as a writer the better your chances for success.

Poetrydances.com - Newsletter: September 2008-09-30

First, big thanks to everyone who submitted their own poetry or links to other great poems hosted on various sites around the Internet. Without you, poetrydances.com would not be here.

Good news for writers listed on the site. It seems from site stats that rather than clicking through, many people are spending a lot more time reading the great poetry that has been linked to or submitted directly. Which is great- since it is the main reason we are doing what we are doing!

Who are we ?

We are just three. Three people who love to read great poetry and seem to like similar kinds of work (don't know if that's a good or a bad thing!) We share post-its or emails about work we have found out in the ether of the Internet that would be ideal to post on our site. Two of us are based here in South Korea and another over in sunny Florida.

Favorite Writers

Many of the people submitting poems, and other writers that have seen their poems listed on poetrydances.com have become 'Favorite Writers' on the Site. To those whose submissions have not yet been successful we offer apologies again, and look forward hopefully to seeing further submissions in time.

Favorite writers shown so far on the site are currently, in order of appearance:

Mamta Madhaven

Michelle Schaefer

Emily Burns

Ivana Plucinski 
J. M Yeary

Jason Lalli

Rambling Prose 

Ray Neighbor

Cleo Harter Amos

Andrew Kelly

Milagros Cruz

Ernesto Pangilinan Santiago

Nicole Nicholson

William Laughlin

David Hixon

Robyn R. Gray 

Claudia Anne Krizay  

Holly White Valliant

Engtovo Bhodsvatan

Moqui Takoda

Nakya Cohen

Rebecca Lucente

Alicia K. Jones

Joanne Cucinello

Rex Cox

Michelle Hetzel

Angela Rizzitano-Bellenis 

Brandon Farinha

Leo Durrant

Big thanks to all of these people for allowing us to showcase their fine work!

New developments

Since the Site began we have pretty much stuck to our core activities; linking to great poems on other sites, hosting submitted poetry along with our own, and showcasing Favorite Writers. Recently we started a couple or three new ideas too:

Poetry is..

This is just for fun- a page where you can send in a line/quote or two or more if you want as to what poetry 'is' to you. For your troubles we'll list your name and blog/website etc alongside your quote/s.

http://www.poetrydances.com/poetryis.htm

Links

We have many successful reciprocal links in place with different blogs and poetry sites- thanks so much to all of you. We hope you are also enjoying some increased traffic to your site/s as a result. No favorites, we are grateful to all but, special thanks to Lindsay at writingroom.com, Martha at listenandbeheard.net and John and staff over at gotpoetry.com.

Any help you can offer by linking us on your blogs, websites or social network sites would be gratefully accepted!

We look forward to keeping in contact- so please…

keep your poetry coming! And please keep sending links for  other great work you find out there !

A very big thank you from us,

Tony, Young Joo and John.

We are now running two new contests.  The September '08 Poetry Contest and The September '08 Short Story Contest.  We are accepting all types of poems and genres of stories.  The winners of each contest will receive $50 and will be entered into the running for The September to September Poetry Contest / The September to September Short Story Contest.   The winner of each of the September to September contests will receive $1000.00.

We will also be publishing, through PublishingRoom, an Anthology of all of the entries.  The winner and one runner up will receive a copy of the anthology that their story or poem is published in.   The Anthology will be available for sale in the PublishingRoom bookstore.

For more information take a peek under the Contests tab here at WritingRoom.  Best of Luck to All! 

I am thrilled to announce the release of FIRST TO KILL by debut author Andrew Peterson.   FIRST TO KILL,  follows former marine sniper and covert CIA operative Nathan McBride as he embarks on a mission to find a deep-cover FBI agent who’s gone missing along with a mass amount of semantex explosives.  McBride finds himself caught between a ruthless adversary and federal officials, both who will stop at nothing to see they get what they want. Ridley Peterson calls Nathan McBride, "The most brutally effective thriller hero in years."  

Andrew Peterson is a certified helicopter pilot, firefighter, scuba diver, architect, and a champion marksman who holds the classification of Master in the NRA’s high-powered rifle ranking system. He and his wife in central California coast. I had the opportunity to spend sometime with Andy in New York at ITW's ThrillerFest.  Beyond being a very talented writer he is a great guy.  We here at WritingRoom wish him great success.  

FIRST TO KILL was published by Dorchester Publishing and is avialble at bookstores now.  You can also drop Andy a note and buy his book here at WritingRoom.

We just added a new photo gallery.  I think it is pretty cool, hope you do, too! 

I am thrilled to announce that WritingRoom.com can now offer members and aspiring authors the opportunity to publish with the launch of our DIY publishing solution, PublishingRoom.com.  

With our new creative partnership with Author Solutions (ASI), we now have the capabilities to help authors perfect, publish, and market their books.   By partnering with ASI, PublishingRoom.com will bring aspiring authors and WritingRoom.com members the best self-publishing service available. ASI is the best in the business. Their technology, customer support, and expertise in the area cannot be matched.  

Publishing with PublishingRoom is easy, fun and cost effective.  Authors can utilize the free online publishing wizard, where they can upload their manuscript, design a personal cover, select pricing, and royalties.  There is also a Service Store where authors can decide between services that will best suit their needs and budgets. WritingRoom.com will offer all members who publish with PublishingRoom.com a free Professional Authors Page.   

So many authors struggle with trying to get published.  Now with PublishingRoom.com, these writers cannot only see their works in print, but also gain the unique opportunity to market their books to a built in audience at WritingRoom.com.  And best of all, unlike traditional publishers, PublishingRoom.com grants their authors the unique advantage of keeping control of their work.

There is so much talent here at WritingRoom that now with the help of PublishingRoom we can celebrate some of the exceptional work.  We will be scouring through the many brilliant pieces of work and selecting one member per month to publish.  Based on style, creativity, and marketability, the author will be contacted by WritingRoom and published.  We look forward to helping launch the career of many aspiring writers!

After three months and lots of reading we have finally chosen the winners of WritingRoom's Author Launch Contest...

The grand prize winner is DUES OF MORTALITY by Jason Austin.  

The second place winner is SOLON by Raymond Springer.

The third place winner is THE FIREMAN'S DAUGHTER by Amanda Crum. 

Thank you to all of you who sent in your manuscripts and shared your fantastic stories with us.  There were so many great works and I encourage all of you to keep writing, editing and following your dream.  

I did read ALL the manuscripts so if anyone has questions or wants some direction as they embark on that well traveled path of re-writing please send me an message and I will be happy to provide you with notes.   

I want to give a great big congratulations to D.L. Wilson or Scifiguy, as he is known here at WritingRoom.  Wilson's short story, "Through The Eyes Of A Killer", is going to be published by Mind Wings Audio, and should be available to the public in six months.  

"Through The Eyes Of A Killer" is a science fiction story about future technological advancements used to prosecute and convict a murderer.  Through a complicated process of mapping the vast neural network of the human mind, the government is able to isolate particular memories and reproduce them in a virtual format, enabling jurors to see the murder through the eyes of the killer

You should check out some of Scifiguy's other stories here at WritingRoom.  If you like sci-fi, you will love his writings!

Wilson credits WritingRoom with helping him to get published.  We at WritingRoom wish him the best of luck!

We have been working diligently to bring you a bunch of new features.  

Have questions?  Ask an Expert.  WritingRoom has editors, script doctors and coaches that are available to help you.  Interested in becoming an expert?  Send us an email.

Not sure how to spell something?  Can't figure out that perfect adjective?  Can't find a rhyme?  Check out the new Research Tool.  You can find this handy button on your My Room page and on the Create Writing page.   

Did you love the last story you read, but hate that you could not get back to it with ease?  We eliminated that problem with a set of handy little bread crumbs. Navigating back and forth from previously viewed member pages and writings will be as simple as clicking on the bread crumb.

Invite your friends to check out your work.  Simply, click on the "Invite Friends" link at the top of your My Room page, enter your friends email address and send them a message asking them to join WritingRoom.com.  

We have also cleaned up and tweaked a bunch of other things on the site.  Hope you all enjoy the changes!!! 

WritingRoom's Author Launch Contest is now closed.  We have received tons of fabulous manuscripts that have been great fun to read.  Thank you to everyone who submitted their manuscripts.  

We will be announcing the winner on July 9.  Best of luck to all!