In Richmond magazine’s 25th annual “Best & Worst” ranking, James River Writers was recognized for “Best Workshops and/or Classes for Aspiring Writers.” We offer our thanks to the magazine’s readers for this honor via Taylor Swift:More
September 2012
Aimee Agresti Shows Red Ink Behind Debut Novel
At the August 30th Writing Show, authors Meg Medina and Aimee Agresti shared their experiences with the sometimes painful but always necessary editing process.
Agresti was also willing to share the edits she made to the first chapter of her debut novel, Illuminate. Watch a video clip from the Writing Show or see all of the red ink that covered the chapter during the editing process.
Lee Gimpel
What JRW Means to Me
Lee Gimpel is a freelance writer and past treasurer, vice chair, and chair of James River Writers’ board of directors. He has covered business, technology and the intersection thereof for such publications as Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Inc., Worth and BusinessWeek SmallBiz. In addition, his articles about culture, lifestyle, travel and history have appeared in Budget Travel, Executive Traveler, Men’s Journal and the Washington Post. His first book, Fighting Wars, Planning for Peace, recounts the life of Gen. George C. Marshall and the Marshall Plan.
2012 Poetry Contest
Congratulations to Wendy Miles for winning first place in the 2012 Best Poetry Contest. Her poem, “Egg,” was chosen from 349 poems submitted by 105 authors. To read the winning poetry, please visit the Richmond Magazine website.
Finalists
- Allison Seay, “Secret Room”
- Darren Morris, “Theory on the Occurrence of Cicadas”
Honorable Mentions
- Polly Lazaron, “Aligning with Birth Stars”
- Joanna S. Lee, “incongruent”
- Wendy Miles, “The Green Place”
- John L. Morgan IV, “The Barn House”
- Shann Palmer, “Bad Girls”
Judging Process 2012
The head judge was Joshua Poteat, recent recipient of the Theresa Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts. A.M. Marshall, Allison Titus and Christina Trimarco assisted the judge in reading the entries.
The two-part process implemented to choose the winning poems was highly unscientific: (1) Find the good ones, and (2) Be generous and open when doing so. This seemed like the best way to proceed through over 300 poems. Luckily, the contest readers knew good writing when they saw it. They’d read widely, across many sub-genres — from experimental/avant garde to straight ol’ narrative, from neo-formalist works to prose poems.
Back to Best Poetry index page