Young Writers Contest Winner!

 

 

Left to right: Librarian, 1st place winner - Ashley Petry, BWG member Beth Savoie, and librarian.

 

 

Today I was proud to be the President of the Bayou Writer’s Group. I met Pat Fox, our publicist, armed with her camera, Beth Savoie, this year’s Young Writers Contest coordinator, and we descended on Sam Houston High school to award Ashley Petry, a junior, 1st place in the 2013 BWG’s Young Writers Contest. 

An exciting contest with winners scores only fractions of a point different, the sixteen entries were terrific examples of student writers from the Southwest Louisiana area. Open to public, private and home schooled students, the contest definitely lived up to our creed to Encourage, Educate and Inspire. In Ashley’s honor, BWG also awarded $100.00 in books to her school library. 

With smiles all around Beth gave Ashley her 1st place award certificate, but the young junior, also received the award for 3rd place as well. SHH librarians proudly hold the library’s new books. 



- Chris Baldauf, BWG President

Gator Bites Due

Gator Bites is due august 31, 2013. Selections of fiction and poetry will be printed on a single sheet of paper, tri-folded, and placed in packets at our conference and around Lake Charles for free. We offer this service in order to promote our members, their writing(s), and Bayou Writers’ Group.

For more rules, details, or submission information, please visit: http://www.bayouwritersgroup.blogspot.com/p/project-selections-of-fiction-and.html

August 3 Speaker

Bayou Writers Group announces Lydia Kebodeaux Hebert will be guest speaker for this month's meeting on Saturday, August 3, 2013, 10:00 am to 12 noon at the Carnegie Memorial Library, Conference Room, 411 Pujo Street, Lake Charles,  Louisiana.

 

Meetings are free and open to the public.

Mrs. Hebert's topic is "Point of View".  

 

A graduate from Sulphur High School, she obtained a Master's Degree in Education from McNeese State University. Her experience in the classroom exceeds fifteen years.

 

Mrs. Hebert is the daughter of Joyce Kebodeaux of Sulphur, Louisiana and currently resides in Iota, Louisiana with her husband, Jason and son, Jared.  Her daughter, Amber Hebert Brunet, lives in Sulphur with her family.

Minutes of the BWG July Meeting

Bayou Writers Group

Carnegie Library,   Lake Charles LA  70601

Regular meeting – July 6, 2013

10:00 am –Noon

 

President Chris Baldauf called the meeting to order at 10:05 a.m. and welcomed visitors.

 

She reported on the board of directors meeting held earlier. She said "The Board" approved replacement officers in accordance with the bylaw provision for filling unexpired terms. They are Chris Baldauf, president; Michele Abshire, vice president; Cliff Seiber, secretary; and Pat Fox and Joyce Kebodeaux, publicists.

 

Sherry Perkins has been appointed annual conference coordinator.

  

The president said the group received five tickets in the Arts and Humanities Council’s raffle in exchange for the group’s $250 dues payment. The BWG board of directors agreed to distribute the tickets in a door prize drawing at the current membership meeting. The drawing was held and winners of the tickets were Chris Baldauf, ticket No. 527; Rebecca Stelly, 526; Pat Fox ,528; Sylvia Ney, 524, and Mike McHugh, 525 .

 

A drawing was held for donated books.

 

The president introduced the guest speaker, Dr. William Sutton, retired history professor and coauthor of “Herman Frasch the Sulphur King,” a biography of the man responsible for developing the sulphur mines at Sulphur, La.

 

The meeting was adjourned shortly after noon with the announcement that everyone was invited to dutch-treat lunch at Ryan’s.

 

Submitted by Cliff Seiber, secretary. Please notify the secretary with any corrections or additions to the minutes.

More Conference News

Editor Stella Riley - Born a stone’s throw from the Acropolis, transplanted to the Texas Gulf Coast, Stella is descended from refugees and rednecks.

She’s looking for compelling characters, tension, new situations, and a story that resonates.


“Give me a character I can feel, then drop them in some hot water. Now get them out. I love tension. Any kind of tension—inner and outer.”

She welcomes authors with a fresh voice or a new approach. All heat levels, all story lines are acceptable. Contact Stella at Stella@SoulMatePublishing.com 

You can also find her: http://www.allthingsstella.com/

2013 Conference Update

We have two screenwriters that have agreed to speak at our conference this year!

Born at Cut Off, Louisiana, Glen Pitre worked his way through Harvard by fishing shrimp each summer.  Best known as writer/director of Louisiana-set, internationally-lauded historical dramas, several of which featured Oscar-winning actors in their casts, Pitre has also crafted award-winning documentaries, museum exhibitry, novels and non-fiction books, multi-screen video installations, IMAX movies, syndicated radio programming, and more. Accolades include a Sundance Director’s Lab fellowship; AFI, NEA, and NEH grants; an honorary doctorate; and a knighthood from France.  In a 2006 book, film critic Roger Ebert acclaimed Pitre “a legendary American regional director.”

Lake Charles, LA, native Michelle Benoit is an award-winning New Orleans-based filmmaker and author whose work has been translated into more than two dozen languages.  Screenwriter, novelist, playwright, museum designer, and non-fiction author, Benoit has produced films both for Hollywood and for PBS’s national primetime core schedule.  An alumnus of the American University of Paris, she has also taught graduate film directing and screenwriting at the University of New Orleans and LSU.

As screenwriters, working together or separately on features, shorts, TV movies, and series TV for Hollywood studios, commercial broadcast networks, PBS, cable, indie productions, and foreign producers, Pitre and Benoit have been hired for myriad diverse writing assignments including drama, comedy, thriller, action-adventure, romance, horror, westerns, sit-coms, woman-in-jeopardy movies-of-the-week, documentaries, sports films, environmental films, 4D museum films, and IMAX.  

For more conference information, please click the link at the top of the page.

July 6 Speaker

William R. Sutton, co-Author of Herman Frasch: The Sulphur King, will be speaking with BWG on Saturday, July 6.

Sutton was born in San Antonio, Texas, attended public schools, and graduated from The University of Texas at Austin.  Following military service he enrolled at Louisiana State University where he received a Ph.D. in History.  He has taught at the University of the Orange Free State in South Arica, the Alamo Colleges, and the University of Texas at San Antonio. He is currently retired and lives in Prague, Czech Republic and San Antonio.