In 2000, Dan founded the
Emerging Writers Network by reviewing Alyson Hagy's
Keeneland and emailing the review to twenty-one individuals. Throughout the years, Dan has continued to develop the EWN by adding interviews, e-panels, and other literary reporting to the itinerary and developing a database website for storage of these, as well as a blog for more daily topic discussion. The EWN currently has over 2,600 members.
Visiting Hours, an anthology of short stories edited by Wickett, was published by Press 53 in late 2008.
As of 2006, Dan has been the executive director of
Dzanc Books.
Posted By: Dan Wickett
Posted: 4/1/2011
What can an author do these days, beyond writing, to make a difference? I think one of the best ways of answering this question is to show what some Washtenaw County authors have been doing recently.
Elizabeth Ellen is one such author. She's seen numerous stories and poems published over the course of the last five or six years, as well as a chapbook, Before You She Was a Pitbull (Future Tense Press, 2006) and 1/4th of the chapbook, A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness (Rose Metal Press, 2008).
In the past year, Elizabeth has started the Great Lakes Great Times Reading Series, bringing over three dozen authors from around the country to Ann Arbor over the past year. As fewer and fewer publishing houses are spending money to send their authors out on book tours, having a reading series that covers the costs for authors, especially those published on independent presses, is needed more and more. In setting up and moderating this series, Elizabeth Ellen has helped to fill a void that was created when Shaman Drum closed its doors, allowing those from the area to continue to have access to great writers and their work.
Scott Beal, Jeff Kass, and Matt Bell are a trio of local authors that have helped us out at Dzanc Books by running some of our Dzanc Writer in Residence Programs (DWIRPs) working in coordination with a local teacher and attending that teacher's class once per week for the duration of a school year. The author works with the same children week after week, promoting an interest in creative writing and reading, helping them to write their own stories or poems, learning how to revise, and eventually editing a full length book of work from the students in the class, and when possible, setting up a public reading for the students to perform their work.
All three of these authors go above and beyond simply helping Dzanc out. Both Scott and Jeff are also very active at The Neutral Zone as well, and Matt has done an incredible amount of blogging about other writers' work, helping to continually publicize other writers, other publishers, and doing what he can to keep others excited about the written word.
Lastly I'd like to mention my partner at Dzanc Books, Steve Gillis. If you really want to know what an author can do to support his/her community, simply pay attention to what this man has done the past decade. He founded 826michigan, setting up an organization for students to come in and get help with their writing, and take workshops, etc. He set up the Visiting Writer Series at Greenhills, and then co-founded Dzanc Books. The drive behind Dzanc is community-based projects. The aforementioned DWIRPs have been running in schools in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti since 2007. Steve also came up with the Dzanc Prize, a monetary award to an individual with the best combination of a literary work in progress and a literary community service; a project that uses literature to help out a group of people in need (to date the prize has set up workshops in prison; workshops for cancer patients, their families, and caregivers at the UM Cancer Center; and workshops for African immigrants connected to an English as Second Language group). Steve has put his own money and time into setting up and pushing Dzanc Books forward and does so tirelessly. His efforts have helped out thousands of people.
Posted By: Dan Wickett
Posted: 3/31/2011
Where are you located? Ann Arbor? That isn't near New York, is it?
Questions we at Dzanc Books hear fairly regularly. All the agents are in New York (not really); all the publishers are in New York (not true at all); don't you need to meet people every day to get things done?
I'm not even going to parenthetically answer that last one as it deserves more. I live in Westland. My partner, Steve Gillis, lives in Ann Arbor. We have four book imprints and three literary journals?the editors of those currently reside in Hong Kong, Chicago, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Nashville, Farmington Hills, Ann Arbor, and Montclair (New Jersey). We have interns that live in at least eight different states.
If Steve and I see each other, in person, more than ten times a year it's more likely due to our kids having sporting events we cross-visited as opposed to meeting up for Dzanc Books. We also never talk on the phone. The internet has obviously reduced the need for everybody to be in one building (there is no Dzanc building?why waste our resources on an office when we all can work from our homes?) as email, texting, chats, video conferencing, etc. allows us to get just as much done on a daily basis as if we were all going to meetings in a big conference room once or twice a week.
It's the same with the relationships we develop with our authors and their agents (when applicable). We've found we can get just as much done via email and the occasional phone call as we could if we were spending three to five days a week having lunch meetings.
You know where many, many publishers send their final manuscript files so that they can get hard copies of books printed? Right here to Washtenaw County. We have a plethora of incredible printers in the area. If we ever have a question or a worry, it's a short drive for me to meet up with production people, or my sales representative. If I were in New York I'd be sweating details or flying into town and chewing up two business days. Not to mention I'd have to cancel a lunch or two so I could get out of town.
Is the occasional trip to New York necessary for a publisher? Maybe not necessary, but certainly useful. Meeting face to face and putting a body to the voice, or the voice behind the emails, is always nice. And there are always going to be some people that prefer meeting at least once before they'll truly start to do business with you. With the bulk of the major publishing houses in the city, there are also frequent industry gatherings such as Book Expo America in New York. Hitting something like that, and setting up half a dozen meetings, and being back home here in Michigan after two or three days is just about perfect.
Yes, we're located in Ann Arbor. No, it's not really near New York. Yes, that works just fine for us.
Posted By: Dan Wickett
Posted: 3/30/2011
Hello, I'm Dan Wickett. I thought I'd use this first post as a brief introduction so you'll understand where my guest posts are coming from this week.
I was born and raised in Michigan, born in Detroit and have lived within an hour or so of the city my entire life. I attended the University of Michigan, getting a BS in statistics. I worked in the automotive supply industry for nearly two decades. And now I run a non-profit publishing house, Dzanc Books.
Dzanc Books was created in 2006 to advance great writing and champion those writers who don't fit neatly into the marketing niches of for-profit presses and to advance literary readership and advocacy across the country. As a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, Dzanc:
- Publishes innovative and award-winning literary fiction, including short story collections and novels by accomplished and award-winning writers such as Roy Kesey, Yannick Murphy, Peter Markus, Hesh Kestin, Kyle Minor, Michael Czyzniejewski, Suzanne Burns, Peter Selgin, Laura van den Berg, Robert Lopez, Dawn Raffel, Jeff Parker, Terese Svoboda, and Henning Koch
- Supports several editorially-independent imprints and literary journals, including Black Lawrence Press, OV Books, Keyhole Press, Starcherone, Monkeybicycle, and Absinthe: New European Writing
- Publishes The Collagist, a monthly online literary journal launched in August 2009
- Provides low-cost writing instruction to beginning and emerging writers by connecting them with accomplished authors through the innovative Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions
Beyond Dzanc Books, I have also run the Emerging Writers Network since early 2000. The mission there is to develop a community of emerging writers, established writers in need of wider recognition, and readers of literary fiction. Over the years I've probably reviewed over 500 books and interviewed hundreds of authors or editors of literary journals. I've been a big proponent of National Short Story Month and helped out with the early years of the Ann Arbor Book Festival. As you can probably guess, I value the written word quite a bit.
Of the projects that Dzanc Books runs, the one with the most local impact is probably the Dzanc Writer-in-Residence Program. With this program, we pay to have a local writer go into a school once per week for the duration of the school year. They'll work with a specific teacher or two, and with the same class(es) of students week after week, developing a rapport with the kids and working with them on their creative writing and reading skills. At the end of the school year, an anthology of student work is put together, as the writer will work with the students on writing, revising, self-editing, etc. When possible, a reading is set up at a local store or business so that they may read their work in public. We've run these residencies at Community H.S., Ypsilanti H.S., the Mack Open School, Thurston Elementary School, and Greenhills to date and continue to explore other schools in the Washtenaw County area.
It's my belief that if we can get children interested in reading and writing, that not only will their reading and writing skills flourish, but so will schoolwork in general, as well as the development of the type of imagination that might go on to discover cures for diseases, or create technology that allows us to do things previously unheard of, or eliminate hunger across the world. It's why I think organizations like Dzanc Books are so important and in need of support.
At Dzanc Books we also find ways for writers that may not be part of a group such as an MFA program, or a writer's club, to find help at a reasonable cost. We do this both online, with our Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions, which pair up a writer with a more established and published writer, or an editor, and allows the writer to get a critique on their work at a very inexpensive rate.
Another means is through what we've developed as National Workshop Day or Dzanc Day. This day we set up physical workshops, led again by established authors and editors, in cities all across the country.
On Saturday, April 9, 2011, Dzanc Books will hold its second annual National Workshop Day, better known as Dzanc Day. Consisting of dozens of creative writing workshops in almost as many cities, Dzanc Day provides local, affordable two-to-four hour sessions led by professional writers, authors, and editors, all open to attendance by the public for a very affordable fee. Sessions are conducted in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, and are generally suitable for writers of all levels.
In addition to being a great way for participants to receive instruction, get inspired, and meet other local writers, Dzanc Day also helps to partially fund our many charitable endeavors, including the Dzanc Prize, which recognizes one writer annually for both literary excellence and service to his or her community, and our Writer in Residence Program, which places professional writers into classrooms to provide creative writing instructions to public school students who could not otherwise afford the opportunity. It's thanks to our workshop leaders' generous donations of their time and talents that we're able to continue to support and grow these programs, and your signing up for Dzanc Day will ensure their success in the future.
This year, Dzanc Day falls on Saturday, April 9, 2011, and we hope you'll consider joining one of our many workshops across the country. Workshops start at just $30 for two hours of instruction, a rate dramatically lower than many of our volunteers would normally charge.
Please browse the map to find a workshop close to you, and be sure to sign up as soon as possible, as space may be limited in some locations. We look forward to having you in our workshops, and to hopefully one day reading the great story or poem or essay you worked on during your session. Good luck, and have a great time!
There are two such sessions in the SE Michigan area:
"More Creative Plots, Deeper Characters"
Location:
Royal Oak Public Library, 222 East 11 Mile Road, Royal Oak 10am-12pm
Description:
This workshop examines the traditional sections of a short story (beginning, middle, end) and shows how an understanding of each of these aspects of structure can result in more creative plots and deeper characters. Through a series of discussions and prompts, we'll lead attendees through techniques that can expand the possibilities of their writing.
Workshop Leaders:
Joe Ponepinto is an editor with the Los Angeles Review and holds an MFA in fiction. His short stories and criticism are published or pending in a variety of journals, most recently Vestal Review, Apalachee Review, Stymie, Tottenville Review, and, of course, LAR. Joe is a former journalist and business owner, and has taught at the community college level.
Gwendolyn Jerris is the founder and leader of the fiction writing group Writers by the Woods, which meets in Beverly Hills, MI. She has a BA in creative writing from Antioch College and a Secondary (6-12) English and history teaching certificate from Wayne State University. She's in her 3rd term at Goddard College, earning an MFA in fiction. She is currently working on a novel and a collection of short stories.
Cost: $30
"The Villain in Your Hero, and Vice Versa: Upping the Stakes in Short Fiction"
Location:
Sweetwaters Coffee and Tea, 123 West Washington, Ann Arbor 3-5pm
Description:
Do your stories lack the dramatic momentum you admire in your favorite short stories? Are your heroes introspective observers of life rather than dynamic actors in the drama? Are your villains stuck in the rut of a type? A dose of pride, greed, or lust could be just what's needed to light the fire in your hero, while a glimmer of charity, humility, and kindness could kindle complexity in your villain. This fiction writing workshop will examine how to up the stakes in fiction by examining your main actors' motivations and personalities. Though a series of exercises and class discussions, we'll see how uncovering classic failings in your hero and classic virtues in your villain can enliven your story and lead to unexpected insights and outcomes. Bring to class one of your short stories that you feel is "stuck". If you don't have a story in progress, you'll get a substantial start on a new story in class.
Workshop Leader:
Laura Hulthen Thomas teaches creative writing at the University of Michigan's Residential College. Her short fiction has appeared in Orchid: A Literary Review, Oleander Review, The Cimarron Review, and Nimrod International Journal. Her story "Bones on Bois Blanc" is forthcoming in Ghost Writers, an anthology of ghost stories by Michigan authors, due to be published in spring 2011 by Wayne State University Press. Laura lives in Ann Arbor with her husband and two sons.
Cost: $30