Author: stevemichaels07

Please note the following changes in time for the upcoming workshops:

Saturday, Oct 19, 10 am at the Shrewsbury Library 

The following dates and times remain the same:

Tuesday, Oct 22, 6 pm at the Athol Library

Saturday, Nov 16, 11am at Athol Library

Tuesday, Nov 19, 6pm at the Athol Library 

Space is limited, so please sign up as soon as possible to ensure your place in our next anthology!!!

Reminder: You must attend one workshop to be finalized in our next anthology.

If for any reason these times are changed or cancelled, we’ll email you the day before.  Please be sure to use a working email address when signing up for these workshops!

Thank you!

If you submitted a piece for Voices of the Valley, please email us (quabbinquills@gmail.com) which of the following dates you are able to workshop your pieces:

Tuesday, Oct 22, 6 pm at the Athol Library

Saturday, Nov 16, 11am at Athol Library

Tuesday, Nov 19, 6pm at the Athol Library 

Saturday, Oct 19, 10 am at the Shrewsbury Library 

Space is limited, so please sign up as soon as possible to ensure your place in our next anthology!!!

You must attend one workshop to be finalized in our next anthology.

If for any reason these times are changed or cancelled, we’ll email you the day before.  Please be sure to use a working email address when signing up for these workshops!

Greetings!

If you are receiving this you have successfully signed up for our newsletter. As you may be aware the deadline for submissions ended on September 1st at midnight.  In an effort to improve our new submission process, please send us an email with your name as you want it to appear in print and the name(s) of the piece(s) you submitted.  We understand some people had trouble with our new process and we apologize for any inconvenience. If we are unable to access your piece after you have emailed us, we will email you directly so you can resend submissions if necessary.

Once we have cataloged all the pieces, we will be creating a list of dates and times for our writers’ workshops at the Athol Library. Upon signing up for a workshop, you will be grouped with other authors and a facilitator. They will give you feedback on your piece and you will be given a deadline to make improvements. Those improved pieces should be sent directly to our email: quabbinquills@gmail.com.  From there, an editor from our group will be looking over your pieces and will ask you to fine tune some things for final approval. The sooner you and your editor can agree to the changes needed, the sooner we can get to the printing press! 

As of right now, we are hoping to debut this anthology in May, so finding time to attend a workshop and a willingness to take suggestions from other authors will ensure the completion of our anthology in a timely manner.  If for any reason you cannot attend a workshop, please contact us. We will strive to make arrangements or reschedule you, but we must be diligent if we are to meet our final deadline.

Please contact us as soon as possible to ensure our workshop slots. We will be in touch again soon!

 

The creation of our second anthology has been a steady climb since it began this summer.  With the acceptance of suggestions from our Editorial Board, our authors have been fine tuning their work to make this the best anthology possible.

The joy of these anthologies is the eclectic range of stories and voices, which makes our latest edition a truly mountainous and multifaceted journey. As such, we think you’ll enjoy the work we have been building up to.  (Feel free to cringe at this pun that is also  a faulty prepositional ending!)

Please mark your calendars for our Book Launch on May 21 from 6:00 to 7:30 at the Athol Library.  We look forward to sharing our next endeavour with all of you!

 

Our summer workshops were a great success. The opportunity to share one’s piece is something we all enjoy, even if sometimes we pretend we’re really just writing for ourselves. This summer, our collective group met in various clusters to share and provide necessary feedback. Our next deadline is November 1st. In the meantime, each of us will digest and process what we were told about the strengths and weaknesses of each piece.

The next book won’t be ready until the Spring because good writing does in fact take time. In November, the board will be looking at each piece resubmitted.  Although we are proponents of free speech, we will be cognizant of our audience while maintaining a bar of excellence.  If any piece is turned away, it will only be the result of an author not taking his/her work seriously.  Of course, we do have a great many writers involved who are working to the best of their ability, and we as a board are confident that time and reflection are the necessary ingredients to bring about their most excellent work.

Here’s to the next stages of Mountains and Meditations–we have only just begun the climb towards greatness…

Statement of Purpose

Quabbin Quills is a non-profit group consisting of authors banded together by the common love of writing. Our goal is to share information and tools of the trade to other writers as well as providing a platform to display their talents.

All profits will be used for future publications, workshops and scholarships for high school students.

Submission Guidelines for 2018 Quabbin Quills Anthology

Our title for this publication is Mountains and Meditations

Use your imagination to explore the far reaches of this theme.

Stories from both previously unpublished and published authors will be considered. We will accept works that have been previously published.  

Multiple submissions are encouraged provided you bring each of your pieces to the summer workshops.

You may simultaneously submit your work to other publications. We ask that you let us know as soon as possible if your piece was accepted elsewhere so we can remove it from our submissions list.

Word Count:  500-6,000 words for short stories or essays. Although we will consider longer submissions, we are looking for quality work that is to the point and doesn’t involve a lot of unnecessary words.

First draft submissions should be in before July 31, 2018

Workshops with peers will be scheduled throughout the summer. Writers are asked to participate in at least one workshop either in person or online. Writers are expected to use workshop feedback to polish their pieces and resubmit by November 1, 2018.

All finished pieces must be submitted in Word or Google Doc Format in Times New Roman, 12 point font, 1.5 spacing. One space only, after periods. Remove all headers and footers. Remove page numbers. This will make publishing smoother.

All pieces will be edited professionally. Quabbin Quills board will make final decisions on appropriate content and language. Writers will be given the choice to edit or retract at this point.

Include your name, address, phone number, email, story title, word count in the body of your email.

Send as a Word or Google.doc email attachment to quabbinquills@gmail.com

Type “Quabbin Quills Submission” in the subject line of your email

Your submission will be promptly acknowledged

We do not keep rights. We take one-time publishing rights for 2018 Quabbin Quills Anthology. All rights revert back to the author after publication.

There is no charge to the writer for submission or acceptance. If your work is accepted you will receive one free copy of the book upon publication.

 

Our organization came together as a result of a local library event in the fall of 2016.  The Athol Library in Western, Massachusetts offered local authors a chance to meet and to hawk their wares at a book expo. Our founders Steve Piscitello and Garrett Zecker were fatefully and perhaps strategically placed side-by-side.  Having never met before, they quickly developed a bond due to similar writing styles, and as a result, something somewhat akin to the creation of life, Quabbin Quills was born.

Through the collective efforts of other local authors from that evening, a name for our first anthology was hatched. Located in the nearly forgotten Quabbin Valley, we naturally went with a reservoir theme.  Given the number of years of experience among our group, time seemed to be the other logical choice. Thus, the poetic title of Time’s Reservoir found its way into our email chain.

But it wasn’t enough for Steve to just have a collected anthology in print.  He had united these authors with Garrett’s help, and he wanted to do more than just put out sweet stories and melodic poems. Having worked for an afterschool non-profit for many years, Steve began thinking about the possibilities of a grant-funded organization capable of raising money for scholarships and other educational programs for young writers in the Quabbin communities. Now thanks to Steve’s non-profit employer, the name Quabbin Quills quickly became a thing!  And then, several government forms later it was a genuine entity.  (Sounds oxymoronic, don’t it?)

Now with one anthology under our belts, and grant contributions from the Local Cultural Councils of Barre, Hardwick-New Braintree, New Salem, Oakham, Orange and Warwick, as supported by the Mass Cultural Council state agency, we are making good on people’s dreams.  So whether you’re a retiree looking to finally do something with a short story you’ve crafted with love, or a young adult looking to make your mark on the literary world, consider joining us!

The world needs writers; without them all the pages in life would be blank.

Stay tuned for Mountains and Meditations, our second anthology in the Spring of 2019.