Writers of Kern

Everything Writers Need | Writers of Kern

Blog

15 August 2020 | Featured Speaker Dr. Christina Gessler | “Funds for Writers: How to Apply for Grants, Residencies, Scholarships, and Fellowships”

By 2 Comments

By Susan Baker

As a writer, there are so many obstacles that can get in your way. It can be challenging to carve out quiet time to sit at your desk and compose your thoughts.  Maybe you don’t even have a desk or a computer of your own, so you find yourself clearing off a space at the family kitchen table to lay out your papers, trying to remember where you left off.   

What if you could buy that laptop, a desk of your own, art supplies, or have the funds to promote your work in a bigger and better way?  Or, what might happen if you could travel to a destination of your choice for a week or longer to simply focus on creating and writing?  Seems like an impossible dream? Then read on.

Dr. Christina Gessler is an example of someone who has and continues to do exactly that.  Dr. Gessler funded her college education and graduate studies with the assistance of funds provided through scholarships, fellowships, and grants. While earning her PhD in American Women’s History, such funding also allowed her to travel to New England where she lived on an island while immersing herself in reading the diaries left behind by 19th century farm women from the area!  She continues to win funding for her writing goals today.

She will be the featured guest speaker at the case study analysis format sample source url red oleanders as a thesis play editing thesis https://explorationproject.org/annotated/essay-about-study-hard/80/ dove comprare cialis torino apa format website in text citation descriptive essays about pets patient instructions for doxycycline https://www.medimobile.com/erectile/comprar-viagra-generico-mastercard/92/ college application personal essay examples https://thembl.org/masters/essay-about-myself-upsr/60/ sample college student resume objectives https://dsaj.org/buyingmg/interaction-between-viagra-and-amoxicillin/200/ buy term papers online essay writing software free autobiography assignment follow url thomas jefferson's thesis declaration independence go site levitra congestion buy online viagra in uk funkar viagra nГ¤r man Г¤r full follow latest essay download paper editing service online psychology essay writingВ samples of mba application essays civil services essay paper 2010 https://explorationproject.org/annotated/essay-on-my-favourite-book-250-words/80/ do you take cialis often http://belltower.mtaloy.edu/studies/popular-dissertation-methodology-ghostwriters-site-for-college/20/ Writers of Kern Monthly Meeting on Saturday, August 15th, 2020.  This event will be open to the public and will be presented entirely online and without charge.

Her presentation, Funds for writers: how to apply for grants, residencies, scholarships, and fellowships will provide writers and artist/illustrators of all genres with a wealth of information about how they can discover and access money to fund their endeavors.  Not only is she successful at obtaining funding, she is also familiar with the other side of the table having been a professional education grant reviewer for the government.

As a participant attending this event, you will learn:

  • About the four different kinds of funding
  • How to discover current “open calls” for funding opportunities
  • How to know the right funding source for you and your work
  • How to craft a funding application letter (not as hard as you think)
  • How scholarships, residencies, fellowships, and grants can help you reach your writing goals
  • How persistence can pay off

You can register for this free online event by going to Eventbrite, click HERE.

Christina Gessler

Christina Gessler attended college on a writing scholarship—at a school she picked because it was beside the sea and allowed pets (her roommate was a dog named Riley who was BFFs with Ratty, the rodent roommate of the neighbor next door). She went on to graduate school at Sarah Lawrence College and The American University, where she earned a PhD in American Women’s history. She did odd jobs that probably weren’t supposed to be odd (she was a nanny for a newscaster, sold nautical antiques, and was an assistant for a Grammy-winner) and funded her educational and writing pursuits with scholarships, grants and fellowships (which allowed her to do things like travel New England reading the diaries left behind by 19th century New England farm women; and live for a time on an island). She’s worked at museums, as a college professor, and reviewing education grants for the government. She currently lives near the sea with her dog Daisy, where she writes stories for children (pre-published) and poetry (published). She’s still fortunate to win fellowships and grants to further her writing goals. You can find her carting home stacks of books from the library, or walking at the beach.

You can follow Christina Gessler on her Facebook page by clicking HERE.

Some of her poetry can be found HERE and her photography HERE.

20 June 2020 | Featured Speaker Judy Billingsley | “Tips on Researching, Writing, and Publishing Your Family Legacy.”

By 1 Comment

“Your children shouldn’t have to rummage through your personal items after you go, to discover the family legacy you left behind. Leaving a written legacy changes something inside of us, our children and grandchildren as we begin to truly feel a part of something greater than ourselves”, says Judy Fambrough Billingsley.  Judy will be the featured guest speaker at the next Writers of Kern virtual meeting on June 20th, 2020.

Ms. Billingsley has written and published a memoir, Too Brown to Keep :  A Search for Love, Forgiveness, and Healing, andwill deliver a presentation called Tips on Researching, Writing and Publishing Your Family Legacy.  She will share what she has learned about leveraging resources when researching your family tree, whether found on or off the internet, and how to verify the information you discover.  Participants interested in writing their own biography or family history, will receive plenty of ideas to help them to create their own unique story in a way that they will be proud to share it. Judy will also offer helpful publishing and marketing tips when choosing to make it public.

Judy will also talk about how to prepare yourself emotionally for what you might unexpectedly discover while doing your research.

Register for the virtual meeting by clicking HERE.

Judy Fambrough Billingsley
Born to a white German woman and a black American soldier shortly after WWII, she was abandoned to live in a kinderheim for unwanted children until adopted and brought to America.  Judy was raised and educated in Bakersfield, California and has taught school professionally for many years, until her retirement as a high school teacher in Northern California. Her personal journey and international research to find her birth parents resulted in her published memoir.  

30 April 2020 | NPM Poetry Webslam

By Leave a Comment 

Wild Words
by Anke Hodenpijl                               
 
 
be warned now
this street will fill again
with kids riding bikes
muslims walking their constitutional
weight watchers jogging
homeless collecting cans
teenagers with ear buds in, oblivious to it all
dogs on leads, wondering what happened
the smell of family barbecues
basketballs bouncing
motorcycles roaring
pickle ball and preschoolers at the park
 
boomers around the propane campfire
lounge lizards on the driveway
sipping on an ice-cold beer
“Well, we dodged another catastrophe.”
 
be warned
we will one day leave this street
on our way to a place
not nearly as important
 
be warned
you will hear wild words
I love you
Let me help you
Thank you
 
be warned
be ready
it will happen
 
 

Anke Hodenpijl is a bedside singer, poet, gardener and safe spot for animals. She is inspired by nature, family, history, friendships and unfinished stories. Mostly, she is a grateful person.

29 April 2020 | NPM Poetry Webslam

By Leave a Comment 

Fields of Poppies
by Christopher Nielsen
 
 
Gold doors shimmering winds
touching back and forth.
 
Poppies bend in the breeze
flowing caress feeling spirits.
 
Grateful seasonal flowers
end and begin again.
 
Organic cameras lightly
capture replays heartfelt.
 
Fields growing of seeds
blowing, fall growing.

Christopher Nielsen resides in Bakersfield, California. He is a photographer, writer, web designer and consultant. Traveling the many back roads of California has provided a wealth of inspiration and he feels most at home out in nature. Poetry has become his primary form of written expression. Christopher has been the featured poet at Kern Poetry’s Open Mic at Dagny’s. His photography has appeared in Barren Magazine and West Texas Literary Review. Christopher’s poems have appeared in CSUB’s Sound 2019, CSUB’s Writing Fields 2020, Rabid Oak and in Mojave Heart Review.
 

Author website:
 chrisnielsenphotography.com

28 April 2020 | NPM Poetry Webslam

By 1 Comment 

Touching
by Judy Kukuruza
 
Had to go to the store for milk.
Mask on, mentally psyching up.
Straight to the milk – grab it.
To the checkout, staying six feet back, waiting.
 
Cashier, tired eyes—“Is this all?”
“Yes.” Smiling beneath the mask, I add,
“Thank you for coming to work today.
Be safe.”
 
Her tired eyes overflow.
A tear wets her mask—“Thank you” I hear.
I look away, my own mask now wet.
Don’t want to embarrass her or myself.
 
Then I turn back—
Why not?  Let her see my tears,
As she showed hers.
Let our compassion show.
 
We have touched.
Heart to heart.
Maybe not physically,
But we have touched each other.

Judy Kukuruza ~ Retired college instructor from CSUB and Bakersfield College.  She published her memoir One Body/Many Souls in 2018, and later Poems to Ponder, Little Stories to Play with in Your Mind, and Letters.  She publishes her blog, “Our Spiritual Journey” through Word Press, participates in the WOK blog challenge and is published in both the WOK Anthology 2018 Reaching for the Sky and the CSUB poetry antholology, Writing Sound.