I am apparently on a Taylor Swift kick because she's all over my Spotify. If you're not familiar, Spotify is the world's leading digital music service. One of the things that has contributed to its wildfire growth since 2020 is the platform's ability to suggest music to listeners. Once Spotify learns what you like, it dials up more of it. Spotify sometimes knows before I do that I need to go Back to December.
Technology learns us. Google's search algorithm prioritizes answers and links that match ones we've clicked before. From stored passwords to cookie preferences, our digital lives are living, changing things.
Now, ChatGPT is offering to write our stories for us. If you haven't heard of the free artificial intelligence (AI) application disrupting the publishing industry, check out Amazon's latest author.
Every story generated teaches the program how to do it better. Technology is learning to mimic us. To be us. And AI poses a legitimate threat to writers because it can make out of the existing internet of words, a combination that passes for composition: it can write.
Before long, writers focused on words will find themselves replaced by technology that uses the very same bricks for building stories.
I am challenged by ChatGPT to write the parts of the story that AI couldn't possibly know. What does it feel like to press your lips to the dry, papery flesh of Nana's cheek? To breathe in that baby scent during a midnight feeding cuddle? To catch the pitch deep in the glove with the satisfying thwump and the whoosh of a strikeout?
Writers sharing authentic experiences, and excavating core wounds, cannot be replaced. We can defeat the artificial with the authentic.
The influence of AI on publishing is one of the many topics we're bringing to SCWA's fall conference in Columbia. More details to come. Just know you'll be able to attend for less than the price of Taylor Swift tickets.
In the meantime, send me your workshop wants and needs (kasie@clemsonroad.com) and we'll try to line up a menu of relevant, useful sessions for our biggest weekend of the year.
Kasie Whitener
President, SCWA Board of Directors
Membership
WIN A FREE SCWA MEMBERSHIP
We're giving away two free memberships. All you have to do to be eligible is renew and pay your dues by the April 1 deadline. On April 4, we will do a random drawing and pull two names from those who have paid on or prior to April 1. If you're one of the two lucky winners, we'll issue a refund for your dues and you'll have free membership until April 2024.
MEMBER BENEFITS
Sometimes it's easy to take SCWA for granted, but for $1.44 a week, SCWA provides support to members by offering a wide variety of tools, education, events and resources, including:
Critique Groups: Writers need readers, and at the core of writer learning is access to other writers and the ability to submit work for critique and feedback in a supportive and constructive environment. Membership provides access to in-person and virtual chapters across the state.
Networking Opportunities: SCWA membership provides you with the opportunity to connect with other writers.
Professional Development: The association offers a variety of workshops, conferences, and other events designed to help writers improve their craft and stay up to date on the latest industry trends and best practices.
Publishing Opportunities: South Carolina Writers Association members have the opportunity to submit their work to the association's annual anthology, ThePetigru Review.
Monthly Newsletter: TheQuill is published monthly to help our members stay up to date on what's happening.
Website and Social Media: The myscwa.org website is home for news regarding the organization and our members. Meet and interact with other members by following us on Facebook and Twitter. The opportunities for interaction and collaboration are boundless when one joins the SCWA community.
And more . . .
Renew your membership by April 1 so you can continue to be a part of the SCWA family.
MARCH MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: CAMERON MITCHUM
This month, we spotlight SCWA member Cameron Mitchum, who lives in the Lowcountry of South Carolina where her family settled more than 200 years ago. As a self-identified Southern writer, she uses the South as a character in most of her stories.
When Mitchum was a child, she published a neighborhood newspaper, using a toy printing press — and has never stopped writing. Her academic work has been published in numerous nursing journals and books. Her poetry has been recognized by the Poetry Society of South Carolina.
However, it is in the short story that she found her voice. "Poetry is a lightning bolt and novels are the long read," she says. "Short stories are a shake to awaken you. I like to shake people up by finding a character's triggering event and developing the character's response to it."
Mitchum says SCWA and the Virtual Short Story Chapter are important to her, describing SCWA as her tribe. "The support and critiques they provide are invaluable to me. I cherish the camaraderie."
Her short story collection, Emerge, is being edited and will be published in 2024. It focuses on ordinary women triumphing over difficult situations.
Her book of collected poems, Catbird, will be published this year.
SCWA PRESENTS POPULAR NOVEL WRITING WORKSHOP E.L. Doctorow once said, "Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
Writers looking for a good road map can take advantage of SCWA's most popular course, Novel Writing Workshop, taught by Amelia Brown and Amber Wheeler Bacon.
Over four weeks in April, these acclaimed authors will teach you how to:
Create conflict and tension.
Create dynamic characters.
Revise scenes that don't work.
Keep the action moving.
Brown and Bacon will take participants on a deep dive into different ways to build a story by exploring classic and popular books and films.
A writer and teacher, Bacon is the recipient of the 2018 Breakout Writers Prize, a 2021 scholarship from Bread Loaf Environmental and the 2022 Lit/South Award for flash fiction. Brown holds an MFA in fiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars and manages rights at Charlesbridge Publishing. Their stories and essays have appeared in numerous magazines.
'This course will help everyone working on a novel," says SCWA Events and Education Director Paul Davis. "Seasoned writers and first-timers all struggle with conflict, pacing, characters, revision, and beginnings, middles and endings."
Grab your spot soon. Last year's class sold out.
The four-night course, on April 4, 11, 18 and 25, is $150 for members and $200 for nonmembers.
MARCH AUTHOR'S TOOLBOX FEATURES AWARD-WINNING WRITERS
SCWA's ongoing virtual series Author's Toolbox features two great writers in March: Ashleigh Bell Pedersen and Scott Gould.
Pedersen's 2022 breakout novel, The Crocodile Bride, garnered rave reviews. The book follows 11-year-old Sunshine Turner as she and her troubled father Billy grapple with the secrets of their family's past in the tiny town of Fingertip, Louisiana.
Readers and reviewers call Bride "powerful," "gripping," "beautiful" and "a perfect book."
"Ashleigh Pedersen's The Crocodile Bride brings us Sunshine, an unforgettable girl who stands alongside our region's greatest literary protagonists," says author Leah Hampton. "As Sunshine and her family face a transformative summer together, the author captures the secrets of the Louisiana bayou perfectly — its spooky fairytale magic, the brooding fortitude of its denizens."
Pedersen, a Brooklyn, New York, author and actor, holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh, where she received a teaching fellowship and the Turow-Kinder Award.
She'll talk about novel writing and her book at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 9.
Award-winning South Carolina writer Scott Gould wowed critics and reviewers alike with his short story collection Strangers to Temptation.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called it "a compulsive read," and Foreword Reviews dubbed it "funny, often poignant, and not easily forgotten."
Here's what author Peter Carlin said: "A master storyteller with a sharp eye for the brambles and blossoms of human nature … It's all here: War, death, racism, love, sorrow, kindness and big-ass Buicks with icily effective air conditioning. Strangers to Temptation should elevate Gould into the vanguard of modern Southern writers."
Gould is the author of two novels, Hammerhead Chronicles and Whereabouts, and a memoir, Things That Crash, Things That Fly. He's a two-time winner of the S.C. Arts Commission's Individual Artist Fellowship in Prose and a winner of the S.C. Academy of Authors Fiction Fellowship.
Gould will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 23.
To register for both events, go to Author's Toolbox. The talks are free for SCWA members and $25 for nonmembers.
OTHER EVENTS WORTH CHECKING OUT
Want to hang out with the region's best writers?
On Sunday, March 12, you can share a table with Wiley Cash, George Singleton and other just-published writers — and get dessert, too!
The gathering is part of the Hub City Writers Project's biennial fundraiser, Delicious Reads, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the AC Hotel Spartanburg on West Main Street.
Nineteen writers will attend the event — a kind of speed dating for book lovers and creatives. Attendees will be seated with six other guests, plus an author. They will have seven minutes to chat, ask questions and learn about that author's work. After seven minutes, the authors will rotate, allowing each author to visit seven tables.
Tickets are $45 for nonmembers and $40 for members. A limited number of tables — perfect for book clubs — are available for $300. You can get tickets at the Hub City Bookshop or at Delicious Reads.
Check out Hub City's other March events, including a chat with bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver, at Hub City Events.
Paul Davis
VP/Events and Education
SCWA Operations Updates
SCWA recently has made the following changes to our operations:
Payments to SCWA for new memberships, renewals, event registrations or other purposes must be made online using a credit card or debit card; we no long accept PayPal or checks. If you are unable to pay online, please contact the SCWA administrator at writersassociationsc@gmail.com for alternate instructions in special cases where exceptions may apply.
SCWA's official mailing address has been changed to: 111 Idlewylde Court, Spartanburg, SC 29301.
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I am apparently on a Taylor Swift kick because she's all over my Spotify. If you're not familiar, Spotify is the world's leading digital music service. One of the things that has contributed to its wildfire growth since 2020 is the platform's ability to suggest music to listeners. Once Spotify learns what you like, it dials up more of it. Spotify sometimes knows before I do that I need to go 
Want to hang out with the region's best writers?
