If you missed our April 2013 general meeting, the names and poems of the winners of our 12th Annual Poetry Contest are now posted under Contest in Poetry.

Poet Perie Longo Will Discuss Mixing and Matching Prose and Poetry at the VCWC March 12 Meeting

Opening speaker will be author Susan Hart Hellman on using real locations in novels

(Ventura, CA - January 31, 2013) Perie Longo will discuss how prose and poetry mix, match, and part company at the March 12 meeting of the Ventura County Writers Club. Ms. Longo, Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara (2007-09), is considered one of the area's most acclaimed poets. 

Poet Longo has been helping others communicate through this genre in her professional life as a marriage and family therapist as well as in her poetry workshops, her teaching, and her volunteer work

About prose poems, in the first issue of "The Prose Poem: An International Journal," editor Peter Johnson says:  "Just as black humor straddles the fine line between comedy and tragedy, so the prose poem plants one foot in prose, the other in poetry, both heels resting precariously on banana peels."

Ms. Longo believes "that there is no easy explanation or convention," for the prose poem "but we'll slip around how the two genres feed each other and all writing" at the March VCWC meeting.

Ms. Longo has written three books of poetry: "The Privacy of Wind," "Milking the Earth," and "With Nothing Behind but Sky: A Journey through Grief." Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies such as "Atlantic Review, " "California Quarterly," "Connecticut Review," "International Poetry Review," "Nimrod," "The Paterson Literary Review," "Prairie Schooner," "Passage,"  "Rattle," "Solo Novo," and "Wisconsin Review." She has received two Pushcart prize nominations for her poetry: from "Rattle" in 2002 and "Solo Novo" in 2012. She has been featured on the Charles Osgood radio show as well as The Huffington Post.

Ms. Longo has taught at UCLA, Santa Barbara's Antioch University, Santa Barbara City College and the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference, where she has led the poetry workshops since 1985. She is the poet-in-residence at many local schools in California. She teaches poetry privately and leads a two-day summer workshop in Santa Barbara ever year.

She conducts poetry and writing workshops for agencies such as Hospice and the Cancer Center and has been active in the National Association for Poetry Therapy for several years. Her focus is helping others find their voices through writing. Last year for her dedication she received the Woman of Achievement Award from the Santa Barbara Chapter of the Association of Women in Communication. With such an illustrious background, she will no doubt help some of us find our voices at the next VCWC meeting.

The opening speaker will be Ojai Valley author Susan Hart Hellman, on using locations and behavioral psychology to choose the best real locations for novels. When she started writing her murder mystery series with "Catch 'n Release: The Game," she knew she needed several select local venues for certain significant scenes, as those locations would also essentially serve as "characters." Hellman turned to her past behavioral psychology career to find techniques for determining these ideal locations. As opening speaker at the March 12 VCWC meeting, she will discuss these techniques and why they work.