News & Events

The Chattanooga Writers' Guild 2017 Spring Writing Contest is closed
Click here for the list of WINNERS

Don't miss our June meeting which is open mic. Members are encouraged to bring some samples of their writing to share with the audience. 
We now have business cards for the CWG that will be made available at meetings.  Members may take these to distribute to those who might be interested in the guild. It contains our meeting information (date, time, place), our email, website url and mailing address.  These will replace the trifold that we have had in the past.
Don't forget Open Mic at Barnes & Noble on Friday, June 30, 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm with host KB Ballentine.  It's free to the public, and is a great chance to read your work and hear some great writing from other authors.
​Join our Meetup group for exclusive events, including our monthly New Member Happy Hour!

Benefits of Membership

  • Prestige: you now belong to a professional writers' organization; update your resume!
  • Networking: meet other writers, learn from each other, and grow together
  • Information: speakers, contests, events
  • Individual Attention to Your Writing Needs: critique groups, workshops
  • Promotion: accolades, sales, open mic, member bio
  • Fun: potlucks, games, plot-offs
  • Leadership Opportunities: join our board!
Learn more about the perks of joining the CWG here.
Join Now!
Membership is $30 per year ($15 per year for students), due in September.
Joint membership in the CWG and Knoxville Writers' Guild is $40. 
Dues can be paid at the annual meeting, mailed, or purchased with a credit card online. 
Or send a check to:
Chattanooga Writers' Guild
2288 Gunbarrel Rd.
Ste 154-251
Chattanooga, TN 37421

Accolades

Members - please let us know when you have writing successes so that we can share your good news!
Finn Bille's storytelliing CD: Marzipan: Stories with Music, with Finn telling original stories and Rick Davis playing the hammered dulcimer is available for free, if you buy Finn's book, Fire Poems at Starline Books on Market street across from the ChooChoo. This CD includes two of his stories from Finn's Danish childhood plus his imaginative story about writing, "Recycled Poetry." When you buy Fire Poems, Finn will donate one dollar to the Red Cross to help house fire victims. 

Congratulations to Gene Hodge who just had his first poem published in Eretz Songs!

​Exciting news! Marsha Mathews’ most recent chapbook, Growing Up with Pigtails, has been nominated for a 1017 GAYA Award (Georgia Author of the Year), young adult division. Marsha has poems in the current 3 Elements Review, Potomac Review, and in 2016 anthologies, Circe’s Lament and Literature Today: An International Journal of Contemporary Literature.
Marsha’s books are available at Star Line Books, Chattanooga, Dogwood
Books, Rome, GA, and at amazon.com.
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KB Ballentine won the Libba Moore Gray Award For Poetry in the 2016 KWG Writing Contest with her poem "Permanence has Nothing to Do with Love."  This poem was also accepted by the Haight-Ashbury Journal in San Francisco, CA.
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John C. Mannone has had several publication successes recently:

"Stellar Quake," is appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine has one of his Waffle House Poems, "Old Men," now live here. 

Gyroscope Review has his poem, "Dignity of Sleep," in the special Honor Section on page 21.
 
As a frequent contributor of GoodNews Christian Magazine, he is fortunate to have a seasonally appropriate nonfiction article published, "Commercialization Of Christmas: It Might Not Be A Bad Thing After All" (page 46 of the October Issue) 

And forthcoming in Open Earth II-Ecopoetry (edited by Susann Moeller, Pudding Magazine Publications, 2016) are 5  poems: "Wild River" (about the Kingston sludge accident), "Resurrection" (about Appalachia), "The Resculpting" (about global warming), "Ichor" (about lake pollution) and "War of the Worlds" (about light pollution).

2016 CWG Spring Writing Contest
Final Results

FICTION
 
1st Place – “Never Trust a Snake” by Stephen R. Pell
2nd Place – “Night Fishin” by Stephen R. Pell
3rd Place – “Hootie’s Eyes” by Robert Moulthrop
Honorable Mention - “Next Stop—Las Vegas” by Bruce Gaughran
Honorable Mention - “Girl in a Taxi” by Joe Petree
 
 
NONFICTION
 
1st Place – “One Step Closer” by Sherry Poff
2nd Place – “Night Dive” by John C. Mannone
3rd Place – “The Ballpark in My Backyard” by Greg Starnes
Honorable Mention
“The Fall” by Nan Harbin
Honorable Mention
“Trouble by Water and Fire” by Frederick L. Marsh
 
POETRY
 
1st Place – “Through Closed Doors” by KB Ballentine
2nd Place - “Thus Your Life Grows” by Christine Connley
3rd Place – “Atheism” by Claire Scott
Honorable Mention - “Twelve Ways of Looking at Springtime” by Ray Zimmerman
Honorable Mention - “To the Ancient Nautilus” by Michelle Young