Emerald Coast Writers Inc.

Emerald Coast Writers Group

By Christina M. Callisto Free Lance Writer

Published in the February/March 2011 issue of the Military Voice & Community News

CALLING ALL MILITARY, active duty and guard of all branches, spouses, dependents, retired, and GS and NAF employees:

If you have ever wanted to share your experiences, write a memoir, fantasy novel, or short stories, the EMERALD COAST WRITERS group is for you!

ECW is a non-profit organization dedicated to nurturing, educating, and promoting established and aspiring writers of all ages and experience levels. In addition to regular meetings, ECW sponsors workshops, critique and study groups, and open-mike discussions. Members are active in community outreach, speaking at local schools, offering mentor programs for young writers, and Q&A sessions with professionals in the publishing industry. The annual ECW conference features best selling authors offering workshops to help you hone your craft as well as prominent agents and editors ready to hear your pitch.

ECW members connect through a Yahoo group, Facebook, and an email list, sharing life and writing experiences, current and past works, and industry news. Members are welcome to join critique groups meeting bimonthly, one in Shalimar and the other in Niceville, Florida. Current members have included active duty and retired, military spouses, teachers, professors, stay at home parents, snow-birds, returning tourists, and those juggling full time and part time jobs. To name a few, award-winning author Vicki Hinze was a military spouse when she began writing thrillers with strong female protagonists. Charles Davis, author of Growing Up in Pensacola, is himself former military. The military is well represented in ECW keynote speakers, among them Stephen Coonts, author of Flight of the Intruder, Jeremiah Healy, creator of the John Francis Cuddy PI series, and Joe Weber who The Press in Atlantic City, NJ, touts as writing with a “pace faster than a heat-seeking missile.”

ECW meets monthly at the Shalimar Town Hall. Anyone interested in writing from novice to number one on the NY Times list is welcome. Find us on Facebook and check out our website www.EmeraldCoastWriters.org for information on future meetings and breaking news about the 8th Annual ECW Writers’ Conference to be held to be held on the 8th and 9th of April at the Ramada Plaza Beach Resort on Okaloosa Island.