Georgia Writers

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Georgia Writers

Georgia Writers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit writing organization dedicated to promoting and elevating writers from various points in their careers.

Georgia Writers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that connects creatives across the state of Georgia and beyond, uplifts marginalized voices, facilitates accessibility within the community, and connects writers so that they can learn from each other through monthly writing workshops and the annual Red Clay Writers Conference. GW also supports writers through the Literary Event Grants of Georgia, maintains the Georgia Writers Registry, and hosts the Georgia Author of the Year Awards.

06/02/2026

Great news, Georgia Writers!

Our annual Red Clay Writers Conference is on the horizon and we’re excited to introduce our keynote speaker for this year: acclaimed Georgia author Danté Stewart! () We’re thrilled to have Danté on board with us for what will be another amazing conference, so be sure to mark your calendars for Saturday October 17th at Kennesaw State University’s Marietta Campus. More information on this year’s conference, including a full roster of guest authors and tickets (30% off for all GWA members), is forthcoming, so be sure to check back here and on our website as we get closer to the big day. 📚✍️

“Danté Stewart’s voice rising is one of the reasons I believe in our common future. It is an honor to be invited into the intimacy, honesty, and inborn wisdom that he offers up in his experiences and insights, his prayers and his theology, his grief and his rage, his exuberance and his love.” —Krista Tippett

About Danté Stewart:

Danté Stewart is the author of debut memoir Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle, a stirring meditation on being Black and learning to love in a loveless, anti-Black world. The book won Stewart the Georgia Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writer’s Association in 2022, by The Center for American Progress as one of “22 Faith Leaders to Watch in 2022,” and by Religion News Service as one of “Ten Up-And-Coming Faith Influencers. Stewart’s voice has been featured on CNN, The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Sojourners, The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, Comment Magazine, and more. He received his B.A. in Sociology from Clemson University and his MTS from The Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.

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To read more about Danté or purchase Shoutin’ in the Fire: An American Epistle, head to the Linktree in our bio 🔗

05/25/2026

🌟GWA MEMBER SPOTLIGHT🌟

We’re excited to once again spotlight Verdell Walker (), who had her story “To Stand, You Must be Rooted” published in Reckoning X! In "To Stand, You Must be Rooted," a woman returns to her family home to confront a complex inheritance of generational grief, environmental reckoning, and the uncanny magic woven into her family's legacy. Verdell was also accepted into the Clarion West Six-Week Workshop (to be hosted this summer).

Congratulations, Verdell! 👏📖📚

About Verdell:

Verdell Walker is a writer of speculative fiction whose work is inspired by her heritage and her research. Her stories are published and forthcoming in Tractor Beam, Zooscape, and Reckoning, and her nonfiction writing has appeared in Bustle, Vox, Forge, and ZORA. She is a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Diversity Grant, the Gotham Writers of Color Creative Writing Scholarship, and the John Lewis Writing Grant for Fiction. She is also a 2026 Periplus Collective fellow. She can be found on Instagram: and Substack: , as well as her book review podcast, The Book Up.

To preorder Reckoning X, or read more about the Clarion West Six-Week Workshop, head to the Linktree in our bio, where the links will be live for the next week🔗

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Did you know that all GWA members are eligible to have their literary achievements featured on our socials? Check our May newsletter for information on how to have your recent achievements featured. Not a member? This is just one of many perks of being a Georgia Writers Association member, so join today on our website!

05/20/2026

We’re thrilled to announce the nominees for the 2026 Georgia Author of the Year Awards! This year, we received 109 submissions across 14 distinct categories, and we have been blown away by the quality of the submissions. Be sure to check back on Friday June 26th for when we announce this year’s winners and finalists on the GAYA website. Congratulations to our authors on their nominations! 👏📚

The link to the full list of nominees is in our bio 🔗

05/18/2026

🌟GWA MEMBER SPOTLIGHT🌟

Continuing with our spotlights of outstanding GWA members, we have Todd Sullivan, who has been on quite the grind with his literary successes in the last few months. First, he had three of his pieces published across various publishers: his poem “On Pause” with Fiction Literary Review ( Literary Review), his essay “The Speculative State” with Unlikely Stories Six, and his essay “The Paradox of Nothing: The Anthropomorphism of Aliens” with Aurealis #190. Todd’s novel “A Soul A Day” also received an acclaimed review from Atlantean Publishing.

Many congratulations,Todd!! We’re excited to hear and share more about your future accomplishments! 👏📖📚

About Todd:

Todd Sullivan taught English as a Second Language in South Korea and Taiwan for sixteen years. His fiction, poetry, and non-fiction have been published internationally. He was listed on the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker’s Awards in 2018, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for poetry and fiction in 2023. He currently has two book series through indie publishers in America. He wrote for a Taipei play and web series that focused upon African narratives. He founded the online publication, Samjoko Magazine, in 2021, and hosts a YouTube Channel that interviews writers across the publishing spectrum.

To purchase Aurealius #190, or read Todd’s other pieces and book review, head to the Linktree in our bio, where the links will be live for the next week🔗

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Friendly reminder that all GWA members are eligible to have their literary achievements featured on our socials! Check our May newsletter for information on how to have your recent achievements featured. Not a member? This is just one of many perks of being a Georgia Writers Association member, so join today on our website!

05/11/2026

🌟GWA MEMBER SPOTLIGHT🌟

Now spotlighting Danielle Hanson , who had her full-length poetry collection 'The Night Is What It Eats' published by Codhill Press just last month! 'The Night Is What It Eats' explores several interlacing themes: saints complaining about their Heaven, body parts disassembled and put to use in a surrealistic bending of reality, elegies to animals loved and unloved, magical realist poems and odes to nature and natural forces. It is the world we live in, but dismantled and reassembled. Parts of the whole are set free, like St Lucia’s eyes, to see the world on their own.

Between her new book and starting as a Professor of the Practice at UNC Chapel-Hill this fall, Danielle has had some remarkable achievements this year! Congratulations, Danielle! 👏📖📚

More About Danielle:

Danielle Hanson is the inaugural Poet Laureate for Costa Mesa, California, and Writer-in-Residence at the University of California, Irvine. She is author of The Night Is What It Eats, winner of the Elixir Press Prize, Fraying Edge of Sky, winner of the Codhill Press Poetry Prize, and Ambushing Water, Finalist for the Georgia Author of the Year Award. She has also edited the poetry anthology Objects in This Mirror. Her poetry was the basis for a puppet show at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications. Danielle will be joining the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill in Fall 2026 as a Professor of the Practice in the Creative Writing.

To purchase 'The Night Is What It Eats,' head to the Linktree in our bio, where the link will be live for the next week🔗

05/01/2026

Kicking off the month of May, we are delighted to announce that Georgia Writers is partnering up with Reedsy, the amazing online publishing platform and writing community! Reedsy is generously offering current Georgia Writers members a 10% discount on their upcoming online Short Story Conference, “How to Write a Winning Short Story,” on Tuesday May 5th. The conference has two awesome workshops led by award-winning authors: “How to Craft Flash Fiction Editors Actually Want to Publish” (with Angela Yuriko Smith) and “How to Write a Short Story (and Nail Your Hook)” (with Rachel Eve Moulton). Both workshops will equip writers with tools for crafting compelling short stories, such as structure, worldbuilding, making the perfect hook, and marketability. 📚

Individuals of all experience levels are welcome. Again, all Georgia Writers Association members receive 10% off their tickets! (We sent out the discount code in our monthly newsletter, but DM us if you need it re-sent.) If you’re not a member of the Georgia Writers Association, this is a great time to sign up!

Tickets for the conference are just $49 before the discount and can be purchased in the link in our bio 🔗

And stay tuned for future collabs with Reedsy. Happy writing, y’all!

04/29/2026

Just one day left to apply for our third annual LGBTQIA+ Literary Success Grants (funded by the Hawthornden Foundation, [https://www.hawthornden.org/])! This year, we are excited to select four grant recipients in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screen/playwriting. All selected grant recipients will receive a $500 grant to support writing endeavors, as well as a scholarship to our annual Red Clay Writers Conference in October 2026, where you will have an opportunity to give a live reading of your work to the conference attendees. So, if you haven’t applied yet, or are considering applying, this is your sign to do so by tomorrow night at 11:59 P.M. ✍️📖💫

For full application guidelines and requirements, head to the Submittable link in our bio or feel free to DM us with any questions 📲

We can’t wait to read your work!

04/28/2026

And last but certainly not least for our spotlight of fondly remembered poets, we have Carey Scott Wilkerson, the 2025 recipient of the Georgia Author of the Year Award for Posthumous Lifetime Achievement. Scott’s rich poetry and aura were truly one-of-a-kind, and we are honored to have highlighted and celebrated his works and memory at last year’s Red Clay Writers Conference. Swipe to read one of our favorite poems from Scott, “Los Feliz,” from ‘Cruel Fever of the Sky,’ along with a tribute by Scott’s former professor Dr. Beth Gylys 📖

To read the full tribute for Carey Scott Wilkerson, along with his author bio, head to the link in our Linktree (found in our bio) 🔗

We’ve greatly enjoyed featuring some of our most revered, profoundly missed poets this month. We thank them for their contributions and achievements to the writing industry, and we are proud to have them as a part of our trajectory here at Georgia Writers.

04/24/2026

Hey, Georgia Writers! In light of our third annual LGBTQIA+ Literary Success Grants and National Poetry Month, we sat down with Ari Quan (.quan), the poetry recipient from last year’s LGBTQIA+ grants. We were so excited to hear all about Ari’s successes and endeavors since winning the grant. Swipe to read more about Ari, his recent accomplishments, and his stunning poem, “Mercy” 📖

Congratulations, Ari! We look forward to hearing more about your future accomplishments and works! 👏

And don’t forget that there’s still time to apply for our LGBTQIA+ Literary Success Grants. The full application is in the Submittable link in our bio 🔗

04/23/2026

Continuing with our spotlight of dearly missed Georgia poets for National Poetry Month, we have Kamilah Aisha Moon and Molly Brodak, the 2022 and 2021 recipients of the Georgia Author of the Year Award for Posthumous Lifetime Achievement. These poets’ pieces and achievements are unconditionally cherished by their friends, colleagues, and readers. Swipe to read poems from Kamilah and Molly, along with reflections by Sharan Strange and Caroline Crew 📖

To read the full remembrances, along with more about Kamilah and Molly’s works and legacies, head to the respective links in our Linktree (found in our bio) 🔗

Address

440 Bartow Avenue #2701
Kennesaw, GA
30144

Telephone

+14705784736

Website

https://www.georgiawriters.org/, https://linktr.ee/gawriters, https://georgiawritersassociation.submittable.com/submit/9

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