I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer and is ready for the fall-especially the WRWA's Fall Conference in Janesville. It promises to be especially exciting. We have a great lineup of speakers-including a literary agent-and Ben Logan, one of Wisconsin's most famous writers, will be there on Sunday to receive the Robert E. Gard Award for Excellence.

Thanks to all who answered my call for volunteers to help me with the many typescript submissions I get for the newsletter. Retyping them for entry here takes a lot of time and I really appreciate the help.

I received only ONE letter requesting that the writing contest in the newsletter be continued. The winners of the final contest will be printed in the winter edition.

This is a shorter than usual edition of The Wisconsin Regional Writer. The summer edition came out so late that we considered skipping a fall edition altogether. However, Nate Scholze, Fall Conference Chairman, asked that we publish a special, short edition to feature Ben Logan's appearance at the Fall Conference to receive an award. To make this as fast and simple as possible, and to save space and money, I've skipped some of the usual formatting and have left out some of the items that are normally repeated.

I anticipate that the winter edition will be larger than usual because (I hope) many of you will have taken note of the offer to print selected creative writing and will be submitting items for consideration. I have received enough offers of help that I am willing to accept items in longhand if you are unable to type. But, longhand and typescript submissions submitted by regular mail must be received by October 20th. E-mail submissions (body text only, no attachments) must be received by October 31st. Submission constitutes permission to print the item in The Wisconsin Regional Writer. Submissions may be edited for clarity, spelling, and grammar. Maximum acceptable length is 800 words, but shorter is better and will be a consideration in selecting what to print.

Please note that I am asking for all other items for the winter edition to be submitted by November 6th this year (instead of the usual November 15th). That is because I will be spending Thanksgiving with my daughter and her family in North Carolina and need to work on the newsletter before I leave in order to meet the scheduled mail date the week of December 4th. I thank you in advance for meeting this new deadline.

I hope to see as many of you as possible at the Fall Conference in Janesville. Come join us at the Writers' Roundtable Friday evening.

WRWA members whose writing is published in The Wisconsin Regional Writer retain the copyright to their work. Submission of your work grants one-time rights for publication by TWRW. Items printed here should be regarded as “published” and authors should make this known when declaring “prior publication” when submitting the work elsewhere. Because of our limited distribution, most editors probably will not regard that as an issue. Finally, the editor will do his best to uphold high standards of quality in the selection of what is printed here so authors may be proud of having their writing presented to the full WRWA membership.