writers

The 53rd annual Virginia City Camel Races will begin on Sept. 6, and once again the media will enlighten us on how the race was born over a half century ago, with a hoax published in the Territorial Enterprise in 1959 by then editor, Bob Richards.

The story is true. Richards, however, was a hellava lot more than the father of the Virginia City Camel Races. A talented individual with a creative mind, Richards was a driving force for the promotion of tourism on the Comstock for the 14 years he lived here.

The second annual Fall Festival and Chili Cook Off will return to the South Lake Tahoe Recreation Complex on Saturday, September 14, 2013. The event will begin at 10:00 am and run until 4:00 pm. Admission is free, and door prizes will be given away every fifteen minutes. There will also be a drawing for one hundred dollars cash, given to one attendee.

The Sierra region’s own literary stars will be shining at the Ventana Sierra Advanced Writing Workshop Friday-Sunday, June 14-16, at Western Nevada College in Carson City.

New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins is the keynote speaker and the architect of the event, designed to help writers of all genres and skill levels to be successful. All proceeds benefit Ventana Sierra Youth Housing and Resource Initiative, a 501(c) (3) nonprofit foundation created by Hopkins to provide housing and resources to local youth.

Minden resident Krista Lukas has published her debut poetry collection "Fans of My Unconscious." She will read from her collection at two venues in June: the Mile High Jazz Band’s Jazz and Poetry event at Comma Coffee in Carson City on June 11, 7:30 p.m., and the Ventana Sierra Advanced Writers Conference at Western Nevada College in Carson City on June 14 at 6:30 p.m.

The book is published by The Black Rock Press, University of Nevada, Reno, 2013.

Bill Martell has written over nineteen produced films, including three HBO Premier movies, is the West Coast Editor of Scr(i)pt Magazine’s Independents screenwriting column, is a contributor to Writer's Digest Magazine and a past columnist for Hollywood Scriptwriter Magazine. He’s been interviewed by Variety, featured in The Hollywood Reporter’s first Writers Special issue, and continues to teach around the world.

This day-long seminar is presented in two parts for both beginning and advanced screenwriters. Attend either session – or BOTH!

This is the last installment of “The Sagebrushers.” This series was written to profile the lives and careers and credit some of Nevada’s early newspapermen. The men named in this story were some of the more prominent Sagebrushers. There were many others, but space here did not allow us to name those who also deserved recognition.

Alfred Doten had one of the longest tenures of any Sagebrusher in the history of the Comstock. His Nevada career began at Como in 1863, and ended 40 years later with his death in Carson City in 1903.  Today Doten is remembered for the journals he wrote spanning 54 years documenting his career and personal experiences. Seventy years after his death, the University of Nevada Press published a massive three volume set, weighing a hefty 14 1/2 pounds, titled: “The Journals of Alfred Doten 1849-1903.”

Sagebrush journalism was a style of literature born in the American West that had some very deep roots in Virginia City. It came to life around 1860 and had run its course by the turn of the 20th century. In that ensuing 40 year time period some Sagebrushers became world renown.

The Western Nevada College exhibit "Always Lost: A Meditation on War" continues to travel the country, now with a stop at Wisconsin's Mount Mary College.
Marilee Swirczek, Emeritus Professor of English at Western Nevada College notes the exhibit at the college and an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

For the first time since 1996 and only the eighth time in history, Cooperstown will not be welcoming anybody to the hallowed ground of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and we could be seeing a lot more years like this to come unfortunately. The 2013 ballot saw many newcomer names that were superstars in their playing days.

Sierra Nevada College professors and editors evaluated over 500 submissions to choose the top winners for the 2012 High School Writing Contest, a national competition that produced exceptional stories, poems and creative nonfiction from high school juniors and seniors.
“The level of talent was extraordinary, making it tough for the judges,” said June Saraceno, English Department chair at Sierra Nevada College, a four-year private college in Incline Village, Nev.

It will never go away. Until the MLB really DOES something about it. A little venting here on the case of steroids/PED's in baseball.

I know this would never pass with the Player's Association in a CBA agreement but if you want to completely get rid of steroids/PED's, the MLB and the MLBPA need to have a 'one and done' approach about it starting in the minor leagues.

Bill Felcyn's yarn about a practical joke among buddies on an Arizona golf course that involved a harmless snake, a six-foot rattler and a karmic turn of events won him entry to play in an epic Wild West golf tournament on Oct. 2 in Northern Nevada.

Reading over the coverage of the Supreme Court's oral arguments over the fate of ObamaCare, you might get the impression that the conservative-leaning court will strike this law down.

While those people on each side of the political divide will have their opinions about this, I, as a person whose profession is all about writing and words, am struck by how the future of this law seems hinged on the wording in the legislation.

The major argument against ObamaCare has to do with the requirement that everyone must buy health insurance, otherwise known as the individual mandate.

Travel and ski journalists from national magazines, newspapers, websites, blogs and social media outlets will arrive at South Lake Tahoe next week and be greeted with several feet of fresh snow during the North American Snowsports Journalist Association National Conference.

The sci-fi-horror film "Underworld Awakened" screening at the Fandango Galaxy cineplex in Carson City is the fourth iteration of the series, in this case starring Kate Beckinsale as Selene for the third time.

Selene hs been in suspended animation in a freezer for 12 years bust breaks out to find that humankind is at war with the vampires in the population a well as the werewolves.

Well, she isn't going to sit still for this and with super athleticism leaps off buildings and bumps of a bunch of cop-soldiers (hard to tell them apart but they all have machine guns).

"The Sitter," billed as a black comedy and currently flickering at the Fandango Galaxy cineplex in Carson City, is mercifully only 81 minutes long, but that's long enough to spell disaster to any discriminating movie goer.

It stars comic actor Jonah Hill as college failure Noah forced into baby sitting three of the most repellent child actors in living memory. He is also pursuing a blonde who is suggesting intimacy that night.

I missed the first two films in the "Harold and Kumar" series, but if they were as goofy and off-the-wall funny and nonsensical as "A Very Merry Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas," I've got some catching up to do.

The newest in the franchise is playing at the Fandango Galaxy cineplex in Carson City and watching it is like seeing all the possible gags from Hollywood over the years with a lot of stuff only the drug-using 21st Century could think up.

IHOP doing the right thingOK, it's time to respond to the serial tear-down-the-IHOP letter writers. To this end, I have reviewed and discused them with a significant number of reasonably intelligen...

The movie "The Thing," currently playing at the Fandango Galaxy multiplex in Carson City, is labeled by its creators as "prequel" to the 1982 film that is rated as a classic sci-fi horror film. Too bad this prequel doesn't have the hard-edged script and at least some science to back up some of the more dubious scenes. (Two other versions of the same story have been made and forgotten.)

By Sam Bauman
First time I went to Burning Man on the Black Rock playa, I slept in my SUV. Not bad but second and third it was in my tent, a very gritty and uncomfortable week. Fourth I weaseled my way into a friend's a fold-out trailer, which was better. But from then on I teamed up with a retired airline pilot, who had a nice 27-foot Winnebago. Four of us the first three times, just two the last.

Care to sample the life of a golf travel writer? Glamour, fun, laughs. GolfChannel.com and The Divine 9, a co-op of nine courses in the Carson City/Carson Valley area, are offering a $500 paid assignment for national publication and a Wild West trip to an aspiring golf correspondent.

"Conan the Barbarian" is currently wielding swords and other death weapons at the Fandango Galaxy cineplex in Carson City.

And no, if you thought this was a re-release of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film of the 1980s, it's not. It a new bloody, murderous revival of the franchise but since Arnold isn't up to murder and mayhem these days we have a new Conan, two of them actually, one in his teens and the other the Conan out on a bloody roll.

On Saturday, Aug. 20, Tahoe author Janet Smith will be at the Costco in Carson City from 11-2pm for a book signing of the new anthology “Permanent Vacation: Twenty Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks.” The collection, published by Bona Fide Books, features Smith’s piece “Pretty Enough,” a compelling account of coming of age in one of the world’s wonders, Yosemite Valley.

The sci-fi-western-thriller "Cowboys & Aliens," currently showing at the Fandango Galaxy multiplex in Carson City, finally achieves what most studios have long sought: a film with five writers, muc...

The sci-fi-western-thriller "Cowboys & Aliens," currently showing at the Fandango Galaxy multiplex in Carson City, finally achieves what most studios have long sought, a film with five writers, much of whose script is simply explosions.

The weather wasn't ideal on Memorial Day weekend, but it didn't dampen the spirits of 10 media professionals invited here by the Carson City Visitor and Convention Bureau to see what the area has to offer.

"I know they were all impressed with all that we have to offer our visitors," said Candace Duncan, CCVCB executive director.

It's hard to say whether the mythical adventure film "Thor" currently playing at the Fandango Galaxy in Carson City is the best adventure film since "Fast Five," or whether it is a messy marketing adaptation of Scandinavian myth with no logic and sense to the story other than luring the kids in.

The public is invited to attend a classroom discussion at Western Nevada College on Wednesday, May 4, by author Heidi Ayarbe, whose published works are geared toward young adult readers. Ayarbe, who grew up locally, will speak at 7 p.m. in Bristlecone Building Rm. 343.

NEWS RELEASE — Jimmer Fredette, the All-American scoring guard for Brigham Young University will join the celebrity-studded field at the American Century Championship, July 12 – 17 at Edgewood Tahoe, in what is becoming one of the strongest line-ups in the tournament’s 22-year history.