Press Releases

SHE WRITES IN THE NEWS

Contact: Lea Beresford
lea@shewrites.com
401-374-5019

June 29, 2010

SHE WRITES ANNOUNCES CONTEST TO CATAPULT UNDISCOVERED WOMAN WRITER TO SUCCESS

June 29, 2010. New York. Today, on the one-year anniversary of She Writes (www.shewrites.com), founders Kamy Wicoff and Deborah Siegel will announce The Passion Project, a contest open to an emerging author and member of She Writes with a nonfiction book project in the works.

The Passion Project enables a hand-picked A-team of writing and publishing experts to choose a book project by a first-time author and to donate their time to its advancement, giving it every possible chance to succeed.

“She Writes was founded on the premise that writing can be life- and world-changing for women, that no woman writer is an island, and that publishing expertise should be available to every writer, not only those who can afford to pay,” said Wicoff. The contest embodies the company’s mission.

The Passion Project borrows its name from a common term used inside publishing houses to refer to a book an editor loves with a passion, even if it’s not a lucrative project. Judges include literary agents Betsy Lerner and Erin Hosier; Brooke Warner, publisher of Seal Press; author and journalist Alissa Quart; and Wicoff and Siegel themselves. The Project’s co-directors, Lea Beresford and Amanda Johnson Moon, are freelance editors who hail from inside of traditional publishing (Random House and Basic Books, most recently).

The winner will be selected on the basis of the merit of her entry, which consists of a cover letter and a 2,000 word excerpt. She will receive thorough and supportive consultations from a team of experts designed to help her prepare a complete proposal for submission to agents or publishers. Entries are due August 1st, 2010, and finalists will be announced and their excerpts posted on August 27th, at www.shewrites.com. A winner will be announced on August 24th.

“She Writes offers aspiring authors and published authors a safe space to discuss their work and their goals with like-minded women who share a passion for the written word,” said Moon. “The Passion Project celebrates the power of collaboration at a time when many writers are looking for a new spin on the traditional publishing model. Through blogging about the contest, soliciting community engagement, and updating our members about the process itself, we are providing writers with a different way to think about sharing their work, and still offering them the tools they need to navigate an ever-changing publishing world."

“It’s a wonderful prize,” noted Beresford. “I think any author would love to have a cadre of experts to call upon. But it’s a prize for She Writes’ editors, marketing experts, and social media mavens, too. Here’s our opportunity to work on something we really love.”

www.shewrites.com

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For more information about the Passion Project contest, please visit the Contest page at She Writes.

For additional information about the history of She Writes and the one-year anniversary, please visit the About page at She Writes.

Founders Kamy Wicoff and Deborah Siegel and Passion Project co-directors Lea Beresford and Amanda Johnson Moon are available for comment.

Kamy Wicoff is the co-founder, with Nancy K. Miller, of the New York Salon of Women Writers, and the best-selling author of I Do But I Don’t: Why The Way We Marry Matters (Da Capo Press, March 2007). She serves on the Advisory Council of Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and was the first fiction/nonfiction editor of Women’s Studies Quarterly.

Deborah Siegel, PhD is the author of Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild, co-editor of the literary anthology Only Child, and founder of the group blog Girl w/Pen. Her writing has appeared in venues including The Washington Post, The Guardian, Slate’s The Big Money, Recessionwire, The Huffington Post, The American Prospect, More, and Psychology Today. She offers workshops and consulting to individuals, organizations, and companies seeking to expand their public platform through books, new media, and blogs.

Lea Beresford earned a BA in English and psychology from Cornell and attended the Publishing Course at Columbia. She worked under the illustrious Irene Skolnick at the Irene Skolnick Literary Agency and was then hired at Random House. She has worked with Michelle Maisto, Gayle Brandeis, Jennifer Mascia, Hilma Wolitzer, Amity Gaige, Margaret Cezair-Thompson, Gemma Townley, and many other authors.

Amanda Johnson Moon has worked as an editor in the publishing industry for over ten years. She began her career as an intern at Yale University Press and Writers House and has served as an editor at Palgrave Macmillan and Basic Books. She has worked with authors including Deborah Siegel, Alice Miller, Tony Wagner, Mary Daly, John Merrow, Henry Giroux, Leonard Sax, Malina Saval, Nancy Rappaport, Sue Barry, and Andrea Tone. Moon has acquired, edited, and managed many award-winning and positively reviewed books for the trade and academic markets in psychology, women's studies, education, science, memoir, and more.

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Contact: Deborah Siegel
deborah@shewrites.com
 

June 25, 2010  

SHE WRITES TURNS ONE: HELPS THOUSANDS FOLLOW DREAM OF BECOMING SUCCESSFUL WRITER  

New York, NY.  On June 29, She Writes (www.shewrites.com), the largest community and resource for  women writers online, will celebrate its one-year anniversary.  

Since the launch of She Writes, with 40 founding “alpha” members, including Amy Sohn, Hope Edelman, Katha Pollitt, Gretchen Rubin, and Alix Kates Shulman, growth has been explosive. One year later, the site boasts nearly 10,000 members from 30 countries and all 50 states, including well known writers like A.M. Holmes, Francine Prose, Kathryn Harrison, and Jacquelyn Mitchard.  

To celebrate the one-year anniversary on June 29, local groups will host meet ups in 16 cities—including London, Nashville, St. Louis, Austin, San Francisco and New York. In addition, She Writes founders Kamy Wicoff and Deborah Siegel will announce a contest, The Passion Project, open to an emerging author and member of She Writes who has a non-fiction project in the works.   

Based on the market data showing that women buy 65% of books (the average woman is a $500-a-year customer for publishers and booksellers), and that 43% of women readers also have plans to write a book, She Writes aims to empower the millions of women with a passion for writing by providing them with tools, support and resources to they need to improve at their craft.  Media coverage of the She Writes phenomenon, even in its early, grassroots stage, has appeared in the NY Times, Salon, About.com, Poets & Writers, and Charlie Rose, underscoring its reflection of an emerging zeitgeist.  

The site was founded by Wicoff, a Columbia MFA in Creative Nonfiction, in partnership with Siegel, a PhD in English and American literature.  “As authors ourselves, we know how much heavy-lifting writers are expected to do when it comes to marketing and promoting their books,” said Wicoff.  “She Writes changes that, providing a place where writers can help each other, and find curated services and support.” This spring, She Writes brought on its third founding partner, CEO Daphne Kis, who has served as an advisor to digital properties such paidContent, Smart.fm, DailyGrommet and Startl.org. Previously, she was president and ceo of EDventure Holdings, publisher of Release 1.0, and executive producer of PC Forum.  

She Writes offers one-on-one consulting by a hand-picked team of experts in publishing, book marketing, social media, website design, agent-advisement, editorial advice, author photography, and more.  Members have already organized themselves into over 200 groups based on geography, affinity, genre, and profession, with new groups forming constantly.  

“Women have long understood reading and writing as social activities, so we’re ahead of the curve on this one,” said Siegel.  “We’re the originators—and majority—of book group and literary salons.  Women have tremendous power not just as consumers, but as creators who connect.”  



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For additional information about the history of She Writes and the one-year anniversary, please visit the About page at She Writes.  

Kamy Wicoff, Deborah Siegel, and Daphne Kis are available for comment.

Kamy Wicoff is the co-founder, with Nancy K. Miller, of the New York Salon of Women Writers, and the best-selling author of I Do But I Don’t: Why The Way We Marry Matters (Da Capo Press, March 2007). She serves on the Advisory Council of Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and was the first fiction/nonfiction editor of Women’s Studies Quarterly.

Deborah Siegel, PhD is the author of Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild, co-editor of the literary anthology Only Child, and founder of the blog Girl w/Pen. Her writing has appeared in venues including The Washington Post, The Guardian, Slate’s The Big Money, Recessionwire, The Huffington Post, The American Prospect, More, and Psychology Today.  She offers workshops and consulting to individuals, organizations, and companies seeking to expand their public platform through books, new media, and blogs.  

Daphne Kis has spent the last few years as a strategic business advisor with expertise taking early stage entrepreneurial ideas through the many phases of raising capital, business development, and clarifying and executing on strategy. She is committed to women and entrepreneurship and serves on the boards of several women-led companies, as well as web analytics, iPerceptions. She is also a managing director of Golden Seeds, an early-stage women’s investing network. Until 2007, Kis was VP of Business to Business Programs at CNET Networks.

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