California Poetry.com
A New Site for California Poets
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They are affiliate links but clicking on them will show traffic and make the companies happy. (They are all interesting sites).
California Poetry and Writing Groups.
The current California Poet Laureate is: Dana Gioia
Start of Term: December 4, 2015.Position History:
The unofficial position of poet laureate was established with the appointment of Ina Donna Coolbrith on June 30, 1915. The official position of Poet Laureate of California was created by Assembly member Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) under Assembly Bill 113, and was signed in 2001 by Governor Gray Davis. While the unofficial position carried a lifetime appointment, current laureates are appointed to two-year terms. After Quincy Troupe resigned from the position in 2002 for falsifying information on his resume, the position remained vacant until the appointment of Al Young by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on May 12, 2005.Previous Laureates:
Ina Donna Coolbrith (1915-1928)
Henry Meade Bland (1929-1931)
John Steven McGroarty (1933-1944)
Gordon W. Norris (1953-1961)
Charles B. Garrigus (1966-2000)
Quincy Troupe (2002)
Al Young (May 12, 2005-2008)
Carol Muske-Dukes
(November 13, 2008-2011)
Juan Felipe Herrera (March 26, 2012-2014)
Richard Dauenhauer
(appointed 1981)
Joanne Townsend (appointed 1988) Tom Sexton (appointed 1995)
Richard Nelson (appointed 2000)
Anne Hanley (2002-2004)
Jerah Chadwick (October 2004-September 2006)
John Straley
(October 2006-September 2008)
Nancy Lord (October 1, 2008-September 2010)
Peggy Shumaker
(October 1, 2010-September 2012)
Nora Marks Dauenhauer
(October 10, 2012-October 2014)
Kim Barnes (April 2004-2006)
Anthony "Tony" Doerr
(July 2007-July 2010)
Brady Udall
(July 1, 2010-June 20, 2013)
The California Poetry Society was established in 1971. The Society provides contests, conferences and resources for California poets. The Society also publishes The California Quarterly, four times per year. That publication features, new previously unpublished poems. The California Poetry Society also features monthly contests. News and information about contests and membership can be found on the California Poetry Website, above.
Since it began in 2005, California Poetry Out Loud has become the largest Poetry Out Loud competition in the United States. Poetry Out Loud challenges students to become passionate about poetry by holding competitions where students recite poetry. For information on getting involved in this exciting project, see the link above.
The Los Angeles Poets & Writers Collective is a ‘very intellectual site’ that features information on every aspect of writing from poetry to screenplays. Nearly 2,000 writers have taken part in the groups workshops. See site for details.
The California Writers Club (the CDC) haS approximately 2,000 members in 22 branches throughout the State. Members are poets, journalists, essayists, technical writers and writers of literary fiction. In 2020, the group conducts many meetings through Zoom. You can participate in one of these Zoom events by checking the link above.
**Poets and Dreamers ** is a ‘Meetup Group’ with more than 1,000 members. The group (n normal times) provides workshops and meetings for Southern California writers of all genres. See calendar on the groups Meetup site above.
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The Writers of Kern is a group based in Bakersfield that provides support to writers of all ages and all genres. The group produces an annual anthology, called The WOK anthology. In normal years, the group also holds conference.
Based in Long Beach, the Coffee House Writers Group produces a Meetup site with more than 1,700 members in the Long Beach group and more than 4,000 members in other groups in the area. The Meetup site above provides a calendar of events. Most events are currently via Zoom.
Central Coast Writers is an amazing writer’s group, based in Pacific Grove, California is more than 100 years old! The group is a chapter of the California Writers Club. For information on activities and writing contests, please see ‘Scribbles’ the group’s monthly newsletter.
Membership information and yearly dues cost is also available on the link above.
Breaking News!
Steven Robert Heine launches Ukrainepoetry.com. It is a new site s to post the poetry of Ukraine poets.
About the author: Steven Robert Heine is a West Coast poet. He has spent his life writing poetry and promoting the reading of it. In 2011 Heine was seriously crippled in a fall. Several surgeries later, Heine lives with a great deal of pain. (He is not on any disability). He tries to provide this site as a service to the poets of California.
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I have exciting news for you I have spent many weeks researching web hosts and providers and written an article that I think will save you time and money on creating your own website. I have even included information on where to buy inexpensive domain names. The following are links for web hosts and resources. the full article follows below. I invite you to use the suggested sites to set up your own poetry or writing web site.Please note: **Many of the following are Affiliate links. **I do get paid a small amount if you buy the affiliate products and services. These Affiliate links help support this site. Thank you!
Bluehost. Bluehost offers pretty much all services. Design is through Wordpress. Plans: ‘Basic’, $7.99 per month. Allows one website and one included domain. ‘Plus’ $10.99. Allows unlimited number of websites. ‘Choice Plus’, $14.99 per month. Allows unlimited number of domain and some extra services, such as domain privacy. For an ecommerce site, you will want to use ‘Woocommerce’, plans run from $13.99 (for one store) to $17.99 (for unlimited stores.
Bluehost is a full-service provider with all the tools you could ask for and good support. They even sell They even sell domain names. I have used Bluehost for several years.
A2 Hosting. Drag and drop platform for building with A2 software. Plans include ‘Startup’ $2.99 per month (one website), ‘Drive’ $4.99 (unlimited websites), and ‘Turbo-boost’ for $9.99 per month, (unlimited sites).
Siteground. Wordpress hosting. Plans include: Startup, $3.95 per month, allows one website, GrowBig, $5.95 per month, allows unlimited websites, and GoGeek, $11.95 per month, unlimited websites and more features. (no free domain with account).
Hostinger is one of the biggest webhosting companies on the internet. They provide ‘drag and drop’ as well as cloud hosting and Wordpress. Plans include: ‘Single Shared’ $2.15 per month (allows one website, ‘Premium’ $3.49 per month (allows unlimited websites), and ‘Business Shared’ $7.95 per month (allows unlimited websites and many other features. Premium and Premium and Business plans also come with a fee domain name. It is easy to see why Hostinger is so popular. And yes, I really like this hosting service.
i Page. Wordpress hosting. ‘WP Starter’ $9.49 per month (billed yearly). ‘WP Essential’ $12.49 per month. Good for selling online. iPage provides a number of choices of shopping carts.
NameCheap. Dot.coms start at $8.88 per year. Hosting plans are $2.88 per month to $8.88 per month. NameCheap has their own ‘drag and drop’ builder. NameCheap is a good site to save money on domain names.
Domain.com has domains starting at $9.99 per month and also provides hosting plans starting at $3.75 per month.
Malwarebytes provides reasonably priced virus protection. Please see the link above for details.
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Web Hosting Article.
Web Hosting Article
Magnificent 7seven Reviews.
Webhosting
I have exciting news for you! I have spent months creating this article which will not only help you to create your own poetry or writing website, but it can save you money and time. I have reviewed **many ** web hosts and even some domain sellers. Some of these are affiliate links; meaning there is no additional cost to you above what the web hosts charge, but if you purchase products or services from them you will help support my money.Please pay close attention to what you are paying for domain names. I have listed three inexpensive domain registrars. Most hosting companies will sell them to you and many provide a domain free with your paid account.You may be looking at creating a website and don’t know where to start. OR you may have a product or book and don’t know how to create a website to sell it. Then this blog is a great place to start! I have reviewed many webhosts from CARRD to Zyro. I think you will find the following suggestions useful.As recently as a few years ago, most sites provided access to the programming language of the website, or html. This allowed you to make changes to the programming and see how that reflected on your website. Fortunately, knowledge of html is no longer necessary. (You may still find it helpful to learn what the basic elements of html are, in case you need to insert a link in your site or see the code for your site).
Please note: I was not paid by any of the companies listed below to promote their sites. I did find it interesting to research what they have to offer and list some of the main points to consider. And yes, these are affiliate links but they have all been researched.1. What is the cost of a website?
Many hosts can get you started for free! OR with a very monthly rate for the 1st year. Cost is usually listed as a ‘monthly cost’ provided you pay for a whole year at a time. IE: if the cost is $20.00 per month, you may be required to pay $240.00. Make sure you get a plan that fits your needs. Usually you can upgrade to a more expensive plan as your needs grow.2. What is the platform the ecommerce site uses? Generally, sites use either Wordpress or what I call, a ‘House’ software. Wordpress is in my experience a platform that requires an intermediate level of computer savvy. You will do better when you put some time into working with it and develop a ‘feel for it’. ‘House’ software is unique to the webhost site you are using. Most are ‘plug and play’. Like any application, you just have to get comfortable moving around in them. Each has some unique features. When you go to the webhost, you will see samples of web pages. When you like the look... go for it!3. If you are going to be selling products through your site, you will need to know what bank does the ecommerce site use? This is extremely important. It is great you made a sale on your website, but how do you get the customer’s payment into your bank account? You want banking tools that your customer will feel comfortable ordering with, AND you want banking tools that will give you access to your money. While many sites use PAYPAL, some use other financial tools.4. How many domains can I use on one account? If you have several domains, you will want to host them all in the same place. If you have different stores selling different products, you may want to use more than one site. Ecommerce sites vary from one domain per account to ‘unlimited’ domains.5. What kind of stats will this ecommerce site provide? You may want to look around to see how much traffic you are getting and where people are seeing your site. (You may be surprised to note how many people in other countries are viewing your site).6. How good is the technical support from this ecommerce site? You don’t want to wait days for a question to be answered. A good test or response time is to ask the Web host a question as ‘a potential client’ to measure response time.7. Does this vendor sell domain names and for how much? And will they provide me with a free domain name with my order?8. What is the difference between shared web hosting and a dedicated server?’ The answer is, that a dedicated server is a server used by no other sites and thus those sites can’t impact the server or slow it down. Dedicated servers are quite a bit more expensive per month. Most websites should be fine running on shared hosting.
We will try to answer those questions. You can click on the link provided to get Common Website Terms you should know:
Html: hypertext markup language. This is the actual programming code. No matter which programming tool you are using, whether it be **Wordpress ** a sitebuilder, that interface is adjusting the html as you move and change features.
CSS: cascading style sheets. This refers to how you website is presented in the programming.
When you have purchased hosting and are ready to build a website on the hosting server, you must put your domain on that hosts server. You do this by putting in the code numbers for that server into your domain names. Both the hosting provider and your domain seller will explain to you how to do this.VPS Hosting: ‘virtual private server hosting’. VPS hosting acts similar to a private server with more flexibility than shared hosting. Most new users will only need shared hosting.Domain names: this is VERY important, when purchasing a domain name, pay little attention to the initial price of the domain name. What is important is the renewal cost. I have seen domain registers that charge very little for the initial price but upwards of $30.00 per year to renew. Most paid hosting plans give you one free domain name with the purchase of a plan. Beyond that, you will need to go to the market to buy additional names.
Steven Robert Heine is a West Coast poet & author. He has spent his life promoting poetry; serving as founder for many poetry contests. He traveled extensively through California and his poetry has been taught in California schools. He is the author of fifteen books, including poetry, history and his own short auto-biographies. His books can be found on Ebay, Amazon and Amazon KIndle.
Heine was crippled in a fall in 2011 and now makes very few public appearances.