The Moseley Writers will present The Write Start: Moseley Speed Critique on Sunday March 23, 2025 from 2:00 to 3:30 pm at Central Library, 201 E. Market Street, Charlottesville as part of this year’s Virginia Festival of the Book. Panelists will discuss anonymous submissions of the first 100 words of original, unpublished manuscripts, then discuss story elements that work, suggest story elements that could be improved, and answer questions from the audience.

Panelists are published writers across a range of genres. They will read the first 40 entries that arrive before the Tuesday March 11th deadline and will critique as many of these entries as time allows during the event.

To submit work for the Speed Critique, entrants must paste the first 100 words of their original, unpublished work into the body of an e-mail and send by midnight of Tuesday March 11, 2025 to writestartvabook@gmail.com. No attachments, please. Nonfiction (other than memoir), horror, and erotica will not be considered.

Though panelists won’t be able to respond individually to each submitted entry, their comments will highlight what works in good writing as well as what derails a reader, editor, or publisher’s attention. Everyone who attends should walk away with a better understanding of how to craft opening lines.

This event is FREE to attend and open to the public.

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Panel members:

Meredith Cole began her career as a filmmaker and screenwriter. Her short stories and essays have appeared in various anthologies and magazines. She was the winner of the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic competition and her first book, Posed for Murder, was nominated for an Agatha Award for best first mystery. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has a monthly podcast called “The Writer’s Story.”

Jody Hobbs Hesler is the author of the novel, Without You Here, winner of the 2025 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction, and the story collection What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better. Her words also appear in The Pinch, Gargoyle, Writer’s Digest, Electric Literature, CRAFT, Arts & Letters, and other journals. She teaches at WriterHouse in Charlottesville, Virginia; writes and copy edits for Charlottesville Family Magazine; and serves as assistant fiction editor for the Los Angeles Review.

Betty Joyce Nash’s essays and stories have aired on NPR affiliate WVTF and appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, North Dakota Quarterly, Reckon Review, Across the Margin, Writers Digest, and elsewhere. Her first novel, Everybody Here is Kin, debuted September 2023(Madville Publishing.) Her work also has been recognized with a MacDowell fellowship.

Deborah M. Prum’s fiction has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Across the Margin, The Virginia Writers Centennial Anthology, McQueen’s Quinterly, The Sweetbay Review, and Streetlight Magazine. Her non-fiction has appeared in The Washington Post, Southern Living, The Writer, Brevity, and Huffington Post and has aired on NPR. Her podcast, First Kiss & Other Cautionary Tales (Spotify, Apple) includes slice of life essays and book & movie reviews.

For more information, please contact: jody.hesler@gmail.com

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