Illinois Poetry.com
A New Site for Illinois Poets
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Illinois Poetry and Writing Groups.
The current Illinois State Poet Laureate is
John Prine.
Prine was appointed State Poet Laureate on June 20th, 2020. (The position had been vacant since 2017). The Governor's Office states the following about Prine: 'The legendary singer-song writer, who was born in Maywood, passed away on April 7, 2020 after contracting COVID-19.'
The position of Illinois State Poet Laureate was established January 14, 1936 with the appointment of Howard Austin by Governor Edward J. Hughs. The position was a lifetime appointment until 2003, when Governor Rod R. Blagojevich revised the guidelines for the position, making it a four-year renewable term.
Previous Illinois State Poet Laureates include:
Howard Austin (January 14, 1936-April 1, 1962)
Carl Sandburg (February 28, 1962-July 22, 1967)
Gwendolyn Brooks (January 3, 1968-December 4, 2000)
The Illinois Arts Council supports Illinois writers, artists and educators through grant programs and resources. Please see the link above for details.
The Illinois State Poetry Society is open to all Illinois poets, at all levels. The ISPS provides resources for Illinois poets and posts poetry contests. The group also posts poems by ISPS members. Regular membership dues are $20.00 per year. The address for the ISPS is: Illinois State Poetry Society P.O. Box 307Western Springs, IL 60558
For the past several years, thousands of Illinois high school students have participated in the Poetry Out Loud State recitation competitions, sponsored by the Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Your high school is invited to participate.
Poetry Out Loud is a wonderful program for students. The program helps the develop Stage and speaking skills, confidence and a love of poetry. Poetry really needs to be spoken to truly be enjoyed. Poetry Out Loud is a great program for students. To learn how to get your school involved in the competition, please see the link above.
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Poetry Slams are events in which adults and students read and perform poetry for awards and prizes. There are many local events and even a National competition. Check with your local poetry group for the nearest Slam event and Slam schedules. (The above link is for one of the Chicago Poetry Slams, one of many in the State).
The Chicago Writers Association is open to all Chicago area writers, of all ages and levels of writing, from beginners to accomplished authors. The CWA supports all genres of writing from fiction to nonfiction to poetry. The group holds conferences (when possible). Membership is $25.00 per year. Please see the above link for more information.
Poets and Patrons is a group in Chicago that supports all genres of writing, especially poetry. The group is open to all Chicago area writers. Poets and Patrons holds conferences (when possible) and has poetry contests. Membership is $20.00 per year. Please see link above for more information.
Chicago Women in Publishing is open to all writers, men and women. The group provides news about publishing and provides conferences (when possible) and resources. Please see link above for membership information
A Town Poetics is a group in Aurora that welcomes all poets in the Aurora area. Currently, the group is meeting via Zoom. Please see the link above for their calendar and group information.
The DuPage Writers Group is a group from Carol Stream. The group is open to all area writers of all genres. Currently, the group is not meeting in person, but is working on setting up meetings via Zoom. Please see the link above for updates.
The Naperville Writers Group is a group in Naperville that supports poets of all levels and ages. The group produces an annual anthology called Rivulets. The address for the group is:
Naperville Writers Group, PO Box 41,Naperville, IL 60566-0041.
The St. Charles Writers Group provides news and resources for writers of over 18 and all genres of writing. Normally, the group meets twice a month at the St. Charles public library. Please see the link above for meeting schedules (when possible) and group information. There is no fee for membership.
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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 Illinois.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Web Hosting Article.
Web Hosting Article
Magnificent 7seven Reviews.
Web hosting
I think you will find the following article very helpful as you begin to set up your own website or a website for your writing group.
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 traveled extensively through the United States, including trips to Illinois. He has spent his life promoting poetry; serving as founder for many poetry contests. 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.