How SCGW Started
In 2015, following a productive and fun-filled National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a number of the writers who had joined the NaNo fueled chat stuck around to continue on with their writing. The grueling intensity of a month of writing towards a 50k goal did not dissuade the founding members from following the desire to hone their craft. After realizing that they shared a common dedication, they decided to become part of the League of Utah Writers as a downtown Salt Lake City writing chapter. The Salt City Genre Writers Chapter was born.
Now a very active, friendly, and peer to peer driven writing group, the Salt City Genre Writers now hosts nearly seventy members regularly with nearly three times that found on our online Discord. Weekly meetings, informal write-ins, NaNoWriMo hosted write-ins, critique groups, publication opportunities, and much more are available within our chapter.
Our Leadership
President
Bryan Young
Bryan Young is an award-winning author, filmmaker, and journalist who works in many different media. As a writer, he's had numerous novels and short stories published and has worked professionally in the Star Wars, Robotech, and BattleTech universes. His most recent novel is BattleTech: Honor's Gauntlet. He's written comics for Slave Labor Graphics and Image Comics and written and produced documentary films that were called "filmmaking gold" by the New York Times. As a journalist, he's had bylines at the Huffington Post, StarWars.Com, HowStuffWorks, /Film, Syfy, and many more. He's the president of the Salt City Genre Writers, a Salt Lake City-based chapter of the League of Utah Writers and also serves on the state board of that organization as President-Elect. He teaches writing for Writer's Digest and the University of Utah. You can learn more about him by following him on Twitter @swankmotron or by visiting his website, www.swankmotron.com.
Vice President
Cassidy Ward
Cassidy Ward is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He publishes a new short story and novel chapter online every month and is a regular columnist for SyFy.com where he writes about the intersection of science and popular culture. His story, Fancy Hansey Does Necromancy, was recently published in the first issue of One Mean Monster Zine.
Secretary
Monica Simons
Monica Simons writes romance and lives in Salt Lake City with her husband, daughter, two Italian Greyhounds and a flock of black-capped chickadees and lesser goldfinches in her backyard.
Horror Division Director
R.R. Smith
R. R. Smith is a Horror author and enthusiast. As the Secretary of Horror for the Salt City Genre Writers, she believes in the power of a good ghost story and loves teaching writers how to harness the horrific in any genre. Her work can be found in various collections and anthologies, from Daughters of Darkness: An All-Women Horror Anthology to the Salt City Genre Writers anthology By Virtue Fall.
Writing And Tech Coordinator
J.E. Zarnofsky
J.E. Zarnofsky is a writer, costumer, larper, and all around fantasy enthusiast. She is always seeking new ways to tell heartfelt and collaborative stories. Apart from her day job in software, she can be observed in her natural habitats of coffee shops, ice rinks, or medieval(ish) battlefields—armored and ready with her sword or bow.
Medium Editor
Erin R. Britt
Erin R. Britt is an editor of Salt Flats, an online publication, and writes fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and academic scholarship with a little freelance on the side to make things spicy. She lives in Salt Lake City, UT with her son and her cat, Azog the Defiler.
