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What Got Me Here
The idea for this Creative Mastermind came about after I spent over twenty years teaching creative writing at the university level, and thirteen years directing the Ossabaw Island Writers’ Retreat. Time and again I was asked by students preparing to graduate and participants at the end of our six-day retreat: Where can I find a gathering of like-minded creatives who can help me continue on this path to publication and beyond? Where can I go to get continuous, personal feedback to improve my writing craft? How can I overcome my struggles with motivation, or find consistent encouragement and support for my work. How do I develop the network and social structure that will open the doors for my entrance into publication? Where can I find legal and financial advice to guide me through the world of negotiating contracts, licensing, copyrighting, optioning, and other related publishing business matters? And most importantly, where can I find a supportive community that will hold me accountable and keep me on a steadfast and persistent path to success in all these areas?
Then I discovered the facilitated mastermind concept based on the principle that when people with common interests and goals unite, they can achieve greater success than they could individually. These groups often operate under principles of trust, confidentiality, and mutual respect, fostering an environment conducive to personal and professional growth. I had already been successfully using this concept in my classrooms and at the writer’s retreats. And it works because all participants are fully committed to continuous learning and are held to accountability because they are willing to invest their personal and financial capital into the project. And with that insight, I proceeded to set up the BluVerse Creative Mastermind. So if you’re a serious writer or artist and want to join a group of talented, motivated, and success-minded creatives who will help you to achieve your goals, apply now. We will be limiting our year-one classes to thirty participants.
Tony Ray Morris, Ph. D.
Founder/Facilitator
Tony spent his childhood years in the Appalachia Mountains of North Georgia and Eastern Kentucky. After graduating from high school, he worked over a decade as a machine operator in a paper factory. In 1992, he enrolled in college, earned a Ph.D. in English at Florida State University and found a life in journalism and teaching. He has won several awards for his poetry, including the North Carolina Writer’s Network Mary Belle Campbell Chapbook Award, Louisiana Literature Poetry Prize, Tennessee Writers Alliance Poetry Prize, and Atlanta Review’s 2020 International Poetry Competition finalist.
His publications include his first novel, Deep River Blues (Northampton House Press, 2020), two full poetry books, Pulling at a Thread (Main Street Rag, 2015); Back to Cain (The Olive Press, 2006), and two chapbooks, Greatest Hits (Puddinghouse Press, 2012), and Fugue’s End (Birch Brook Press, 2004).
Tony’s work has been widely published in anthologies: Georgia Poetry Anthology (Negative Capability Press, 2015), Southern Poetry Anthology: North Carolina (2014), What Matters (2014), Southern Poetry Anthology: Georgia (2012). Poems have appeared in numerous journals, including: Spoon River Review, Hawai’i Review, River Styx, Meridian, The Sewanee Theological Review, South Dakota Review, Connecticut Review, Mississippi Review, Green Mountains Review. He is the managing editor of Southern Poetry Review, director of the Ossabaw Island Writers’ Retreat, and Professor of Creative Writing at Georgia Southern University.
For more information about the BluVerse Creative Mastermind membership, please fill out the form on our contact page.