COOKIE – Written Word, one of Second Life's largest and most active writing groups, celebrated their entry onto the Cookie sim last year with a month-long celebration of all things author, the Autumn Writer’s Exhibition (AWE). 

While AWE has had exhibits throughout October, “Main Events Week” begins Oct 26, with poetry reading, author readings, and publishers giving talks. Two published authors will be interviewed and give readings during the event on the Meet an Author show. Lori Bell and Rhonda B. Trueman will talk about their book ‘Virtual Worlds, Real Libraries at 2 p.m. SLT Sunday, Oct 26.  

Published author David Boop of "She Murdered Me with Science" will also give a reading and his publisher will be giving a talk at 11:30 a.m. SLT on Nov 1. On Nov 2 at noon SLT, long-time SL resident Persephone Phoenix will give a reading along with other SL resident writers. Live music, comedy, a theatrical performance and fireworks will round out the week, according Kidd, the event’s founder.

The whole week’s schedule can be found here.

“I had the idea for the AWE last year,” Kidd said.  “[I wanted] to bring the writing community together and never charge them for anything ... because a sim is like a website ... if I charged writers rent to display their work that would be like vanity publishing.  Some of the best writers I have discovered on SL would never have rented anywhere.”

Last year, the event gained around fifty active participants, producing all manner of ingenious and eye-catching stalls to show off their writing talents.  This year, the number is almost double that in the first week, and still more writers are coming in.  “[Last year] was much more successful than we'd expected,” said Hastings Bournemouth, Written Word's co-owner. “So we did it again, and there are even more [here] this year.”

From the air, the sim looks like it has been colonized by a carnival and that is certainly the atmosphere. Each writer, publisher and artist taking part in the event was given their own small tent or hut and twenty prims to play with.