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With a goal of encouraging young writers, in 1987 WFLF launched Student Writers Network under the direction of Ora Wills. The program included free writing workshops for high school students, with visits from real world writers as newspaper columnists, professors and poets of national stature. On-the-spot writing contests were enthusiastically participated in with prizes, including publication in ''Penwise Poets''. The program continued until the late 1990s. Currently, WFLF sponsors the annual Escambia County Student Poetry Contest open to all public, private and home school students in the county. Young poets win cash prizes, an opportunity to read their work at a local bookstore, and publication. WFLF annually sponsors the BJ Miller Scholarship at Pensacola State.
An early program, Backdoor Poets, offered adult and student poets the opportunity to present work at weekly events. The program has evolved into a once-a-month open mic at the [[Pensacola Cultural Center ]] for members and the public to read both prose and poetry. Annual poetry seminars with renowned poets continued for several years, and in 1999 WFLF sponsored a day-long writing seminar. For the past four years, WFLF has sponsored several two-hour weekly writing and critique groups led by members dealing with topics as memoir, fiction, non-fiction, poetry.
To celebrate its 25th anniversary, WFLF hosted popular “Wild Woman” poet Judyth Hill for a four-day series of events, including open mic readings, two workshops and a keynote address at the closing banquet. In 2013, WFLF partnered with the African-American Heritage Society and Florida Humanities Council to bring poet-performer Kwame Dawes to Pensacola.
WFLF provided financial assistance in the inaugural year of the international event, 100,000 Poets for Change, assists other groups with like interests, hosts books-signings and occasionally participates in the Downtown Development Board’s Gallery Night in Pensacola.
'''Sources:''' Archives, West Florida Literary Federation. Interview Ora Wills.[http://www.wflf.org]
