Colorado Review
Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction
Prize: $1,500 and publication
Final Judge: Andrea Barrett
Deadline: January 12 - March 12 (annual)
Fee: $15
Literary Mama friend and mama-writer, Christina Katz, is once again running her Writer Mama Back-to-School Giveaway where she gives away one book or magazine subscription every day in September. On September 25th, stop by for a chance at a big gift: a trio of anthologies edited by Literary Mama editors Shari MacDonald Strong, Amy Hudock and Caroline Grant.
The books -- Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and Academic Life; The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change; and Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined--will be up for giveaway on September 25th. To see a complete list of what you can win, visit Christina’s Writer Mama blog. You can enter every day if you want, so bookmark her site and visit again and again. Good luck!
You're invited! Come join in a lively local conversation about mothers, families and the women's movement. The Hillside Club in Berkeley is hosting the event with MomsRising's co-founder Joan Blades leading the conversation.
WHAT: "Mothers, Family, and the Women's Movement in the 21st Century"
WHERE: Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley CA 94709
WHEN: Sunday, Sept. 20, 7:00 PM
WHO: You, your kids, friends, neighbors-- all are welcome!
This Hillside Club event is $10, or $5 for club members.
We'd love to see you there!
- The MomsRising.org team
P.S. Here's the Hillside Club's event description:
A Woman's Voice will present Joan Blades in conversation with
friends and audience members discussing the role of mothers, families
and how they relate to the on-going women's movement now and in the
future. Joan is a co-founder of both MoveOn.Org and Momsrising.Org.
The former is a political education and advocacy group; the latter
works to bring together millions of people who share a common concern
about the need to build a more family-friendly America.
This is the first in a monthly series of lectures at the Club. The
series, A Woman's Voice, gives women an opportunity to express their
passion to a new or wider audience.
Joan Blades is a co-founder of MoveOn.org., which has an online
membership of over 5 million. Mother's Day 2006 she co-founded
MomsRising.org with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner to tap the power of online
grassroots organizing for mothers and families in the U.S. MomsRising
has an online membership of over 1 million. She is the co-author of
The Motherhood Manifesto, which won the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book
Prize in 2007. Last century she co-founded Berkeley Systems, taught
mediation at Golden Gate Law School, practiced mediation, and wrote
Mediate Your Divorce. She is also a mother, a writer, an artist, a
jeweler, a soccer player, and a Hillside Club member.
Literary Mama's creative nonfiction editor Susan Ito will be offering a new section in her online writing workshop "The Literature of Parenthood." It starts next week so if you are interested, act quickly!
Answers to FAQ about this workshop below.
A Blog of One's Own: Scholarly Women on the Web
The first event of the 2009-2010 Research Without Borders speaker series
Host: The Scholarly Communication Program at Columbia University
Free
Date: Monday, September 21, 2009
Time: 12:30pm - 2:30pm
Location: Lerner 555, Columbia University Morningside Campus, New York, NY
For more information email: kp2002@columbia.edu
Bloggers from Bitch PhD, Tenured Radical, Oh! Industry, and Easternblot discuss the interplay between blogging, gender, and scholarship.
Cosponsored by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and Women in Science at Columbia.
Follow the event live via Twitter. Video of the event will be eventually be posted on iTunes U and the SCP site.
MINDFUL WRITER: FALL 2009 SESSIONS
• All sections meet once a week on a weeknight evening from 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.
• Sessions start week of 9/28 and run through week of 12/14
• No class during Thanksgiving week.
• Classes held in a cozy North Berkeley home
• Each section limited to 6 students.
• Cost: $275 (plus class reader) with a limited number of sliding-scale spots available
Contact: Chris Malcomb, 510-559-9076; cwmalcomb@hotmail.com
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About the class:
In this workshop we’ll explore using mindfulness—full attention to the present moment—to discover our deep stories. We’ll write personal essays and memoir, using exercises to generate and hone topics, address “writing blocks,” respond to others’ work, and craft finished products. We’ll talk about essential craft elements: structure, scene-making, narrative arc, setting, and dialogue. Students will receive individualized feedback from peers and the teacher, and revise and share at least one piece in a workshop setting. Suitable for experienced and beginning writers alike, this class provides a safe, inspiring place to confidently coax forth one’s inner writer.
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From former Mindful Writer students:
"Chris is an insightful, dynamic teacher, with excellent knowledge of both mindfulness and writing. The atmosphere of the class was supportive and nurturing, with the freedom and safety to take risks."
“I truly feel the freedom and safety to write from my heart in longer glimpses without fear after taking this class. I look forward to ‘coming back’ to my practices, again and again, without shame or guilt.”
"Chris is a gifted teacher who creates a nurturing environment for his students. I looked forward to every class and learned a lot about writing and about myself in the process."
“Chris allows each writer to develop courage to put word to paper and share it with the world. I enjoyed his encouraging and generous spirit…I have also felt healed by the transformative power of writing about some of the intense experiences in my life. I feel really grateful to have taken this class.”
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About the teacher:
Chris Malcomb has practiced mindfulness meditation for six years. He has been a middle and high school teacher and led private classes and workshops for CAIS, BATTI, and the Prison University Project at San Quentin. His essays have appeared in San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Common Ground, Teachers & Writers, and KQED Perspectives. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco.
"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete." - Jack Kornfield
Former Literary Mama Editor and columnist Sophia Raday will read from her timely love story -
Love in Condition Yellow: A Memoir of an Unlikely Marriage - and talk with readers about overcoming differences in marriage and politics THIS THURSDAY!
Thursday, 9/10 at Pegasus Books
DOWNTOWN BERKELEY, CA
7:30pm.
Rumpus called Love in Condition Yellow "a beautifully rendered, often hilarious, account of how opposites can attract, and maybe even should."
This is Sophia's last East Bay reading for some time so don't miss it.
2349 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94704 (510) 649-1320
More details at her website
Literary Reflections is pleased to present our featured writing prompt response from August. We asked, "Has motherhood altered your perceptions of your own place in the universe, of your parents, or of old passions? How has parenting added dimension, richness, and flavor to your life?"
Tiffany Herr writes:
I feel a little panicky. Is it possible my daughter is slipping away from me? Love is so acute that the tiniest seismic shift in it is noticeable. Tiny shifts mean ever widening cracks. Cracks that follow fault lines that have always existed. We call them healthy boundaries, independence, breathing space.
When she is playing away from me I worry I might be missing some little shift and she'll be different when she comes back. I have become a listener, with my ear to the earth, hoping to anticipate when the fault lines begin shuddering open. The moment she was born, there was the tiniest crack between us. It was barely perceptible but I was aware of it. Aware that I had just begun the letting go and stunned by the understanding that it was never going to stop. I told myself I could handle it. I tried not to be heartbroken by the thought that she is not mine as much as she is her own. I promised to remember later, when she leaves home, that this was always the plan and that when that day came it would not be shocking or terrible, but graceful and expected. I told myself that letting go happens every single day, that it's natural, but I also told myself to notice so it makes sense.
She is this whole person, entirely separate, with cuts and bruises all her own. I know every part of her by heart. I am trying to believe that it will not be so hard when I don't have her to look at whenever I want to, when I won't be the one who answers all her questions or gets the last hug of the day. So I practice now. She goes away and comes back. Goes away and comes back. I miss her when she is gone but I would never deny her these hours outside my reach. I wait for her to return and breathe in my space. I try to feel reassured that there is no seismic shock awaiting today or tomorrow, that there is time.
I go about my daily life. I fold her small clothes, paint rainbows on her wall, sweep crumbs from her cookies, put band aids on her knees, and put bubbles in her bath. Each day is a series of inward and outward breaths, ebbing and flowing. I try not to go wandering out of that rhythmic orbit into the deep space of my thoughts where this is not so. I try to stay present.
I think that I am all the time giving birth. Pushing her on and letting go. I hope, like the day I met her, it means that change can be rhythmic and natural. That for every outward spin there is another inward one. That shifts only mean change and not loss. That cracks are good and right as long as we can still reach across them and touch.
Tiffany Herr can be reached at herrtiffany(at)gmail(dot)com.
Apply for a scholarship to attend Sage Cohen's Poetry for the People class starting October 7!
VALUE: $250.00
Would you like to take the Poetry for the People class with Sage Cohen that starts October 7 but can’t afford it? Then you qualify for The Poetry for the People Scholarship. And the time to apply is now!
Sage Cohen will be accepting applications for the Poetry for the People Scholarship until Friday, September 18. The scholarship recipient will be chosen based on the following criteria: demonstrated past effort, need, and enthusiasm as determined by Sage Cohen.
Please see the detailed guidelines for application requirements. The scholarship recipient will be announced by midnight, Monday, September 21 at her website.
Sage Cohen is author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writer's Digest Books, 2009). Learn more about Poetry for the People, a six-week email class offering a mix of inspiration, craft tips, exercises and publication ideas -- as well as detailed instructor feedback every week.
LM fiction contributor Stefanie Freele's ("Kicky Feet") ("The Rain") short story collection Feeding Strays has just been published by Lost Horse Press.
"As it's title suggests, Feeding Strays is a deeply compassionate collection. Stefanie Freele has a knack for capturing stray moments in her character's lifes - moments mos writers would overlook - and changing them with a strange and wondrous grace. These stories will unsettle you, inspire you, and make you feel part of the greater human family." - Gayle Brandeis, author of The Book of Dead Birds, Fruitflesh, and Self Storage.
C. Delia Scarpitti, LM's columns editor, has a short story featured over at the wonderful All Things Girl magazine in the September/October issue themed "Lost & Found." Check it out!
Dear Friend of Pen Parentis,
Join us for our inaugural Fall Season event- an extraordinary evening with renowned authors Deborah Copaken Kogan and Tad Friend. Have a glass of wine in our exclusive Pen Parentis Upstairs Library bar, be part of a literary movement, and support contemporary writers who are also parents.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
M.M. DeVoe & Arlaina Tibensky
Co-Founders
Pen Parentis
DATE:Tuesday, September 8, 2009
TIME: 6-8 pm, come after work!
LOCATION: The Upstairs Library at the Libertine, inside the Gildhall Hotel @ 15 Gold Street, NYC.
DIRECTIONS: Walking directions from A/C (@ Broadway/Nassau) or 2/3/4/5/J/M/Z (@ Fulton) trains: Walk east on Fulton Street to Gold Street, turn right and right again at Platt.
Walking directions from 4/5 train or E train or PATH: From Broadway take Maiden Lane east to Gold Street (third intersection). Turn left on Gold and left again at Platt.
Enter through the lobby of the Gildhall Hotel and join us upstairs for a night to remember.
Visit Pen Parentis Events for more information!