Three times a month, I'll post a writing prompt. Open a notebook and write for 10 minutes. Don't worry about grammar or punctuation - just write. Then let the writing simmer and your mind wander for awhile.
And who knows? Maybe you'll discover a character for your next short story or a theme for a narrative essay. Or maybe you'll use the idea to create a special holiday card or photo album for someone in your family. However you decide to use your journal entry, I know you'll enjoy re-reading it months--and years--down the road.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My fifth-grade son has asked for help in choosing something to take to his class's end-of-semester auction, so we're digging through a box of things I've been saving for a garage sale. The classroom auction is the highpoint of the semester for these ten- and eleven-year olds. For seventeen weeks, they've accumulated Fun Bucks (monopoly-type money teachers give for good behavior and grades) in anticipation of spending them.
At the auction, most of the kids will survey the tables in search of the perfect gift for Mom or Dad. He hopes his friends bring "some good stuff" to bid on; I wonder if anything in my box will meet his definition, or if I've already given all our good stuff away.
He rejects books, baskets, and an embroidered wall hanging because "no one will want those" and finally settles on a red, star-shaped, metal picture frame.
"It's perfect," he said. "Everyone has pictures."
Turns out it was the perfect item; one of my son's best friends' mother told me so. And my son? He spent nearly all of his 4,000 Fun Bucks on a teacup and saucer, which he proudly presented to me with this modest comment: "I know how much you like to drink tea, Mom."
Journal Entry: Consider your family's gift-giving practices. What is the "perfect" gift? Write about a time you saw your child give or receive the perfect gift. Describe facial expressions, exclamations, the comments given when the gift was opened.
In our Reviews section this month, we cover Katherine Ellison's new memoir, Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention:
Ellison's twelve-year-old son (and the wayward, willful child of the story) has been diagnosed with both attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder -- ADHD and ODD. This diagnostic alphabet soup means he's clinically distracted and a pain in the neck.
We have an extra copy of Buzz to give to one of our readers. Leave a comment on our review page for your chance to win!
Demeter Press
is seeking submissions for an edited collection on
Mothering and Literacies
Editor: Amanda Richey Publication Date: 2012/2013
Deadline for abstracts: April 15, 2011
This collection will explore the connections between mothering/motherhood and literacy as it is broadly defined. Literacy, in this case, encompasses reading/writing literacy as well as multimodal, "new"/digital, and contested multiliteracies that are socio-culturally situated and contextually defined. Mothers are often the object of cultural and popular discourses on family literacy, as well as targets in international campaigns to increase literacy learning. There has been little scholarly attention paid to how mothers in diverse socio-cultural contexts do literacy, as well as how "new" digital literacies have been mediated or challenged by mothers and motherhood. By critically examining the connections between mothers and literacies, this collection will open up a new area of inquiry. We especially encourage submissions that interrogate popular discourses about mothering and literacy in and out of educational contexts. Also welcome in this volume are alternative or new definitions of literacy/literacies across a diverse array of community contexts and disciplinary areas.
Suggested topics may include but are not limited to:
Motherhood studies' and New Literacy Studies; family literacy; race, class, ethnicity and mothering; Motherwork; Adrienne Rich and literacy; being mothered in school; intersectionality, constructions of mothering/motherhood as literate practice, as social activism, as a set of literacies; reading/literacy education; teen pregnancy and school experience; literacy narratives; pedagogical practices in prek-16 (and beyond); adult education pedagogy; Paulo Freire and motherhood/parenthood; mothers and fathers "doing" literacy; mothering as literacy; motherhood and poetry, blogging, fiction, nonfiction, essay-writing, mommyblogging; the "new momism;" parenting as literacy, autoethnography of mothering and literacy learning/teaching; multiliteracies; language learning and mothering; homework literacies; cyber-literacies; health literacies and reproductive technologies; literacy/motherhood journey; narrative & autobiographical accounts of literacy; mothering in educational contexts; "other" mothers in education; gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender mothering and literacy; reading and writing though/about pregnancy, birth, motherhood, adoption; photojournalism/photo-documentation as literacy; Facebook as a "new literacy" for mothers/mothering; bicultural/bilingual family literacy; international mothering; women's literacy initiatives in international development; family literacy discourses; "teach the parent, reach the child," and popular literacy advice; discourse analysis of literacy advice/texts/campaigns; quilting/sewing/cooking as literacy; oral literacy, storytelling and motherhood; feminist literacy; popular cultural and the maternal; homeschooling literacy and family practices; mothers, religion, and literacy; mothering in the academy; mothering as literacy assessment; grieving literacies; deconstructing literacy; critical literacy in education and beyond; educational policy, motherhood, and literacy
Submission Guidelines:
Abstract submissions should be 250 words. Please also include a brief biography (50 words).
Deadline for abstracts is April 15st, 2011
Please send submissions directly to
Amanda Richey at amandarichey73@gmail.com
Accepted papers of 4000-5000 words (15-20 pages) will be due November 1st, 2011
and should conform to MLA style.
In her debut novel Chosen, Chandra Hoffman reveals the inner workings of domestic open adoptions.
The Chosen Child adoption agency is located in Portland, Oregon. Adoptive parents fill out forms stating what kind of baby they are willing to adopt. Will they take a mixed race baby? Will they take a baby exposed to drugs in the womb? Meanwhile, biological parents search through a binder of prospective parents' pictures and vague bios, trying to select the best future for their child.
Hoffman intertwines the lives of three couples -- the McAdoos, the Novas, and Penny and Jason. They are all connected through Chloe Pinter, the domestic adoption caseworker, who is in the unique position of dealing not only with the adoptive parents but also with the biological parents.
Adoption is always fraught with drama, but Chloe's current case is extremely trying. The wealthy and demanding McAdoos are waiting to adopt the child of Penny, an impoverished girl, and Jason, her ex-con boyfriend.
From the beginning of the novel, we know that something is going to go wrong. On Thanksgiving Chloe brings dinner to Penny to make certain she is taking good care of herself and her unborn child. Jason is there: "He is simply a man cornered by circumstances, dependent on a woman, and that can be a dangerous sort of animal."
Chloe finds herself more and more involved, more and more invested in the lives of the people on both sides of the process. She's young, attractive, intelligent, and she loves her work, even though it rules her schedule and threatens her relationship to her sexy, unemployed, surfer-boy fiancé who wants to leave gloomy Portland for the beaches of Hawaii.
Hoffman continues to build suspense. Paul and Eva Nova, once clients of Chosen Child until they discovered they were expecting their own child, are eventually pulled into Chloe's current case. Early in the novel, on that same Thanksgiving Hoffman gives us this foreboding paragraph:
Eva doesn't respond. She takes her index finger, slightly greasy from the turkey skin, and traces her signature swirls and paisley doodles on the condensation of the passenger-side window. Months later, after the unthinkable has happened, before the police impound her car, Paul will sit in this same seat, in his own driveway, nowhere to go but desperate to unzip out of his skin, his life, and the morning dew will make the pattern reappear. He will wonder how he ever thought things were anything but perfect on this Thanksgiving night.
Each day Frances McAdoo waits, wondering if this will be night she gets the call. The night the baby is born and Penny signs the papers. The night she takes her baby home.
And what will Penny's "dangerous sort of animal" boyfriend do once they're left without the support of the agency?
Hoffman creates characters you want to read about even at their most despicable, characters you hope will get what they want, and what they need. Chosen culminates in an ending that both surprising and deeply satisfying.
Congrats to these LM Staffers!
Cassie Premo Steele, Columnist: "My poem, "Writing is like this," was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize--my second nomination! The poem comes from my new poetry book, This is how honey runs, which was published by Unbound Content and contains poems written during my Co-Creating work with clients using creative writing as a means of healing, empowering, and finding balance and meaning in one's life."
Nicole Stellon O'Donnell, Columns Editor: "I'm pleased to announce that STEAM LAUNDRY, my collection of poems, will be published in January of 2010 by Boreal Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press. STEAM LAUNDRYis a book-length sequence of persona poems based on the life of Sarah Ellen Gibson, one of the first women to arrive in Fairbanks in the gold rush of 1903. The writing and research were supported by an Individual Artist Award from the Rasmuson Foundation. AND I have poetry forthcoming in the winter solstice issue of Cirque."
C. Delia Mulrooney, Columns Department Editor: "My personal essay,"Evolution," is in the November/December issue of All Things Girl Magazine. It is about women, body image and self-esteem. I wrote it as a series of small vignettes charting the history of my body and how this has evolved over the years.
I'm looking for sharp women-authored nonfiction essay submissions for Her Madgesty, a new anthology (forthcoming from Soft Skull Press) about our favorite freaky feminist singer/artist/'Sex'-er/mother/material girl: Madonna.
She's been such a powerful, iconic cultural figure for the past 27 years (!). For women and girls in America, it's almost impossible not have been influenced, in some way, by her media presence.
I want to hear how Madonna has changed your life. Love her or hate her, you probably have an opinion. She elicits major passion from millions of people. Whether you think she's a genius marketing maven, a pioneering feminist businesswoman or little more than a very rich stripper, I want to hear your perspectives. How did her work affect your feelings, your mindset, your sexuality, your ambitions? How did seeing her videos on MTV change the way you thought about growing up female? How did your parents react when they heard you singing the lyrics to "Like a Virgin" at the dinner table? What was it like the first time you saw her perform live? What about her pisses you off to no end?
I don't care if you love her or loathe her. Just own a strong point of view, and write your essay in an honest, thoughtful, engaging fashion. Having a very specific, unique angle is a plus.
Some possible themes are below. No need to heed them if you have another idea of your own:
How your ideas about feminism changed, or were challenged, by Madonna
How her ever-changing image helped spark a transformation in your life
Madonna's role in club / nightlife culture and how that impacted you
Madonna's role as a mom
How her sexual expressiveness affected your feelings about your body or your sexuality
How Madonna influenced your thoughts about gender roles / identity
How she influenced your approach to romantic and sexual relationships
How she helped you come out
How you felt about her as a child or adolescent vs. how you see her as an adult
The many eras of Madonna (the club kid, the sex queen, the superstar, the spiritual seeker, the caretaker, the humanitarian) -- in your own life, how have you evolved on a similar (or different) path?
WORD COUNT: Submissions should be between 1000 - 5000 words, double-spaced and paginated.
DEADLINE: Feb. 15, 2011
DETAILS: Please send your submission via email, as a Microsoft Word document attachment, to madonna.book@gmail.com. Also include your full name, address, phone number, email address and a short author bio.
CONTACT: Feel free to email the editor, Laura Barcella, at madonna.book@gmail.com with questions.
FURTHER INFO: Writers whose work is selected for publication will be notified as quickly as possible. Writers whose work is selected for inclusion will be paid a small stipend ($TBD) upon publication. They will also receive 2 copies of the book.
ABOUT THE EDITOR: Laura Barcella is a San Francisco-based writer & editor who has written for more than 40 magazines, newspapers, and websites, including the Village Voice, Salon.com, AlterNet.org, Time Out New York, and the Chicago Sun-Times. She also contributed to the acclaimed book BitchFest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism From the Pages of Bitch Magazine. Visit her website at laurabarcella.com.
In our own lives as writers and educators, we have felt buoyed by, and
thirsty for, dialogue about the creative process. We think it is
particularly essential to gather a collection of process/craft-based
essays by women who span several different generations. We hope that an
anthology such as this will serve as both a historical document of the
times and lives of a sampling of women writers, but also as a rare look
into some of the concerns of a diverse body of writers writing about
craft, process, and their relationships to the literary arts in
different personal/socio-political contexts.
We are open to a variety of styles, from the more personal to the more
academic. Based on the suggestions of a guiding group of women writers,
we have drawn up a list of questions (see below) which can serve as a
guide for your essays. Please feel free to use them in any way that is
helpful to you (or not at all). We are also interested in re-publishing
relevant essays by some of our luminaries (dead and living): Audre
Lorde, Muriel Rukeyser, June Jordan, Cherrie Moraga, Adrienne Rich...
In addition to contributing your own, if you have read any essays that
you think should be included, please send them our way.
Please submit essays by March 15th, 2011, to discuss with publishers
who might be interested in April. Please send essays to
elanzobell(at)gmail.com and
agia(at)hampshire.edu (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail).
We really hope you'll consider contributing an essay to this important
project.
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was one of our family's TV-time rituals when my children were young. For years, they giggled at Rudolph's red nose, hid their faces at the Abominable Snowman's first appearance, and cheered when Rudolph led Santa's sleigh through the fog. But the viewing I treasure most is the one when our oldest asked for a definition of "misfit" and then shook his fist at those who made fun of Rudolph, Hermey, and the Misfit Toys. Later, he told me of similar situations he'd witnessed in the neighborhood and in his preschool class. Even though he was too young to use "empathy" in a sentence, the Christmas special taught him its meaning.
Diane Werts, managing editor of TVWorthWatching.com, writes about the impact television has had on our holiday observances in her book, Christmas on Television:
"There's a magic to this season, when hope shines so brightly, handed down from the faith-based origin of the holiday as a commemoration of Jesus' birth as a savior to humankind. Even many nonbelievers take the Christmas season to heart for its associated spirit of peace, generosity, acceptance, and reconciliation. Despite the annual shopping frenzy, the world seems to promise us a moment of tranquility and togetherness, of shared traditions and experiences, of a spiritual plane where people put aside their differences, where all is right with the world ..."In an era of 200 channels, the yule provides an easy episode hook and a handy promotional platform. But that's only because we care about Christmas so much already."
Her list of the most enduring Christmas TV of all time--created from a library of more than 800 episodes, specials, movies and documentaries spanning 55 years of television history--includes:
From the 1960s: The Jack Benny Program, "The Judy Garland Christmas Show, "A Charlie Brown Christmas"
From the 1970s: Little House on the Prairie
From the 1980s: Married ... with Children, "Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special"
From the 1990s: Everybody Loves Raymond, Home Improvement, Northern Exposure, Nothing Sacred
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Journal Entry: What one holiday TV show or movie is a must-see for your family every year? Why? Describe three times your family has watched it together. What "new" message did your children hear during each viewing?
is seeking submissions for an edited collection on
Queering Maternity and Motherhood:
Narrative and Theoretical Perspectives on Queer Conception, Birth and Parenting
Editor: Joani Mortenson Publication Date: 2012
Deadline for abstracts: March 31, 2011
This anthology will explore the continuum of queer mothering, through conception to birth to parenting. Understanding the process and material effects of being 'othered', the containment within a patriarchal system of discourse and the lack of cultural representations of lesbian/queer mothers are some of the issues explored and problematized in this polyphonic text. By addressing the socially and discursively articulated norms which govern what form families must take in a culture of compulsory heterosexuality, this anthology will also consider more fundamental and political questions of identity and performance; such as who is viable and counts as intelligible in Western patriarchal society. This text will discuss the implications of these issues in the everyday lived experience of queer parents, in particular focussing on the questions of what makes a 'liveable life' and what makes a 'grievable life'.
Suggested topics include, but not limited to:
Lesbian and bi-sexual mothers, Curious parents, Queer mothers living with disability, Transgendered and Transexual parents, Queer conception stories, Butch and Femme Mothers, Queer pregnancy, Queer birth culture narratives, Counter-narratives to compulsory heterosexual conception and parenting, Constructing Queer identity construction through mothering, Lesbian mothers and co-mothers, Gender identity and the social construction of motherhood, Queer mothering with in-laws, Queer maternity and midwifery, Queering fertility services, Breastfeeding queer mamas, Sperm banks and known donors, Genderqueer parents experiences, and Attachment parenting in the queer family.
Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts should be 250 words. Please also include a brief biography (50 words).
Please send to joanimortenson@gmail.com
Deadline for Abstracts is March 31st, 2011
Accepted Papers of 4000-5000 words (15-20 pages) will be due September 1, 2011
and should conform to MLA citation format.
Demeter Press
140 Holland St. West, PO 13022
Bradford, ON, L3Z 2Y5
http://www.demeterpress.org info@demeterpress.org
We're pleased to feature this reader's response to one of our For Your Journal writing prompts.
Cecilia Wu shares these thoughts about her neighborhood:
Journal Entry: Compare your childhood neighborhood with that of your child's. Do you live in the same community in which you were raised? The same area of the country? How are the activities and opportunities your child has different from those of your childhood? Can you say one is better than another?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It has been two years that we've made our home in an idyllic college town in the southeast. Having spent our lives in hectic, urban centers, my husband - a Japanese national - and I - a U.S. expat living in Japan for almost a decade - craved a calmer and more balanced way of life. We trusted, too, that a gentler, slower, and greener childhood could prove differently but equally valuable to our son as compared to the stimuli and sophistication of the larger cities.
We live in a neighborhood of children - mixed raced children, hyphenated Americans, children of expats. Perhaps by coincidence or demographics, the majority of the children on our street are the same age as our son. They go to the same public school. Three seasons a year out of four the children can be found playing outside until dark. The rare snowfall brings them out too, and Halloween is a joyous block party. Unassuming and modest, and focusing on the kids, last night's game, or the latest headlines, the parents, all geographic transplants, find kinship in one another through the shared values and educational and professional backgrounds that have brought them to the same community. While watching the children outside and chatting, the adults flock to any child who falls, cries, or needs a drink of water. There is a shared understanding that the neighborhood kids are all our kids.
The neighborhood sounds ideal because that is the way I see it. It is what I would have wanted as a child if I had known that such places existed outside of the movies. I had grown up in a very different neighborhood, not because my parents didn't want the same thing for me, but because, as new immigrants, they had no means of making it possible. I rarely went out to play because of the trash that was piled by our front door. I held my breath walking down the street because of the homeless mentally ill whom I used to be so frightened of. I retreated into my books and drawings at home because of the gunshots that went off from time to time, sometimes from the next street over, once from outside my bedroom window.
The neighborhood we live in now is the one I have dreamt of being able to give my child...a home worth waiting forty years and moving across an ocean for.
###
Cecilia can be reached at ceciwrites(at)gmail(dot)com.
Demeter Press plans to publish titles on the following themes in 2012-14
(an edited collection of approximately 15 chapters):
Othermothering/Othermothers
Incarcerated Mothers
Mothering and Sex Work
Mothering and Islam/Muslim Mothering
Asian Mothering
Mothering and Disability
Refugee/Immigrant Mothers
Patricia Hill Collins
Marilyn Waring
Single/Lone Mothers
Mothers and Music
*Also seeking: Canadian Co-editor (ideally in social sciences), for Motherhood Studies Reader (first editor is Heather Hewett)
If you wish to be considered as an editor for one of the above topics, please send a detailed
bio and your CV outlining your expertise in the area, as well as a brief description of your ideas/visions for the collection to aoreilly@yorku.ca.
DATE: Tuesday, December 14
TIME: Party starts at 6:30-8:30
LOCATION: The Libertine Library at Gild Hall,15 Gold Street, NYC
With Special Guests,
John Reed
Writer, editor, father of two and critically acclaimed novelist of, A STILL SMALL VOICE SNOWBALL'S CHANCE, and the forthcoming TALES OF WOE.
Liz Rosenberg
Is a mother a fiction writer and a poet. She is an award-winning author of more than 25 books for young readers and 3 books of prize-winning poetry. She reads from THE LILY POEMS and HOME REPAIR her acclaimed first novel for adults.
Lena Roy
Teaches creative writing workshops for kids and teens with Writopia Lab in NYC and Northern Westchester where she lives with her family. Her debut novel, EDGES is out this December!
Plus beautiful live music, raffles, drink specials, book giveaways and more!
Book the babysitter because this is the one Pen Parentis Literary Salon you don't want to miss!
The Pen Parentis Literary Salon is more than a fantastic reading series that showcases new and known writers. It's also a supportive community that celebrates the craft of writing and the joys and challenges of writing while parenting.
The $20 suggested donation at our Holiday Salon goes toward basic operating costs and funding the Pen Parentis Fellowship for New Parents.
No other reading series in New York City provides an opportunity for writers and readers to come together and talk with such intimacy about writing and parenting. Please come out and support a great organization and have a great time doing it with live music, raffles, drink specials, book giveaways, and fun galore!
Can't make it? Click here to make a tax-deductible donation...
THANK YOU!
Pen Parentis logo designed by the fantastically talented and generous Melissa Guion
Tupelo Press
Welcomes Your Submissions
for the 2010 Dorset Prize
The annual Dorset Prize is an open competition for a poetry manuscript, with a $3,000 prize. Prior winners include Ilya Kaminsky, G.C. Waldrep, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Davis McCombs, Sandra Meek, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Joshua Corey, and most recently Rusty Morrison.
Submissions are accepted from anyone writing in the English language, whether living in the United States or abroad. Translations are not eligible for this prize.
All entries must be postmarked, or sent via the online submissions manager, between September 1 and December 31, 2010. The final judge for this year's contest is Lynn Emanuel.
Read the Guidelines for the Dorset Prize
now at our website: Tupelo Press
or click here.
Deadline for all Entries is
December 31, 2010
Writing it Real
Reading Period: December 4 - February 15, 2011
Everyone's a winner in this Writing It Real contest. Send in a draft you are wondering how to develop, a free-write you hope is going somewhere, or a piece you think may be finished about which you want a second opinion; within two weeks you'll have received detailed response from Sheila Bender, author of over ten books on writing, most recently Writing and Publishing Personal Essays from Silver Threads publishing and Creative Writing Demystified forthcoming January 14, 2011 from McGraw-Hill. After you receive the response, you will have until March 15, 2011 to enter a revision into the final judging (by a guest editor) at no additional cost.
The earlier you submit your work, the more time you will have for rewriting. Initial entries may be up to three poems or up to 1500 words of prose (prose rewrites you may extend beyond the 1500 words). Rewrites will be entered into the final judging. If you don't revise, your initial entry will be entered into the final judging.
Prizes!
By March 30, our guest judge will announce three winners. They will receive a tuition waiver ($120) for a Writing It Real online class and a half-hour consult by phone with Sheila. But, remember, everyone's a winner because everyone receives professional editorial response to their writing!
Contest Submission Guidelines
Contest Deadline: Work must be sent electronically or postmarked by February 15, 2011. First drafts can be up to 1500 words of prose or three poems. Expect Sheila's response to the work by email within two weeks. There is no additional fee for the revised draft to be entered for judging. Our electronic submission form and mailing directions are below. Second drafts may be longer than the initial entry and should be mailed or emailed (info@writingitreal.com) by March 15.
$15 Reading Fee for Current WIR Subscribers: The electronic submission and payment form is below. If you are sending a check from outside the United States, be sure the amount in US dollars is officially typed by a bank and not handwritten. Checks should be made payable to: "Writing It Real."
$45 Reading Fee for new subscribers or renewals: This includes $30 for a year's subscription to Writing It Real and $15 for the contest reading fee. Once you are a subscriber, you'll receive valuable weekly articles about writing and the writing life, as well as discounts on future contests and online classes. If you are sending a check from outside the United States, be sure the amount in US dollars is officially typed by a bank and not handwritten. Checks should be made payable to: "Writing It Real." The electronic submission and payment form is below. To read more about Writing It Real please visit our magazine page.
Note: International entrants who use Ikobo for payment may submit their manuscript to info@writingitreal.com Credit cards are accepted using the link supplied with the online submission form.
Mailed Essays: The submitted essays and poems must be accompanied by the reading fee and a cover sheet that contains the author's name, title of the works, phone number, address and email. Pages should be numbered. Don't worry; the cover sheet won't be counted toward length; so again, please make the cover page separate from the essay. Mailed submissions will NOT be returned -- NO SASE's please.
Paper submissions should be mailed to:
Writing It Real Contest
394 Colman Drive
Port Townsend, WA 98368
Established in 1991 by the Parliament of Canada, this day marks the anniversary of the murders in 1989 of 14 young women at l'Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal. They died because they were women.
As well as commemorating the 14 young women whose lives ended in an act of gender-based violence that shocked the nation, December 6 represents an opportunity for Canadians to reflect on the phenomenon of violence against women in our society. It is also an opportunity to consider the women and girls for whom violence is a daily reality, and to remember those who have died as a result of gender-based violence. And finally, it is a day on which communities can consider concrete actions to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls.
We must never forget...
GENEVIEVE BERGEON , 21 years
HELENE COLGAN, 23 years
NATHALIE CROTEAU, 23 years
BARBARA DAIGNEAULT, 22 years
ANNE-MARIE EDWARD, 21 years
MAUD HAVIERNICK, 29 years
BARBARA MARIA KLUCZNIK, 31 years
MARYSE LAGANIERE, 25 years
MARYSE LECLAIR, 23 years
ANNE-MARIE LEMAY, 27 years
SONIA PELLETIER, 28 years
MICHELE RICHARD, 21 years
ANNIE ST-ARNEAULT, 23 years
ANNIE TURCOTTE, 21 years
"I can't help but think about the morning of Wednesday, December 6, 1989: young women getting out of bed as if it were any other day, appearing mildly distracted at breakfast, their heads full of details for the next exam, or vacation plans for Christmas. Dreaming. Thinking about life. At that very moment, elsewhere in the city, someone who probably hasn't slept all night is writing his hate letter, preparing his weapon and his ammunition, going over each step leading him to his death mission. He's found scapegoats for his failures: women, who deny the existence of the old father who commands, gives orders, excludes, dominates, punishes, beats, who holds the right to life or death over women and their children. The killer-to-be knows that the Almighty father can never exist again, and he would do anything rather than accept the challenge his own life represents: to deserve, not overpower, the love which is no longer his privilege simply because he was born male. His reasoning is superficial, one-dimensional: women today are out of line; all feminists want to be like men, so there's only one solution, to put them in their place before it's too late, before women become human beings like everybody else. No more, no less."
(excerpt from "A Matter of Life or Death: Second Installment" by Élaine Audet, The Montreal Massacre (gynergy books 1991)
"When I think of that poor young girl who, lying on her stretcher, said that she wasn't even a feminist, I feel like crying. When I think of that girl in the classroom, the only one who tried to reason with the killer, crying out: "We're not feminists. We're only women who want an education,"
I feel like screaming."
(excerpt from "Letter to the Media" by Louise Malette, The Montreal Massacred (gynergy books 1991).
*For more information or to donate to the YWCA December 6th fund: http://www.dec6fund.ca/
* More information about local events and the University of Toronto December 6th candlelight vigil (Philosopher's Walk) http://status-women.utoronto.ca/16dayscalendar07.html
**On December 6th and every day please take some time to remember....
Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI)
140 Holland St. West, PO Box 13022
Bradford, ON, L3Z 2Y5
http://www.motherhoodinitiative.org
info@motherhoodinitiative.org
Tupelo Press, 2010
70 pp.
Megan Snyder-Camp's first book of poetry, The Forest of Sure Things, is a moving debut. The chapbook opens with an old tale of the loss of a child, and then weaves through the author's life concluding with the birth and early years of her first child. A rich collection, she accomplishes much in a collection of just over forty poems.
Snyder-Camp chooses language that draws the reader to the unprocessed edge of fear, loss, pain, and eventual hope. The first part, Borrowed Memory, shapes the history of the hundred-year-old tale of a family whose child was stillborn. In the second part, Tether, the author strings together the little moments of her own motherhood.
In the opening poem, "The House on Laurel Lane," the author establishes the mood. Snyder-Camp's spare words link me to the rhythm of her work:
She knew when love unwound her but not how.
Let your hair down over the briar patch,
she read to her daughter from the little golden book
the two tales sewing each other up.
By illustrating an emotional landscape, which she does throughout this collection, I cannot help but participate in her vision and language. My curiosity and humanity is piqued. Each poem leads to the next in this subtle way.
"Easement" is the last poem of the first part, the bridge between parts one and two. I find her choice fitting from the first stanza because of its tone of hopefulness interlaced with uncertainty:
She lets them tour her flagstone heart only after
the seas pull back, not on the days when the eels
leer from her windows and the car earns its fishy smell.
Those days she's on the roof waving to helicopters.
Her hands shine once the Red Cross has gone,
after the dog has been found in the pear tree
Snyder-Camp is clear in her fear of loss, fear of a long ago story repeating itself within her own body. The style and choice of words stirs authentic emotion which the reader cannot deny. This poem, these lines, prepares me for the eventual release and ultimate tethering: the bond with her newborn child.
"41 Weeks" is my favorite of the collection. It is near the end, after I had absorbed the frayed edges of a range of hard emotions in the preceding poems. Her artistry - and economy - with words to this point allowed me to become intimate with her delicate feelings about the act of creating life, and then delivering it to the world. Alive.
The room filled. My odd stillbirth poems
elbowed the machines, their skittery graph of your whale-heart
far offshore. The borrowed story keeping time.
The surgeon cut a quick, crooked line
and lifted you then from the dream of blue walls,
lifted you crying and safe, unwritten.
Here, Snyder-Camp moves the reader beyond her world. I feel the tension and the heartache. I want for the hope and the delight. I breathe a sigh of relief and joy at the finish. A sigh similar to the one I breathed when my own sons were born, "crying and safe, unwritten." She unleashes the joy - and fragility - of life in her vigilant, evocative language.
The Forest of Sure Things, released this past September from Tupelo Press, is a magnificent first work. Those who enjoy the poetry of Sharon Olds or Margaret Gibson will find this collection valuable and intriguing. Megan Snyder-Camp offers a personal glimpse of the darker corners of womanhood and motherhood achieving richness with precise language and considered line breaks. This collection left me satisfied, yet seeking just one more.
It's crunch time on The Moment book, as the Jan 7 deadline is coming
soon. We have no lack of submissions,
but definitely love to reach out to more people, especially writers
and/or people who have simply led interesting lives.
Whether you're a bestselling writer, or never been published before,
it will feel really great when this book comes out (and when it's
hopefully talked about in the media, taught in schools, all the things
that we've been fortunate to see happen with other SMITH Mag books).
And "moments" can be short -- a few hundred words, or an image with a
few choice words, can totally work (and have so far).
Here's an explanation with a few examples and my contact at the
bottom. Thanks so much. -Larry
The Moment from SMITH Magazine
The Moment is a book of personal stories about how a single moment--a
single, decision, happenstance, accident, call, conversation, tweet,
text, or email that had a profound effect on you. SMITH books always
features a combo that's pretty unique, with famous people (Sarah
Silverman, Dave Eggers, Steven Colbert, Richard Ford, Aimee Mann,
Malcolm Gladwell, Dr. Jane Goodall), alongside unknown folks (most of
whom have never been published anywhere). If you had a couple hundreds
words about a "Moment" (or as many as 750) or a photograph, postcard,
or ticket stub with a caption that tells your story, we'd be so
delighted to include you in this book. Of course, we'll include your
bio at the bottom of your contribution. Submissions are due by Jan. 7,
and the book will be published by HarperCollins in Fall 2011.
Some Moments we love so far:
Elizabeth Gilbert was four years old when, for the first time, she
heard her parents talk like adults. It rocked her world, because she
realized they had lives, and she wasn't the
center of the universe.
AJ Jacobs watched as his third-grade science teacher, chucked a
piece of chalk at his friend Max's. As a stunned classroom looked on,
the teacher said, 'I shouldn't have done that." That was the moment AJ
realized that adults are just as big fuck-ups as kids.
Piper Kerman ended up in the middle of an international drug ring,
for which she would later serve a year in prison, because she had one
conversation, with one woman, one night.
Karol Nielsen saw an New York Times photo essay on families going to
war, sparking her own memory about her father being sent to Vietnam
when she was six months old. Her "Moment" is a poem about her father
in a series of tweets.
Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky, writes about the time his plane landed
in the middle of a 7.5 earthquake in the South Pacific, and the
feeling of being between air and land, and watching the world outside
shake around him.
A longer explanation and more examples can be found here, and please
be in touch with any questions:
http://www.smithmag.net/themoment/
Call for Submissions:
Book publisher Dream of Things seeks submissions for anthologies of creative nonfiction on a variety of themes. Current themes include stories of forgiveness, coffee shop stories, travel writing, life in the modern workplace, Internet dating, and others. Future topics will include anthologies of holiday-related stories and volume two of Saying Goodbye. See the Workshop section of dreamofthings.com for more details, including payment information and submission guidelines.
Free Newsletter About Creative Writing
John Rember is author of four critically acclaimed books, and he has been a professor of creative writing for many years. His MFA in a Box newsletter is a thought-provoking and entertaining discussion of creative writing, what it means to be a writer, and "the weirdness of everyday life." Sign up for John's free weekly e-newsletter at mfainabox.com.
Dream of Things was founded in 2009 with the intent of publishing anthologies of creative nonfiction that will fill the gap between popular anthologies that publish stories that are "short and sweet" (sometimes so saccharine-sweet they are hard to swallow), and the Best American Essays series, which are typically quite a bit longer. The goal for Dream of Things anthologies is to publish writing that is not short and sweet, but short and deep. The result is stories that are easier to swallow because they are authentic, and easier to digest because they average 1,250 words in length. Saying Goodbye, published in October 2010, is the first anthology from Dream of Things.
The Afghan Women's Writing Project is dedicated to nurturing the often-repressed voices of Afghan women and run by an all-volunteer staff, seeks an Assistant Editing Coordinator to help track pieces written by the Afghan writers and make the final editing touches necessary to get the pieces to the blog. The position involves direct connection and coordination with our Afghan women writers. Strong editing and proof-reading skills a must, knowledge of Afghan culture a plus. Eight to ten hours per week. Send resume to awwproject@yahoo.com.