The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
Self spent the month of August 2007 here, writing in a little studio by the barn.
Here was where she wrote the piece “Jesters,” which was published January 2012 in Used Furniture Review.
Stay tuned.
Weekly WordPress Photo Challenge: Escape 2
May 20, 2013 at 12:16 am (Links, Places, Writing)
Tags: artists residency, inspirations, Literary Magazines, memories, photography, postaday, postaweek, short pieces, VCCA, Wordpress
Other (Mostly Discouraging) News
April 29, 2013 at 2:18 pm (Places, Traveling, Venice)
Tags: contests, disappointment, Literary Magazines, Mondays, rejections, travel, Venice
Once in a while, self gets the strange feeling that she is on a boat, and that the ground is moving up and down. She felt it just a few minutes ago, in a bar where she was checking e-mail messages.
Self, get a grip! Even though Venice is resting on ancient wooden pylons, it is not a ship. You’re going daft.
Since arriving in Venice, self has received a total of eight rejections, and one announcement of contest results. The contest was the one by New South. Why self thinks she Read the rest of this entry »
Happy Easter/ Call for Submissions
March 31, 2013 at 1:23 pm (Links, Memoirs, Movies, Recommended, Sundays)
Tags: contests, deadlines, Literary Magazines, memoir, Sundays
Watched “North by Northwest” yesterday afternoon, thought Cary Grant was absolutely fabulous. As was Eva-Marie Saint. Of note: Ms. Saint reminded self a little of Scarlett Johansson. She is, so far, self’s favorite Hitchcock actress. So much more alive and vibrant than the rather static Grace Kelly.
A friend invited self to the San Mateo Gem Show (No idea what that is, really) and self kept saying she would go, she would go, and in the end she did not go, she watched the Hitchcock movie. Self wonders if she did the right thing — it’s the morning after, self feeling the usual insecurities, blah blah blah
She’s waiting for a decent hour to call son and wish him a Happy Easter.
In the meantime, there’s a Call for Submissions from Memoir Journal for a special issue on the theme of GUNS. (Guns and Easter seem to go perfectly together, don’t ask self why). Essays must be previously unpublished and may not exceed 6,000 words. To be considered for a contest prize of $1,000, there is a $20 entry fee. However, submitters who desire publication in the issue but do not want to be considered for the money prize do not have to pay a submission fee. Deadline for submissions: June 5, 2013.
Further From (Former UCLA Extension Writers Program Student) Nandini Dhar
March 22, 2013 at 4:49 am (Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Literary Magazines, short pieces, under-appreciated
Have been pensively reading. The two journals Nandini sent self, which arrived a few days ago, are right next to her MacMini.
Here’s an excerpt from her piece “Books,” published in Pear Noir! Number Eight. Her writing is beautiful, lovely, overpowering:
Books
1.
The book called dishhaniory was thick, fat and big: stiff cardboard covers of red, brown and yellow. Whenever my father peeked into it, he looked smileless, unlike the times he read the newspapers. My mother hardly ever touched it, the dishhaniory, that is. It was my father’s book for all I knew.
The dishhaniory was a prize book. They gave it to him along with another book called Oliver Twist. They, as in his teachers, whom he referred to as sir, and the principal of his school whom he referred to as headsir.
They gave him the dishhaniory because he learnt the words well. Oliver Twist because he could count even better than he could read.
And since then, he has been using the dishhaniory. Fingering through its pages, underlining the words, making it age, forcing it to loosen up. So much so that the last page was gone and my father kept telling himself, “I really need to bind this book up.”
But then, he never did.
(There’s more, but self really really has to see if she can hunt up the latest episode of Justified, the one she missed on March 19. Not to mention clean up in the kitchen. And put the finishing touches on a manuscript she’s sending out. Truly, self’s work is never done.)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
By Nandini Dhar, a Former Student at UCLA Extension’s Writers Program
March 20, 2013 at 1:49 am (Surprises, Women Writers)
Tags: Literary Magazines, poetry, teaching, UCLA Extension
A surprise package came in the mail today.
When self opened it, there were two journals nested inside: Pear Noir! No. Eight and Room, Issue 36.1
They were sent by Nandini Dhar, who was in self’s on-line Essential Beginnings class, several years ago.
Self is so touched by Nandini’s thoughtfulness! She couldn’t wait to read the pieces.
She wasn’t wrong when she told Nandini, You are a very talented writer.
Here’s one of her poems. It’s from Pear Noir!
In My Mother’s Kitchen
In my mother’s kitchen, something was always bleeding –
soot-tainted walls, stains of mustard oil on the skillets,
beetroots, carrots, fish, chicken.If nothing else, her own flesh.
My mother taught me to be afraid of everything in her kitchen –
the knives, the fire, the capacity
of metal pots to scald the skin.Most of all, she taught me to mistrust
the fragrance of boiling rice.
So powerful!
Thank you, Nandini, for letting self know about your poetry (Self had no idea; on second thought, she should have known from the sound of Nandini’s prose : only a poet could write those images!)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Spotlight: The Asian American Literary Review, Part 2
March 14, 2013 at 5:29 pm (Recommended, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Asian American Writers, causes, conferences, humor, indulgences, Keanu Reeves, Literary Magazines, short story, teaching, Timothy Olyphant
Self knows she spotlighted The AALR already, but one can never have too much of a good thing.
She is so admiring of the tireless energy of its editors. They are now trying to get more people overseas to know about Asian American writers. Bravo!
Kindly hook up with Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis, Gerald Maa, or Cathy J. Shlund-Vials (English and Asian American Studies, University of Connecticut). Cathy will be at the upcoming AAS conference, April 17- 20, in Seattle.
Here’s the beginning of self’s story “Homeopathy,” which was in AALR Vol. 3, Issue 1 (Spring 2012):
On Friday I return from my trip. Laundry is still in the dryer, a jumble of clothes. The food I’d bought before I left is still in the fridge, though the radishes are pockmarked with green fuzz and the potatoes are growing roots. The man sits on the sofa, smoking a cigarette.
Has he even known I was gone? I can’t be sure. Perhaps I’m an alien, teleported into his life.
On TV, Speed is showing. It’s the scene where Dennis Hopper talks to Keanu Reeves and tells him, “Do not attempt to grow a brain.”
Finally, self has succeeded in getting the finest words in the English language into a story!
KEANU REEVES. KEANU REEVES. KEANU REEVES.
But that was so years ago. Now self must figure out a way to get these words into a story:
TIMOTHY OLYPHANT. TIMOTHY OLYPHANT. TIMOTHY OLYPHANT.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Stranger Still: Café Irreal 45
February 15, 2013 at 7:10 pm (Links, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: advice, Fridays, Literary Magazines, short story, speculative fiction
There is a story about a baby that self has been pondering for weeks. Weeks! Here’s the beginning:
“Worn Smooth by the Passage of Time,” by Jenn Marie Nunes
By boyfriend gives me a baby as a going-away gift. It is a blue-colored baby. Looks sort of like a potato and sort of like a piece of sea glass and I am not even sure it is a baby, but that’s what he says when I unwrap it.
“I want you to have this baby,” he says, “to remember me by.” And he picks up the plastic bag with his shirts and socks and the special set of pints he’s stolen from his favorite bars.
“Thanks,” I say. I would rather kick him in the shin, but it’s very early in the morning and I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
“Word,” he says and walks out the door.
Read the rest of it here.
What is it with self? She takes such pleasure in the grotesque.
Do not read the rest of the story if you are the least bit squeamish, dear blog readers.
Stay tuned.
Literary Magazine Spotlight: J JOURNAL, Fall 2012
January 16, 2013 at 10:35 pm (Links, Recommended)
Tags: literary awards, Literary Magazines, short pieces
J Journal, Vol. 5 No. 2
Self just opened the Fall 2012 issue of J Journal.
You may not have heard of it: it’s a literary journal put out twice-yearly by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which is on W. 59th Street in New York City.
Everyone, tell your friends about it. It’s the journal’s TENTH issue, which is something of a milestone, considering these hard times when so many literary journals are struggling.
It began life five years ago, in 2007. The editorial focus is on strong, justice-themed fiction, poetry, and personal narrative.
In 2012, J Journal was awarded its first Pushcart Prize, for “The Fall of Punicea,” by Paul Stapleton, in Issue 4.1
Congratulations, J Journal!
