Great New Books that Are a Must Read

Joys Of Parenting Writing Contest: Seeking Vietnamese Parents

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:09:00 +0000

The Phu Nu (Women) newspaper in HCM City has launched a writing competition for Vietnamese parents within and outside the country to share their thoughts and experiences on their relationships with children.

The contest "Tro Chuyen Voi Con" (Talking With Your Children), is part of the paper’s activities celebrating the National Family Day (June 28).

Parents of any age and background are invited to write about personal and professional experiences that have shaped their relationships with children.

Sponsored by the Japanese-owned life insurance company, Dai-ichi Life Viet Nam, and supported by Phu Nu’s partners, including local women and youth groups, the competition will be introduced to rural areas around the country.

Nguyen Thi Khanh Tam, Phu Nu’s editor-in-chief and member of the event’s organising board, said: "The competition will provide an open environment for parents to share their happiness, sorrows, difficulties, challenges and other issues that may be hard to talk about with their children."

Parents have less time to spend with children in a modern society as both of them work, and this often leads to the latter feeling alienated, which in turn, has them dropping out of school or leaving their homes at an early age.

Many young married couples lack sufficient knowledge and skills to balance the pressures of professional and family lives, so they are more likely to break up when faced with serious problems.

One of the problems is proper communication, and in this regard, "I believe the competition will be useful for all of us," Tam said.

Takashi Fujii, general director of Dai-ichi Life Viet Nam, said, "By sharing their life and experiences, older participants can help younger parents make the right choices in their family life."

He said the competition also aimed to attract educators, cultural researchers and psychologists who would help participants improve their knowledge and skills in peforming the most important task of being good parents.

Essays of not more than 800 words can be sent to Phu Nu, 311 Dien Bien Phu Street, District 3, or via email to trochuyenvoicon@baophunu.org.vn, before October 15, 2009.

Nine prizes worth a total of VND 32 million (US$1.700) will be awarded to selected essays. Selec entries will also be published in Phu Nu every Tuesday.

Gigantic Agricultural Complex In Brazil's Amazon?: New Book Discusses Ford's Dream

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:29:00 +0000

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City

Historian Greg Grandin has taken what heretofore seemed just a marginal event — Henry Ford's failed attempt to establish a gigantic agricultural industrial complex in the heart of Brazil's Amazon Basin — and turned it into a fascinating historical narrative that illuminates the auto industry's contemporary crisis, the problems of globalization and the contradictions of contemporary consumerism.

In 1927, Ford was America's richest man and (in most "respectable" circles) one of its most admired. He was also in a protean sense our first industrial celebrity, forerunner of such figures as David Packard, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who would be celebrated for organizing transforming technologies. The assembly line obviously was Ford's greatest innovation, but his ambitions hardly stopped there.

At Ford Motor, he created a system of educational, health and other benefits and set up a vast network of spies and home visitors to ensure the new wages were spent on "a wholesome life" rather than on "gambling, drinking or whoring." The mogul "understood that high wages and decent benefits would do more than create a dependable and thus more productive workforce; they would also stabilize and stimulate demand for industrial products by turning workers into consumers."

Thus was born "Fordism," which many at the time embraced as a kind of "third way" between unrestrained capitalism and Marxism. Grandin has given us a bracing new angle on this strange man's biography. He was a lifelong admirer of Emerson, firm in the "Transcendentalists' belief in human perfectibility," yet he instinctively distrusted every individual's choice but his own. He was a pacifist and opponent of capital punishment who ultimately unleashed brutal thugs to terrorize his own workers. He was a bitter, vulgar, lifelong anti-Semite.

Read the rest of the review here, or grab a copy of Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City now!

Adventures on a Small Greek Island: Barbara Bonfigli's Book Cafe Tempest

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:36:00 +0000

Today I'm excited to host Barbara Bonfigli as part of her tour promoting her new book Café Tempest: Adventures On a Small Greek Islandaround the blogosphere.

About Café Tempest: Adventures on a Small Greek Island

What is it about Greece that makes it so exotic, so romantic, so tantalizing that it’s right at the top of everybody’s bucket list – the one foreign land they’re longing to visit? Our dreams are made on Never on Sunday, Zorba the Greek, and more recently My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Mama Mia.

Café Tempest: Adventures On a Small Greek Islandis a witty, evocative, beautifully written novel that puts you right in the heart of Greek island life. It’s so alive with the sights and smells and tastes and characters of Greece that you can pick it up and start your Mediterranean vacation on page one. On a deeper level, the book is filled with the kinds of observations, reflections, and arc of self-discovery that make Eat, Pray, Love so compelling.

“Welcome to Pharos. Laugh and dance in the hammock—not the cradle—of Western civilization,” says author, lyricist, and theatrical producer Barbara Bonfigli. “I’ve been falling in love with Greece since I was old enough to drink retsina. But if Sarah hadn’t captured my imagination you’d never know how I feel about friendship, feta, and the abundance of grace that turns friends into lovers and fishermen into kings.”

[from Chapter 22. edited for length. Sarah, the novel’s main character, is an American theater producer spending several weeks on Pharos, a rustic idyllic Greek island. Her house sits on a mountaintop beneath an ancient monastery. She’s writing a magazine article on mantra, but let’s herself be recruited to direct the islanders in their summer play. She chooses Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This morning she’s meeting with Tina, a summer neighbor, who works in Athens as a costume designer.]

A fog drifts in at sunrise, shrouding the fields and hillside houses below us, the circling sea, even the distant coast of Turkey. I’m alone in the world except for the monk whose window in the monastery atop Kastro is always lit. I imagine he’s been sitting at his desk since the fourteenth century and nothing has changed but his light source. No family ties, no telegrams, no flourless chocolate cake to distract him. He’ll have read thousands of books by now.

The salt air is trapped and settles over me, the perfect atmosphere to contemplate mantras. But I have a date with Tina to discuss costumes. The lack of a phone makes me deceptively reliable.

I fall in behind the garbage donkeys tapping their way up the lane without their master. Is Pendis lost in the fog? Turned into a donkey himself?

Eventually we pass the basket weaver’s door, and I see Pendis having a coffee with old Antipas, the basket weaver. Antipas has turned into a bundle of reeds, but Pendis is still in human form.

“Kalimera, kyrios—good morning gentlemen.”

“Kalimera, Sarahki,” they reply. “Thelis café?—would you like coffee?”

“I’m so sorry I can’t,” I say sincerely. Drinking and talking with an old basket weaver and his lifelong friend, the donkey-driving garbage collector is, after all, why I’m here.

But now my mind is running ahead to its next appointment. Tina greets me at her door wearing a gossamer djellaba the colors of sunset.

“Wouldn’t Miranda—Prospero’s daughter—look great in that?”

“That’s just what I thought,” says Tina. “I’ve been re-reading The Tempest. Too bad she’s the only female part; my costume department has so much great stuff for women. Can’t we change the plot? Maybe the ship that gets wrecked on Arcadia is coming from Delphi and is full of priestesses?”

“Sure. And Prospero retires to a monastery and Caliban is left to destroy Western civilization.”

“OK,” she shrugs, “that is a small problem. But if Prospero redeems everybody, why is it still a man’s world?”
“Shakespeare was a guy, wasn’t he?”

“Sosto.—right.” I’ve made fresh orange juice since I can’t compete with your coffee.”
“That’s fine.”

We walk through her blossom-laden courtyard into a grotto living space sparsely furnished with antiques and filled with ancient sculpture and amphorae, each in its own niche beneath a skylight.

“I collect Hellenic and Etruscan. These simple island houses are the perfect setting, don’t you think?”

“I do. Maybe because they belong here.”

“Exactly.”

“Shall we go to my desk? I’ve got some photos to show you.”

The small triangles of light falling on her amphorae have shifted ninety degrees before we’re interrupted. A slight older woman with white hair pulled back and deep dancing eyes comes in with a platter of zucchini, baby artichokes, and deep-fried kalamari.

“I hope you’ll stay for lunch; my cook’s prepared something very simple. Lukia, this is Kyria Sarah.”

“Harika,-- pleased to meet you” we overlap.

We eat in silence. Lukia’s food is sublime. I begin to feel the mystery of Tina’s tiny figure overruning the other mysteries in my mind.

To learn about Barbara Bonfigli and Café Tempest, feel free to visit any of these sites.

Barbara Bonfigli’s website – www.cafetempest.com

Order Café Tempest directly from the publisher - http://www.tellmepress.com/pub_ct.php or from Amazon.

To see the complete tour schedule visit http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/05/cafe-tempest-by-barbara-bonfigli-summer.html

Real Simple's Second Annual Life Lessons Essay Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:05:00 +0000

I’m writing today to announce Real Simple’s second annual Life Lessons Essay Contest and to ask that you publicize this opportunity widely within your community. The Life Lessons column, which reaches more than two million readers monthly, has featured noted authors such as Mary Gordon, Jane Smiley, Ann Patchett, and many others. We invite all non-fiction writers to submit their work for consideration and potential publication in Real Simple, in the company of these distinguished authors.

The topic of this year’s essay is: When did you first realize that you had become a grown-up? Whether the experience was difficult, funny, easy, or bittersweet, share your lesson and you could win.

The winning essay is scheduled to appear in the April 2010 issue of Real Simple magazine. The winner will also receive a $3,000 cash prize; roundtrip tickets for two to New York City, hotel accommodations for two nights, and tickets to a Broadway play; and lunch with Real Simple editors.

To enter, please send a typed, double-spaced submission of no more than 1,500 words, preferably as a Microsoft Word attachment, to lifelessons@realsimple.com. The contest is open to legal residents of the U.S. who are 19 or older at the time of entry. It began at 12:01AM this past May 1 and runs through 11:50PM on September 7, 2009. For complete contest rules, please visit realsimple.com/lifelessonscontest.

Thomas Cook's New Thriller: The Fate of Katherine Carr

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:31:00 +0000

The Fate of Katherine Carr

The main characters in this fine new novel are obsessed with serial killers, from 16th-century fiend Countess Bathory to more recent psychopaths such as Ed Gein.

One character, for example, shares "every meal with them, every moment of enforced leisure. They trail behind him in a leering throng, rippers and night stalkers. Their scrawled notes are his literature, words written in blood or pieced together crudely from magazine cutouts. For him, Bach is the final gurgling of a strangled child, Renoir what murderers splatter on mirrors, walls and doors.”

Some of these monsters, including Gein, were caught and punished for their crimes, but others got clean away. Or did they? That’s one of the questions Cook asks us to ponder in this disturbing, psychologically complex book.

Cook, author of 21 novels, has been one of our finest writers for years, as readers of "Red Leaves” (2005) and "Master of the Delta” (2008) already know. But Cook’s fan base remains small.

Perhaps that’s because you can’t breeze through his books the way you can with, say, one of Robert Parker’s Spencer novels, enjoying the story and then forgetting it the moment you finish the last page. Cook requires more of readers; he forces you to read thoughtfully, and when you finish his stories, they haunt your dreams.

Read the rest of the review here, or grab a copy of The Fate of Katherine Carr now!

Hint Fiction Anthology: Call for Submissions

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:37:00 +0000

Hint Fiction Anthology: Call for Submissions

Hint Fiction: A story of 25 words or less that suggests a larger, more complex story.

Publisher W.W. Norton had approached Robert Swartwood and his agent about publishing an anthology of Hint Fiction, starting with the Top 20 stories from the contest. Swartwood will edit the anthology.

Lancaster Online interviewed Swartwood, where he revealed that Pulitzer Prize winning poet Stephen Dunn and best selling authors Joyce Carol Oates and James Frey had sent in their hint fiction stories to be included in the anthology.

Swartwood has just announced the submission period to consider more stories for inclusion in the anthology (further details found here).

The submission period is between August 1 - August 31, 2009. Writers interested in submitting up to two stories can do so via an email address to be announced on Robert Swartwood’s web site on August 1, 2009. Once he designates the email address, I’ll post it, along with a reminder to send stories in.

The anthology will include between 100-150 stories.

Payment is $25 per story for World and Audio rights.

Extracted from http://www.womenofmystery.net

Jim Lynch's Border Songs: Novel Required Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:26:00 +0000

Border Songs

Compared with the U.S.-Mexico border, the 49th parallel hasn’t inspired much of a literary mythology. So if the Department of Homeland Security is hoping for a few terrorist thrillers to support its project of tightening the world’s longest “undefended” border, its leaders will be sorely disappointed in Jim Lynch’s Border Songs. But if by any chance they’re seeking a sense of perspective, this astutely observed, wryly funny novel should be required reading.

Lynch, a former journalist who lives in Olympia, Wash., sets his narrative along what he calls “the nonchalant border” between his state’s Whatcom County and southwestern B.C. It’s “a geographical handshake,” he writes, occasionally marked “by nothing more than a drainage ditch that turned raucous with horny frogs in the spring and overflowed into both countries every fall.” The arbitrariness of the border inspires Lynch to play up the absurdity of attempting to secure it. In Border Songs, separated by one such ditch are the homes of American dairy farmer Norm Vanderkool and retired Canadian professor Wayne Rousseau. They’re each other’s closest neighbours, but nonetheless spend ample time bickering about the perceived differences between their countries — Wayne, a medicinal pot-smoker, raises the stoic farmer’s hackles by labelling Americans as “not only homophobic and xenophobic but euphoriaphobic.”

The Americans’ increased investment in security provides for surveillance cameras, sensor alarms and more border agents; Norm’s son, unable to gain employment elsewhere, signs up with the patrol. Brandon Vanderkool, the novel’s unlikely hero, is, at 6-foot-8 and 232 pounds, ideally suited to the job’s physical aspects, but his temperament is another matter: He would rather make mental catalogues of bird calls and create spontaneous sculptures out of found objects than chase down border-hopping miscreants. Ironically, though, his wandering into little-used forest areas finds him almost inadvertently capturing so many would-be smugglers (of drugs and of people) that he becomes a minor celebrity.

Read the rest of the review here, or grab a copy of Border Songs now!

Memphis Magazine Fiction Contest: 1,000 Dollar First Prize!

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:41:00 +0000

RULES AND GUIDELINES FOR THE 2009 MEMPHIS MAGAZINE FICTION CONTEST

Cosponsored by Burke's Book Store and Davis-Kidd Booksellers

We are seeking entries for our annual fiction contest. The winning story
will earn a $1,000 grand prize and will be published in a future issue of
Memphis. Two honorable mention awards of $500 each will be given if the quality of entries warrants. Contest cosponsors are Burke's Book Store, and Davis-Kidd Booksellers. Below are contest rules:
1. Authors must live within 150 miles of Memphis.
2. Entries must be postmarked by August 1, 2009.
3. You may submit more than one story but each entry must be accompanied by a $10 entry fee.
4. Stories are NOT required to have a Memphis or Southern theme.
5. Each story should be typed, double-spaced, with unstapled, numbered pages. Stories should be between 3,000 and 4,500 words.
6. With each story should be a cover letter that gives us your name, address, phone number, and the title of your story. Please do not put your name anywhere on the manuscript itself.
7. Manuscripts may be previously published as long as previous publication was not in a national magazine with over 20,000 circulation or in a regional publication within Shelby County.
8. Manuscripts should be sent to
FICTION CONTEST c/o Memphis magazine,
P.O. Box 1738
Memphis, TN 38101

NOTE: We cannot accept faxes or E-mails.
Authors wishing their manuscripts returned must include a self-addressed
stamped envelope with each entry.

If you have further questions, call Marilyn Sadler at 521-9000, ext. 451, or email her at sadler@memphismagazine.com. We look forward to receiving your stories.

Excellent Biography on Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Latin American Master Novelist

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:49:00 +0000

Gabriel García Márquez: A Life

Gabriel García Márquez: A Lifewill delight anyone interested in a novelist whose acclaim and appeal have been matched by his transforming influence on contemporary literature.

Gerald Martin's biography, a towering achievement of Latin American literary studies, reads beautifully, almost like a novel.

Painstakingly researched over 17 years, the book abounds with fresh discoveries based on information Martin gathered in interviews with García Márquez and many others, and on close readings of all the novels, and of many other published and unpublished writings.

With meticulous care, unusual clarity and a magnificent power of synthesis, Martin describes the constellation of historical, family, personal and cultural circumstances that made it possible for a Colombian writer, born in a marginalized coastal province of his country, to fuse Modernist literature (Faulkner, Woolf, Joyce, Kafka, Borges and others) with the rhythms and rhymes of Caribbean popular culture.

Martin shows how García Márquez gained the wherewithal to address the human complexities of the Latin American experience with irony, humor and flair, creating a world of fantasy, and a distinctive literary mode, known as magical realism.

Martin is a sympathetic biographer, more demanding on himself than on his subject: He is frank about what he was not able to discover regarding a guarded writer for whom the wildest literary imagination was never incompatible with his own sense of honesty or historical truth, and who did not take it kindly when anyone doubted the underlying veracity of his embellishments.

Read the rest of the review here, or grab a copy of Gabriel García Márquez: A Life now!

Spring Writing Contest At Narrative Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:36:00 +0000

Spring 2009 Story Contest at Narrative Magazine

Our spring contest is open to all fiction and nonfiction writers. We’re looking for short shorts, short stories, essays, memoirs, photo essays, graphic stories, all forms of literary nonfiction, and excerpts from longer works of both fiction and nonfiction. Entries must be previously unpublished, no longer than 15,000 words, and must not have been previously chosen as a winner, finalist, or honorable mention in another contest.

As always, we are looking for works with a strong narrative drive, with characters we can respond to as human beings, and with effects of language, situation, and insight that are intense and total. We look for works that have the ambition of enlarging our view of ourselves and the world.

We welcome and look forward to reading your pages.

Click here to submit your work.

Awards: First Prize is $3,250, Second Prize is $1,500, Third Prize is $750, and ten finalists will receive $100 each. All entries will be considered for publication.

Submission Fee: There is a $20 fee for each entry. And with your entry, you’ll receive three months of complimentary access to Narrative Backstage.

Timing: The contest deadline is July 31, 2009, at midnight Pacific Standard Time.

Judging: The contest will be judged by the editors of the magazine. Winners and finalists will be announced to the public by August 31, 2009. All writers who enter will be notified by email of the judges’ decisions.

Submission Guidelines: Please read our Submission Guidelines for manuscript formatting and other information.

Other Submission Categories: In addition to our contest, please review our other Submission Categories for areas that may interest you.

Celebrity Women Share Candid Advice In New Book: Essential Reading for Today's Girls

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Exactly As I Am: Celebrated Women Share Candid Advice with Today's Girls on What It Takes to Believe in Yourself

While mentoring young girls in journalism, I hear time and time again that they wish they could look like this celebrity or that celebrity. They think they have to dress like them, mimic their hairstyles or talk like them to fit in at school or to be liked even outside of school.

So many girls feel that celebrities are born perfect and have no flaws or insecurities. That’s far from the truth, as explained in Exactly As I Amby entertainment journalist Shaun Robinson. Robinson used her friendships with celebrities to help hammer it into girls’ heads that they are each beautiful exactly as they are.

Before I finished the first chapter, I decided the book would go in my arsenal as reinforcement when the girls and I have our sessions. Everyone, including your favorite actress, singer or athlete, at one time (in this book) felt inadequate or was talked about, but they realized how they felt about themselves was more important than what others thought. While many parents, including myself, can tell our young loved ones the same things their favorite celebrity says, the message seems to have more validity when it’s heard elsewhere.

Read more of the review here, or grab a copy of Exactly As I Am now!

Hudson Valley Writers Guild First Annual Multi-Genre Writing Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:34:00 +0000

The Hudson Valley Writers Guild is pleased to announce its first annual multi-genre Writing Contest, which will annually alternate among the genres of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. This year's contest is in poetry. Winners and Honorable Mentions will be invited to read their poems during the Community of Writers Program in the fall of 2009.
Eligibility:

All contestants must be residents of New York State. Current members of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild Board of Directors and their families are not eligible. Entries must be postmarked between May 1 and August 31, 2009.
Submission Guidelines:

* Theme: No style or topic requirements, but all submissions must be unpublished
* Submissions must be typed (No email submissions)
* 50-Line Limit
* Anonymous Entries: Do not write your name anywhere on the poems
* Submit 3 copies of 3-5 poems (3 completes sets)
* Entry fee: $10.00 for members of the HVWG and $15.00 for non-members

Send cover letter with:

* Your name
* Address
* Email address
* Poem titles
* Check for entry fee made out to "HVWG"
* SASE (optional)

Mail submissions to:
The Hudson Valley Writers Guild
c/o Mimi Moriarty
Box 222
Clarksville, NY 12041

Note: Submissions will not be returned, but if you would like hardcopy results of the contest, please send a SASE. All entrants will be notified of winners by email and/or SASE. Results will also be posted on our website. For more info, please email Mimi Moriarty.

For more on the contest, visit the HVWG site.

Three Minute Fiction Contest From National Public Radio

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:24:00 +0000

"Three-Minute Fiction" Contest Official Rules

1. CONTEST SPONSOR. The 2009 Three-Minute Fiction Writing Contest ("the Contest") is sponsored by National Public Radio, Inc. ("the "SPONSOR").

2. HOW TO ENTER. The Contest begins at 12:00 a.m. on June 20, 2009, and entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. on July 18, 2009. To enter, go to www.npr.org/threeminutefiction and click on the link "Send Us Your Original Short Story." Fill out the personal information form and upload your entry following the online instructions. You will receive an e-mail asking you to confirm your agreement to these Official Rules. You must reply in the affirmative to that e-mail in order for your entry to be considered. There is no limit to the number of entries per person. There is no fee to submit an entry. By submitting an entry to the Contest, each entrant agrees to comply with and be bound by these Official Rules and acknowledges that the decisions of the SPONSOR shall be final and binding in all matters relating to the Contest.

3. QUALIFIED ENTRIES. To be qualified for the Contest, an entry must include only one (1) fictional story (each, a "Story"). Each Story must (a) be in the English language; (b) be no longer than 600 words; (c) be wholly the original work of the entrant, not be copied from any other source; (d) be written solely by the entrant; (e) not have been previously broadcast or otherwise distributed or disseminated in any media or format; (f) not be in the public domain; (g) not be in violation of or conflict with the trademark, copyright, rights of privacy, rights of publicity or any other rights, of any kind or nature, of any other person or entity; and (h) not include any language or other content that is indecent, inappropriate, morally objectionable or otherwise unfit for dissemination or broadcast, as determined by the SPONSOR in its discretion. Entries not satisfying these criteria in any respect will be disqualified. If the SPONSOR, in its sole discretion, has reason to believe that any entry contains any material that may infringe or violate any law or any rights of a third party, or that the use or broadcast or such entry in the manner described herein may infringe or violate any law or any rights of a third party, the SPONSOR may immediately disqualify such entry and take any other measures the SPONSOR may deem appropriate.

4. ELIGIBILITY. The Contest is open only to individual legal residents of the fifty United States who are age 18 and over. Any individuals who have, within six (6) months prior to the start date of the Contest or thereafter, been employed by or performed services (including but not limited to as employees, consultants, independent contractors or interns) for SPONSOR or any of its subsidiary, affiliated or successor companies, and immediate family and household members of such individuals, are not eligible to enter or win. The SPONSOR reserves the right to verify and confirm entrants' ages and compliance with other eligibility requirements. Entrants may be required to submit further information to assist in the judges' verification of eligibility.

5. WINNER SELECTION. Judging will commence at the time the Contest begins and continue through and including July 24, 2009. The Contest judge shall be James Wood (literary critic for The New Yorker and author of "How Fiction Works") or such other person(s) as may be selected by the SPONSOR from time to time in its sole discretion (the "Judge"). The Judge will select one (1) Contest Winner, based on the following criteria, weighted equally: (a) originality; (b) creativity; (c) humor; and (d) overall quality of writing. In the event of a tie, tied entries will be re-judged based solely on the criteria of overall quality of writing. The Contest Winner will be notified on or about July 24, 2009. The Contest Winner will be required to sign and return within five (5) business days of receipt a notarized Affidavit of Eligibility and any other documents that SPONSOR may reasonably require. If the Contest Winner does not reply to any notification within forty-eight (48) hours, or fails to return any required documentation within five (5) business days of delivery to the Contest Winner, such Contest Winner may, in the sole discretion of SPONSOR, be disqualified and an alternate Contest Winner may be selected.

6. PRIZE. One (1) Contest Winner will be interviewed and have his/her Story read on-air during Weekend All Things Considered and will receive an autographed copy of the book "How Fiction Works" (approximate value - $25.00). No substitution, cash redemption or transfer of right to receive prizes is permitted, except in the discretion of SPONSOR, which reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value. Prize consists only of items expressly specified in these Official Rules.

7. GRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting a Story entry, the entrant grants to SPONSOR a non-exclusive, assignable, perpetual, license to produce, publish, distribute, transmit, exhibit, exploit, and license the Story and any portions thereof in any format (collectively "distribute" or "distribution," as applicable) by any and all means, uses and media, whether audio, print, audiovisual or otherwise, now or hereafter known, throughout the universe in all languages. Entrant further agrees that NPR shall have the first right to distribute the Story unless NPR waives that right, in writing. Entrant retains the copyright and all other rights in the work.

8. ENTRANT REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES, INDEMNIFICATION AND RELEASE. By entering, each entrant represents and warrants to the SPONSOR that his/her entry is (i) completely the original work of the entrant and was written solely by the entrant, (ii) not copied from any other source or previously broadcast or otherwise distributed or disseminated in any media or format, (iii) not in the public domain, and (iv) not in violation of or conflict with the trademark, copyright, rights of privacy, rights of publicity or any other rights, of any kind or nature, of any other person or entity. Entrant agrees to defend and indemnify SPONSOR for any breach of the above representations. By submitting an entry, each entrant agrees to indemnify, defend, release, discharge and hold harmless SPONSOR and its parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, promotional partners and agents, and all others associated with the development and execution of this Contest, and the officers, directors and employees of each of the foregoing, from any and all claims and liabilities arising from or in connection with participation in this Contest, including without limitation (a) claims for injury, loss or damage of any kind resulting from participation in this Contest or acceptance or use of any prize and (b) claims based on rights of privacy, rights of publicity, false light, defamation, copyright and/or trademark infringement relating to the submission or exploitation of the entrant's concept.

9. RELEASE OF CLAIMS. Each entrant acknowledges that the SPONSOR engages and has engaged in the developing, writing, acquiring, producing, publishing, disseminating and/or broadcasting of literary, artistic, and other material, including stories, ideas, themes, plots, titles, treatments, formats, and concepts (collectively, the "Materials"). By submitting an entry in the Contest, each entrant acknowledges and agrees that any Materials that the SPONSOR may hereafter use or exploit may have originated with the SPONSOR themselves or may have been acquired from the SPONSOR's employees or other parties, and that such Materials may duplicate, parallel or resemble the Story submitted in the Contest by the entrant. By submitting an entry, each entrant acknowledges that he or she understands and agrees that the SPONSOR use of Materials containing features, ideas, material and/or elements similar to or identical with those contained in their entry shall not entitle the entrant to any compensation whatsoever. As an inducement to SPONSOR to accept the entrant's entry into the Contest, each entrant hereby waives any claim or right of action against any of the SPONSOR or their successors in connection with the SPONSOR's use of any Materials (or any portions thereof) whether or not such Materials contain any features, ideas, material and/or elements similar or identical to those contained in an entrant's entry.

10. GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS. By entering the Contest, each entrant grants permission to the SPONSOR to use his/her name, photograph, likeness, voice, and/or biographical information for SPONSOR's programming, publication, publicity, advertising and all other promotional purposes without compensation, review or approval unless prohibited by law. The SPONSOR reserves the right to terminate, modify or suspend this Contest due to any of an act of God; unavoidable accident; epidemic; fire; blackout; act of public enemy; war, riot or civil commotion; enactment, rule, order or act of government or governmental instrumentality or tribunal; strike, lockout or other labor dispute; inclement weather; the recapture of any time period scheduled for the live broadcast of a program for an event of national importance or emergency; failure of technical facilities; failure of essential production, or technical personnel to appear or be available for production or broadcast; or other cause beyond its control. SPONSOR is not responsible for lost, late, illegible, incomplete, damaged, mutilated, misdirected, misdelivered, or delayed entries, or for technical or human errors or failures of any kind in connection with the submission, transmission, processing or judging of entries.

11. GOVERNING LAW. This Contest is governed by the internal laws of the District of Columbia without regard to principles of conflict of laws. All cases and claims pertaining to this Contest must be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction in the District of Columbia.

12. WINNER'S NAME. For the name of the Contest Winner, available after August 1, 2009, send a separate self-addressed, stamped envelope to Three-Minute Fiction Writing Contest, Weekend All Things Considered, NPR, 635 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001. Responses will be provided to all requests made prior to December 31, 2009.

Truffle Oil, Staff Rota, and Vegetable Prep: New Novel Takes You Into the Kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:22:00 +0000

In the Kitchen: A Novel

In the Kitchenis nowhere if not in the kitchen. In its first 100 pages there is so much detail about mise en place and truffle oil, staff rota and vegetable prep, consommé julienne and chiffonade, that we could be watching the Food Network. The author has done her research. The kitchen of the grand Imperial Hotel on Piccadilly is presented as “part prison, part lunatic asylum, part community hall.” It is also — and this is where Ali’s interests lie — an employer harbouring immigrants whose back-stories concern child armies in Africa, the Soviet Union’s senseless declassifying of intellectuals and the sex trafficking of teenage girls from Eastern Europe.

No doubt someone somewhere has already written a PhD thesis on the role of restaurants in the literature of immigration. In that genre, I prefer Ha Jin’s descriptions of the Chinese restaurant in A Free Lifeand Rose Tremaine’s striving Polish dishwasher in A Long Way Home. Ali’s Kitchen comes with a series of unsympathetic characters: The reader casts about from chef to his not-very-believable second-in-command, from fiancé to father, and finds nowhere to rest her affections. I would be the last to assert that we have to love all the characters in a novel. That is not what fiction is about. However, if an author deeply engages with any character, whether an upwardly mobile mid-life man from a Northern mill town or an earnest Asian immigrant chopping at his “battle station,” that character’s humanity will win our sympathy, if not our affection.

So the problem with In the Kitchenis not that the characters aren’t pleasant people, though they aren’t, but that they do not come alive. And why do they do not come alive in the hands of this gifted, insightful and thoughtful writer? I am afraid it is because they are stifled with dogma, with Ali’s desire to speak for everyone arriving on England’s shores. The immigrants are so loaded down with Ali’s voice that they can’t seem to speak with their own, even though they are given speech tics to signify their heritage. And the English are mouthpieces for Ali’s ideas about the country’s crisis of heart.

Ali wants to tell us what she thinks about the terrorist threat in London: “What are the chances? What kind of statistic are we talking about? But it invades us. We’ve been invaded, not by anyone, just by a nightmare.”

Read the rest of the review here, or get a copy of In the Kitchen now!

Creative Writing Contest for Children: Dream Power

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:20:00 +0000

"Dream Power” Creative Writing Contest for Children

In celebration of the fifth anniversary of the award-winning fantasy The Dark Dreamweaver, Imaginator Press is sponsoring a creative writing contest for children and teens up to age 14. The Dark Dreamweaver is the first book of The Remin Chronicles, about a land literally powered by dreams. Imaginator Press invites children to write a creative story on the theme of “Dream Power,” for a chance to win an 8 GB iPod Touch. Four second prize winners will receive $25 iTunes gift cards, and five third prize winners will receive $10 iTunes gift cards. The winning stories will be published in a "Dream Power" anthology.

Stories will be judged on originality and creativity, writing quality, grammar and spelling, and appropriateness to “Dream Power” theme. Everyone who enters and includes a self-addressed, stamped envelope with their entry will receive a certificate and a gold “Powered by Dreams” sticker. Entries must be received by October 31, 2009.

For more on the contest, visit the site here.

Bandits, Love Pirates, and the Shadow of Jesse James: Book Thralling Read

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:09:00 +0000

The Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son: Murder, Sin, and Scandal in the Shadow of Jesse James

Laura James, an attorney and crime historian from Detroit, has written a crackling, true-life account of a brazen femme fatale who was murdered in Kansas City in 1924.

Zeo Zoe Wilkins (her mother appropriated the curious name from the heroine of a 19th-century romance novel) grew up in squalor and poverty on a hog farm in rural Ohio. The 11th child of a prolific family, she was also the smartest and best-looking, with flawless skin, electric blue eyes and a willowy figure.

At 17, a high school drop-out, Zeo finagled her way into the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Mo. Her striking good looks attracted many male admirers, one of whom, Richard Dryer, the son of a banker, she married.

Details are murky, but it appears the marriage lasted only a few weeks. A new suitor entered her life, another ASO student named Charles Garring. They married in 1904; a year later, Zeo graduated from ASO and moved to Oklahoma with Garring. Oklahoma was in the throes of an oil boom. The number of men in the town of Durant, where Garring had set up an osteopathic clinic, outnumbered women 20-to-1. Zeo dallied openly with the roughnecks. Her career as a gold digger was launched.

Garring took out a life insurance policy, with Zeo the sole beneficiary. One night, at home alone, clutching a loaded pistol, she heard him tramp up the front steps. Thinking it was a burglar, she fired, not once but twice, wounding him. Overcome by remorse, she tended his wounds; only later did Garring find out that Zeo had rubbed her hands in horse manure before changing the dressings on his wounds.

Read the rest of the review here, or get a copy of The Love Pirate and the Bandit's Son: Murder, Sin, and Scandal in the Shadow of Jesse James now!

WOW: Women of Wisdom Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:48:00 +0000

Women of Wisdom

Foreword by Jean Houston

Women of Wisdomis in the forefront of the biggest change in human history – the only change that will assure our continuity as a species. Those who organize and participate in the Women of Wisdom experience know that for a new world to be born we have to bring a new mind to bear. Critical to this is the rich mind style of women that has been gestating in the womb of preparatory time, lo, these many millennia. In their ebullient and evocative conferences WOW demonstrates a tremendous change in who we are and how we do things.

Playing their part to usher in feminine mind, WOW emphasizes process rather than just product, and making things cohere, relate, and grow. Cultures in which the feminine archetype is powerful are almost always non-heroic; they tend to make things work together, each piece has its part to play. The feminine principle expresses itself as an unfolding of levels of existence, not as conquest of facts. The relationships between people and things become more important than final outcome. The world within becomes as important as the world outside.

In each and every WOW conference women discover ways to manifest this consciousness, embrace their power, challenge the way things are done, and build a new social order. They learn how women are more geared to team building and leading enterprises through natural growth stages.

The conferences demonstrate that governance, games, education, work, health – society itself – can be held to a new standard, one that promotes and honors the fullness of who and what we can be rather than just collective rights and liberties. They empower women to challenge the most sexist institutions from the medical establishments to business institutions, and at long last, allow their full creativity to be set free.

The women’s movement as a whole, and events such as the Women of Wisdom conference in particular, may be the outward manifestation of what is happening on depth levels in essential, mythic, and archetypal space-time. Whether the women’s movement has evolved because the crisis of the eternal world is calling for the rise of the goddess to restore the balance of nature, or because the release of women into full partnership demands a similar release of its archetypal principle, or even because, in the cosmic cycle of things, the time of the goddess has come around, we cannot say. But all the evidence indicates that the feminine archetype is returning.

This is perhaps the most important event of the last five thousand years, and its consequences may well have an immense, unimaginable effect on cultural and ecological evolution.

Because its approach is systemic rather than systematic, because it sees things in constellations rather than as discreet and disconnected facts, the feminine mind view is supremely concerned with the networking of the individual with the larger social organism. This is most important as we try and create a planetary society with deepening of individual cultures.

As I have had the opportunity to talk with many of the participants at these conferences I am moved to celebration and gratitude for what these remarkable women have done and how they have served in the creation of this new society.

Women of Wisdom by Kris Steinnes, is being offered beginning on June 23rd, 2009 at 12:01 am. We invite you to go to this page - www.wisewomanpublishing.com/womenofwisdom.html - to access the order page and then go back to this page to access the bonus page. On the Exclusive Private Invite page, enter your order confirmation code. That will allow you to gain entry to the bonus gifts that are available to people who buy the book on June 23rd.

Women of Wisdom offers a wide range of possibilities, images, and visions for galvanizing a better world for future generations. This compilation is a timely and invaluable resource for all ages, cultures, and disciplines."
— Angeles Arrien, author of The Four-Fold Way and The Second Half of Life

“What a magnificent job you did with “Women of Wisdom” The book is beautifully done, the women in it are brilliant, the graphics are exquisite, and the intelligence of your whole organization and effort are stunning.” —Barbara Marx Hubbard, author of The Hunger of Eve and Conscious Evolution and Emergence.

“First read this book carefully, perhaps aloud to a friend. Then dance with it. Then draw in it. Then bundle it in a leather pouch and take it someplace sacred—like under a large tree, alongside clear water, into the temple of a coffee shop, into a circle of women. Then read this book again. There is wisdom here that women and companioning men need in order to make the world anew. Bravo to Kris Steinnes for holding the vision, calling the gatherings, and harvesting these voices and images.” —Christina Baldwin, author of Life’s Companion, Calling the Circle, The Seven Whispers, and Storycatcher.

“I have just finished reading from cover to cover Women of Wisdom. I do congratulate you on a powerful book. I am very proud to be among this company Your own piece is an excellent introduction to all that follows. I hope many people will feel in their bones what this book is about. As I read, I remembered detail by detail my journey to Seattle, my time with Jean Shinoda Bolen over dinner, the drive to the church - happy memories!” —Marion Woodman, author of The Pregnant Virgin, Ravaged Bridegroom, and Leaving My Father's House.

Pacific Writers Institute Hollywood Movie Treatment Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:32:00 +0000

PWI's Hollywood Movie Treatment Contest.

Pacific Writer's Institute is inviting submissions for our first Writing Contest of 2009. We have been in touch with a Hollywood Movie Producer who has agreed to consider our best Movie Treatment for the novel "Day Follow Night; From Chaos To Redemption" by DH Burns. Read on to find out how to enter this exciting writing contest!

A brief definition of Movie Treatment: Most successful Hollywood Producers won't take the time to sit down and read an entire movie script unless they first know there's a good chance it's a script they can be passionate about. And so, agents and script writers invented the "Movie Treatment." Basically a Treatment is a selling tool to tease a producer into wanting to see the entire book or movie script.

It is usually from one to 25 pages- for our contest, less is more, and we're limiting our submissions from one to eight pages, single-spaced, with one inch margins all the way around.

A Treatment is written in broad strokes in present tense. Use dramatic, action-packed, highly-visual prose. Give us a great hook and tell us a bit about the main characters, use some dialogue to help us see and hear them. We want to see some dramatic scenes and some humor as well.

"Day Follow Night" is a big, episodic novel and we need it boiled down to a few pages. Focus on what you see as the main themes then write with intensity! Bring it to life for us on the page.

"Day Follow Night; From Chaos To Redemption" can be purchased from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Publish America, or through our own online store. It's been out for a few years now and sometimes a used copy can be found online.

Pacific Writer's Institute's Spring Hollywood Movie Treatment Contest opened Feb. 22 and the deadline for entries has just been extended to August 1, 2009. Please use white paper, single-spaced on one side only. Always keep the original for your files. Include your name and contact information at the top of page one. Enter as often as you like but include a $15.00 entry fee made out to PWI on a U.S. bank with each entry. Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Address entries to: PWI Contest, 60894 Willow Creek Loop, Bend, Oregon 97702.

The winner's Treatment will be forwarded to our Hollywood Producer. If movie rights are purchased from author DH Burns he has agreed to give our contest winner a full 25% of the first advance payment he receives for movie option, not including the publisher's cut. Sorry, no guarantees; it could be lucrative, it could be disappointing. Some treatments sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars; most don't sell at all. (The deadline for this deal is midnight December 20, 2009 which gives the winner six months for Option offers to come in after the contest ends). The winner will also receive name credit for the Treatment and a handsome frameable certificate and PWI tee-shirt.

PWI reserves the right to carefully edit the winning Treatment before forwarding to Hollywood. We promise to only make changes to clarify points or otherwise improve the Treatment. Entrants must be at least 18 years old. Treatments become property of PWI. See suggestions on our Tips Page.

Authors of the top five Treatments receive certificates and PWI tee-shirts as well. All winners may enter a short story for a free critique by our staff if they like.

Entries will be judged by our staff and each one will receive a number grade. In cases of ties the earliest post dates will win. Decisions of our judges are final. Send entries by US Mail only.

Our staff is excited about this first-of-a-kind contest! We know we will see some wonderful and creative contest entries from our contestants. The best of luck to all.

For more on the contest, visit the Pacific Writers Institute page.

Bull Fighter Poetry Contest: Review Fuse Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:27:00 +0000

Poetry Contest - August 2009

Purpose: Have fun, enjoy the competition, and become a better poet by participating in our peer critique process for this contest.

Who Can Enter: This contest is open to all poets. All submissions must be posted and assigned critiques completed by August 31, 2009. Poems must be 50 lines or fewer. You may post additional poems to this site for critique, but only one poem will be eligible for this contest.

Subject Matter: A Bull Fighter. The poem should adhere to our content policy.

Prizes: The winner of this contest will receive $50.

How to Enter: It’s pretty easy

1. Create a free account or sign in for existing members.
2. Upload your poem; make sure you select “Poetry Contest” as the category.
3. Submit your poem for peer critique.
4. Complete you assigned reviews, this is discussed more below.

Decisions: There will be 3 rounds of judging.

1. Authors from the Review Fuse staff will select the 10 best poems for Round 2.
2. Of these 10 poems, Review Fuse management will select the 5 authors who gave the most detailed and well thought out critiques of their peer’s poetry for Round 3.
3. The winner will then be selected by 3 creative writing and poetry professors.

* Find out more about what our judges think great poetry is.

Entry Fee: There are no entry fees or purchases of any kind required to enter and win the contest. After you submit your poem to the contest you will be required to complete assigned critiques of other poets (4 for free members and 3 for premium members). You will receive 3 critiques of your poem in return. Those who do not complete their critiques will not be eligible to win the contest.

Rights: All poems remain the sole property of the author. After we have selected the winner we will seek permission from the author to publish the winning poem on our blog. The author is under no obligation to allow this.

Notification: The prize winner will be notified by email on September 12, 2009. We will announce the prize winner on our blog on September 14, 2009.

Women of Wisdom: Have You Put Your Dreams on Hold?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:36:00 +0000

Women of Wisdom: Empowering the Dreams and Spirit of Women

Women of Wisdomis a journey through sixteen years of one of the largest women’s spirituality conferences in the world, a very unique conference that has impacted thousands of women’s lives. Authors Jean Houston and Margot Anand both exclaimed separately to me – “Kris there is nothing like this in the world” – and they have traveled around the world. The book will continue to impact women, as they experience the wisdom and gifts of the sixty contributors in the book.

The Women of Wisdombook gives women access to powerful, inspiring women leaders and their message for women to step into their power, own their feminine gifts, and learn to speak their truths. WOW provides role models who will inspire women to discover their dreams and their purpose.

Additionally the book shares stories from women whose lives have been changed by experiencing these women’s messages. Evocative art, poetry and experiential exercises enhance the book’s message, providing diverse ways to experience the spirit of the feminine.

Included in the book is my own story of how I started Women of Wisdom,which has been an empowering story for women to hear. My story began with reading The Feminine Face of God, by Patricia Hopkins and Sherry Anderson. Shortly afterwards I had a vision of bringing these spiritual women leaders to Seattle. And I immediately set that in motion at Seattle Unity Church, where I was a board member.

I realized this was something more than just a conference when I welcomed people at the first night of the conference, February 11, 1993, and I stated “Welcome to the First Annual Women of Wisdom Conference.” It has become a movement for women to come together in community and explore their potential, and to honor and support one another. This conference has continued to grow and be strong for seventeen years now and that is a testimony to the power of the vision, and the importance of women realizing the value of their unique gifts to share with the world.

In 1998 I realized I had a wealth of material in the tapes of the talks from these nationally known best selling authors and that they would make a great book. I had a dream to share this with other women. I would get phone calls and emails from women asking me if there was an organization like WOW in their city. Not everyone has the luxury to travel to conferences and experience life changing conferences and this book will provide that opportunity to many women.

In addition, the powerful women who participated at the conference in different ways – artists, musicians, writers, local presenters and WOW leaders – would contribute to make this book a holistic experience of exploring the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of being a woman, giving the reader the full conference experience.

The women’s movement has led women to evolve to such heights as running for the presidency of the United States. However in workshops I have given women have shared how isolated they feel. They don’t feel honored in society for their feminine gifts and how they don’t feel comfortable or safe speaking what they feel, what’s inside their hearts, whether it be in the workplace, home or other. In sharing women’s stories in the book, women will relate to their experiences and gain strength and support through the validation of the feminine that is expressed in the book.

Many of the authors in the book share how there is a lack of balance of the feminine in our world, and how we’re at a critical time where women need to become equal partners towards creating the solutions to the many crisis facing our globe. Jean Houston shares her experience of Women of Wisdom in the foreword of the book:

“Women of Wisdom is in the forefront of the biggest change in human history – the only change that will assure our continuity as a species. Those who organize and participate in the Women of Wisdom experience, know that for a new world to be born we have to bring a new mind to bear. Critical to this is the rich mind style of women that has been gestating in the womb of preparatory time, lo, these many millennia. In their ebullient and evocative conferences WOW demonstrates a tremendous change in who we are and how we do things.”

"Playing their part to usher in feminine mind, WOW emphasizes process rather than just product, and making things cohere, relate, and grow. Cultures in which the feminine archetype is powerful are almost always non-heroic, they tend to make things work together, each piece has its part to play.”

“Men and women will be released from the old polarities of gender that force them into limited and limiting roles, and qualities of intelligence will be added to the human mind-pool that will render most previous problem solving obsolete. Linear, sequential solutions will yield to the knowing that comes from seeing things in whole gestalts, in constellations, rather than in discrete fact…. And it will ring an ecological ethic, along with a new partnership between men and women, in which the human acts in concert and in partnership with Nature to bring about more symbiotic ecological relationships.”

An Excerpt from Women of Wisdom: Have You Put Your Dreams On Hold?

Each one of us has a great dream and a great calling. Many of us have put our dreams on the back burner. We say, “Someday when I have enough time, when I have enough money; then I’ll do what I really want to do, what has fire for me.” At this time there is such a wonderful opening in history, in evolution, if we will just come and take our place.

What I’ve found among many of the indigenous peoples of the world is that they know how important it is to bring our medicine and our dreams to this world. If we want the earth to get better we need to show up and take our place, not with our shrouds of insufficiency, but with our long tall bodies and our deep, deep roots. The warrior’s way or the leader’s way is to show up. And then I can pay attention to what has heart and meaning, which is the healer’s way. I can’t know what has heart or meaning until I choose to show up, until I choose to be present.

Among the shamanic traditions of the world, if you go to a shaman or a medicine person, and you are dispirited, disheartened, or depressed, many of them will ask you one of four questions: “When in your life did you stop singing? When in your life did you stop dancing? When in your life did you stop being enchanted by stories, and particularly your own life story? And when in your life did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?”

Wherever we stop singing, dancing, being enchanted by stories or deeply comforted by silence, we begin to experience soul loss. There’s not a culture in the world that does not have song, or dance, or story, or doesn’t recognize that in the sweet territory of silence we connect to the mystery in our contemplative and reflective practices.

I know I’m not at home when I’m in appeasement, weak-heartedness, seduction, drama or exaggeration. I know I’m not at home when I am playing the martyr or the victim and wanting someone else to be responsible for my life and therefore guilt induce others. I’m not at home when I’m controlling, because the opposite of control is trust.

I am at home when I have fire; when I am deeply connected to what has heart and meaning, the heart’s fire; when I’m seized by a vision that I want to manifest and bring to the sweet face of Mother Earth. I know I’m on fire when I’ve lost time through some creativity, and when I’ve experienced a moment of tender sweetness and intimacy in a relationship that has substance and depth. I know I’m on fire when I’ve connected to something numinous and extraordinarily beautiful that can only be found when trusting in an unshakable part of myself, in a sacred refuge that I can find in my deep interior.

Women of Wisdom by Kris Steinnes, is being offered beginning on June 23rd, 2009 at 12:01 am. We invite you to go to this page - www.wisewomanpublishing.com/womenofwisdom.html - to access the order page and then go back to this page to access the bonus page. On the Exclusive Private Invite page, enter your order confirmation code. That will allow you to gain entry to the bonus gifts that are available to people who buy the book on June 23rd.

Subtropics Seeks Best Literary Fiction, Essays, and Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:25:00 +0000

Submit to Subtropics

Subtropics seeks to publish the best literary fiction, essays, and poetry being written today, both by established and emerging authors. We will consider works of fiction of any length, from short shorts to novellas and self-contained novel excerpts. We give the same latitude to essays. We appreciate work in translation and, from time to time, republish important and compelling stories, essays, and poems that have lapsed out of print.

For stories and essays, Subtropics pays a flat fee of $1,000 ($500 for a short short) for North American first serial rights. Poets are paid $100 per poem. Subtropics pays upon acceptance for prose; for poetry, we pay after the publication of the issue preceding the one in which the author’s work will appear.

Direct fiction submissions to David Leavitt, essays to David Leavitt or Mark Mitchell, and poetry to Sidney Wade.

Submit in hard copy by mail. Include a short cover letter with your contact information. Please include your contact information on the submission as well. We respond exclusively by e-mail. Manuscripts cannot be returned under any circumstances.

We do not accept simultaneous submissions in poetry. While we will accept simultaneous submissions in fiction, please note, when making your submission, that we respond much faster than do most journals.

Please read an issue of the magazine before you send us your work in order to get a feel for the kind of writing we publish. You’ll see that we don’t publish science fiction, fantasy, genre fiction, or anything with talking animals.

Submissions are accepted from August 31 to May 1. PLEASE NOTE: Subtropics will not be considering prose submissions between January 1 and August 31, 2009. We will resume reading prose in September 2009.

Some Thoughts from the Editors

• We ask that you submit only one story at a time, and wait until you have heard from us before sending more. Once you have received a reply from us, please wait at least one month before sending another submission.
• Please send no more than five poems in any one batch.
• We try to respond as quickly as possible to submissions, and for this reason are not able to write personal replies.
• A preponderance of the stories coming our way are written in first-person present tense; we are starting to grow weary of this perspective. Please keep this in mind.
• We are skeptical of the second person, though willing to be persuaded.
• More thoughts to come as they occur to us.

Thank you for your interest in Subtropics.

Subtropics
P.O. Box 112075
4008 Turlington Hall
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-2075

Writers Digest Short Story Competition: Tenth Annual Short Story Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:30:00 +0000

The Writer's Digest 10th Annual Short Short Story Competition

We're looking for fiction that's bold, brilliant...but brief. Send us your best in 1,500 words or fewer.

But don't be too long about it—the deadline is Tuesday, December 1, 2009.

PRIZES
First Place: $3,000
Second Place: $1,500
Third Place: $500
Fourth Through Tenth Place: $100
Eleventh Through Twenty-Fifth Place: $50 gift certificate for Writer's Digest Books

Science Fiction Writing Contest: Short, Micro, or Flash Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:23:00 +0000

Science Fiction - What if?

Imagine what if? and so you ask yourself, what if... what? Well you tell us! We want science fiction short fiction (micro, flash or short stories) that tell us a science fiction story around the idea what if. Where ever you take it, take it interesting! The word limit is 5,000 words.

Schedule: Submission ONLY accepted between June 1, 2008 - August 31, 2009. Winners will be selected by September 30, 2009

Prizes: Winning stories will be paid $50.00, Second place $25.00, Third Place $10.00. The top stories will be published in a science fiction collection to be published in October of 2009. All accepted entries will receive an ebook version of the final collection.

Entry Fee: FREE!

Find more on the contest and submission here.

How Talent Is Grown: New Book Proposes Interesting Theory On Talent

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:08:00 +0000

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.

Where does extraordinary talent come from? Daniel Coyle comes up with an intriguing answer in this highly readable account of the neuroscience of skill and talent.

Though popular perception has often regarded talent as something otherworldly — a gift from a higher power, perhaps, and certainly nothing that anyone could do anything about — in fact, according to modern neuroscience, talent is much more mundane, being nothing more than the wiring of chains of neural circuits inside the brain.

According to the most-recent theories of talent presented by Coyle, it all has to do with myelin, the substance that insulates the synaptic connections among the neurons. Every human skill is the result of the formation of such synaptic chains of nerve fibers. When brain circuits are fired the right way, myelin is generated, insulating those connections, making the signal flowing through them clearer, stronger, faster.

According to Coyle, the degree of this insulation is what is responsible for talent — the more time and energy you put into the right practice, the more myelin is deposited on those neural circuits associated with that practice, the more talent you achieve. It is as if the brain builds more broadband for those circuits that are activated in the right way. The right way is that of deep practice, one of the three key ingredients responsible for the creation of the neural architecture of talent. The other two identified by Coyle are ignition and master coaching.

Read more of the review here, or get a copy of The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How.

Airedale Writers’ Circle Announces Writing Competition

noreply@blogger.com (Peter N. Jones) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:58:00 +0000

Airedale Writers’ Circle has launched its adult open writing competition.

Anyone aged 14 or over is invited to submit manuscripts on a theme of their choice.

There are three categories — short stories up to 1,500 words; poems up to 40 lines and articles up to 1,000 words.

Entrants can make as many submissions as they wish — there is a £3.50 fee for the first entry and £2.50 for subsequent entries. Work must be original and not have been published, read on radio or performed on TV or stage.

A £50 prize will be awarded in each category and the Airedale Writers’ Circle Challenge Cup will be presented to the best overall entry from a circle member.

The name of this year’s judge is yet to be announced.

The closing date for entries is September 8 but submissions sent by post will be accepted later if postmarked by that date.

Winners will be announced and the challenge cup presented at the circle’s Christmas party, on December 8.

Entry forms — together with conditions for submission — can be obtained from Keighley, Skipton, Bingley and Ilkley libraries; Reids Bookshop, in Keighley, or circle secretary Maureen O’Hara, at 20 Glenhurst Avenue, Park Lane, Keighley BD21 4RJ, phone 01535 603119.