Reluctantly last year I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Fundamentally an introvert, I wasn’t all that thrilled about sharing the minutia of mine or other people’s daily living. Didn’t really want such cluttering up my phone’s social media screen. Then I listened to accomplished authors and well known agents discuss how social media and “building a platform” was the 21st century shingle outside of the door. I followed a few friends. Got psyched about poetry and followed some poets. Noticed the ‘similar to you’ post Twitter puts up next to the feed and followed a few of those. Followed a few speakers and presenters from conferences. The end result? I’ve found avenues for submitting my work as call for submissions float across the feed. Learned scores of techniques and practices for improving the marketability of my work. Found a few good reads by following the breadcrumb of a link in a tweet, discovering a new literary magazine or a just coming out book by an emerging author. Found answers to some of my ‘how to’ questions via crowdsourcing an inquiry over twitter. Sure, there is some minutia coming in from a few personal, I actually know in real life, friends. There is also the funny, dramatic, touching, and all too human experience of complete and perfect strangers that regularly tweet who have become virtual friends whose tweets I look forward to reading because they add to my day one small moment at a time. Twitter is a great tool that is helping me negotiate the shoals of self publishing and submission of the work and remind me that life must be balanced, as each small window into life flashes by 140 characters at a time.
Category Archives: writing life
Anna-Marie McLemore’s winning essay for the Victoria A. Hudson Emerging Writers Scholarship at the 2012 San Francisco Writers Conference
I write because we cannot let our languages die with us.
By language, I don’t mean a difference in words or inflection. I don’t mean the distance between my family’s Spanish and the English of the country we have made ours. By language, I mean the way the things we touch come to mean the things we cannot. The way that, to my family, lemon blossoms mean reunion, because the tree outside my grandmother’s kitchen window seemed to bloom only when my older brother returned after vanishing for months at a time. The way that, as a child, I was sure that roasting poblano chilis invited el demonio into the house, because after a few burnt on the stove, my mother threw out the garden’s worth.
It did not occur to me then that to others, lemon blossoms were nothing but a first sign of bitter fruit to come. Not until a boy I grew up with taught me the language of his family. He laughed at the way my tongue, made for the trilling of ‘R’s and the blurring of ‘B’s and ‘V’s, could not mimic the softened stops of his family’s German, or the intricate ‘sz’ of their Hungarian. But more than this, he taught me how in the village his family came from, there was no greater sign of love than carved wooden roses; he often wondered at how marigolds to my family meant both death and joy. He did not understand why my grandmother taught me that too much cayenne in Mexican rice could mean a woman was in love; too much paprikát, his grandmother told him, meant nothing but that the cook was in a hurry.
By language, I mean the way these small things hint at the infinite, the way the ordinary stands for that which is so beautiful we do not speak of it. Sometimes passion is not a touch, but the way a lover sugars roselles for jamaica. These things themselves come from our childhood homes, our gardens, our cultures. But they are more than that. We learn them in ways no one else will. Sometimes fear is poblano chilis more than it is la llorona or the dark. But sometimes carved wooden roses, which first mean nothing to a girl who grew up among marigolds, come to stand for love in the hands of a boy who calls them rózsák.
I write because we cannot lose them. I write because, if we do not write, we will.
— Anna-Marie McLemore
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SFWC Victoria A. Hudson Emerging Writer Scholarship Winner
The 2012 recipient of the Victoria A. Hudson Emerging Writer Scholarship at the San Francisco Writers Conference is Poet Anna-Marie McLemore of Sacramento, California. Ms. McLemore is a grand slam winner, whose fiction and non-fiction entries were also blind selected for top honors in the annual writing contest. Ms. McLemore is a 2011 Lambda Literary Fellow in fiction. Her work has appeared in numerous Cleis Press anthologies.
Runners up included fiction writer Katrina Anne Willis, of Starkville, Mississippi, and non-fiction writer Rebecca Beyer of San Francisco, California.
Ms. McLemore will receive a registration credit to attend the 2012 San Francisco Writers Conference February 16 – 20th. (Pre/post conference events and Speed Dating with Agents are not included.) All three will receive a one year Sunshine membership to the San Francisco Writers University online community.
This is the fourth year Victoria A. Hudson has sponsored a scholarship to the San Francisco Writers Conference. Initially restricted to MFA students, for the 2011 conference the competition was opened to any emerging writer. This year, due to a small number of entries, the genres were combined into one competition.
Each year, submissions include two pages of a written, unpublished work and a short essay responding to the prompt “I write because…”. Finalists are selected genre neutral based upon the quality, clarity, and depth of the essay. The writing samples are used to further differentiate the quality of each writer’s work. Reading is done blind with no identifying information available until after entries are ranked and finalists selected. For the 2012 scholarship there were a total of 18 submissions across the three genres.
The submission period for the 2013 Victoria A. Hudson Emerging Writer SFWC scholarship is September 1 – December 1, 2012.
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Coming at the end of this month, winner(s) for registration scholarships to the San Francisco Writers Conference coming in February.
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One Month Left: Submit now for SFWC Scholarships
Emerging Writer Scholarships to the 2012 San Francisco Writers Conference
The Victoria Hudson Emerging Writers Scholarship
The Victoria A. Hudson Scholarship will award a $500 registration scholarship to one Fiction, Poetry and Nonfiction emerging writer to attend the San Francisco Writers Conference February 17-19 2012. The scholarship covers registration fee only, does not include lodging, food (except what is included with the registration) or speed dating with agents.
Emerging writer is defined as: Does not have an agent or book contract or previously published a book. Chapbooks less than 500 copies, self-published less than 500 copies, and e-books less than 250 downloads are okay to enter.
Submission period is September 1 through December 1 2011.
Guidelines: Send two pages representative of your writing, plus a short essay not to exceed 500 words that begins with the line “I write because…” No identifying information should be on the writing example or the short essay. In a sealed envelope with the genre and title of your work written on the envelope, include an additional page that details your name, contact info, and a short Bio.
Mail your entry to: SFWC Scholarships C/O Hudson, PO Box 387, Hayward, CA 94543
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Write NonFiction in 30 Days
Author Nina Amir has launched the site Write NonFiction (WNFIN) in November in response to the National Novel Writing Month held in November which challenges fiction writers to write 50,000 words in 30 days in the month of November. Write NonFiction in November is not a contest but a challenge. There is no “entry” process other than to add a comment to the WNFIN blog site. That’s it. Add your comment, describe your project and do the work of creating/completing your nonfiction writing project over the 30 days of November. The rules are simple:
- SIGN IN by November 1 at noon PT.
- Describe your book project — topic and type of book (memoir, self-help, etc.) as well as how you plan to produce it (traditional publisher, self-published, printed, ebook, blogged, etc.).
- Tell me how you plan to meet the deadline of completing your book manuscript in 30 days. In other words, what’s your plan, what have you done to prepare, or how will you ensure that you actually write a nonfiction book in 30 days? Will you blog it? Do you have an outline? Have you got a table of contents and a synopsis of each chapter? Did you do all your research already? You get the idea…
Start a completely new project, or revive one that has been stagnant for while, or just finish what you are slowly moving forward on now. The point is do the work!.
If inclined, participants can post updates on the status update page at WNFIN of their progress and challenges then support and receive support from others taking part in the challenge. There is no expectation or obligation to take advantage of this impromptu nonfiction writer community in the month of November. When the 30 days are over, come back to the site and post a final update if you completed your project or not. You can share additional info on what the experience of WNFIN was for you or just say if you met the challenge or not. There is no one standing over you with a gradebook, red pen, or attitude one way or the other.
Nina Amir has created a terrific opportunity for nonfiction writers to who might need a little nudge, who work best with external motivation, or who just like something a little different to shake up their writing day to day. And if you sign in on the WNFIN and take up the challenge before the end of the month, you just might find a book in the mail to you, courtesy of Nina. She will choose one of the participants that sign in for the challenge on the home page based upon their description of the complete book manuscript planned for completion in the 30 days and send them a copy of Rochelle Melander’s just released book Write-a-Thon, Write a Book in 26 days (And Live to Tell About It).
So, what are you waiting for?
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Living the Story
Nonfiction is my genre of choice. Telling the stories of life, not the large events, but the small ones that make up the large ones is what attracts me to nonfiction. Currently, my own life is caught up on events that have both small and large impact, on me, my family, my life and the lives of others to some extent. Living in the moment while observing in order to chronicle is a challenge. Fundamentally, I am a private person. My story at the moment lends to a larger tapestry involving civil rights and equal protection under the law. Perhaps some part of that story as it unfolds will resonate with others. Read more at my blog Home and Hearth.
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Challenges Today
Challenges to writing this week include stating up a new graduate program in mulitmedia at California State University East Bay, the Bug started preschool which means an actual scheduled wake up time if going to get her there on time, the usual 100s of emails and dozen or so phone calls related to the “part-time” job in the Army Reserves, usual family demands on time and energy, the garden cries for attention and apparently, whooping cough which has its own demand for slowing everything down.
In other words, there is always something to get in the way of actual writing time.
So don’t let it.
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Recalling September 11, 2001
September 12, 2001 – The Day After
I want to wake up
The sun bright
Dancing shining beams
Upon a morning
Without fear
Of yesterday’s tragedy
Absent the smell of flesh
No quilt of destruction
From soft ash and pulverized bone
Blanketing humanities’ horizon.
***
I wrote the above poem the day following September 11 and the attacks that began this decade of war and fear. The day before I had been awoken by the phone ringing approximately 6:40 in the morning on the west coast. “Turn on the TV” was all my friend could say. Tuning in, I see jet planes crashing into skyscrapers and shots of the Pentagon burning. I’m asked, “What does it mean?” I reply I don’t know. I watch the news a while, then turn off my TV. I drag out my gear and inventory my go to war kit. I call my career manager at the Army Reserve Personnel Center and volunteer. That day I’m assigned to 16th Military Police Brigade, an active duty unit, as a Reserve Individual Augmentee. I wait for activation orders. I put my uniform on and drive the 25 miles to Camp Parks, the local Army Reserve Training Base to see if I can assist in anyway. The flag remains at full mast. There is no guard at the gate. The force protection signs still read Alpha – no threat. There is nothing for me to do, I go home. Count my gear and repack again. A few weeks later, I am recalled to active duty and join with 49 other reserve Military Police and Military Intelligence officers and NCOs assigned to the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). I lead one of several Infrastructure Security Teams over the next 6 months that assess security at economically vital locks and dams in the homeland. This is the first of three mobilizations post 9/11. Those six months I traveled by air a number of times. Each time, I wore a rugby jersey that recalled the leadership and sacrifice of ruggers Jeremy Glick and Mark Bingham, with Tom Burnett, to have led the counterattack on Flight 93, preventing the plane from reaching its target, possibly the White House.
The above day after poem has a tone of helplessness. There is a desire for hope that has been lost and is mourned, driven by confusion of the day before’s events. The poem as well contains prescience of a future colored with fear, loss and violence. The poem was written in a group of other writers, gathering for our scheduled Tuesday afternoon fiction writing class led by author Mary Webb. A semblance of normality, we’d come together according to our ordinary schedule on what clearly was not an ordinary day.
Ten years have passed and as a nation we have reclaimed a sense of normality though we have lost some of our comfort. Travel is no longer any may never again be the easy, comfortable process it once was in terms of security. We remain at war, though for 99% of the population, there is no sacrifice real or emotional as still less than 1% of the nation serves and economically we have not responded as all previous wars have called us to with shared sacrifice and contribution.
The blanket of destruction has been transformed into memorials and memories. We are an impatient people, ready for the war and conflict and meager collective sacrifice, if any, to be over. Alas, our adversary is patient and will wait for us to weaken our resolve from fatigue and time weathered experience. The day before yesterday’s tragedy, will it ever be again our day after?
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Emerging Writer Scholarships to the 2011 San Francisco Writers Conference
The Victoria Hudson Emerging Writers Scholarship
The Victoria A. Hudson Scholarship will award a $500 registration scholarship to one Fiction, Poetry and Nonfiction emerging writer to attend the San Francisco Writers Conference February 17-19 2012. The scholarship covers registration fee only, does not include lodging, food (except what is included with the registration) or speed dating with agents.
Emerging writer is defined as: Does not have an agent or book contract or previously published a book. Chapbooks less than 500 copies, self-published less than 500 copies, and e-books less than 250 downloads are okay to enter.
Submission period is September 1 through December 1 2011.
Guidelines: Send two pages representative of your writing, plus a short essay not to exceed 500 words that begins with the line “I write because…” No identifying information should be on the writing example or the short essay. In a sealed envelope with the genre and title of your work written on the envelope, include an additional page that details your name, contact info, and a short Bio.
Mail your entry to: SFWC Scholarships C/O Hudson, PO Box 387, Hayward, CA 94543
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Vicki Hudson 