Tag Archives: writer

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

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