Happenings beween April & July

TRAVELS

Since April I've been working hard at my daily job. One of the joys of my job is I have the opportunity to travel abroad and teach a writing class. This year I traveled to Australia where I had a great time teaching a great group of students and spent hours walking around Sydney. I even walked across and back on the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Truly a moving experience as the sun set filling the sky with muted pinks, purples, oranges, an yellows. I carried my writing journal with me everywhere I went and am looking for a few poems to come out of my Australian adventures.




POETRY

The poems having been coming s-l-o-w-l-y, but I am not worried. They will come. On the other hand, the visual images for my "When the Caged Bird Sings" art exhibit are FIERCE and they are coming fast and furiously. Yesterday, I made myself laugh aloud when I thought "This birdcage exhibit has to come together otherwise I have no excuse for my house looking like it should be on Horders."

Recent good news about my poetry:

* My poetry manuscript "Tongues in My Mouth" was a semi-finalist in the 2009 Crab Orchard Review First Book Prize. Another verison of this manuscript was a semi-finalist in the 2007 Crab Orchard Review First Book Prize.

* "Tongues in My Mouth" was also a semi-finalist in the 2009 Many Mountains Moving Press Poetry Book Prize.


FICTION

In January I made a resolution to start writing fiction and/or creative nonfiction in addition to writing poetry. Well, when I attended the AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Prograpms) Conference in April this year, I entered a Knee Jerk Magazine's (an online literary journal)Extremely short Fiction (75 words)Best Buddies Contest. Guess what? My extremely short story "The Truth and Nothing but the Truth" as a runner-up for the prize. It appeared in Knee Jerk Magazine, Issue 11, May 2010.


"LAST WORDS"

As I work on several writing projects at one time(two edited anthologies; new poems and mixed media art for "When the Caged Bird Sings"; and a new poetry manuscript "Beneath the Surface") the following quotations has given me inspiration:

* "The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." ~ Anaïs Nin

and

* "You are a creator. What are you creating? There are 2 types of people: those who run with an idea to its execution, and those who make excuses as to why it can't be done, then get upset when someone else makes it happen. Now is the time to follow through. I await your great idea." ~ Opal Palmer Adisa


May these quotations inspire you, also.

Peace