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People change in life, so must your characters. Write a paragraph about your protagonist at age eight discovering a wounded sparrow on the sidewalk. Next write a paragraph about the same protagonist at age forty-two encountering the same sparrow. How are the reactions different? Write a third paragraph about why your character changed. That is the story of your protagonist.
The Cambridge, Wisconsin–based literary magazine Rosebud is currently accepting submissions to its fifth biennial Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction. The winner will receive $1,000 and publication in Rosebud. The deadline is September 15.
Submit one copy of a previously unpublished short story of up to 4,500 words with a $10 entry fee ($15 to receive a copy of the prize issue) by postal mail to Rosebud Magazine, N3310 Asje Road, Cambridge, Wisconsin 53523. Checks can be made payable to the Rosebud/Shelley Award.
Works of literary fiction, as well as works of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and “stories that reach beyond the boundaries of those genres” are eligible. Fiction writer Ray Vukcevich will serve as final judge.
Established in 1993 and staffed entirely by volunteers, Rosebud Magazine is a nonprofit organization that publishes works of poetry, fiction, and essays in three print issues each year. For more information and complete submission guidelines, visit the website.
Time is what we call the brutal miracle that makes us grow old. Certain months of time remind us of falling in love, burying a loved one, or moving into a new house. This week, as we say goodbye to July, reflect on what August has meant to your life. Begin your poem with your childhood. Then describe how August has changed you and your perception of the world.
In July, P&W-funded fiction writer Alex Espinoza, author of The Five Acts of Diego León, was among the faculty at the annual Community of Writers at Squaw Valley conference in California. Laura Cerruti, Squaw Valley’s director of development, blogs about his visit.
“Do you love the Community of Writers?” asked Alex Espinoza, a workshop teacher at the forty-third annual Community of Writers. He was introducing the Published Alumni Reading Series, and the audience’s response rivaled the volume of the cheerleaders whose camp often shares our airspace in Squaw Valley—not bad for a group of writers ranging in age from early twenties to late eighties, and from first-timers to seasoned alumni.
Espinoza’s introduction set the stage for an electric evening in the Olympic Village’s Plaza Bar, where even the mountain seemed to be leaning in to listen.
When a writers’ workshop reaches middle age, it becomes as defined by its alumni as by its current participants. Espinoza is an excellent example of this beneficial cycle. A graduate of the UC Irvine MFA program, Espinoza first attended the Community of Writers in 2004, returning in 2005. Community of Writers founder Oakley Hall directed the Irvine program for two decades, and Irvine MFAs have been attending the conference on special scholarships for many years (Ramona Ausubel, Michael Chabon, Richard Ford, Maile Meloy, and Alice Sebold—among others—also attended both programs, and Irvine MFA Louis B. Jones is now the co-director of the Writers Workshop). Espinoza is truly a link back to the origins of the Community of Writers.
Espinoza helped make this year’s workshops a life-changing experience, whether participants worked with him in group workshops, met with him during individual conferences, or attended his conversation with Dagoberto Gilb. Born in Tijuana, Mexico, and raised in suburban Los Angeles, Espinoza’s background speaks to a California experience that is often underrepresented in published work. His most recent novel, The Five Acts of Diego León (Random House, 2013), is broad in its scope of depicting an immigrant pursuing his dreams, but also completely grounded in time and place: Hollywood during its golden age.
Most importantly, Espinoza’s generosity to other writers embodies the spirit of the Community of Writers staff. Lisa Alvarez, co-director of the Writers Workshop, noted that, “He’s a consummate teacher. He really wants to support people the way he was supported.”
Photo: Alex Espinoza (center) at Squaw Valley.
Major support for Readings/Workshops in California is provided by The James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
Thirteen fiction writers make up the long list for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, which was announced this week in London. The winner of the prize—one of the most prestigious awards in literary fiction—will receive 50,000 British pounds, or approximately $75,000.
This year's so-called “Booker’s Dozen” includes Five Star Billionaire (Fourth Estate) by Tash Aw, We Need New Names (Reagan Arthur Books) by NoViolet Bulawayo, The Luminaries (Granta) by Eleanor Catton, Harvest (Picador) by Jim Crace, The Marrying of Chani Kaufman (Sandstone Press) by Eve Harris, The Kills (Picador) by Richard House, The Lowland (Bloomsbury) by Jhumpa Lahiri, Unexploded (Hamish Hamilton) by Alison MacLeod, TransAtlantic (Bloomsbury) by Colum McCann, Almost English (Mantle) by Charlotte Mendelson, A Tale for the Time Being (Canongate) by Ruth Ozeki, The Spinning Heart (Doubleday Ireland) by Donal Ryan, and The Testament of Mary (Viking) by Colm Tóibín.
According to the announcement on the Booker Prize Foundation website, this year’s judges—Robert MacFarlane, Martha Kearney, Stuart Kelly, Natalie Haynes, and Robert Douglas-Fairhurst—read 151 books, and “have found works of the greatest quality in places as distant from one another as Zimbabwe and New Zealand, Canada and Malaysia and from writers at the start of their careers (Eleanor Catton, aged 28, whose book The Luminaries weighs in at a whopping 832 pages) to those who have been at the writing game for many years (Jim Crace, aged 67)—and every stage in between.”
Seven of the long-listed books are written by women, three are debuts, and only Crace and Tóibín are previous Booker finalists.
Founded in 1969, the Man Booker Prize is given annually for a book of fiction published in the previous year and written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth, or the Republic of Ireland. Hilary Mantel took the 2012 prize for her novel Bring Up the Bodies, the second installment of her acclaimed Tudor trilogy; the first, Wolf Hall, won the prize in 2009.
A shortlist will be announced September 10 and the winner on October 15. In the meantime, check out an excerpt from finalist NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, featured as part of the annual first fiction roundup in the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, and an essay by Ruth Ozeki—about the creation of her long-listed novel and the relationship between readers, writers, and characters—which appeared in the May/June issue.
The wind can toss a greasy napkin down a city street, stir dead leaves in the corner of an abandoned tool shed, or propel an ancient sailboat across an ocean. Every wind has unique and varied sounds, smells, and textures. Think of a moment in your life when the wind was particularly prevalent. Describe the wind as if it were a character with a distinct personality—strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. How did that wind influence your thoughts and feelings, and why was it so memorable? Write 500 words.
P&W–supported poet Michael Medrano will blog about the literary climate in California's underserved Central Valley throughout the month of July. Medrano is the author of Born in the Cavity of Sunsets (Bilingual Press 2009). His poems have appeared in Askew; Bombay Gin; The Cortland Review; The Packinghouse Review; Rattle; and The Yellow Medicine Review among other publications. He is the host of Pakatelas, a literary radio show, streaming worldwide at www.kfcf.org, and hosts the Random Writers Workshop in Fresno, California.
We poets recognize an unusual reading gig when we see one. We’re used to reading in bookstores, coffee shops—even a hole-in-the-wall isn’t the least bit strange. And every space has its challenges; sometimes it’s the acoustics or an obstruction in the room, a giant beam blocking the view of the poet on stage. Some of the worst readings were ones with an active bar where people became loud and discourteous. But, let's face it: It is a bar and not everybody is a fan of poetry. Otherwise they’d be naming stadiums after poets and not banking institutions.
A great poetry experience can happen when you least expect it. For example, in 2000, when I was a student editor for Flies, Cockroaches, and Poets, I was asked to do a poetry reading at Sears in central Fresno. I was the only editor who was able to make it, since the others were either swamped with work or too afraid to read in a mall. In those days, I never cancelled readings. I’d read with the flu if I had to.
So there I was, the lone poet from F,C, & P, aboard the escalator on my way to Sears to give a reading in the men’s department. During the short ride up the electric staircase, I imagined a mic on top of the counter next to the cash register. That would be cool, I thought. I imagined reading above the people, families leaving their back-to-school-shopping behind, chanting for more of my poetry. Oh, the delusions of grandeur we make up for ourselves minutes before we hit the stage.
Four rows of seats were carved out of the socks and underwear section. The microphone stand was placed in front of the dressing room—for the grand entrance, of course! Behind the last row, two ladies from the catering company prepared appetizers. They were careful not to get grease on the stack of 501’s next to the cutting board. I sat and waited for thirty minutes. Nobody showed up! Discouraged, I put my poems away and proceeded to walk out. But then I stopped.
"Hey, can I read my poetry to you?" I asked the cook.
"Well, we’re going to pack up our stuff and go," the cook replied.
"Don’t be like that," her assistant said. "Let the boy read his poems."
Just then, I laid a grin not even Muzack could wipe off. I read poem after poem. I read for twenty minutes straight, shouting my poetry so the shoppers would know there was a poet in the house! They stopped too, some in confusion as they contemplated their coupons, but others smiled and nodded as they acknowledged my art.
Sure, the reluctant cook fell asleep during the reading, and the store manager asked me to keep the noise of my poetry down. I doubt my poems got in the way of their profits; and I bet at least one of those kids shopping with their parents would end up one day falling in love with poetry and thinking about the first poem they heard from a bumbling, amateur poet in the men’s department at Sears.
Photo: Michael Medrano.
Major support for Readings/Workshops in California is provided by The James Irvine Foundation. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
The ping of a spatula. The rattle of dirty plates. A dropped spoon. Place the main character of your story or novel in a diner. Write a paragraph detailing the many sounds this character hears. Then have this same character receive devastating news via an anonymous letter delivered by the waitress. Write another paragraph about the sounds the character now hears. The two paragraphs should be very different. Tragedy changes us instantly in so many ways.
Poetry harnesses the power of metaphors and similes to reach a part of humanity that is inaccessible to all other forms of communication. Think about someone you love. Spend 15 minutes making a list of their notable attributes—both flattering and incriminating. Describe those attributes using simple metaphors and similes to explain the complex feelings this person evokes within you.
The New York City–based Center for Fiction has announced the long list for its 2013 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, given for a debut novel published in the current year. The winner, who will be announced in December, will receive $10,000.
In the prize's second year of partnership with the American Booksellers Association (ABA), the nonprofit trade association for independent booksellers, member booksellers around the country served as first-round readers. Ben Fountain—who received the prize last year for his novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Ecco)—will serve as one of the final judges for this year’s prize, along with Victor LaValle, Roxana Robinson, Christine Schutt, and Luis Alberto Urrea. The short list will be announced in late August.
The long-listed finalists are:
Any Resemblance to Actual Persons by Kevin Allardice (Counterpoint)
The Blood of Heaven by Kent Wascom (Grove Press)
The Carriage House by Louisa Hall (Scribner)
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (Hogarth)
Elders by Ryan McIlvain (Hogarth)
Eleven Days by Lea Carpenter (Alfred A. Knopf)
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi (The Penguin Press)
In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods by Matt Bell (Soho Press)
The Morels by Christopher Hacker (Soho Press)
Motherlunge by Kirstin Scott (New Issues Poetry & Prose)
The Next Time You See Me by Holly Goddard Jones (Touchstone)
The Residue Years by Mitchell Jackson (Bloomsbury)
The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski (Harper Paperbacks)
Southern Cross the Dog by Bill Cheng (Ecco)
Tampa by Alissa Nutting (Ecco)
A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri (Riverhead Books)
The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma (Viking)
Wash by Margaret Wrinkle (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Wise Men by Stuart Nadler (Reagan Arthur Books)
Y by Marjorie Celona (Free Press)
The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani (Riverhead Books)
You Are One of Them by Elliott Holt (The Penguin Press)
Short-listed authors, who will be announced in late August, will each receive a prize of $1,000. The winner will be announced at the Center for Fiction's annual awards dinner on December 11 in New York City. Submissions for the prize (which may be sent by publishers only) are considered annually in March.
