My News
Ms. Dimick,Congratulations! Your poem “Running on Air” qualified for the next step in the DeLand Museum of Art’s 2020 Poetic Visions Competition! Your poem will be displayed alongside the artwork which inspired it in a special art exhibit beginning on or around August 21st at the museum. The visiting public will be able to vote on the artwork and poem combination they are most inspired by. The poems that garner the most votes will be awarded first, second and third place. In addition, your poem will be published in an anthology commemorating the exhibit and your literary excellence. A waiver is required in order for your poem to be included in both the judging done by the public and the anthology which will be printed. You will find both a doc and pdf version of the waiver attached. Please fill out one of them, sign it electronically, and return via this email only. Failure to complete and email back a signed waiver in a timely manner can and likely will result in us being unable to include your work in the contest and book. Please email the waiver in pdf or doc form only- do not send scanned documents. Also, if you are able, please try to attend all events related to the exhibit. Because of the pandemic, those event dates may change. As of this writing, the exhibit will open as scheduled on August 21st and voting will begin on that date. However, the August 21st reception is almost certain to be rescheduled due to the surge in COVID-19 cases the state is experiencing. You will be notified of any new dates for live readings and receptions. Thank you again for your participation and good luck in the exhibition!
Kevin CampbellSlam Coordinator
MainStreet Art & Culture Slam of DeLand
Creative Happiness Institute
Florida State Poets Association
(386)275-9591
Good morning,
Thank you for visitng my blog. I’d like to thank fellow writer and member of the Florida Writers Association, Nancy J. Cohen, for a great blog yesterday. To read her blog, go to her website at https://nancyjcohen.com/blog/
I hope you’ll find Nancy’s blog as useful as I did. If you like cozy mysteries, you might enjoy reading one of her bad-hair-day mysteries. For advice on writing mysteries, consider reading her Writing the Cozy Mystery. If you’re a cook or wannabe cook, you might enjoy her A Bad Hair Day Cookbook.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
Just finished this wonderful debut novel by Greg Pincus. Thank you, Greg for agreeing to be our Florida Writers Association National Writer of the Year. The coronavirus has changed the event, but we still honor Greg Pincus and thank Scholastic, Inc. for publishing this fun book.
As a former teacher, I guarantee this book will help teachers trying to teach poetry to math-minded students. Fibs or Fibonacci poems are based on the Fibonacci sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 …
This week I’m writing Fibonacci poems for a contest. Since, like Gregory K., math wasn’t my favorite subject in middle school, my poems will be no longer than 8 lines.
Remember when the Scholastic Book Fair came to your school? It created some of my memorable grade school memories.
Ekphrastic Postcards
Good Morning,
Thank you for visiting my blog. Today I begin writing ekphrastic poems to a group composed of mostly strangers. Ekphrastic poems usually respond to works of art, but not for me in the month of August.
In the month of August, I shall respond to 31 postcards. The challenge is to write a poem based on the postcard’s photo and then send the poem to one of the 31 people on a list Paul E Nelson, poet, interviewer, father and literary activist provides from his home in Seattle, Washington.
This is my second year accepting the challenge. Last year, I visited locations in the Northeast and in Florida and gathered postcards. Every day in August, I wrote an organic/ekphrastic poem and mailed it to the next person on the list. I also mailed a postcard to my ninety-one year old mother. Then, I waited to receive a postcard from places around the country and Canada.
I’m over-the-top excited to be participating this year. I love festivals and concerts, but I’m quarantined in Florida’s Coronavirus pandemic. The postcards I’ve received while waiting for my stamps to arrive helped me retain my sanity. Today, I shall begin sending my postcards. I chose the postcards before the Coronavirus. I’m sure the poem I write today will be nothing like what I expected to write. I hope it will brighten a stranger’s day.
Ekphrastic Poetry Honor
Congratulations! One of your poems has qualified for the next step in the DeLand Museum of Art’s 2020 Poetic Visions Competition! Your poem will be displayed alongside the artwork which inspired it in a special art exhibit beginning on or around August 21st at the museum. The visiting public will be able to vote on the artwork and poem combination they are most inspired by. The poems that garner the most votes will be awarded first, second and third place. In addition, your poem will be published in an anthology commemorating the exhibit and your literary excellence. A waiver will be sent to you in the coming weeks to facilitate the printing of your poem. At that time, the entry that qualified will be revealed to you. If you are able, please try to attend all events related to the exhibit. However, because of the pandemic, those event dates may change. You will be notified of any changes. Thank you again for your participation and good luck in the exhibition!
Kevin CampbellSlam Coordinator
MainStreet Art & Culture Slam of DeLand
Creative Happiness Institute
Florida State Poets Association
Good morning. Most of us have a favorite charity. Some of us have a few. Make-A-Wish, Toys for Tots, the Salvation Army, and the Alzheimer’s Association are among my favorites, but as a writer and former teacher, I have put my heart behind the Florida Writers Foundation (FWF) because approximately 32 million adults in the United States can’t read.
The Florida Writers Foundation, Inc, is a 501 © (3) nonprofit corporations that promotes literacy by increasing writing skills and fostering a love of reading in children and adults. Without reading, I’d be going crazy during this coronavirus pandemic. Imagine not being able to read recipes, order necessities online, or communicate with friends on Facebook or through emails.
Envision a world without great literature, poetry, comics, and beach reads. If like me you would consider it bleak, please think about donating to the FWF. It won’t cost you a thing. All you have to do is make your purchases at Smile.Amazon.com, instead of Amazon.com, and choose the Florida Writers Foundation as your charity. You won’t pay a cent more for the products you purchase, but Amazon will give a percentage of the purchase price to this worthwhile organization.
Thank you.
Postcard Stamps have Arrived
Join this fun festival.
August POetry POstcard Fest 14 (2020)Non-Local
Seattle, WAShare this event:
Registration Options
Date
Jul 18, 2020 12:01 AM
Admission LevelPriceQuantity
General$10.00 ($11.49 w/service fee)Sales Ended
Thanks for being a part of the August POetry POstcard Fest. The main info page remains: http://paulenelson.com/august-poetry-postcard-fest/Not Available
EventAugust POetry POstcard Fest 14 (2020)This event starts March 19, 2020, at 8:49pm PDT.
The August Poetry Postcard Fest was initiated in 2007 by poets Paul Nelson and Lana Ayers and is the biggest annual fundraiser for SPLAB, a 501©(3) literary-arts non-profit organization founded in 1993. We have moved up the 2020 fest due to the social distancing and COVID-19 virus quarantine situation.
Participating poets register for a (minimum) $10 contribution to SPLAB, get a list of 32 names & addresses of fellow participants (yours and 31 others) after March 19, 2020, write 31 original poems directly (1st take) onto postcards addressed to names below them on their list of poets. Documenting one’s own poems before mailing is advised, but not required.
The official page for the fest is: http://paulenelson.com/august-poetry-postcard-fest/See also the website for the anthology and for postcard poetry: 56 Days of August.com
All fees are non-refundable. Contributions are tax-deductible and the SPLAB IRS # is 91-1618296. Please make a note, the email address you use to sign up will be used to communicate festival details to you. There will be no exceptions to this policy.
Revenues derived from the August POetry POstcard Fest help sustain SPLAB, celebrating 26+ years of service to King County, Cascadia and the world via poetry postcards.
Where’s the Hand Sanitizer?
Thank you for visiting my blog. Today, I’m searching for staples for my household and a few answers. If you’ve been to any of my book-signing events for my YA novel Blame, you may know the main character Jacob is a germaphobe. Like me, he gets teased for carrying hand sanitizer and using it way too frequently.
In addition to food shortages, this pandemic has resulted in shortages of hand sanitizers, tissues, toilet paper, face masks, rubber gloves, and Lysol. During one of our discussions, my former content editor and now agent, Joyce Sweeney asked me, “How are you handling the hand sanitizer shortage?”
The answer is, I’m in panic mode. I need to know where the hand sanitizer is. I’m on a daily online scavenger hunt. Where’s the hand sanitizer?
My query is prompted by a similar question an octogenarian manicurist posed in a Wendy’s commercial in 1980s. “Where’s the Beef?” Claire Peller asked.
The question became so popular presidential candidate Walter Mondale used it during the 1984 debate. That brings me to an explanation of why I’m writing this blog. At 1:00 in the morning yesterday, I received a text from a presidential candidate’s team member requesting I complete a questionnaire.
The text infuriated me–just about blew my Adirondack wild woman hair off my head. I have a few questions for the candidates. What kind of idiot sends a text at that time of day? What are you going to do to entice manufacturers and entrepreneurs to produce essential products in the United States? Why are you suggesting opening schools during a plague on all our houses? What is your plan for stopping the spread of the coronavirus?
Thank you for visiting my blog. It’s another scary day in Florida. The Coronavirus has dug into our collective skin like a tick. Some days I fear we’ll never escape this pandemic. Like some of the characters in my recent play, Ain’t It a Shame, who feel trapped in high school, I fear I won’t escape the plague.
Ace Jackson, a character in the three-act play, speaks in the form of blackjack poems. Blackjack poems are twenty-one syllable poems of three lines. Each line has seven syllables.
ACE JACKSON
Don’t bet your bottom dollar.
No one escapes from high school.
Don’t even bother trying.
What do you fear you won’t escape? Write a twenty-one syllable blackjack poem and share it on Facebook or a poetry site. Thank you.
Happy Independence Weekend
Thank you for visiting my blog. Happy 4th of July weekend.
My mantra is I write to right. Authors like Jane Addams, Charles Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Upton Sinclair, Sandra Cisneros, John Howard Griffin, and Florida’s own Rob Sanders, write or wrote to change social injustice. On this weekend as we celebrate our independence, should we reflect on how our nation has progressed?
Whether it’s labeled as hypocrisy, pretense, or deception, the act of causing others to accept as true a misrepresentation or lie has always annoyed me. Hypocrisy is especially irritating to me if it is wrapped in the robes and other vestments of clergy, the clothing of a public-school teacher, the uniform of a policeman, or the suit of a politician. When others take advantage of the less fortunate, I feel the need to write to bring the wrong to light.
A recent political moment during the protests over George Floyd’s death under the knee of a policeman troubled many Americans. It reminded me of a line from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Miss Maudie tells Scout, “You are too young to understand it, but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of—oh, of your father.”
When you watched the President of the United States twirling a Bible that he admitted wasn’t his and posing with it in front of a church he rarely attends, did it give you pause? Did you think his photo opportunity was genuine or a sham?
When you watched Ghislaine Maxwell’s arrest for abetting Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of young girls, did you applaud the arrest? Since my first book, Silent Screams, was written to warn teenagers about the dangers of the human-trafficking scourge on our society, I’m glad her peers have requested justice for the abducted teens.
As you head to the polls in November, what standards will you demand from the politicians you vote into office? Should more women be on ballots both locally and nationally? What are wrongs you want righted?