What's Neat on the Net IV

This week, what's neat on the net:

1) You can hear a recording of Walt Whitman reading the first four lines of his celebrated poem "America." Or maybe you can't. For a brief overview of the controversy on the authenticity of this recording, as well as to hear, the recording yourself, click this link to a posting on the Open Culture blog.

2) At Bookriot, Amanda Nelson imagines the base and top notes of perfumes inspired by dead writers such as Fitzgerald, Sexton, Tolstoy, and Plath. For example, Flannery O’Connor's perfume is described as being a blend of church incense, soap, vanilla, ginger. So far these scents exist only in Nelson's imagination, but who knows what the future brings.

3) DOG EAR, out of London, is both a magazine and a bookmark. Submit prose or drawings, and once 40 pieces have been collected, the top 10 will be made into a bookmark and distributed about the London area. That sounds like fun, doesn't it?

4) From Flavorwire, hotels and hotel rooms inspired by literature, including the Jules-Verne-inspired "Journey to the Center of the Earth" ice room at the Hotel de Glace in Canada; Alain de Botton's London hotel, The Roi de Belges, with a room designed to replicate Joseph Conrad's steamer used in the Congo trip that inspired Heart of Darkness; and the Hobbit Hotel in New Zealand. I especially like Le Pavillion de Lettres in Paris, with each of its 26 rooms devoted to a different writer, one room each for each letter of the alphabet matched to the first letter of  the last name of that writer. Check out the photos here.

5) Writer's Relief posts arts and crafts you can make out of your rejection letters. From papier mache to origami and rolled paper crafts, this site has plenty of ideas for what to do with those soul-stultifying pieces of paper.

I'll be saving mine however. Recently I've had a stream of rejections, in start contrast to 2 years ago when everything I sent out was accepted and I was being solicited for work that I didn't have because everything was being accepted. Now I can't seem to place a single poem.

It's good for me to remember that it's cyclical. Sure, instead of a gentle sine wave cycle, this is me slamming between polar opposites, but it's still important to remember the cycle of good things and bad things that happen. It's human nature when bad things happen to think that the streak of bad luck will end, but when good things are happening, it's important to also remember that such a state of grace is temporary. My kids hate it when I tell them this during the good times; they just want to enjoy the fun and not have it dampened by the reminder. But the downside will be less down it if doesn't also blindside you.

So now I need to think about my rejections. I think the quality of my work is about the same as ever, but the sensibility has shifted. Maybe I need to try different markets than the ones I generally look to. Maybe I'm wrong about the quality (in the absence of readers to help me along here in Japan) or maybe the competition is just getting more vast or more talented, and I need some kind of breakthrough in order to reach a new level. Maybe I just need to write and not worry about publishing.

And it's a wrap.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Atlantic blog has a list of sayings that have been retired from usage on those little candy hearts. "LET'S READ," is one of them, while "FAX ME" has been replaced by "TEXT ME".

A retired one that I remember getting in elementary school and being thoroughly confounded by is "OH YOU KID". I'm still confounded.

Check out the entire list for a Valentine's Day giggle.

image borrowed from theconfectionery.blogspot.com

Japan Writers Conference 2013 Call for Proposals

Participants in past sessions of the Japan Writers Conference received a call for submissions this week for the 2013 conference. Since recipients have been encouraged to share the information with interested parties, here it is:

For the first time, the Japan Writers Conference will be held on the beautiful island of Okinawa. It will take place in Nishihara City at Okinawa Christian University on November 2nd and 3rd. Please mark your calendar and plan to join us. This will be the seventh Conference. Response to the Conference being held in Okinawa has been really positive, even excited. There is also a good chance of a airline/hotel package if there is enough interest.

This is also a call for presentation proposals. All published writers, translators, editors, agents and publishers who would like to lead a session are invited to submit proposals. Those who have presented at past conferences are (of course) welcome to submit new proposals. But we especially encourage proposals from new submitters. One of the strengths of the past Conferences has been variety, and the best way to foster variety is to feature new presenters each year.

Please forward this to any friend or colleague who might be interested. If you know someone the conference organizers might approach--either living in Japan or planning to visit Japan next autumn--please send us your suggestion. If you have contact information, that would be a great help.

Detailed information follows, but briefly, a proposal needs to include a brief bio, including some publication credits, the type of presentation you wish to make, a title, a summary of 50 words, a longer abstract (150 words) and any special requests you might have. Standard sessions are fifty minutes long, but if you have something special in mind, please let us know and we will accommodate if possible.

Presentations on all genres and all aspects of writing and publishing are welcome. The deadline for presentation proposals is June 1, 2013.

It would also be good to have one more face/voice/body involved with the organization and operation of the Conference on an on-going basis. If you’re interested, please drop John and Bern an email. Our addresses are below.

As in the past, the Conference will be free and open to all who wish to attend. This is possible because all the presenters and organizing staff volunteer their time and talent, and the use of the site is donated by the hosting institution. As a result, the Conference cannot offer any payment, reimbursement, lodging, or help in securing visas or travel permits. So please don’t ask.

Proposal Guidelines

When planning your proposal, keep your audience in mind. Your listeners will be writers and others (translators, editors, publishers, and agents) concerned with creating the published written word. While teaching, literary studies and private self-expression are certainly worthy activities, they are not the focus of this Conference. Ask yourself as a writer or other word professional these questions:

What information do you have which could be useful to others?

What writing, rewriting, editing, or marketing techniques have worked for you?

What topic would make for a lively and enlightening discussion?

What publishing or other professional opportunities do you know about?

What will an attendee take away from your fifty-minute session that he or she will find worthwhile?

You may submit more than one proposal.

The only qualification one needs to be a presenter is to have published. This does not mean that you need to have published a lot or in some high-profile journal. Your book (if you have a book) does not have to be on a best seller list. You do not have to have won any awards or to have appeared on TV. You simply need to have written, edited, translated, or otherwise worked on a piece of writing which has made it to the public eye. That is, published.

Proposal Deadline and Format

Using the following format, please send your ideas for a presentation by June 1, 2013. Send your proposal in the body of an email (no attachments) to both these addresses:

gribblej@gol.com

taikibansei@yahoo.co.jp

In your subject line give your name, “JWC,” and the date.

In the body of the email, give:

1. Your name (or names)

2. Contact information (email, telephone. These remain confidential.)

3. Your publications (Need not be complete, but give names of journals and genre for short pieces; title, publisher and date for books; venues and dates for plays, and so on)

4. Title of presentation. (20 words or less)

5. Type of presentation (short lecture with Q&A, craft workshop, panel discussion, reading with Q&A, etc.)

6. Short summary of the presentation (50 words or less)

7. Abstract of the presentation (150 words or less)

8. Personal and professional biography (50 words or less. Make mention of your publications, as this will be part of the Conference program)

9. Anything else, such as special equipment needs or questions.

Your proposal doesn’t have to be a “finished” document to submit. There will be time to shape and polish your ideas for a presentation. But there are a set number of session slots available and if you are interested in having one of them, please let us know soon. Again, the deadline is June 1, 2013.

John Gribble

Bern Mulvey

Co Co-ordinators,

2013 Japan Writers Conference

Poem of the Week - L'Esperance

Poet and friend Mari L'Esperance's work is featured this week at PoemoftheWeek.org, curated by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum. Check it out!

Snow

We went away for the three-day weekend here in Japan. We went to the land of snow, in the mountains, since we don't usually have snow accumulating on the ground here in Kobe, and I have this fear that when my children are grown there won't be snow for them to enjoy, due to global warming (a gut fear, I admit, not one well researched). I took along on our trip an image I have been trying to build into a poem for the past year. I have worked that image and reworked it, and gotten some strong language to describe it, but then I have come to a deadend. I didn't know what to do with it once I had described it. So I brought it along on our trip.

After a long day of playing in the snow, I was back in our hotel room where there was an electric massage chair, and I was enjoying a massage, when I suddenly had an idea about what to do with the image, how to further it into a poem. It was a great reminder to me that new ideas often come when the mind is abandoned and the body is the focus of attention. For me that usually means being in the shower, and I know there are lots of writers who have revelations in the bath or the shower. I've heard this phenomenon attributed to the water, but I wonder if it isn't more due to the sensual experience of the body, bringing one out of the conscious mind, making space for the subconscious mind. A good hard walk will sometimes produce the same results. But all of these things only work when I've been focusing on a specific problem in a poem; then a breakthrough will sometimes come during a physical experience. For me, at least, this never results in a new poem or idea, but in solutions to problems for which the conscious mind has exhausted its options.

Here is the revelation that came to me. I had recently read Richard Siken's "Details of  a Hayfield," and had wondered at how he had moved from a description of walking into a hayfield to an observation about generosity, or the lack of recognizing our need for generosity. I marvelled at how he had done this so seamlessly. And sitting there in the massage chair, I saw how I could attempt to do something similar (though I'm sure with much less skill) with my image.

There was something I had been trying to keep out of the poem with the image. Originally, after seeing this curious image, I had become contemplative about my own mortality, but I hadn't wanted to go there in the poem--to such a small personal emotion with regards to this curious image that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with someone else's bigger experience.

But in not acknowledging how this image had actually affected me, I was being dishonest. And that dishonesty was stymying the poem. Not that I think that poems have to be direct reportage of what happened, and what was felt--obviously not. But by not acknowledging the smallness of my response to the poem, and my shame at my smallness, particularly my shame, I was ignoring the power behind the image for me.

Once I acknowledged my shame, lines came, more images came, and the poem is now drafted in a form which I think will be its final form. It's not polished yet, but there is power finally in the imagery and the words.