Reading, Writing and Raffles

I love finding essays about writing. Sometimes they just repeat what I already know, or put a new spin on the lessons so I can look at them from a new direction. Storytellers Unplugged is a site that I recently ran across that's full of essays from a variety of authors with all kinds of essay goodness. The link to the main site is in the links column to the left but here's a couple of essays that you might find enjoyable. "And Then One Day You Write Something Different" by David Niall Wilson http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/and-then-one-day-you-write-something-different and "Telling Stories" by Bev Vincent http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/telling-stories

Another essay that might be of interest to those considering a creative writing program is "Show or Tell: Should Creative Writing Be Taught?" by Louis Menand. This one is in The New Yorker and its six pages long but it touches on many of the pros and cons of writing programs with statements like this "Creative writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem" and this "No one seems to agree on what the goal of good writing is." http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/06/08/090608crat_atlarge_menand

Here's a couple of new non-paying markets that might interest you guys.

69 Flavors of Paranoia is looking for short stories up to 3500 words but will consider those up to 5000 and flash fiction under 1000 words. They're basically a horror zine but they're looking for stories that cross the line into crime and suspense, mystery, pulp, noir, action/adventure, western and even romance. Here's the url to their guidelines http://www.69flavorsofparanoia.com/submission-guidelines.html

The Big Table is a flash site looking for gritty stories under 1000 words. According to their guidelines they love magical realism and they adore all things Michigan. http://bigtablesg.blogspot.com/

We're doing some Snoopy Dancing here because there's new zine issues out there to read. Apollo's Lyre has its first issue up on their new site with lots of good micro flash pieces from some familiar names. ThugLit's newest issue is up with its usual gritty in your face stories. The Spring issue of Dogzplot is live at their main site and as always their flash site is full of good stuff. And Micro100 has posted their June issue and, sad to say, it's going to be their last. All the urls are to the left.

And finally, you have until noon tomorrow to get your name into the raffle over at Women of Mystery. They're raffling off 5 copies of the MWA anthology "The Prosecution Rests". All you have to do to enter is drop them a comment. Here's the url http://www.womenofmystery.net/2009/06/let-raffle-begin.html