Call for Submissions: End of Life Stories
July 4, 2009
Creative Nonfiction is seeking new essays that explore death, dying, and end of life care, for a collection to be published by Southern Methodist University Press. We’re looking for stories that transcend the “I” and find universal meaning in personal experiences. We hope to include stories representing a wide variety of perspectives—from physicians, nurses,hospice workers, social workers, counselors, clergy, funeral directors,family members, and others. We want narratives that capture, illustrate and/or explain the best way to approach the end of life, as well as stories that highlight current features, flaws, and advances in the healthcare system and their impact on professionals, patients, and families.
Essays must be vivid and dramatic; they should combine a strong and compelling narrative with a significant element of research or information. We’re looking for well-written prose, rich with detail and a distinctive voice.
Creative Nonfiction editors will award one $1500 prize for Best Essay, and two $500 prizes for runners-up.
Guidelines: Essays must be: unpublished, 5,000 words or less, postmarked by December 31, 2009, and clearly marked “End of Life” on both the essay and the outside of the envelope. There is a $20 reading fee (or send a reading fee of $25 to include a 4-issue CNF subscription); multiple entries are welcome ($20/essay) as are entries from outside the U.S. (though subscription shipping costs do apply).
Please send manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter with complete contact information, SASE and payment to:
Creative Nonfiction
Attn: End of Life Stories
5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15232
More info at:
http://creativenonfiction.org/
information@creativenonfiction.org
On Memory, Memoir, and the Ethics of Storytelling
June 23, 2009
Marion Winik, author of the brilliant memoir First Comes Love, writes thoughtfully and specifically about the difficulties of memoir, especially when the memories involve past illegal behavior.
An excerpt:
When I published my first collection of essays in 1994, lawyers marked every “actionable” sentence, every instance where I mentioned someone else’s drug use, homosexuality or criminal behavior. There were a lot of them. I have a memo dated Sept. 9, 1993, which includes the following bullet points:
p. 11 I suggest we omit a specific street address. It invites trouble from owners or landlords (called a junkie on page 13.)
p. 41 If Carolyn Mahoney is a real name I suggest a change since she appears several places and here we described her taking drugs.
p. 129, 130 Nancy and Steven. Steven is dead so no problem. Nancy’s privacy is being invaded. We should get her consent even if we change her name since as the author’s sister she will be identifiable anyway.
p. 155 Anita should be disguised completely due to heavy drinking and lesbianism.
Anita, Carolyn Mahoney and my sister Nancy all read the manuscript and signed releases. The address of the building was omitted. And Steven was dead — so no problem!
More Jelly Needed for the Bucket
June 20, 2009
Jelly Bucket, the new literary journal for EKU’s MFA program would like to announce a special call for non-fiction submissions. The deadline has been extended to July 15th. All submissions should be sent to:
nonfiction(at)jellybucket(dot)org.
All contact information should be on your submission. The inaugural issue will be released this November. Payment will be two contributor’s copies.
REAL SIMPLE’s annual Life Lessons Essay Contest
Submit a very brief essay on the topic:
When did you first realize that you had become a grown-up?
The winning essay is scheduled to appear in the April 2010 issue of REAL SIMPLE magazine. Winner will receive a $3,000 prize; rountrip tickets for two to New York City, hotel accommodations for two nights, and tickets to a Broadway play; and lunch with REAL SIMPLE editors.
Deadline: Sept. 7, 2009. For complete contest rules,
A Democracy of Ghosts
June 16, 2009
John Griswold, author of “Three Graces”, in Brevity 28, let us know that his first novel is now available for order.
Unfortunately, political violence is nothing new in America. Griswold’s book, A Democracy of Ghosts, fictionalizes the true story of the 1922 Herrin Massacre in Southern Illinois, in which seemingly average American men, women, and even children tortured and murdered nonunion workers from Chicago. Griswold has a family connection to this incident, which he writes about here: My Novel.
We like John’s writing and look forward to reading his first book. But don’t take our word for it. Ask Bob Shacochis:
“With iron and blood, it seems, and from the rich depths of the earth, John Griswold has fashioned a classic American novel, its dignified intonations of our young nation’s sweat and tears evocative of the indelible storytelling of Dos Passos, Frank Norris, and Upton Sinclair.”
Tweet Tweet Nonfiction
June 15, 2009
Many people are confused by Brevity’s relationship with Creative Nonfiction the print magazine. Well, let us put it this way: we read submissions separately, have offices in different states, have separate production teams, and we are better looking. CNF allows us to piggyback for free on their server space (thanks), and in return, they steal all of our good ideas, like the whole idea of brevity. Thus, the new CNF twitter challenge:
Forget 6-word memoirs. Can you tell a true story in 130 characters or less? Prove it. Trend topic #cnftweet, and we’ll RT our fave everyday!
We don’t tweet here at Brevity, because you have to draw the line somewhere, but if you want to follow CNF on Twitter, here’s where you can go: http://twitter.com/cnfonline
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When is brevity too brief?
June 12, 2009
Recent book reviewer J. Luise ponders the art of brevity:
How far can one go in cutting detail in tightly integrated and very succinct pieces of writing? And when is detail crucial for understanding the context?
First example:
In the review of Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, I wrote about my son-in-law who grows thyme outside his 3rd floor apartment. My sentence about the thyme read: “While roasting tomatoes, I step outside the third floor apartment to snip a few branches of thyme from a plastic pot wired to the kitchen window. Dainty green leaves, tipped in silver, sprawl over the surface of the soil, exuding a sweet aroma.”
The editor’s suggested changes read:
“While roasting tomatoes, I stepped outside to snip a few branches of thyme: dainty green leaves, tipped in silver, exuding sweet aroma.”
The location of the thyme amplifies Pollan’s recommendation to grow something by showing modest circumstances where one can begin to establish a more direct and satisfying relationship with food. While these proposed edits conform to the spirit of Brevity magazine, they challenged my instinct as a nature writer to anchor the reader in where the thyme grows and how. The sentence was restored to its original form after I explained the reason for the details.
Second example:
Again, in the review of Pollan’s book, my original ending for this book review read:
“It is easy to feel overwhelmed by our fast food way of life.Bit it is also easy to take the first steps towards reclaiming our cultural heritage—that celebrated activity of creating something good to eat. The first step can be as modest as enjoying the sweet scent of a sprig of thyme.
“‘What would happen,’ Michael Pollan asks, ‘if we were to start thinking about food as less of a thing and more of a relationship?’
“Indeed, what would happen?
“We might feel nourished.”
The editor’s suggested revision for the ending:
“It is easy to feel overwhelmed by our fast food way of life. But it is also easy to take the first step towards creating something good to eat. That first step can be with a sprig of thyme.”
The ending is much stronger because of the editor’s suggestion.
My original ending with the quote from Pollan introduced a new thought where the piece needed a clean and concise conclusion.
Imagine how finely developed an editor’s skill must be to balance the needs of a nature writer who describes where thyme is grown with the demands of readers wanting short pieces of writing!
Take The NYer Poll: Should Creative Writing Be Taught?
June 10, 2009
All this fuss about Louis Menand’s New Yorker piece on writing programs has resulted in a poll. Take it now:
Should Creative Writing Be Taught?
Here’s a quote from Menand’s piece:
“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 how to write a publishable poem. The fruit of the theory is the writing workshop, a combination of ritual scarring and twelve-on-one group therapy where aspiring writers offer their views of the efforts of other aspiring writers.”
Blue Mountain Center Nonfiction Residency/Award
June 9, 2009
The Richard J. Margolis Award of Blue Mountain Center combines a one-month residency at Blue Mountain Center with a $5,000 prize. It is awarded annually to a promising new journalist or essayist whose work combines warmth, humor, wisdom and concern with social justice. The award was established in honor of Richard J. Margolis, a journalist, essayist and poet who gave eloquent voice to the hardships of the rural poor, migrant farm workers, the elderly, Native Americans and others whose voices are seldom heard. Deadline July 1, 2009/Guidelines here
On Graphic Memoir and Maggie McKnight’s “Tonight”
June 3, 2009
Brevity 30 contributor Maggie McKnight writes about her essay “Tonight” and her decision to extract the text from a graphic memoir (still in progress) to compose her brief essay:
I first wrote “Tonight” several years ago as a response to an assignment in grad school—the assignment, in Robin Hemley’s “Nonfiction and the Image” class, was to take self-portrait photographs and write an essay inspired by them. My partner and I photographed the part of myself that most occupied our thoughts—and our hearts—at the time. Later, in working on a graphic memoir based on the same events, I converted the essay to graphic format (using less than half of the original text), to use as a prologue for my book.
The existing draft of the graphic essay is here; it needs revision still. (Among other things, some of the images aren’t working yet—the one at the top right of page 4, for instance, is indecipherable to most people. And I feel uncomfortable with the lead-in to my mom’s dialog, class-based assumptions that I know don’t accurately represent either my opinion or hers.)
Meanwhile, I decided to extract the text from the graphic essay to turn back into a short prose essay, with further revisions to the text. So the piece went from a 1600-word prose essay to a five-page graphic essay, and back to a 540-word prose essay. Now I have to do the graphic version again.
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NOTE: You can see the draft version of Maggie McKnight’s graphic memoir here: Mcknight Tonight PDF. Your discussion of how the graphic version differs from the prose version invited.
