Newsletter

Vol 7,  Issue 2 - February 2004

Masthead

CONTENTS

•       The Editor's Pen

•       Of Literary Note

•       Column by Janet Miller

•       Book Reviews

•       Markets and Contests

•       The Buzz

•       What We are Up To

•       Contact Info

FROM THE EDITOR'S PEN
by Barbara Quinn & Meredith Morgenstern

A wintry NY welcome to all!

We're hard at work at The Rose & Thorn and we're excited about our innovations.  As our faithful readers know, we've always paired art with words.  Beautiful graphics on our covers and in our literary works have been one of our trademarks.  We've taken this to a new level and will soon open an art gallery at the zine.  In the gallery we'll feature artists and art in much the same manner we feature words.  We'll still illustrate our literary works, but we will also provide you with a place to browse fine art that is being created the way the literary works we feature are.

Need a gift?  The art will be available for purchase and we will receive some revenue from your purchase through us.  You'll be benefiting the artist and us!  We'd love to make enough money to begin paying something to our writers and our staffers.

We're also working on a Staff Issue that will be available this Summer.  There will be a small fee of $3 to acquire this issue.  Inside the issue we'll have a couple of surprises available only to those who purchase it. I'm not going to ruin the surprises!  I'll write more in a future issue about what to expect and when in the Summer Staff Issue.

We now have an active PayPal button (look for the words DONATE HERE) on the site, so if you're feeling in a giving mood, why not push it and send along a much appreciated donation?  We're also always interested in running ads for a small fee so if you have something you'd like to tell our very special readers about, books, products, contests, do think about placing an ad.  Our fees are quite reasonable. 

Another new feature you will find at the site is Travels With Duct Tape, a collection of budget-minded travel articles written by the staffers here. New this month, check out staffer Ben Jonjak's stunning photos of Machu Picchu, and his incredible account of visiting this magical place.

Our Spring issue will be out in March. Submissions are open in all categories. Send along your best, and do tell others to come over and do so too.

Best to all,

Barbara

Greetings everyone, and a slightly belated Happy New Year!

It's so easy in life to get caught up in the things we have to do, and downtime is often spent simply decompressing.  I spend at least 8 hours a day sitting in front of a computer and typing.  Typing, typing, typing, until my wrists ache and my palms cramp, staring at that computer screen until I have to squint through my contact lenses to see anything.  At the end of the day, and during any lucky breaks in the routine, the last thing on earth I want to do is to type some more for fun.  But I am a writer, and if I wish to keep calling myself a writer, then that's what I have to do.  I make the time to work on my writing, even if my motivation is but a wisp of its former self.

I love to read, but these days I have a full-time job where I'm lucky if I work my regular 8 hours without overtime, often take a short lunch at my desk, and work at a cubicle out in the open where my boss can see me, so reading there is quite out of the question.  My brother and my boyfriend now live within a five minute walk from me, so any time they are not at my apartment, I am at theirs.  I have plenty of friends occupying my weekend time.  I constantly read and edit stories for Rose & Thorn, and for my friends, and write and rewrite my own short stories, essays, and novel.  An artist friend and I are starting a webcomic, and I am trying - try-ing - to learn Spanish.  And yet I still manage to read about 30 books a year.  How?  Reading is important to me, and always has been.  (Thank you, Mom!)  Like writing, I make the time for it.

We make the time for that which is important to us, but the key there is we MAKE the time.  As I write this, I've got one eye on the clock because I should be getting to bed soon.  I'm dead tired.  But I promised to write a column for the newsletter.  The Rose & Thorn is important to me, and I know I can live without those few extra minutes of sleep.  <yawn>

I thank all of you loyal readers for making the time to read this newsletter every other month. This is truly a labor of love for me, and it is immensely gratifying to know that you all take the time out of your own busy schedules to be a part of the R & T family.

A happy February to everyone,
Meredith

YOUR AD CAN BE HERE!!

Do you have a writing service, contest, publication or product you'd like to tell our sophisticated and talented readers about? Why not take an ad out in The Rose & Thorn? Our ads are most reasonable and start at $20.

We've made it easy for YOU to support The Rose & Thorn. You can now donate via PayPal at various spots at the zine. Look for the DONATE button, on the cover, on the Table of Contents. Or do it NOW and just click this link!

If YOU have writing/editing experience, or that particular gift of web/coding experience, and if you have a few hours to spare, The Rose & Thorn is in need of YOUR help!  If you'd like to become one of our volunteer staffers drop me a line at BAQuinn@aol.com telling me a little about your background. We're an award winning site, but we're also a group of talented writers who support each other, and who enjoy helping to showcase new and established voices.  We hope to hear from YOU!

NEW TRAVEL SECTION!

Check out The Rose & Thorn's newest feature, Travels With Duct Tape.

This quarter we feature a piece on Machu Picchu, Peru, by  Ben Jonjak, and two pieces by Barbara Quinn on - what else? - traveling with duct tape.  Whether you travel by plane, train, boat, car, or your wildest dreams, let the R & T staff take you around the world with us.

URL:  www.theroseandthornezine.com/Travels/index.html

Reviews and discussions of independent and self-published literature.  Will review any book in print or electronic format.  Now accepting submissions.

THE MYTH OF THE WRITING FAIRY
by Joseph Devon

An article discussing why it's so damned hard to sit down and write a novel

Here's a fun question to ponder. What do The Stand, The Hobbit and A Christmas Carol all have in common? The answer is simple. Too simple. Horrifyingly simple. A few years ago I decided to write a novel. I had characters all outlined and plot points galore. I had my settings down pat and a nice story line that would illuminate the main character's journey into a self-activated person, hopefully sending a touch of inspiration my reader's way when they turned the last page of my novel. I had a large amount of notes in an even larger amount of notebooks. I was a writer. Right? Wrong. I wasn't a writer yet because I was still enchanted by the Writing Fairy.

You know what the Writing Fairy looks like. She is that magical creature that will take the dialogue running through your head and place it onto the page. She is the person that will fill in those little blanks that don't seem worth worrying about while you're in the brainstorming stage. She is the mythical beast that will take all of your imagination and creativity and turn them into a book for you. The Writing Fairy sits on your shoulder every time you pace up and down your room thinking up great new ideas for where your characters are heading and convinces you that you are on your way to being an established author. The Writing Fairy's touch is the only thing you are waiting for before you begin to actually sit down and pound out the pages of your manuscript.  Yes, as soon as the Writing Fairy says that it is time, you will begin to write in earnest. I have news for you. The Writing Fairy is none other than you because you are the only person who can do these things for you. And the moment you are waiting for? I have some news concerning that, too. That moment either comes right here right now, or it never comes at all.

Am I saying that brainstorming about characters and muddling over speeches is a waste of time? I most certainly am not. What I'm saying is that you reach a certain point where your outline doesn't need to be refined any more, where it's time to put it onto the page and nail it down in a more concrete sense. The Writing Fairy will make you hesitate to do this, promising you that thinking really hard is writing. She'll tell you that you aren't ready to put anything down on the page yet, or you're not ready to go on with the next scene because everything just doesn't seem right. Don't believe her, she's deceiving you. I'd like to say that she is flat out lying, but she's not. Things aren't going to seem right when they first start to appear on the page. This is what seems so contradictory about the writing process. Your dreams and aspirations seem to shrink down once you actually put them into writing. Being creative seems harder and harder as more and more words get put down.  Don't worry though; your dreams are big enough. Acknowledging that your finished piece is not going to live up to the sparkling gem you have inside your head is something that every artist goes through it could be the reason why so many of us seem a little bit crazy. Pick any piece of art. Now, as great as that finished product seems to you, there is not a single book, painting, opera, movie, whatever, that came out exactly the way its creator intended it. That is a very large part of the creative process: surrendering to its limitations. And accepting this fact goes a long way towards chaining down that Writing Fairy and actually producing some work. Don't listen to her siren song. Don't think that it should feel one hundred percent right the first time. It won't. That's what the rewriting process is all about. Believe me writing is truly in the rewriting. Even Kerouac rewrote his stuff. However, in order to start the rewriting process you need a hard first draft to pick over and toy with. You need something concrete to look at and see which scenes fit and which don't. You'll find that a lot of your brainstorming gets thrown out the window. This isn't a stifling of your creativity, is channeling your creativity into your selection process. And it doesn't matter how horrible and off the mark your first draft seems to be turning out, you'll polish all of that out later. But you need that first draft to really start things off, and it will never get finished if you continue to believe the Writing Fairy's misleading comments.

Take another look at the opening question of this article again. Any closer to an answer?

I have more bad news about the Writing Fairy. Simply  sitting down in front of your keyboard and starting your novel cannot vanquish her forever. She'll be back. She always comes back. Here and there she offers a much-needed break and a much-needed step back from your work to rethink things. More often than not, though, she'll pop up as you write more and more detailed character sketches, or get sucked into researching something for hours and hours and days and days. She is very good at convincing you that more outside work is needed and that you don't need to sit down at your keyboard quite yet. She must be stopped. When you really hit a roadblock, you'll know. If you just need to sort some things out that does not qualify a three-week break from your manuscript. That's the Writing Fairy singing her sweet song. You need to do more than just sit down and start in order to silence the Writing Fairy. You need a schedule. "But how can you turn your writing on and off like that? How can you force yourself to write if you aren't feeling it?" I imagine that some of this is flowing through your head right now. The answer is that you can. It's that easy. I'm not saying that you're going to sit down and write Nobel Prize winning page after Nobel Prize winning page. But you must keep writing. Keep fleshing out your story and your scenes. Keep plowing through with your writing when you say your going to even though it doesn't seem to be very good. You're not going to submit it as it is anyway. The ending of my novel changed about three hundred times in the course of writing it. What's more, I never would have reached the ending if I had continued to go over and over my first twenty pages wanting them to be perfect. It's really silly when you think about it. You don't have an entire book yet, how can you make sure the opening is perfect if you don't know where it's supposed to lead the reader? You don't really know your characters yet, how can you expect them to be just right? Believe me, it is better to write it horribly wrong and then fix it than to never write it in the first place. Keep plugging away, keep going, keep heading towards that ending that doesn't seem to fit and that you don't really even like. Carve a few hours out of each day and just type away at the keyboard. You can always make a scene longer. You can always take out some dialogue. You can always change a character or a point of view. You can really do anything you want to, which is why it's easy to get bogged down in the beginning. Keep in mind that while you can always change it, you have to write it first.

Now, do you want to know the Writing Fairy's major- super-bonus-end-all-be-all secret? Here it is. Keep it quiet. Put it in the bag somewhere next to the cat or under your hat if you prefer. Here is my secret. You are a writer. Right now. With only what you have in your head as it is. You don't need anything else. You are a writer. You just need to keep writing. Don't let the Writing Fairy tell you that you aren't. That you need something more, that you're pretending to be something you're not. Hemingway wasn't Hemingway when he started. He was just a guy names Ernest who sat down at his typewriter. Believe me. You are a writer. You are a writer. You are a writer. And no, you don't have to repeat that while clicking your heels three times. You don't have to do anything but write. And that's the Writing Fairy's horrible little secret. I stumbled upon the moment I stopped waiting for her to show me a sign that the time was right to actually start typing and just went ahead and did it. Now is the right time; now or never.

So let's go back to the question at the beginning of this article. Any ideas on what those three books have in common? They're all in English? Okay, I'll add Les Miserables to the list. They're all from the last few  centuries? Okay, let's throw The Iliad on there. Give up? What those books have in common, what every book you read has in common, is that it was written. Simple isn't it? I told you it was. That is the only difference between what is in your head and any book you have ever picked up. All the books you see every day were actually written. Someone sat down and wrote them out. That it. That's the secret. That's what the Writing Fairy is hiding from you. You're ready to write your book. You just have to sit down and do it. I said that the secret was simple. I also called it horrifyingly so at the beginning of this article. Why is it horrifying? Because, as I've mentioned, the Writing Fairy is you. She makes it seem like she's someone else. Someone or something you're waiting for before you begin. But that someone or something doesn't exist. The only thing that exists is the fears she creates inside of your head. And that means that the person telling you to wait is you. The person holding you back is you. The person hesitating to write is you. And the only person who can make you ignore all of this and just start writing--you guessed it--is you. So come on, stop reading this, open up a new document, start clicking away at those keys, don't be afraid, just trust me on this one--you're a writer.

Joseph Devon is a freelance writer living in New York and currently working on his third novel. To contact him, read more about him, or read more from him please visit Joseph

 

Memoirs of a Geisha
by Arthur Golden

Reviewed by Sandra Merz

Chiyo, age nine, and her sister, Satsu, age fifteen, are sold to become geishas. Gei means 'arts' and geisha, artisan. Their aged father, who lives with their dying mother, feels this will be the best life for the girls.

The life they enter into at first is to work as lowly, maltreated maids, to see if they are worthy of becoming a geisha. Satsu does not make it, and for girls who don't the alternative is not pleasant.

After years of training and avoiding the wrath of the vengeful geisha, Hautsumomo, Chiyo makes it. Her name is then changed to Sayuri. Her virginity is sold to the highest bidder. He has a strange, strange collection.

At age 14 she has a chance meeting with one man who  is kind to her and offers his handerkerchief . She keeps it and her thoughts of him is the romantic theme throughout this story.

This story is steeped in rich, complex characters. It is also a delight to read for the steady stream of original metaphors and similies.

Amid beautiful descriptions of glorious kimonas, geisha make-up, hair-styles, and training, we are lost in Japan from 1929 through WWII to post war New York.

Buy Memoirs of a Geisha at Amazon.com.

VERNON GOD LITTLE
by D. B.C. Pierre

Reviewed by Cesar Garza

Meet Vernon Gregory Little - the foul-mouthed teenager who is both the voice and the victim of DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little, 2003's unlikeliest Booker winner. When a handful of high schoolers are gunned down in quaint Martirio, Texas, the parallel to Columbine is all too obvious. How could it not be? Satire draws out our follies and aims right for the bull's eye. In this case, it never misses.

The perpetrator is Vernon's best friend, Jesus Navarro, who perishes in the massacre, leaving Vernon to bear the brunt of his innocence in a town that convicts him of the crime without a shred of evidence. He narrates the story, beginning with the aftermath of the massacre (his arrest) and on through his flight to Mexico, his eventual capture and trial (hilariously turned into a death-row reality TV show).

The real showpiece of this buoyant debut novel is none other than the character of our hero's voice. Vernon has so distinctive a sound, so filthy and fanciful a tongue, that when the world turns on him, he's able to say what we would say if the hidden tyranny of current cultural behavior revealed itself to us the way it did to him.

Buy Vernon God Little at Amazon.com.

ANNUAL ERMA BOMBECK WRITING COMPETITION

Personal essay that is previously unpublished*, or has only been published since January 1, 2003 450 words or less Two categories for entry: Humor; human interest One Dayton, Ohio-area winner and one National/International winner will be awarded in each category Limit one entry per person No entry fee  No age restrictions (all ages are judged together) Entries and/or any accompanying materials will not be returned Washington-Centerville Public Library reserves the non-exclusive right to publish the winning entries Entries will be accepted beginning January 6, 2004 Entries must be submitted online, using the official online entry Form Entries must be submitted by Midnight, EST, February 20, 2004

First place winners will be selected in the categories of: Humor - National/International; Humor - Dayton, Ohio-area;
Human Interest - National/International; Human Interest - Dayton, Ohio area

Each first place winner will receive a $100 cash prize Winning essays will be published online on Washington-Centerville Public Library and University of Dayton Web sites Dayton-area winners will be published in the Dayton Daily News

Submit your entry for the 2004 Erma Bombeck Writing Competition using our online entry form.

GL:  http://www.wcpl.lib.oh.us/adults/erma.html

Publishes hardcover and trade paperback originals.

"House of Anansi Press publishes Canadian and international writers of literary fiction, poetry, and serious nonfiction. We do not publish genre fiction (e.g., mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, or romance novels), nor do we publish self-help nonfiction. To get a sense of the works we publish, please browse through our list of titles."  In lieu of sending complete unsolicited manuscripts, we prefer proposals to be submitted, along with a detailed literary curriculum vitae and some sample material (10-15 pages)." "Please do not send electronic submissions."

RT-3-4 months.

E-mail: info@anansi.ca; www.anansi.ca.

The Lemming, an on-line e-zine just approaching its one year anniversary, is sponsoring a free poetry and prose contest, with a prize of $50.00 for each winner. Please send your best work to jenny@thelemming.com. Those with stellar work who do not win may be nonetheless published. Include whether you consent to be published along with your email address and name. We do not require first-publication rights for writers, but are simply seeking to further refine our featured writing.

1300 N. State St., Suite 105, Bellingham WA 99225.  "New Age Retailer is a trade magazine that goes out seven times a year to more than 6000 New Age and general gift and book stores in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The goal of the articles in New Age Retailer is usefulness-we strive to give store owners and managers practical, in-depth information they can begin using immediately. We have three categories of articles: retail business methods that give solid information about the various aspects of running an independent store; inventory articles that discuss a particular New Age subject or trend and include lists of books, music, and products suitable for store inventory; and education articles that help store owners and managers gain knowledge and stay current in New Age subjects."

2500-3000 words, pays $250; $25 (original drawing/photo), on publication for various rights. "We request submissions on disk or by E-mail. Authors often submit relevant photographs and/or professional drawings to accompany their article, which we encourage. We do not pay for product or author publicity photographs."

As editors of The Pedestal Magazine, we intend to support both established and burgeoning writers. We are committed to promoting diversity and celebrating the voice of the individual. We are currently receiving submissions in the following areas:

Poetry: We are open to a wide variety of poetry, ranging from the highly experimental to the traditionally formal. Send up to six (6) poems.
Pay Rate: $30 per poem

Fiction: We are receptive to fiction of all sorts, including literary, experimental, and science fiction; however, our interests do lean toward works that cross genres, works that do not readily fall into one specific category. Please do not send more than two (2) pieces of fiction at a time.
Pay Rate: $.05 per word
Length: up to 6,000 words

Non-Fiction: We are open to academic/scholarly works, works that focus on issues of aesthetics, psychology, philosophy, and religion, as well as pieces of creative non-fiction and personal essays. Please do not send more than two (2) pieces of non-fiction at a time.
Pay Rate: $.05 per word
Length: up to 4,000 words

Book Reviews: As of February 2003, we will begin accepting reviews of poetry collections, short story collections, novels, and books of non-fiction. Please query (pedmagazine@carolina.rr.com) prior to sending reviews. We will probably include 2-4 reviews in each issue. As of February 2003, we will be seeking 3-4 writers in the hopes of putting together an in-house team of reviewers. If interested, please contact us at the above address.
Pay Rate: $.01 per word
Length: up to 1,000 words

The Pedestal Magazine does not accept previously published work, unless specifically requested; however, we will accept simultaneous submissions, if so noted.

THE GATE TO REMEMBRANCE by Fred Barca

Fred Barca's, The Gate to Rembrance, is now available. The book is a portrayal of one man's life from a normal modern-day business owner living in a fast-paced American society, to suddenly finding himself taking a journey far back into his past and into England's Arthurian times. This event unlocks the door to one of our most mysterious legends of all times. This unexplainable and supernatural journey turns rapidly into a historic quest, while still embracing his newly founded abilities to communicate on a supernatural plane, he then leaps into our world's most hidden and sacred past. "The Gate To Remembrance" can be previewed on www.thegatetoremembrance.com and can be purchased at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com as well as through the website.

~

GAIL E. EYNON's autobiography, Courage: The Road to Freedom, will be available through Borders, Amazon.com, and Trafford Publishing February 2004. Courage is the account of one woman's journey of freedom from a 14-year abusive marriage to a new life in the Hawaiian islands where, on the eve of graduation from the university, she is sexually assaulted and nearly killed, leaving her unable to walk and facing several surgeries. Courage details her struggle for freedom, her comeback from a near fatal rape, and finally her work with the terminally ill and activism in recognizing and dealing with abuse.  Ms. Eynon is also available to speak on abuse and sexual assault and can be reached by email at UhaveCourage@aol.com.

~

THE BASKET MAKER (ISBN: 0-9742074-0-3) by award-winning writer Kate Niles, tells the story of an abused child who seeks out the friendship of a burn victim, believing they both share a mutual knowledge of unspeakable pain. Praised by both Sena Jeter Naslund ("Sometimes whimsical, sometimes starkly realistic, always psychologically insightful, THE BASKET MAKER would have us all construct for ourselves a belief system that affirms our uniqueness") and Kent Haruf ("an engaging first novel--complex, evocative, heartfelt, keen, amusing, sad") the book will be published by GreyCore Press in hardcover in May.

~

A SON CALLED GABRIEL (ISBN: 1-59315-018-0) by Damian McNicholl is a powerful first novel about growing up poor, bullied, Catholic and possibly gay in northern Ireland during "the troubles." With the humanity of THE TIN DRUM, the spark and tenderness of BILLY ELLIOT, and a surprise ending to rival that in JEAN DE FLORETTE, the book, which will be published by CDS Books in June, is already being considered for film.

 

KAI WILSON runs www.writers-diner.com, www.starttowrite.com and www.bi-polarbears.com and two publishing companies.  Her story, "Hands", was published at Forbidden-garden this month, http://faithsclub.com/hands, and is available on her site, http://spirit-tome.com/.

J. M. CORNWELL is a regular reviewer at The Celebrity Café.  Her book reviews can be read at: http://thecelebritycafe.com/books/full_review/167.html Ms. Cornwell debuted her paranormal column, Occam's Razor, January 15, 2004 at Whim's Place, where she is also an editor. www.WhimsPlace.com.  Two of Ms. Cornwell's short stories, "Past Imperfect" and "A Hero's Ride", have been selected for an anthology entitled, Flowers for Women, due out this summer.

BEN JONJAK has a new site of book reviews, www.wordmyne.com. Word Myne reviews independent and self-published books.

 

You don't need to go far to connect with fellow
writers and publishers. Just visit our Community
Roundtable where you'll find announcements, news,
interactive stories, and a hopping poetry board!

Prizes total $1,007.65 in the third annual Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. This contest seeks the best parody and humor poems that have been submitted to 'vanity contests' as a joke. There's no entry fee. Submit by April 1, 2004. Doing good was never such devilish fun. See recent winners, complete guidelines and submit online at http://www.winningwriters.com/contestflomp.htm?rt