Tell me a (short) story

For readers and writers, will the fun never end?

Hot on the heels on National Poetry Month, we roll into May and National Short Story Month. Now in its sixth year, Short Story Month was initiated by the Emerging Writers Network, a site offering reviews and interviews. 

Joining the festivities, Fiction Writers Review is hosting The Collection Giveaway Project, a community effort to champion great short story collections.

To celebrate, I'm revisiting some of my favorite short stories, and looking for new collections to add to the list.

Death is Not an Option
by Suzanne Rivecca

In her 2010 debut, Rivecca delivers piercing prose. "Most of Rivecca’s ruthlessly frank and lonely characters have left religion, and the saving they seek in this modest, engaging and disquieting collection is from the plague of isolation," explains the New York Times Book Review. 

 

Music Through the Floor
by Eric Puchner

"The nine stories in his debut collection are executed with such fluency, constructed with such surprising plot twists and blessed with so many bright, memorable lines that they rise above the contemporary din," the New York Times Book Review says of this 2005 collection.

 

 

Birds of America
by Lorrie Moore

A New York Times Book of the Year that is "at once wise, punchy, funny and sad," writes Powell's Books. "With language that is clever and crisp, Moore deftly strips the disguises and barriers we spend our whole lives building and exposes us for the quirky, vulnerable and often confused individuals we are."

 

My Life in Heavy Metal
by Steve Almond

"The big thing in Almond's stories is that his characters really like to have sex," notes the The New York Times Book Review. "Almond writes well about the act itself, a pretty rare talent. But his stories take off when he . . . looks beyond the bedroom at the world around him."

 

 

Chilly Scenes of Winter
by Ann Beattie

I came to appreciate short stories in the 1990s with the discovery of Ann Beattie, a master in the art and ache of yearning. She takes what her publisher calls an "uncannily accurate look at the nostalgia suffered by people yearning for deeper feelings in a culture that turns feelings into cliches."

 

Do you read short stories? What are some of your favorite collections?


Big Poetry Winners

And the winners of the Big Poetry Giveaway are . . .

Diane Lockard
won Fuel by Naomi Shihab Nye

Tara Mae Mulroy
won Sweet Grief by Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron (that's me!)


This was great fun; thanks for playing.

Wind-down & win

April is winding down, and with that National Poetry Month comes to a close. After a rush of readings, writing and events, I'm exhausted, in that good, full-of-words kind of way.

But wait, there's more!

Let's finish on a high note — with the Big Poetry Giveaway. I'm giving away two great books; enter the drawing by midnight on Monday, April 30, 2012. I'll announce the winner on Tuesday, May 1st.

Go here to enter for the chance to win.

 

Clip, Carry, Share

Are you ready for Poem in Your Pocket Day?

Call me goofy, but I love this annual opportunity to share poems with abandon. As part of National Poetry Month, the Academy of American Poets celebrates Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 26, 2012.

The idea is simple: select a poem you love, carry it with you, and share it with friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and more. I also like to share poetry with strangers, and sometimes leave poems on car windshields (instead of a ticket, a poem!), in mailboxes (instead of a bill, a poem!), and often pop a few in the mail to farwaway friends.

This year, I will carry the poem above. Need a poem? You can print this page and clip, carry and share it with others. Already picked your poem? Please, will you share it with us?

 

Sweet Grief

Sweet Grief, a collaboration of paintings and poems, opens tonight at the Windermere Gallery in Seal Rock, Oregon. Can't make it to the show? We've created a book featuring the 12 paintings paired with 12 poems.

From the Sweet Grief Introduction:

Sweet Grief: Paintings and Poems on Love and Loss

by Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron

Dying sucks.

A creative collaboration began with those two words.

The collaboration — 12 paintings paired with 12 poems — is the work of Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron, two women who met in 2005 and bonded over an appreciation for children and families in need. At Seashore Family Literacy, the nonprofit organization that Senitila created and runs, Drew serves as writing instructor.

Sweet Grief began in the summer of 2011 when Senitila’s husband of 33 years was diagnosed with cancer. David McKinley died just a few months later.  

At what turned out to be his last visit with Drew, he was clear and direct.  “Dying sucks,” he said. “I’m not gonna lie.”

Later, with her friend, Senitila was pragmatic: “Death is not a crisis,” she said firmly. “It’s a beautiful part of life.”

With that in mind, Senitila and Drew explored love and loss through their art. What was initially specific to David’s death became a larger meditation and appreciation for the weighty beauty of being with the ones you love to their very end.

“Grief is a beautiful thing,” says Senitila, “not something to be afraid of, but to enjoy because it is still a gift. We think that only mystical people have a meaningful understanding of death. But it’s not true. To look at death and grief as a gift is not reserved for those who have a defined spiritual journey, but for everyone that has known love.”

 

Special edition exhibition book - $10

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Three Things

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

1.
I'm running. Bedraggled (read history here), I am ready to surrender to my wheezing lungs when a runner approaches. She's fast and beautiful in that slender-lean-young runner way. As we pass each other, she raises her arm to a high-five. No words are exchanged, just my stunned smile and a sudden lift in my step. Thank you Anonymous Runner for a kind gesture that encouraged me on. 

2.
“Grief is a beautiful thing, not something to be afraid of, but to enjoy because it is still a gift," says artist Senitila McKinley. This Saturday night, Senitila and I will debut Sweet Grief, our collaboration of poems and paintings. The show runs April 20 - May 20, 2012 in Seal Rock, Oregon, and we've also published a book. I am thankful for this heart-changing project with a heart-changing friend.

3.
It's been a full week. When I get wrapped up in deadlines and demands, I'm thankful for this survival strategy from Jessica Hagy at Indexed:

 

Enough about me, what are you thankful for today?
 


On Sunday

God

Maybe you're a verb, or some
lost part of speech
that would let us talk sense
instead of monkey-screech

when we try to explain you
to our loved ones and ourselves
when we most need to.
Who knows why someone dies

in the thick of happiness,
his true love finally found,
the world showing success
as if the world were only a cloud

that floated in a dream
above a perfect day?
Are you also dreaming our words?
Give us something to say.

- Michael Ryan
from New and Selected Poems

 

Last week I tell a friend about poems I am writing. He is heartbroken with the death of one he loved. I do not find beauty in this pain, he says. There is no sweetness in my grief.

I don't have enough words, or the right words, to console. Each death is our own. But later that day, in my purse, among gum wrappers and old receipts, I find this poem.

Some days words arrive, and I accept them as precious gift.

 

Writers give voice to their words

An enthusiastic audience, lively writers, great musicians, and spring weather made Off the Page, on April 6, 2012, a great success.

In its sixth year, Off the Page continued to offer an encouraging spirit of creative expression. Writers from the central Oregon Coast — Lincoln City, South Beach, Waldport and Yachats  — shared their work to a capacity crowd of 80 people at the Overleaf Lodge Event Center.

Many thanks to the writers, singers, songwriters, and the wonderfully supportive crowd for helping Off the Page soar. Our words came out of the dark and cloistered journal and into the world. Thank you.

Tim LoweryNina, one of the young writers from Seashore Family Literary

Richard Sharpless Khlo BratengSusan Fagalde LickBarton Howe

Thankful Thursday: Words Bloom

Vocabulary of Dearness

How a single word
may shimmer and rise
off the page, a wafer of
syllabic light, a bulb
of glowing meaning,
whatever the word,
try "temperature" or "suffer,"
any word you have held
or traded so it lives a new life
the size of two worlds.
Say you carried it
up a hill and it helped you
move. Without this
the days would be thin sticks
thrown down in a clutter of leaves,
and where is the rake?

Naomi Shihab Nye
from Fuel *

 

At Seashore Family Literacy this week, the young writers and I took an unexpected journey, gathering words like flowers for a bouquet that grew fuller with each new bloom.  

What's another word for rusty, I asked? One youngster jumped for the thesaurus, another for the dictionary, and our word hunt began. Rusty led to strident, to tempersome, to drowsy, to frazzled, to daft, and finally to lackadaisical, a word completely unrelated to rusty but the jackpot word nonetheless. (We then spent 10 minutes on spelling and pronunciation).

The next day, a young writer burst into the Writing Room:  I used the word today, she said. I used lackadaisical!

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for shimmering words, and minds eager to use them.

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

What are you thankful for today?


* You could win this book in the Big Poetry Giveaway.


Just what is Off the Page?

Off the Page is on stage this Friday night.

But wait, I see that confused look. You wonder: Is it writing group, workshop, event, or blog?

Answer: All of the above.

Off the Page was first a writing group, that turned into a literary event, that spawned a workshop, and also this blog.

A brief history
I was hungry (read: desperate, lonely) for writing companions when I moved to Oregon in 2004, so I put out a call. That call created a writing group that, for two years, gathered monthly in my home. We'd eat soup, chat, and then dive into writing exercises. We shared our work with each other. In essence, we created and encouraged.

We were a mixed bag. Some of us had never been published and some were professional writers. Some were accomplished professionals -- an actress, a stock broker, an architect. Some were retired.

After we had written together for over a year it seemed time to share our work with a larger audience, and a reading event was born. The first year about 40 people showed up to see us nervous and shaking as we shared our poems and stories. The next year 50 people packed the coffeehouse.

As my circle of colleagues expanded, so, too, did the annual event. After several years we outgrew the cafe and moved to the Overleaf Lodge Event Center, a larger but still intimate venue that holds 80 people. Last year, much to my surprise, it was standing-room only — and to hear largely unknown writers!

What this tells me is that people are eager to support creative expression. And I am beyond grateful for the warmth and encouragement. 

While the initial writing group has long passed — lives change, people move on — the spirit of Off the Page remains. The premise is simple: Writing needs air.

Writing needs air
Over the years, writing has allowed me to wear many professional hats: newspaper reporter, editor, grantwriter, corporate communications, copywriter, and publicist.

I am also a poet who, for years, wrote in the dark, keeping my writing as a deeply personal, never-to-be-revealed part of myself. When I began to take my poetry seriously, I discovered that writing needs air. It needs life. It needs to come out of the cloistered journal and given space. It needs to come off the page and into the world.

And once words lift off the page, they are free to float into ears and soar into hearts.

This is the power of a small start. Just a few words on a page, and then a few more . . .

 

The Big Poetry Giveaway

It's National Poetry Month, and time for the Big Poetry Giveaway.

Initiated three years ago by Kelli Russell Agodon, this annual event celebrates poems, blogs, and the love of books.

How it works: Participating bloggers host a drawing in which they give away two poetry books — one of their own, and one by their favorite poet.

How to win: Simply post your name and email in the Comments area below. The contest runs April 1 - 30, 2012. Two names will be randomly drawn, and winners will be announced on May 1, 2012.

After entering my book giveaway, hop over to Book of Kells to discover the full roster of book drawings. Last year, the list featured more than 50 giveaways! The more blogs you visit, the better your chances to discover — and win — great poetry books.

Enter now, to win these books:

Fuel
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Of the handful of poets I strive to emulate, Naomi Shihab Nye tops the list. Author and editor of more than 20 volumes of poetry, her work pulses with a calm urgency in which she "lends a fresh perspective to ordinary events, people, and objects." Fuel, published in 1998, is her most acclaimed collection.

 

Sweet Grief
by Drew Myron and Senitila McKinley

Two friends and a dying husband are at the heart of a powerful collaboration of paintings and poems exploring love and loss.

The collaboration is the work of Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron (that's me!), two women who share a tenderness for children in need. At Seashore Family Literacy, the nonprofit organization Senitila created and runs, Drew serves as writing instructor.

In 2011, Senitila's husband of 33 years was diagnosed with cancer, and died just a few months later. As a means to express the sense of individual and collective loss, over a period of six months Drew and Senitila created Sweet Grief, an art exhibition and accompanying book featuring 12 paintings and poems offering a range of darkness and light, from the heavy weight of loss to the bright glow of gratitude.

These books could be yours — for free!
To enter the book drawing, just add your name and email in the Comments section below. The contest runs April 1 - 30, 2012. Two names will be randomly drawn, and winners will be announced on May 1, 2012.

 

Try This: Poetry Poker

A poem starts here

in a happy crash of orange tacos
and blue knights.

I am the Queen and you are the Joker,
anointing every room with laughter.

A poem starts here, where the elbow
bends, the toenail curves.

The house is ablaze with the sound of bacon.
The boiler thrums, soup hums.

Can you smell every donut rising?
Taste the rust of happiness peeling?

Poems live in the cracks of nonsense,
in the seams of disbelief.

We’re in the funhouse, join the ride.
Stale bread discarded. Fresh words only.

Even the fish swim backward, blowing
bubbles of electric pink.

- Drew Myron
A Poetry Poker poem written with the Happy Hour writers

 

Have you played Poetry Poker?

It's a great way to get out of your head and into language.

The game is the invention of Dave Morice, and appears in The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet.

How to Play Poetry Poker: Type a phrase across each card in a deck. Words should be a mix of complete, incomplete and unusual phrases. Each player is dealt five cards. The object of the game is to write a poem that includes all the phrases, along with many of your own words. It's essential that you add many of your own words to make and expand connections between phrases and ideas.

Sample Phrases: to the store, old train, the roof leaked, jumped off the, magic hamburgers, zoo monster, color of sleep, orange tacos

Optional Rules: Rules are fluid. For example, if playing in a group, writers can trade cards. Or, writers can choose to discard. The rules are not hard and fast, but loose and lively.

This game sometimes yields good poems. More often it breaks routine and opens the door for the next good poem. Whether writing prompt or powerful new poem, it always feels good to exercise the writing muscle and produce new work. And, really, Poetry Poker is just fun. The idea is to loosen the mind and try new word combinations.

Try This: Send me your Poker Poems and I'll post them here. You may post your poems in the comment section below, or share your work via email to dcm@drewmyron.com.

Don't be shy — let's exercise the writing muscle, and play with language.

 

Finding out

We write in order to find out

who and what we are.

— Jane Hirshfield
from an interview in Fooling with Words

Fooling with Words, a Bill Moyers television documentary and book, explores the vitality and diversity of contemporary poetry through intimate interviews and performance readings at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival — North America’s largest.

Featured poets include: Robert Pinsky, Amiri Baraka, Stanley Kunitz, Coleman Barks, Lucille Clifton, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Paul Muldoon, Marge Piercy, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Deborah Garrison.

Interview with Jane Hirshfield at 7 minute mark.


Thankful Thursday: Happy Hour

When in a room of eager minds, it's difficult to maintain a slow, sour mood.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for Happy Hour for Young Readers & Writers.

This week, I spent afternoons at Seashore Family Literacy, reading, writing and creating with students ages 10 to 14.

In the pursuit of poems and stories, we collected words, roamed rooms, examined names, and played poetry poker. We suspended sense and rules. We stretched our bodies, our minds, our ideas. We kept the pen moving. We learned how to listen, and the art of response. We wrote letters to spring, to winter, to memory and friends. We wrote odes to hot dogs, and penned lively adventures. And when our journals were finally thick with words, we chose our best work and learned to refine.

Will you give us homework, they asked, please?

Can I read my poem next?

Will you come back?

Yes, yes, and yes.

On This Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for youngsters whose enthusiasm for writing restores my own.

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause of gratitude for people, places and things. What are you thankful for today?

 

Spring, says the calendar

 

Spring is like a perhaps hand

 
Spring is like a perhaps hand

(which comes carefully

out of Nowhere) arranging

a window, into which people look (while

people stare

arranging and changing placing

carefully there a strange

thing and a known thing here) and

 

changing everything carefully

 

spring is like a perhaps

Hand in a window

(carefully to

and fro moving New and

Old things, while

people stare carefully

moving a perhaps

fraction of flower here placing

an inch of air there) and

 

without breaking anything.

 

— e. e. cummings

 

How did I miss the arrival of Spring? Here in the Pacific Northwest, rain and endless gloom have erased all memory of a hopeful season. Still, the calendar says March 20th, Spring Equinox.  Is it spring in your world? Can you feel the hand changing everything carefully?


You've won a ride on the Glimmer Train

Congratulations Allyson Whipple!

You've won the latest issue of Glimmer Train, a literary journal, featuring the award-winning work of writer Stefanie Freele.  Thanks for entering the drawing.

Thanks to all who took a chance and played with me. All is not lost. There's plenty of Stefanie to enjoy: Feeding Strays, a flash fiction collection; and her her new book, Surrounded by Water, will be published in May 2012.

Write on, and please return for another book giveaway in April.

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Is that you, gratitude?

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.


Gratitude is missing.

Some days the sky is gray, the mood gloomy and it's a fight to bring thankful and me together in a heartfelt hug.

Before you throw platitudes (or tomatoes) my way, please know I am grateful. I've got work, a house, good health. I love and am loved. I take none of this lightly.

But gratitude has a shiny appeal; you expect it from the new and unusual. It's more difficult, or perhaps less exciting, to express gratitude for the everyday routine. And, of course, this is exactly when and why gratitude is needed — to jolt us from expectation.

Things I'd like to feel thankful for:

Thrashing wind and heavy rain
(I'm not thankful, just weary and worn).

Cheery encouragements on Facebook
(In my grumbled state, cheer is annoying).

The lifting of self-awareness. I'd like to leave myself behind
(Note: I realize the irony in this statement).

Knowing proper use of the word irony
(I don't. Thanks a lot Alanis Morissette).

Things I'm actually thankful for:

The smooth glide of pen across page.

The sound of the ocean, like a bathtub filling.

A well-written horoscope.

The gift of a book.

Tom Waits
("a voice that sounds like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon").

Peanut butter.

The realization that gratitude is not complicated.
It's just one word, said true: thanks.


Enough about me. What are you thankful for today?

 

Dear Sir, I like words.


I like words.

I like fat buttery words, such as

ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady.

I like solemn, angular, creaky words,

such as straitlaced, cantankerous,

pecunious, valedictory.

 

A letter from copywriter Robert Pirosh to potential employers in 1934. As proof of the power of a well-crafted letter, Pirosh went on to write for the Marx Brothers and earned an Academy Award for his script Battleground.

Read the full letter at Letters of Note, a site paying homage to correspondence. Shaun Usher is the editor, and he offers equally entertaining and enlightening companion sites: Lists of Note and Letterheady.

The Letters of Note book will be available in November 2012.