Skipping Stones- A Multicultural Magazine and the Disappearing Language

Here is a link to the April- June 2014 Issue of Skipping Stones- A Multicultural Literary Magazine.
Erman was a proud contributor (his Apache words) on the story that I wrote about the Disappearing Language of the Apache People on the reservation. They are slowly losing their language as the newer generations do not teach it to their children.

Skipping Stones Issue April-June 2014


And this is food for thought. My niece was in a store and over heard to white woman discussing the Natives in Arizona. This is what she heard them saying. Although it was true, I feel it was said with the utmost disrespect.

Atiana A Jay

December 1 at 7:11am · Cibecue, AZ · 

Something that was being discussed right in front of me 😒.
"Of all the adversities the Natives went through, they are still here and that was their main goal right? just to exist and show the government they can't kill them off that easy? and wasn't the governments main purpose to kill the culture, keep the individual? that my friend is happening now. How many Native Americans still practice their tradition on a daily basis? How many speak the language that makes them who they are? Not many. The traditions that were once sacred are now being treated as events or festivities and money has to be present in order for people to show up or host. That is not what those practices were intended for. Their language is basically history and no one follows old traditions. Times are changing and so are the people. Many natives think their own culture is wrong and many don't want to learn their language or keep it alive. This new generation of natives will be the proof that the government won. Their language is dying along side the traditions not many practice. Soon they will be a bunch of English speaking, treating their traditions as history, fully transitioned Americans, and that my friend was calvary and the governments goal."

Whol Fhaye A huge topic and platform to cover, it is said also some tribes are consider putting in the agenda that future generations will only be considered enrollment if parents are married bcuz of many kids are born to parents that are unmarried. I wonder how that will play out??? Jus something I heard

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 · December 1 at 7:28am

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Dain Ahasteen I wish I could share this

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 · December 1 at 8:22am

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Dain Ahasteen replied · 2 Replies

Jessica Dahl Ivins Were they purposely trying to get under your skin or were they that ignorant?

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 · December 1 at 6:45pm

Manage

Paula Ivins What's sad about it is that they introduced Alcohol & Drugs to help in killing the values of our traditions, keep them drunk & incompetent to keep them from thinking straight.. Prayer & Faith is what well help in restoring what we can and know to be True.. A good topic to bring up to a Candidate Atiana A Jay.. ❤️

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 · Reply · December 1 at 7:

First Publish of story!

My very first story will be published in Skipping Stones!
It is a multi cultural magazine and will publish my story the "Disappearing Language".
They gave great feed back and I will let you know what edition it will be published! Very happy!!

Literal Latte Literary Magazine Submission

There are a million Literary Magazines out there. I found this one and will submit my first short story with hopes of publication. I would love to win the Pushcart Award, but that may be pushing it...pun on words.

It is on abortion in the 1930's. It was fascinating to write and learn what I thought I knew.
I was a teen that was pregnant, so that part of the story came from personal experience. I did not get an abortion though. The story started out in the modern world of abortion and clinics and quickly changed to the 1930's. The reason it was so easy for me to write about this was through conversations with my dear old friend, who was Spanish, Irish, and French. She was born in 1940. Her sister had went to Delaware for an abortion.

It takes place in 1937, after WWII, when the number of unwed women getting abortion were rising. This is compared to pre-WWII when it was mostly married women and a form of birth control. It captures the feelings of abortion, which was not much guilt. It was a matter of fact act. But, the death of abortion was a very real thing. In 1915 death of Anna Johnson, to a doctor perforating a girls uterus and pulling out her intestines were just a few of the stories told. It was an era that women did not discuss there sexual organs or abortion in public. You just didn't.

I will let you know if it makes it to the magazine!!

Grandma's Afternoon Dowry

I just submitted, via email, to SteppingStones. It is a children's picture book about Erman's mother's dowry. She was the last one in that generation to follow the tradition of the dowry. It is most important to remember it as a tradition that is past and to tell our children about it.

I will also submit it to Lee and Low, a multi-cultural, book publishing agent.

This book was done with the help of my wonderful husband. He helped out with the Apache words! and is very creative! Thanks Erman for your help.

And especially grateful to the time we had with his parents while we were in New Mexico.

Contest 2013

http://www.puertodelsol.org/submit.html

2013 Poetry and Fiction Contests
Puerto del Sol is excited to announce the 2013 Poetry and Fiction Contests. The poetry category will be judged by Katrina Roberts, author of Underdog and Friendly Fire, among others. The fiction category will be judged by Michael Martone, author of Four for a Quarter and editor of Not Normal, Illinois: Peculiar Fiction from the Flyover, and others.

The entry fee is $15, and includes a one-year subscription to Puerto del Sol. Fiction submissions are limited to one piece of no more than 10,000 words per entry. Poetry submissions are limited to three poems of no more than two pages per entry. Prizes for fiction and poetry will be $400 for first place, $100 for second place, and $50 for third. The first-place manuscripts will be published in Puerto del Sol. All submissions will be considered for publication. Multiple submissions are allowed, with a fee of $15 for each additional submission.

The deadline for submission is March 15. The winners will be announced June 1.

Second contest:

https://www.awpwriter.org/contests/wcc_scholarships_overview

WC&C Scholarship Competition

AWP offers two annual scholarships of $500 each to emerging writers who wish to attend a writers’ conference, center, retreat, festival, or residency. The scholarships are applied to fees for winners who attend one of the member programs in AWP’s Directory of Conferences & Centers. Winners and four finalists also receive a one-year individual membership in AWP.

Submissions must be postmarked between December 1 and March 30 of each year. Download full guidelines at right.

Marc Nieson- Literal Latte Literary Journal

Click below to read his winning Short Story

Sinking the Eight  by Marc Nieson  

Marc Nieson took first prize in the Literary Magazine's Literal Latte Fiction Award~
"Sinking the Eight" was a short story about a teen struggling with a bipolar father and his mother that eventually leaves them. He is reminiscing as a pilot when he sees someone that reminds him of his mother.

I absolutely loved it. then I saw that he made a film and now I have to see it. "The Dream Catcher", not DREAMCATCHER, "THE Dream Catcher."

Here is is acknowledgments:
Marc Nieson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and NYU Film School.  His background includes filmmaking, children’s theatre, building construction, and a season with a one-ring circus.  Excerpts from Schoolhouse: A Memoir in 13 Lessons have appeared in Literary Review, Iowa Review, Green Mountains Review, andChautauqua.  Recent fiction is in Conjunctions, Hawk & Handsaw, the 2011 Wordstock Ten and Stripped anthologies.  His prose has earned two Pushcart Prize nominations and a Raymond Carver Short Story Award. His award-winning feature-length screenplays includeSpeed of Life, The Dream Catcher and Bottomland.  He serves on the faculty of Chatham University, and is working on a new novel,Houdini’s Heirs. Another prize winning story of Nieson's, "The Last Hours of Pompeii," can be read online at Carve Magazine.

And the Literal Latte won my readership. There are so many literary magazines and found one I believe in!

4th Annual YA Novel Discovery Contest

Here is the information:



Want a chance to get your writing read by editors at Simon and Schuster, Harlequin Kimani, Random House, Candlewick, Scholastic, Sourcebooks, Kensington, Harlequin Teen, Bloomsbury, and Feiwel and Friends?

From agent Regina Brooks comes info on the 4th Annual YA Novel Discovery Contest

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:The rules of the contest are simple and entering is easy.  Submit entries of ONLY the first 250 words of your manuscript and the title via the contest website at http://www.writingclasses.com/ContestPages/YAPitch.php.


One entry per person; anyone age 14+ can apply. Open to the U.S. & Canada (void where prohibited). Entries for the YA Novel Discovery Contest will be accepted from 12:01am (ET) November 1st, 2012 until 11:59pm November 30th, 2012 (ET).

YA literary agent Regina Brooks and her team, will read all of the entries and determine the top 20 submissions. These submissions will then be read by Navah Wolfe Simon and Schuster, Tracey Sherrod Harlequin Kimani, Krista Viola Random House, Nicole Raymond Candlewick, Rachel Griffiths Scholastic, Aubrey Poole Sourcebooks, Mercedes Fernandez Kensington, Nataysha Wilson Harlequin teen, Laura Whitaker Bloomsbury, Anna Roberts Feiwel and Friends. These judges will whittle the top 20 down to five, and each of the five winners will be provided commentary on their submissions.

Enter Here

I just finished my first manuscript and YES, I did enter it. It is a funny thing...writing. You spend a year writing this book and then you begin to doubt yourself. You actually wonder what am I doing? I force myself to print it out and tell myself it must be good, because, after all, I like it. 

On to my next book. I have, ever since I started writing wanted to write a easy chapter book for the 4th-5th grade. And now I have the story. I just have to put it on paper. Here's to writing and never stopping! Cheers! 

Curse Words in Writing

If you have ever read "Under the Never Sky" by Verionica Rossi, there is one character that is referred to this way: "....and he cursed". I read this at least 15 times for the same character. If I read it one more time I may curse! Needless to say,, I was glad that the author didn't put in curse words, probably because she would limit her audience, but couldn't she come up with something else besides..."...and he cursed".  Other than that it was a great book, with great story (and I really actually liked the character that cursed a lot.)

In the Children's Writer, December 2012 Issue (I get it now because I entered two short stories!) I have enjoyed it and found this helpful:

By Veda Boyd JonesMy friend Brendan, a brand-new teacher, sat at my dinner table complaining that a novel for junior high readers was totally unrealistic.
    “There’s no way a juvenile delinquent would talk like that. His language would be full of words like  *!&**## and $^*&$* and %(^*#. (Substitutes are mine.) Your ears would turn blue if you heard the kids talk in our school hallways, and they’re not in trouble with the law.”
   “That may be,” I said in the tone I reserve for talking to young friends I have known since their birth and who should not be cussing in front of me, “but the first reader of a novel is an editor and once it’s in print, the next readers are reviewers and librarians, and they are not going to buy a kids’ book full of profanity. And I won’t even address the role of irate school boards.”
    “But it’s not right,” he said.
    “It’s not accurate, but that’s where substitute fricatives come in.”
    “Fricatives?”
    “Phooey. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of fricatives? Shoot, they’re such wonderful words.”

What the Fricative?In the gentle way I have of talking to know-it-all whippersnappers the ages of my sons, I explained about aggressive consonant sounds (p, f, b, d, k, sh, etc.). When you say them, parts of the vocal apparatus (lips, tongue, teeth, and palate) block air and make you push it through a narrow gap to make the sound. Forcing the air out causes friction, thus the name fricative. Once you get one of those suckers out, you feel immensely better. Our best curse words contain fricatives.
    Of course, there are technical terms for each of the five combinations of vocal apparatus that constrict the airflow, but I did not flaunt that knowledge to the kid.

~ The lip and teeth combination makes the f in fire and the v in very.
~ The tongue and teeth combination makes the sound th in math and this.
~ The tongue and alveolar ridge (the ridge behind the upper front teeth) combination makes the sin say and the z in zebra.
~ The tongue and palate (roof of the mouth) combination makes the sh and zh sounds in shoe,machine, azure, and rouge.
~ The glottis (the area of the windpipe behind the tongue) makes the sound of the h in happy andhello.

    Note, these examples are not bad words (well, math may be to some people). But the tone we use saying them may help us express our attitudes and emotions.

Frankly, My DearMy librarian friend Carolyn, an expert on Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, says that the movie folks added the punch to Rhett’s farewell speech to Scarlett when they added the word frankly to Mitchell’s dialogue.  In “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” it is that wonderful fricative f in franklythat stings.
    Carolyn swears that scientific studies have been done that prove using fricatives causes the part of the brain called the amygdala to jump into action, flooding the senses with hormonal superpowers. The conclusion of more than one study: People who swear reduce their stress and heighten their pain tolerance.
    Why not run your own little scientific test? Hit your left thumb with a hammer, and say, “That frickinghurts!” Then hit your right thumb with the same hammer (for a controlled study) and say, “Oh, dear, it hurts!” Really, which felt better?
    Of course, Carolyn pointed out, nobody beats William Shakespeare when it comes to using colorful language, and he created effective phrases without stooping to words that would be banned in print for middle-grade students. Take Queen Margaret calling Richard III to his face a “poisonous bunch-back’d toad” (Richard III, Act 1, Scene 3, line 247). And there is one of Falstaff’s fellow drinkers calling other drunks “these mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms” (Henry IV, Part 1, Act 2, Scene 1, lines 74-75). In another example from Henry IV, Prince Hal calls a tradesman a “leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish pouch” (Act 2, Scene 4, lines 68-70). 
    Today’s children’s writers could replace cuss words with fricatives in a humorous way with more up-to-date language. I asked my Wednesday lunch group writers for examples of fricatives, and we sat around the table swearing like sailors in friendly language: from son of a biscuit eater to dagnabit to simple words like fudge, shucks, and featherhead. One writer reminded us that a current phrase used by kids when aggravated in the presence of adults is shut the front door.
    There are tons of possibilities for giving characters words they could use for fun and as an outlet for their frustrations that will pass that first editor’s desk. Be as creative as the Bard, that sour-pussed, fret-minded Brit.

Writing Contest

http://www.thechildrenswriter.com/BG243/

Current Contest:
YA Short Story

A short story for teens, 13-14, in any subgenre, including speculative fiction, issue-based, contemporary, historical,adventure, humor, etc. The story should be no longer than 1,500 words. Entries will be judged on its page-turning qualities, targeting of teen interests, voice, and character. It should be well-structured, have a strong opening, and a resonant theme. The judges value originality, and the final criterion is publishability.

See the link for more information.

I am working on this one right now. I have to take a break from my novel and that is bothersome because I was on a roll. Happy Entries!

Literary Magazines how to's

Submit! Submit to literary magaizines  You're building your resume.

Here is some great information. On how:

The Writer’s Guide to
Publishing in Literary Magazines and Entering Contests

http://www.ayelettsabari.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/The-Writers-Studio-Guide-to-Publishing-in-Literary-Magazines-2.pdf Thanks to: Aylet Sabari
This is the how to, and rules of submitting, ei. query letters, submission letters etc.
Contests aren't a bad idea. They cost a little but I sent mine in to the South West Writers Contest and was among the top twenty for Children's Lit.! Yeah!  I paid $60 because I wasn't a member, but I also paid for feed back and got a lot of it! It was great feedback.

Here is one magazine I am thing of submitting to:
http://www.swampbiscuitsandtea.com
http://underneaththejunipertree.blogspot.com/p/submit-to-us.html  or http://underneaththejunipertree.com/
http://www.wellingtonwriters.com/viola/index.php funny silly

Read their story's and see if it's a fit.

There is always the big SCWBWI Conference twice a year, one in NY and the other in LA. These are opportunities to show your work to agents.

And here is a contest.

http://underneaththejunipertree.com/2011/11/07/new-contest-mark-ryden-style/

300- 500 words from this inspirational picture...see the link for details.