Category: Literary

The Joy of Writing and Reading: A Personal Reflection

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

By Old Scratch Collective member Nadja Maril

I love words and sentences, writing them. I also love reading something really good. So, part of my day circles around writing and revising. Another part is reserved for reading.

If your desire is that each piece of writing you create is superior to its predecessor, then it’s a good idea to read other writer’s creations. We learn what we like and what we don’t like by reading the work of others. Experiencing through someone else’s words can give us the opportunity to learn new ways of approaching an essay, poem, or story.

Reading to write because writers are part of human expression.
Those five little earrings could represent the various framents of the essay that focuses on what we hear or don’t.

First thing this morning, I clicked on a link provided by the literary magazine, Sweet. A Literary Confection that was titled “In My Head: Tinnitus” by Marcia Aldrich which the editors have nominated for the 2023 “Best of the Net.” I liked the way Aldrich broke the essay into very short sections. This type of CNF essay is called a fragmented essay, specifically in this case, a narrative mosaic because all the sections were directly linked to the topic of Tinnitus, but all approached the word/ the subject/ the experience from different vantage points. Here is the link if you’d like to read it.

Next I read the under 250 word CNF essay  from Riverteeth’s weekly newsletter Beautiful Things titled  “Sugar in the Evening” by Jennifer Anderson. Deceptively simple. it resonates. I don’t necessarily like every weekly Beautiful Things selection, but this one is truly a gem. To read it click here.

Finally, to round out the morning, before I started revising a story of my own, I clicked to read some poems in Sunlight Press capturing a sense of nostalgia and the delight of movement by Alfred Fournier. You can click to read them here.

Evenings and Sunday afternoons are for “hard copy.” I love a book that pulls me in and keeps me guessing. I never want to be able to confidently predict where the plot is heading. So I’d like to recommend The Great Circle, published in 2021 by Maggie Shipstead, a Booker Prize finalist.

A very long novel (655 pages) I was lucky enough to pick up in one of the several Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood, it is both entertaining and instructive to fellow novelists in approach and structure. I try very hard not to read multiple books by the same author in an effort to “meet on the page” more writers and I’d already read Seating Arrangements, but I am so happy I did make an exception and grab that almost new paperback.  This novel is far superior to Shipstead’s previous work in that it adds multiple layers of time, place and setting to a compelling storyline.

Comprised of two narrative arcs, The Great Circle tells the story of a pioneering female aviator, Marian Graves, born in 1914, who wants to be the first to circumnavigate the globe by flying over both the North and South Poles.  The second storyline focuses on actress Hadley Baxter who is chosen to play the role of Marian in a Hollywood movie produced in 2014.

The 20th century narrative is told in third person, and while it primarily focuses on Marian’s life it also tells the story of her twin brother Jamie, and the role women aviators played in World War II. The 2lst century narrative is told in the first-person voice of Hadley.

As to what happens, I’ll leave it to you the reader to discover first-hand. Enjoy and keep reading, whether it is long or short, on paper or on your phone.  And yes, I listen to stories as well. My most recent listen was Companion Piece by Ali Smith, a melding of reality and splendid storytelling.

Here is CNF piece written and read by me nominated for “Best of the Net” ,”REBOOT” in Instant Noodles. While you are on the site, you might as well enjoy the rest of the issue– some great Spring inspired stories and poems. The next theme “word” for the autumn issue is Sanctuary followed for the Holiday 2025/26 issue by Gravy.

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Exploring Creative Nonfiction: Truth Through Memory

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

By Nadja Maril, a Founding Member of the Old Scratch Short Form and Poetry Collective

How we portray ourselves and others, is something memoirists grapple with.

We call it “Creative Nonfiction” when a writer presents truth in a creative format that can take the form of anything from a lyrical essay to a crossword puzzle. A selection of word artifacts can weave an interesting narrative inviting the reader to fill in the blanks, anything from a grouping of letters, the transcription of a phone call, or a photograph with a caption.

The words in a game or puzzle can inspire a short work of creative nonfiction.

 In fiction, the writer shapes the story to create pacing and tension. In nonfiction, the writer selects and amplifies truth to produce a compelling piece they hope others will want to read.

The nonfiction writer often relies on memory. Memory and research. The research often draws on the memories and writings of others.

How accurate are those memories?  According to the work of late 19th century German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus’s research, graphed as a forgetting curve, much of what people experience each day is quickly forgotten.  In the May 20th 2024 issue of The New Yorker, writer Jerome Groopman, discusses in a book review the recently released book Why We Remember by Charan Ranganath.

Ranganath is a neuropsychologist at U.C. Davis and in his book, he discusses memory and how we may be looking at memory the wrong way. Memory, he conjectures, more likely functions as an adaptive trait to keep humans alive.  Selectively we remember some things and forget others. Perhaps the forgetting is as important as the remembering.

Photos may help prompt our memories, but sometimes what others tell us about a photo my influence our recollection.

From a writer’s point of view, I find it fascinating to hear how people’s memories of the same event can be slightly different. What do those differences reveal about each person?

Folk tales and fairy tales clearly demonstrate how the same story can be adjusted to reflect the story teller’s preferences. In some versions of little Red Riding Hood, grandmother is locked in a closet in another she is swallowed by the wolf. In a family, one sister may remember beloved pet that was hit by a car and another may forget the pet because the memory is too painful.

Photo by Son Dang on Pexels.com

Prior to a trip to Ireland last year, I started reading the book, The Irish Assassins; Conspiracy, Revenge and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned England by Julie Kavanagh, to gain some understanding of Irish history. The three hundred plus page nonfiction narrative reads like a novel, but dialogue and descriptions are all based on meticulous research. The book has sixty pages of end notes and footnotes. 

But the sources themselves: diaries, letters, newspaper articles, trial transcriptions all have their bias—according to who wrote them. And Kavanagh reveals in many instances, the ulterior motives and prejudices some of the parties may have possessed in how they reacted to the events that took place.

Writing a short nonfiction piece, based on a personal experience can take the form of a letter, diary or puzzle. Part of the writing adventure is trying new things.

If we acknowledge our memories are always shapeshifting, I think it can give us a certain amount of freedom to experiment. Playing with episodic memory, using a trigger such as music, smell or taste, can provide a means to travel back to a previous episode in your life and re-examine it.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

WRITING PROMPT: A smell you love or a smell you hate. If you have the item around, use it as a trigger, if not try to remember it. What comes to mind. A person you were fond of? A party you attended? If you write something you like, put it away and revisit it the following week to review and edit. If the piece has power refine until it is ready and then if you want to share it, submit it to potential publishers.

About the author:

Nadja Maril is the author of Recipes from my Garden, Old Scratch Press, September 2024. Nadja Maril’s short stories, poems and essays have been published in dozens of small online and print literary journals and anthologies including: Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Journal, Invisible City Literary Review, and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at USM. A former newspaper columnist and magazine editor, she writes a weekly blog and you can visit her website at www.Nadjamaril.com.

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Why Prose Writers Should Make Reading Poetry a Daily Habit

Published on by virginiawattsLeave a comment

Many writers, including myself, write both prose and poetry. For me, it just depends on the subject matter as to which form I choose. Many writers begin with one form of writing and evolve to another. There are some writers who begin in one genre and stay there. In the end of the day, our paths are different, but we are all writers, and all writers want to tell a story. We want readers to feel something, experience something, remember something. We want them to leave us changed in some small way. Even if you don’t want to learn about the craft of poetry in a formal way, as in attending workshops, just reading a few poems a day will improve your prose writing in ways that will surprise you. 

Poetry as a form succeeds on bold, visual imagery, exact information from all the senses. This is how the reader enters the poem and lives inside it for a brief time. By reading lines of poetry, prose writers will also experience and come to understand why rhythm matters. There is great impact when rhythm is found in sentences and phrases.

One of the defining benefits of studying and writing poetry for me as a prose writer has been that in poetry more than any other genre, each and every word must do work, and I mean each and every word. Poets take time and great care choosing words and prose writers, if you want to be your best, you should be doing that as well, but it takes practice. Read Hemingway again to see why this matters. 

Poetry has the same elements as prose writing, such as characterization and narrative arc, but it contains more unexpected phrases, surprises and turns that send readers in directions they didn’t expect. This is often missing from prose writing, and it shouldn’t be. Additionally, poetry teaches us about pace. How long lines with no punctuation slow the reader down. How a short line placed just right can then really pack a punch. 

Prose writers can also use traditional poetry techniques to enhance their narratives such as assonance, linking words with similar vowel sounds. Using words in this way can produce a desired effect on the reader such as a calming effect as if listening to music. 

My greatest lesson and take away as a prose writer who reads poetry every single day is that endings are so incredibly important. When you read enough good poems, you’ll see what I mean. And stories, like poems, deserve the best endings possible. This is something to strive for. 

So, you want to be a good prose writer? Then read poetry. Simple as that. Poetry teaches us all how to use our language. Poetry teaches how to describe. Poetry demonstrates mood, voice, momentum in unexpected ways. We all want the same thing. To tell the story we want to tell in the best way we can. Reading poetry will help us learn to do that. 

There are many good online literary journals where you can read poems: Narrative Magazine, Agni, Carve, Rattle, 32 Poems, A Public Space, Apple Valley Review, Evergreen Review, The Cortland Review, Waxwing, Pigeon Pages, Cleaver Magazine, Able Muse. 

You can also sign up to receive daily poems from: Rattle, Your Daily Poem, Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, Poem of the Day. All these are free as is the wonderful podcast written and hosted by one of my favorite poets Padraig O Tuama: Poetry Unbound. I would also highly recommend Padraig’s wonderful book: 50 Poems to Open Your World.  

Happy Reading!  

~Ginny

Virginia Watts has been fortunate to have published nearly 100 pieces in literary magazines including CRAFT, The Florida Review, Reed Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Permafrost Magazine, Broadkill Review, Two Thirds North, Hawaii Pacific Review, Sky Island Journal, Eastern Iowa Review, Evening Star Review and Streetlight Magazine. Nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize and four times for Best of the Net, in 2019, Watts won The Florida Review Meek Award in nonfiction.

Her poetry chapbooks The Werewolves of Elk Creek 

and Shot Full of Holes are available from Moonstone Press. Her debut short story collection Echoes from the Hocker House is available on Amazon.

Never Miss A Chance to Read Your Work!

Published on by diannePLeave a comment

I want to invite you all to come out and support PERISCOPE CITY: WHERE THE LONELY GO TO LIVE ALONE with our Valentine’s evening “Love Stinks!” reading and open mic.

Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 886 1135 6295
Passcode: 090540

Ben’s book is, “A captivating series of short stories, both dramatically and philosophically enthralling.”
KIRKUS

“Ben Talbot excels at depicting a world both alien and familiar at the same time.”
MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

Welcome to Periscope City, a place where nothing is quite as it seems. Its citizens are those with no one to love, caught in a paradox of escaping loneliness while clinging to it. Here, human emotion is fleeting, and love is nothing more than a transaction.
Each story in this collection delves into the heights and depths of solitude through its characters: a writer torn between seeking validation from fleeting romances and finding comfort in the safety of isolation; a former college football star lost in nostalgia, unable to connect with the present; a young runaway scarred by her past, drawn to this desolate town inhabited by loners and serviced by robots.
Prepare for an emotional gut-punch as you enter a strange, unsettling place where the broken-hearted choose to stay broken and prefer to live in solitude. Talbot’s haunting, satirical, and often absurd interconnected tales explore themes of self-destruction and elusive redemption.
Periscope City will immerse you in a world where the boundary between reality and fantasy is constantly shifting.

Ben is going to read a little from his book, and then we will open it up for poems, flash fiction/non-fiction to give you a chance to add your voice to the conversation about love and loss and loneliness, and answer the age-old question, “What becomes of the broken-hearted?”

If you’re not a pro at reading, it is imperative that you come and try your luck! What better night? We can be awkward, clumsy, lonely, and literary together!

Meet me in Periscope City Friday night:

8P Eastern
7P Central
6P Mountain
5P Pacific.

Hope to see you there, and hear you read. We’ll be sad without you….

In the meantime, enjoy this excerpt from the book!

Periscope City

A sign greeted me at the border: Periscope City: Where the Lonely Go to Live Alone. 

It spoke my language, so I crossed in by foot, to the nearest place it took me to. That place was a one-story house with a long driveway called the Institute. There, they asked me dozens of questions about my immediate past and made me take a personality exam. I told them the truth: that I was a thirty-four-year-old loner whose friends had deserted him for marriage or death. They set me up in the Cramden Hotel. 

During the first week, I interacted with only housekeeping and the concierge. They were all robots. It was the best the town could do to live up to its tagline. 

—

Although I loved loneliness, I was still lonely as hell. After months of wallowing about my life situation, sinking into the lack of fellow humans, there was nothing I wanted more than to mix it up. I thought being lonely among robots was a different lonely as being lonely among humans. The scratch needed to be itched. 

The concierge suggested a dating app called Loner, and the concierge said it had the best reputation for keeping the lonesome lonely. I filled out a profile and submitted it to the AI gods for review. It matched me with Raylene, a blonde Puerto Rican who stood over six feet. Her profile said very little about her beyond the fact that she’d moved from Buffalo, New York, and loved pets over people. In her picture, she sat on a snowy park bench and wore a fleece jacket. A French bulldog sat in her lap, and it wore a black-and-white dog poncho. It looked like a staged photo, like something in an L.L. Bean catalog, but where L.L. Bean was trying to pull off cozy, it was a cold, plastic, disconnected photo. I assumed her entire profile was an attempt at sarcasm. 

Do you want to meet or not? she wrote. 

Because of my lust for tall women, I wrote her back: Yes. 

I have tickets to The Late Show, she wrote. Meet me at Geraldine Park at eight. I’ll be at the corner of Alaska and Winter Bear. And don’t be awkward. 

—

When I showed up, Raylene was sitting on a snowy park bench in the same jacket as her photo, with her service bulldog in her lap. The dog even wore a black-and-white poncho. Raylene’s smile was all the picture was missing. 

“Joe?” she asked.

Her perfume was cedar, or maybe it was the trees. Whatever the case, the scent had found its way to me, and it smelled lovely. The Loner profile was missing a smell. 

“Raylene?” 

“No,” she said. “Of course it is. How would I know your name was Joe?” 

The bulldog barked at me. 

“Sheepshead, knock it off,” she said. 

Sheepshead? After Raylene fed her a pill, the dog calmed down. The pill must’ve been a fast-acting depressant, which they sold over the counter here in Periscope City. I know because of my own dog, but he didn’t need medication like me. 

“You look different from your picture,” she said. 

Ditto. Not only did she frown but her hair wasn’t blonde. It was purple. “How so?” I said.

“I thought you were taller,” she said. 

I ignored her comment (let’s call it an insult), already being my tallest. 

“Ask me something,” she said. 

She was testing me, but then I remembered how sarcastic her profile had been attempting to be. The memory of it made me sweat a little with anxiety because I tried to think of something witty to say quickly, so I used a cliché. “If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?” 

“Come on, dude,” she said. “Ask me something else.” 

I gestured out to the surrounding park with my hands as if that were the explanation. “It was all I could think of,” I said. 

“I told you, don’t be awkward,” she said. “What about you? Who would you have dinner with?” 

I hated the question, too. 

“Abraham Lincoln,” I said, and the words tasted like tinned fish. 

“Why?” 

“He was the first person who came to mind,” I said.  

“Lame,” she said. “Now ask me a good question.”  

“Okay,” I said. “Why did you name your dog Sheepshead?” 

“Sheepshead Bay was the last place where I went with my husband,” she said. 

“Did you separate?” I said. 

She pressed her beanie down to her eyebrows, and I did the same with my trapper hat. We shared an awkward silence. It was what I got for asking a good question.

SECRETS of a WRITING VOICE

Published on by wyn001100Leave a comment

by ROBERT FLEMING, Founding member of OLD SCRATCH PRESS – a poetry/short-form collective | estd. 2023

So confused. Isn’t a voice linked to speaking, singing, and screaming? What does a voice have to do with writing? What the fu** Robert?

A “writing voice” refers to the unique style and personality a writer expresses through their writing, which is a combination of their vocabulary, tone, sentence structure, and perspective, essentially how their individual personality comes across on the page. 

what is a writing voice – Google Search

For poetry, yours truly, defines a voice profile:

  • Style: traditional, experimental, vs in between
  • Themes (e.g. love, war)
  • Forms (e.g., free verse, iambic pentameter)
  • Devices (e.g. enjambment: 1 line continues onto next), metaphor, simile, rhyme)

CREATE A VOICE to INCREASE PUBLICATION SUCCESS

Most poetry magazine acceptance rates are about 2.4%. In order to increase your chance of publication acceptance success, create a writing voice and then target publications that have published work with your voice within the last two-years.

A writing acceptance rate is like a baseball player’s batting average (BA). Josh Gibson’s 1946 BA of 37.2% is the highest career Major League Baseball BA.

Josh Gibson

My poetry voice profile:

  • Style: experimental
  • Themes: masculinity, sexual orientation, sin/virtue, dystopia
  • Forms: visual poetry, free-verse, Japanese Haiku/Mondo, sonnet, and pantoum
  • Devices: sound (rhyme, alliteration, assonance), duality, homonyms, multiple-word-reversals, and end-titles

CREATING a WRITING VOICE

Oh NO Mr. Robert, an assignment is coming. Sir and madam, it is, I cannot lie.

A sleepless night, 3/14/1996, yours truly obsessed compulsed, to translate four of his favorite poets to a gay style: Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, John Berryman, and Dorothy Parker.

What I did for each poet:

  • Select a favorite poem
  • Analyze and document what the poem is (theme, form, devices) and why you like it
  • Read the poem out loud
  • Make an audio recording of your reading
  • Handwrite the poem
  • Type the poem
  • Translate the poem to your style
  • Place the original poem and translation side by side

What was the outcome impact of yours truly doing this exercise:

  • In 1997, a follow-up creation of a visual poem that translates Dorothy Parker was included in art show in the District of Columbia
  • Self-discovery that my style is experimental and an integration of one of the poets studied: Robert Frost and another poet: Dr. Seuss

More Voice Discovery guidelines: make diverse selections

  • Select work written in different time eras: 50% 1,800 or earlier, 50% 1,900 and later
  • Gender: 50% men, 50% woman
  • Style (traditional vs experimental): at least 1 experimental

Discover your writing voice and use it!

Yours Truly is:

Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press

OLD SCRATCH PRESS – a poetry/short-form collective | estd. 2023

who published an Amazon best seller visual poetry book: White Noir

white noir: Fleming, Robert: 9781957224183: Amazon.com: Books

an editor of the digital magazine Instant Noodles

About – INSTANT NOODLES

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The Blessings of Ritual and Routine

Published on by diannePLeave a comment
My dearly departed guinea pig, Addie, in her warm fuzzy hidey. Addie was carmel and white and had lovely pink eyes. Really, pink.

Just before the pandemic (the 2020s I feel the need to say for when we all are history), we were in search of a better situation for our daughter, and we moved her to a private school. She went from a class of 30 to a class of 12, and her academics improved immediately, though our finances did not! As a part of her classroom they had an animal student, the lovely Miss Addie pictured above lounging in her hidey with a tasty piece of bamboo. The school asked for a volunteer family to take her home over the Christmas break, and we volunteered. Addie and I bonded immediately (I am the pet-whisperer), and I must admit I delayed sending her back to school in January by almost a full week. When the school was shut down over Covid in March they asked me again if I would take her, and I eagerly said yes. She moved in with us, and by May the lovely school announced it was going out of business. Addie became family. During the stay-home days our daughter took courses on Outschool (highly recommend) where she learned female guinea pigs preferred to be in pairs. We then adopted Baby from a pet store. It turned out that Addie did not prefer to be in pairs, but eventually a tolerance developed.

When we moved back to California, again for a better school experience for our daughter, we drove across with two cats, two guinea pigs, and one dog. About a year after we settled in, I woke up a few days before Christmas to find Addie had left us. Baby, it turned out, was desperate not to be alone, and went on a hunger strike. After a forcing some food into her for two days (guinea pigs must eat constantly or they die), we adopted Punky (who looks a bit like a pumpkin). This past summer Baby followed Addie to Valhalla, and I saw, stretched before me, a long line of guinea pig adoptions for the rest of my life. I waited with bated breath until, lo and behold, it seemed Punky took after Addie, bless her. She seemed very interested in checking out Baby’s viewing and memorial, but then she was fine to have all the snacks and seed balls and pigetti (corn silk) to herself. She moves, in her luxuriously large cage, from hidey to hidey during the day, alternatively napping and yapping. She has a lot to say to me, and we perform a call and response between us where I say, “Woooo, Punkus!” and she chirps away back at me, whooping louder and louder until I bring her some fantastic treat.

The guinea pigs, as much as I don’t want to have a long line of them stretching to the end of my life in front of me, are part of my life’s rituals, and I love the job, and someday I know I will mourn the loss of it, as I mourn both the beautiful, pink-eyed Addie, and Baby, who looked like a tiny Holstein. Every other morning, without fail, I awake before the sun and the rest of my family, chat away with Punky as I remove all her bedding (I use cloth bedding, nice fluffy fleece pads), and all her hay, and all her snacks and poops, and I clean out the cage. All the linens go into the washer for a hot wash and an extra rinse, and the cage is refitted with clean bedding from my ample supply. Then I top off the snack bin (hay rings, seed balls, vitamin C chews), put in fresh hay, and add in some salad (lettuce, peppers, fresh baby corn, that sort of thing) and set Punky up for her new day. It takes me about 40 minutes (not counting the laundry time) and during that time I do not have to think what move to make next, and my conversation (Wooo Punkus!) pretty much doesn’t change, and is not the most thought provoking. That gives me some early-morning time to freshen up my brain as I freshen up Punky’s cage. We both enjoy it. For me it is both calming, and nurturing as I nurture my little Punky, and there is a clear sense of accomplishment in looking at the “beautiful once again” cage. 

Of course, you might think, that’s a lot of work, lady, for a kid’s pet, work that the kid should be doing. My daughter and I traded years ago because, when Addie first moved in, my daughter was too short to clean the cage, and not very quick or proficient at it. I offered to trade emptying the dishwasher (a chore I despise). She agreed. So now she’s stuck with it! And I get the meditative and soothing time with Punky.

I want to address this next paragraph to my fellow non-believers out there, or, perhaps, non-conventional believers is a better term. I was raised really immersed in a traditional Christian church, but, as long as I can remember, though I didn’t really balk against going until late into my HS years, it had no effect on me. I didn’t click into the whole thing. I often read the Bible in church from boredom during the long services, but it came across as fairy tale to me, and the emotions I saw people experience in church were not there for me. Even during my beloved grandmom’s funeral, who loved her church dearly, what I remember feeling, aside from loss, was that I would have preferred to be somewhere else, somewhere emotionally warm, to hold her in my thoughts. I have no doubt that my delight of a grandma is somewhere, in some form, still being a delight, but hooking it into her own religious beliefs is beyond me. So, there are two points I want to make here about that based on my experiences in life: ritual, which is done so well by churches/temples/mosques, and their like, is not owned by them. And life needs ritual for space to process and to get in touch with emotions. We are all different, and some of us need more ritual in life than others, and that ritual can be as simple as how we decorate for holidays, certain meals we make at certain times, celebrating our own birthdays (of course! I’m glad I was born!). Ritual is, really, meditation, and for me it is more profound when it is a natural thing in my life rather than what I would view as a forced, arbitrary movement. The guinea pigs are a delight too. Their personalities remind me of my chubby grandma in many ways. She often whooped, and loved eating too. There’s no reason they should not be connected in my heart and in my thoughts. I love the ritual that they are.

And during the “mundane chore” of cleaning the guinea pig cage I get a lot of writing done (in my mind, not on my computer!). It’s a reset for me as well. There’s no pressure for perfection, and the thoughts roll in and out like a calm tide. 

Of course Princess Punky will not outlast me (I am optimistic enough to assume). And I want to just mention my second very early morning ritual that will ride with me to the bitter end. OHHHHHHH…….

All I want is a proper cup of coffee
Made in a proper copper coffee pot
I may be off my dot but I want a proper coffee
In a proper copper pot
Iron coffee pots and tin coffee pots
They are no use to me
If I can't have a proper cup of coffee
In a proper copper coffee pot, I'll have a cup of tea!

Gaze upon my magnificent second morning ritual… coffee made in a proper copper coffee percolator! A percolator has several ritual benefits: there are a few parts to take apart and clean; there is a prescribed way to put it back together, and when it is back together it moans suggestively and bubbles, and scents the air with perfume Chanel should be envious of. It is another opportunity for me to do labor that requires no brain power, that pleases me and affects me directly while also giving benefit to someone else (my spouse), and doing the “chore” brings about visible results that please me. It also offers me a hot cup to sip and enjoy as I slowly move from meditation to sitting down and writing out this post, or some other writing project.

Websters says that a blessing, as a noun, is grace (the thing said before meals), approval or encouragement, or a thing conducive to happiness or welfare (by which I take it Websters means well-being). Rituals are a blessing. And, for me, a lot of my blessings are my routines. I exhort you not to deny yourself of the blessing of your routines, even if they are “chores” (such a dirty word!). Slow them down a bit; use them to slow your thoughts, and plum the richness of repetition, a moment with no planning and no management needed, a moment on autopilot. There are so many writing gems to be found there, as well as quite a lot of balm for the nervous system. Enjoy that walk with your dog, scritches for kitty, a hot cup of coffee, or, if you can’t have a proper cup of coffee, a hot cup of tea. 😉 Whoop whoop!

Calls for Submissions: Instant Noodles Literary Review 2025

Published on by Nadja Maril1 Comment

Nadja Maril, author of RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN, is one of the founders of Old Scratch Press

The Editors of Instant Noodles Literary Review, published three times a year, have announced the themes for 2025: Current, Sanctuary and Gravy.

Edited by members of the Old Scratch Short Form Collective who have volunteered their time, submissions are free. The Instant Noodles submission box which you can access through Duotrope is filling up fast.

While artists and writers selected for publication receive no financial renumeration, the publishers and editors do their utmost to promote the work in each issue. Instant Noodles nominates for industry prizes, Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. One of the magazine’s promotions is a zoom reading, giving contributors around the world a chance to meet.

Published three times a year, the magazine is posted online for everyone to read. One of the biggest reasons work gets rejected, is that writers don’t follow submission guidelines and familiarize themselves with the publication.

In addition to Visual Art and Multimedia Creations, the magazine publishes Prose & Poetry

Photo by Anni Roenkae on Pexels.com

Instant Noodles focuses on SHORT pieces. Short work 500 and 750 words in length can be powerful. If you are submitting prose, whether is it hybrid, nonfiction, or fiction, the word limit is 1000 words or less. 

All work must be original and must belong to the author. Works that have been previously published will not be considered. Stories must be complete and self-contained (i.e., do not submit chapters of a larger work). 

NOTE: Accepted works will be published as submitted without editing; as such, in addition to the originality of the work itself, we are looking for manuscripts that are clean and press ready. Be sure to review your grammar, spelling, tenses, proper punctuation, and other general rules of the written word before hitting “Send.” Work should be submitted through Duotrope as a Microsoft Word file (when it is poetry, drama, NF or fiction) as 12-point New Times Roman, double-spaced (single-spaced for poetry submissions). All other types of work have details as to their file types on the Duotrope page.

Connect to the Theme

The Editors request that submissions should have a connection to one of the themes for which they were submitted:  Current, Sanctuary and Gravy—and labelled as such.

They are looking for more submissions in the categories of creative nonfiction, drama, multimedia and visual art.

“When I’m reading poetry submissions for Instant Noodles,” Says contributing Poetry Editor Gabby Gilliam, “I’m looking for poems that concisely fit our theme and resonate. I want lines that linger in my mind long after I’m finished reading.

As a contributing editor, I suggest it is never too early to start contemplating ideas associated with our spring theme, current, as well as the subsequent themes that follow. What ideas does the word current evoke for you? Are you thinking about being hip, cool and up on “current” events or are you traveling on an air “current.”  Where does the word take you?

Try writing a story about yourself, something you observed, or something entirely imaginary. Create a video, a picture, combine two mediums.

Work should be publication ready

Do not submit until your piece is ready. Have you read your piece out loud and checked for misspellings and grammar mistakes? Does it fit the theme and are you ready to share it with the world?

The deadline for the spring issue with the theme Current is March 16th.  We look forward to reading your work!

Nadja Maril is the author of Recipes from my Garden, Old Scratch Press, September 2024.

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The Healing Power of Poetry

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

By Virginia Watts

Poetry is an old art form dating back to ancient Greece. Why has it been with mankind so long? For one thing, writing and reading poetry is good for us. It allows us to manage our emotions which in today’s complicated and divided world can be an overwhelming task. During the recent pandemic many literary journals called for submissions about their experiences during the pandemic. Many poets answered the call, and no doubt felt better for it.

During the months of lockdown, people all over the world lost many things. We were suffering. Some of us lost loved ones, some of us were very ill ourselves. We all lost our normal sense of community, isolated as we were. Humans aren’t meant for isolation. Many people were lonely. Things we enjoyed such as travel, comradery in an office or school setting, had to be put on hold. Writing poetry and sharing poems created a bond among people when it was sorely needed.

 As it turns out, poetry can be a powerful healer. Rhythmic language is soothing. Think of a lullaby. Poetry also helps us contemplate and reflect our lives back to us. Through poetry, we learn about different cultures and histories which helps us to stop focusing on ourselves and leads to a better understanding among peoples.

 Through poetry we can stop to appreciate and experience what is beautiful in our world or share a poet’s experience with something we are also struggling with. This improves our mood. Poetry is often read to hospitalized children to reduce their fears and worries. Additionally, reading poetry out loud has been shown to slow breathing and help a person relax.

            So, three cheers for all the healthy things poetry does for the human body and spirit. During the pandemic I remember reading this famous poem by Maggie Smith. It has stayed with me.

Maggie Smith, poet

Good Bones

By Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

Copyright Credit:
Maggie Smith, “Good Bones” from Waxwing.  Copyright © 2016 by Maggie Smith.  Reprinted by permission of Waxwing magazine
 

Source: Waxwing magazine (Issue IX, Summer 2016) (2016)

To learn more about the writer/poet Virginia Watts, check out her short story collection https://www.amazon.com/Echoes-Hocker-House-Virginia-Watts/dp/1957224177/

Play a Game With Us and Win a Prize!

Published on by dianneP2 Comments

It’s the spooky season! Let’s play Exquisite Corpse!

“What,” you may ask, “is Exquisite Corpse, and how do I engage in such an outlandishly named game?”

Before we all get the vapors…

Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative poetry game that traces its roots to the Parisian Surrealist Movement. Exquisite Corpse is played by several people, each of whom writes a word on a sheet of paper, folds the paper to conceal it, and passes it on to the next player for his or her contribution.
In order to write a poem, participants should agree on a sentence structure beforehand. For example, each sentence in the poem could be structured “Adjective, Noun, Verb, Adjective, Noun.” Articles and verb tenses may be added later or adjusted after the poem has been written. The game was also adapted to drawing, where one participant would draw thehead of a figure, the next the torso, etc. The name “Exquisite Corpse” comes from a line of poetry created using the technique: “The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine.”
https://poets.org/text/play-exquisite-corpse

While we cannot share a piece of paper, we can, all the same, play the game. Please join us!

The rules for this game are as follows”

SUBMIT: one line of “poetry”

FORM: The line must be arranged to have these elements in THIS ORDER ONLY as the main elements:

Adjective, Noun, Verb, Verb, Adjective or Adverb (one only), Adjective, Noun

Punctuate (or not) as you see fit.

YES! You can add conjunctions, articles, etc., as needed, but the main words must be Adjective, Noun, Verb, Verb, Adjective or Adverb (one only), Adjective, Noun

So, this would work:

Happy frogs jumped and swam quickly, green sparks

Happy(adjective) frogs(noun) jumped(verb) and swam(verb) quickly(adverb), green(adjective) sparks(noun).

And this would not:

Frogs jumped happily and swam quickly making green sparks

Got it?

You do!

Send it to dianne@currentwords.com between now and October 29th at midnight PT, for publication on Halloween!

Make the email subject: Exquisite Corpse.

ONE entry per person!

PRIZES:

SUBMIT and you will be given a free digital copy of the OSP book of your choice!

Three lucky people, chosen at random by Robert Fleming and his random number generator, will be given a print (paperback) copy of the OSP book of his/her/their choice!

One Lucky Person (not publishing with CWP) will win a free 5-page edit from me!

OSP members and other people CWP publishes are welcome to join in, and can claim a free Kindle of their choice from OSP, but are not going to get one of the three free print books or the edit (so sorry! Let’s give those to our guests!).

YES, everyone who enters will be subscribed to OSP news through Current Words newsletter, which is sent out to email addresses one time almost every month. At the bottom of your first newsletter (and all the rest of them) is an unsubscribe button, and if you really don’t want to stay on the list, that will get you right off (Mailchimp don’t play.).Honestly, we’re not trying to bother you; we’re out to have fun!

So, let’s have fun!

Ooooo, you can already start dreaming of the OSP book you’re going to choose for your prize! Take a look at your options:

Catalog

Happy Fall, y’all, and Happy Halloween!

I cannot wait to read your exquisite corpse!

🙂 Dianne