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Posts Tagged ‘Writer Resources’

Nothing like an unexpected BACKHAND!

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Check out “The Judgment of Venus and David,” by yours truly. This little piece reached out and whacked me from my email inbox this morning. It appeared, once again, in the THE BACKHAND WEEKLY DIGEST. Surprise! Surprise!

A favorite I discovered from BACKHAND eons ago: “Things Trapped and Frozen,” by Emily Roth. Give the wrenching romp a read. It’s worth the hurt.

If you like either flash piece, or others on the site, subscribe to THE BACKHAND WEEKLY DIGEST. They’ll whack you weekly too, right upside your noggin, and leave you with a fistful of  little gems.

~ N

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sideways chocolate fountainNot that I want more competition, but this is too sweet to hog all to myself!

Jonathan Cape Ltd. (associated with Random House) is open to prose fiction submissions by new writers this month. Yes, OPEN to NEW writers. You don’t believe me. Here’s proof: Cape Open Submissions. See. Told you.

Send your first 50 pages of prose fiction from a novel, novella, short story collection, or graphic novel. But, here’s the sweetest little nugget: The pages can be a finished work or a work in progress. Yes, a work IN PROGRESS.

Really now, people. What do you have to lose? It’s always a ‘no’ unless you try.

Sweet submissions!

~ N

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ty for smoking cigars only
Read Kathy Fish’s “Why I Write Flash.” You may understand me, and many other writers, better.

Here’s another tidbit about me: I like cigars, on occasion. As “a shy[ish] person in a big family” where “everyone’s a talker but” me, a cigar occupies me while I sit on the back deck, “on the periphery, [half-]listening” to my brother-in-law “tell the story of the long family road trip as if it happened last week,” all the relatives visited and towns passed. My mind will drift from the conversation though, like the curling smoke from my lips. I won’t be far. Don’t worry. I’ll have drifted just a little way off to contemplate what Kathy Fish calls “moments,” the “stillness and what shatters the stillness. The unguarded way people look at each other sometimes. The filled-to-bursting seconds before everything changes. The small, ugly, beautiful flashes of life.” So, now you know something else about me: On occasion, you won’t have my full attention. Sorry about that.  No insult intended.

Thank you, Kathy, for a well-written read.

~ N

P.S. I snapped the THANK YOU FOR SMOKING CIGARS ONLY pic at Hemingway’s Cigar & Tequila Lounge in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was just across from the Cabo Wabo rear entrance, but–sadly–I hear the great little spot has closed.

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So, you say, you want to write short stories? Novels?

The first mystery, where novels [and short stories] are concerned, is how anyone manages, ever, to write a book that’s any good at all.

Sure, go ahead, simulate life, using only ink and paper. Take the words offered by the dictionary, the same words that are available to everybody who can read, and arrange them so strategically that they simultaneously illuminate and deepen the mystery of human existence.

Do so in a way that’s cogent and compelling, that grabs readers with the opening line and doesn’t let them go until the final one. Don’t make it too neat and tidy—that will come off as trivial. But don’t make it too messy and sprawling, either—that won’t feel like much of anything at all…

~ Michael Cunningham on The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott, a Recommended Reading from Electric Literature

Still want to write after that?

If your answer is ‘YES!’: you’re crazy, but I understand. You must read-read-read and write-write-write though. So, start now:  subscribe to Electric Literature’s Recommended Readings, read Wescott’s The Pilgrim Hawk, or check out these suggested shorts (bottom of the page). You’ll be glad you did.

Oh, yeah, and then write. You have to because–remember?–you’re crazy. But, people like me understand.

~ N

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Whether you want super-shorts or love, horror or personal stories, or a mix of them all, there’s something for you at the Natalie McNabb Amazon Author Page. Check it out, if ya wanna…

Gargoyle 58

Paycock Press

Paperback: $18.95

Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or FewerHint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer

W. W. Norton and Company

Paperback: $11.13

Kindle Edition: $8.99

Love Notes: A Collection of Romantic PoetryLove Notes: A Collection of Romantic Poetry

Vagabondage Press

Paperback: $14.95

Kindle Edition: $3.82

Frightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction HorrorFrightmares: A Fistful of Flash Fiction Horror

Dark Moon Books

Paperback: $14.95

Silent Embrace: Perspectives on Birth and AdoptionSilent Embrace: Perspectives on Birth and Adoption

Catalyst Book Press

Paperback: $12.48

Vagabondage Press

Kindle Edition: $2.99

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 Say it will be so…

Despite slashes to arts funding and a rapidly changing publishing industry, an email this morning relit my hope for fiction writers. According to American Short Fiction:

Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2011 06:13:19 -0500
To: me
From: them
Subject: Writers are the next rock gods

…Maybe you’re OK with a world where there’s a widening disconnection from art and people feel powerless to stop that. We’re not. We don’t want to talk about whether fiction is dying, we want to show you how deeply it’s thriving…

Sincerely,
The Editors

I believe! And, I want to shout it to the world, as you can see. I promise to work on the outfit before I hit a stage anywhere though. Until then, pay American Short Fiction a visit. They really are pretty awesome.

Three cheers for the future rock gods–writers!
~ N

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