Politics & Prose ISO Submissions from DC Writers (No Fee)

Good news for DC-area writers!  Politics & Prose Bookstore has dropped the submission fee for its forthcoming anthology, District Lines. From the website:

We are now soliciting submissions—poems, essays, short stories, coherent musings and ramblings, scribbles, comics, or graphics—that describe a particular D.C. metropolitan neighborhood. Work must be original and previously unpublished. Prose should be under 3,000 words. Graphics must be in a PDF file that can be reproduced in black and white.

The deadline for submissions is September 22, 2012. We hope to hold an event at the store once the anthology is published and will ask selected contributors to join us for an open reading. … (All work submitted per our previous guidelines is still eligible, and authors will be issued a refund for the submission fee.)

Information about how to submit your work can be found here.

Link Corral: DC Writers’ Happy Hour TOMORROW! and New on Redux

Sorry to be so last-minute about this…the perils of haphazardly blogging while traveling, I guess.  DC writer Willona Sloan is hosting another writers’ happy hour tomorrow, Tuesday, July 31.  Details:

Write.Drink.Read.

Write.Drink.Read – a collaborative gathering of writers––will be held on Tuesday, July 31, 6:30 – 8 PM at Science Club (1136 19th St, NW. Near Farragut West metro).

Part writers workshop, part happy hour, part open mic reading, this laid back collaborative, creative gathering is open to writers of all levels and experience.

Space is limited. RSVPs are required. To RSVP, email Willona at creativegeniusdc@gmail.com.

Please feel free to invite your friends, writing groups, and writing partners but each guest must RSVP. I will be capping attendance to maintain a level of intimacy.  We will be doing writing prompts and generating new work so bring your writing instruments and implements and open minds.

*****

New on Redux: Sondra Spatt Olsen’s 1990 story, previously published in The Yale Review: 

Lief hates taxis.  The cabdrivers unnerve him with their wild driving and strange routes.  He likes to know exactly where he's going.  He doesn't want any confrontations or terrors.  On the other hand, as they stand on the busy street corner, he notices that both Max's and Sophie's shoelaces are untied.  He feels so tense that he doesn't think he can make it several blocks to the PATH station without screaming at them as their laces, already frayed and grimy, drag on the filthy sidewalk.

Read on.

3200 Miles Later...

…and I’m back home!  I’m still quite disorganized and while I can’t plead jet-lag, I can plead culture shock, after having spent several days in a state with a population of about 800,000, which is about the number of people I encountered on the Beltway, arriving during rush hour yesterday.

So I’ll continue the blog hiatus until next week.  Suffice it say for now that it was a GREAT trip!

"The farther they went into the west, the smaller they seemed..."

Laura said it best:

“Laura said to Mary, ‘This prairie is like an enormous meadow, stretching far away in every direction to the very edge of the world.’

“The endless waves of flowery grasses under the cloudless sky gave her a queer feeling.  She could not say how she felt.  All of them in the wagon, and the wagon and the team, and even Pa, seemed small.

“All morning Pa drove steadily along the dim wagon track, and nothing changed. The farther they went into the west, the smaller they seemed, and the less they seemed to be going anywhere….

“Laura thought of the many times they had eaten under the sky, while they were traveling all the way from Wisconsin to Indian Territory and back again to Minnesota.  Now they were in Dakota Territory going farther west.  But this was different from all the other times…Laura couldn’t say how, but this prairie was different.

“…There was really almost no difference in the flowers and grasses.  But there was something else here that was not anywhere else.  It was an enormous stillness that made you feel still.  And when you were still, you could feel great stillness coming closer.

“All the little sounds of the blowing grasses and of the horses munching and whooshing in their feedbox at the back of the wagon, and even the sounds of eating and talking could not touch the enormous silence of this prairie.”

~By the Shores of Silver Lake

Okay, the prairie grasses are gone, but there is still a wind and a vastness here.  I felt it at my first stop after arriving at De Smet, at the cemetery where Ma, Pa, Mary, Carrie, Grace, and Laura’s unnamed son are buried.  I sat and looked out over the slough and listened to the wind, and then I left a penny on Mary’s gravestone, thinking of the Christmas in Little House on the Prairie, when Mr. Edwards went into town and found Santa Claus so he could bring back Christmas gifts for the girls:  candy sticks and a shiny penny for each of them.

Okoboji

We spent the afternoon poking around the Lake Okoboji area, including a quick visit to Arnolds Amusement Park (oldest amusement park west of the Mississippi!) and the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—which was interesting.  We saw one of Buddy Holly’s childhood marbles—as certified by an official form signed by his widow—and got to play an old-time jukebox as we read newspaper articles about the plane crash that killed Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and Buddy Holly.  There were some bands from Iowa City inducted into the Hall of Fame, but alas, I wasn’t hanging out at the bars where they played, so they were unfamiliar to me.  Sorry I’m so lame.
 

I fulfilled my high school dream of acquiring a “University of Okoboji” T-shirt, which was considered just the coolest of the cool thing to wear way back when (because there’s not really such a university!)…and is still popular, according to the owner of the store where the concept was invented, The Three Sons.  I was assured that no matter where I was—“I don’t care if it’s the Panama Canal!”—that if I were wearing my University of Okoboji shirt, someone will notice say something.  Consider that gauntlet thrown!

A short rainstorm put some kinks in our plans, but since the whole state—and whole Midwest—is in a severe drought, we could hardly complain (unfortunately, probably not enough rain to help too much).  So we ended up at Goodie’s, a homemade candy store (thank you, GPS!) and bought some delicious caramel pinwheels and sour cream fudge.

After the business reception, we enjoyed some fabulous MEAT at Maxwell’s Beach Café: Iowa wagu filet for me, and juicy, succulent pork chops for Steve.  Today, it’s off to the airport for Steve and De Smet, SD, for me.  Laura Ingalls Wilder, here I come!!!

On the Road Around Iowa

Steve and I drove to Dyersville, Iowa, to see the famous Field of Dreams.  In case you’ve never seen the Kevin Costner movie of the same name, the gist is that he decides to build a baseball field in the middle of his cornfields…magic ensues.  This is the site where the movie was filmed, and (until recently) the owners have maintained the field on donations, leaving it pretty much as it looked in the movie. 

Magic ensues.

You don’t really see the baseball field as you approach, and then there it is!  Surrounded on three sides by tall cornstalks, with a beautiful, traditional farmhouse along the back side, it truly is a sight.  Everyone who approached (including us) seemed to relax and smile and exchange glances:  “Is this for real?”  It is.

We hung around for a while, following the basic rituals: standing at home plate, going through the bases, walking to the corn and stepping inside and emerging, the way the players did in the movie.  (And how eerie it was to watch people do that; they really did seem to come from nowhere…that corn is all-encompassing!)  We didn’t bring any balls or bats, but plenty of people did, so we watched kids and adults goof around on the field.  Then we bought a ton of souvenirs.

I’ve heard that the owners have recently sold the field (and who can blame them?) and that there are plans for a hotel and ballfields and tournaments, etc…which I hope doesn’t work out.  The place is perfect as is.

To top off the visit to Dyersville, we popped into Country Junction restaurant, lured by a sign that said, “Iowa’s Best Pie.”  As far as I can tell, that’s no false brag.  I had sour cream raisin with meringue—still slightly warm from the oven—and Steve had blueberry with ice cream.  Oh, that was heaven, too!

Yesterday we drove up and across Iowa, to Lake Okoboji, where Steve has a business meeting.  On the way we stopped in Mason City for “the nation’s second best pork tenderloin” at Susie Q Café.  (I love that modesty!)  These were amazing pork tenderloins—not the “meat as big as your head” school, but a meaty, crisp, thickly battered delightful sandwich.  (We ordered ours “spic and span,” which meant it came with everything.)  Seven seats…and how funny that we chatted with one of the other customers who was originally from Northern Virginia, our neck of the woods!

Mason City is the home of Meredith Willson, the author of The Music Man, so we stopped by his boyhood home, which has been beautifully restored and learned about his early life…I didn’t know about his unconventional mother and an artsy sister.  We looked through the museum, admiring the photos from the world premiere of the movie, right in Mason City (or, “River City,” as it’s known in the musical), complete with movie stars.  Willson had a great affection for Mason City throughout his life, and it’s nice to see that the town is still in love with him, too.  We were sorry we had to move on without doing more than driving by the Frank Lloyd Wright house and hotel.

A quick tour of tiny Wesley, Iowa, near where my mother’s family farm was and a stop at the beautiful church where my parents were married…then on to Lake Okoboji—one of three blue-water lakes in the world, spring-fed and 134 feet deep.  Last night we had a boat tour of the lake, along with an amazing show of heat lightning flashing behind the clouds.  Today…?  Surely there’s something to eat here, and I hear there’s an old-fashioned, wooden roller coaster….

Iowa City Literary Festival: Sam Kean and Donald Ray Pollack

On vacation, but always working…I happened to be in Iowa City during the fourth annual literary festival, so I went to a couple of readings that ended up being excellent.

First, Sam Kean,  one of my former students from Johns Hopkins hit it big with his first book, The Disappearing Spoon, about the Periodic Table of the Elements—but the fun stuff, not the dull stuff I remember from high school chemistry!  I predict that his new book, The Violinist’s Thumb will be equally popular: fascinating stories about our genetic code.  Seriously.  The audience was held in thrall for more than an hour with Sam’s stories about King Tut; the sad, horrible life of chimney sweeps in 18^th century England; and gory details about Einstein’s brain.  Sam is a great, natural speaker who chooses his power point photos wisely…here’s information about his upcoming tour (in DC on 7/25!), and believe me:  he is worth driving through a snowstorm—or heat wave—to see.  I wish all my science teachers—or any of them!—had been this interesting.

My second event was another winner:  Donald Ray Pollack read from his novel, The Devil All the Time.  A year or so ago, one of my Converse students (hi, Cheryl!) had seen DRP read at a library in Ohio, and she came to the residency RAVING about his book of short stories, Knockemstiff, though she noted his work was very dark.  Indeed, in the Q&A here, not one but TWO men spoke about how they were reading Knockemstiff and almost couldn’t go on because the stories were so depressing.  Naturally, this made me even more eager to read the book.  I also enjoyed hearing DRP talk about his path to writing, as it was a bit untraditional:  he worked in a paper mill for many years before finally entering an MFA program when he was (I believe) 45.

I also went to the publishing fair, and within moments ended up with a handful of books from the University of Iowa Press table—every book for a dollar!  How can anyone go wrong with that, and my diverse handful includes a collection of stories by Lee K. Abbott, a book about a hobo who rode the rails, and a collection of letters from a female homesteader.

Combine all these books with the books I’m swiping from my parents’ house, and I definitely need a new bookshelf and about three weeks of time to spend simply reading.