| SPARKS: News & Notes from
Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative
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Greetings!,
It's May and the world is up to its old tricks: Spring and everything in it! To celebrate, there's a new Flash in the Pan! And in honor of spring cleaning, this month's Searchlights & Signal Flares tackles the subject of journals, namely what to do with them. This little video doesn't settle the question, but I hope it gives you permission to Keep Writing.  | | Hank's Journal!!! |
Susan Bono, Editor
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Searchlights & Signal Flares
Tiny Lights' Online Writers' Exchange 
If you are what you write, what do your journals make you? As life goes on and the writing piles up, Leslie Absher, this month's featured writer, joins Claudia Larson, Becky Povich, Jay Halstead, Barbara Simmons, Betty Winslow, David Johnson, Catherine Crawford, Sara Baker, Marilyn Petty, Nancy Wallace-Nelson, Sara Baker, Theresa Sanders and Susan Bono as they tackle the question,
"What's going to happen to your old journals?"
This Month's Featured Writer: Leslie Absher
Leslie Absher is a freelance writer based in Oakland, California, who writes about her life experiences. Her most recent essay about how she found out her father worked for the CIA was published by the LA Times A forthcoming essay will appear on Ms. Magazine's blog in early June. You can read more of her work at www.redroom.com/member/lmabsher.
How do those closest to you see your writing?
(Deadline 5/20/11) Extended deadline for Sparks Readers
Send Searchlights submissions with bio (and title!) to editor@tiny-lights.com
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Flash in the Pan Online Quarterly
NEW!! Twenty-fourth Flash
The Coat by Sally Weare A Good Scout by Sally Tilbury No Magic Involved by Sue Thomas Snap Judgement by Janet Rene Snyder Slim by Ken Rodgers My Life As A Hermit Crab by Sara Baker Living Without A List by Meg Hanna House Roadkill by Adrienne Ross Scanlan The Last Time by Antonia Albany We Got It Made by Pat Pomerleau Chávez The 65 Imperial by Sandra Lynn Mallo Adcock Time Is A Tiger by Joan Zerrien The Balloon by Lynn Sunday
What is a Flash in the Pan? It's life caught in the blaze of a match, a beam of moonlight, the glare of a home-made explosion. These pieces of first-person non-fiction prose (500 words or less) are like potato chips--you won't be able to stop with just one. Our gems are posted quarterly in January, April, July and October on the Tiny Lights website. A select few appear in the hard copy editions of the magazine. Send your jewels to editor@tiny-lights.com.
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MARK YOUR CALENDARS
7th Annual Point Reyes Writing Retreat
June 17-19 · 7 PM Friday - 4 PM Sunday
$265 ($245 Members)
Facilitators: Patti Trimble & Susan Bono
Time for our annual foray into the wilderness . . . of words! This writing retreat is for anyone who enjoys writing about (or in) nature. This year we are at the dramatic and fantastic Life Boat Station on the remote tip of Point Reyes. Now in its seventh year, this retreat has developed an easy pace with short workshops on poetry and essay, time to write and wander, friendly discussions and readings on writing in the natural world. Accommodations are provided at the historic Life Boat Station. For info or to register: Point Reyes Field Seminars.
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New Writing It Real Contest
In honor of parents, in honor of children, in honor of friendships:
Please send us unpublished essays up to 2500 words or up to five unpublished poems on parents, parenting, children, friends--the subject can be yourself as parent, friend or child or your parents or others who have held that role in your life, your children, your siblings, your friends. Sheila Bender will judge the entries. She will also offer you feedback on the strengths of your writings and on what you might work on next. A good value for the money!
Our contest deadline is June 30th. Guidelines Contest fee is $15 dollars for those who subscribe to Writing It Real and $45 dollars for new subscribers (includes a year's subscription to Writing It Real magazine). 
First place: $100 and a half-hour consult by phone and email with Sheila Bender (a $120 value)
Second place: $75 dollars and a half-hour consult with Sheila
Third place: $50 and a half-hour consult with Sheila. In addition, we'd like to publish the winning essays in Writing It Real with the permission of the authors.
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We're pleased to report
The Writing It Real
Port Townsend Conference
was a delight!
Here's the early announcement
about next year's conference
at the COD Ranch in Oracle, AZ:
March 1-4, 2012
Sheila Bender, Meg Files, and Jack Hefron hope you'll come and enjoy the space they'll have for writing, group work, hiking, time alone, hot tubbing, as well as great food and even massage appointments. They look forward to bringing the Writing it Real spirit to the SW.
If you are interested, email Writing it Real to put your name on the list of those who are thinking about coming. We'll be promoting the conference early so people can get the best rates on airfares to Tucson or Phoenix and the best deals on transportation to the ranch.
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Petaluma Readers Theatre
Call for Manuscripts for our September production Mysteries & Miracles Submission deadline: June 15, 2011
We are seeking factual, inexplicable, wondrous events that happened to you or someone you know. We will vocally animate your tale, bring it to life, and make it jump off the page!
Guidelines: Mail hard copy to: Petaluma Readers Theatre
40 4th St. PMB 235
Petaluma, CA 94952
2 to 8 double-spaced pages
Times New Roman 14/16 font
coversheet should have author, title, contact info, no author's name on manuscript
NO EMAIL SUBMISSIONS, but questions may be directed to info@petalumareaderstheatre.com.
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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Quarterly online publications of fiction, memoir or poetry
each featuring one author.
The summer 2011 POETRY e-chapbook
is open to submissions April 1 through May 31. Contact Publisher Jo-Anne Rosen: echaps@wordrunner.com Quarterly online publications of fiction, memoir or poetry
each featuring one author. Read more at: www.echapbook.com
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Marlene Cullen hosts this series of writing workshops on the third Thursday of the month from 7-9 p.m. at the Petaluma Community Center.
May 19: Sheldon Siegel
Important Elements of the Contemporary Crime Novel . . .and how these elements are important for all genres
Whether you're writing fiction, nonfiction, memoir, we're all storytellers. In this workshop, we'll talk about how the elements of writing fiction apply to other kinds of writing. We'll discuss plot, setting, structure and dialogue (and anything else you'd like).
SHELDON SIEGEL is the New York Times best-selling author of seven critically-acclaimed courtroom dramas featuring San Francisco criminal defense attorneys Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez. Sheldon is a graduate of Boalt Law School at UC-Berkeley. He lives in Marin County with his wife, Linda, and their twin sons, Alan and Stephen. His seventh novel, Perfect Alibi, was released in 2010.
Call 778-4380 (Petaluma Community Center) or visit www.thewritespot.usfor info. $15 at the door |
A Unique Offer from Writer/Photographer
Tony Johnson
Tell Me A Story
Everyone has a story. Stories shape our lives and give them meaning. If you tell me a story, I will record it digitally, along with using photography to reveal what is important to you. This recording and these images will be a celebration of your life and provide a wonderful gift to those you love.
To see samples of my work and obtain further information, please go to http://tonyjohnson.zenfolio.com/ , then go to the Tell Me a Story link at the top of the page.
TonyJohnsonPhotography/InnerLandscapes e-mail: tonyjohnsonmail@yahoo.com
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Iota Press Studio News Iota Press is a letterpress shop and literary studio in Sebastopol.
Along with the usual enchantment and shenanigans, Iota's Slow Print Cooperative has morphed into a quarterly offering of little books. "Almost a journal. Nearly a magazine. Kind of a trip." $30 per year for 4 chapbooks. $10 single copies. This current issue features Eric Johnson's "kaleidoglyphs," such as the one featured above.
Location: 925-c Gravenstein Hwy in South Sebastopol (next to "Beekind").
Contact: Eric Johnson....823-6152 Our latest works online at: www.iotapress.com
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Tiny Lights Recommends: Sonoma County Free Bookmobile Help bring free books to Sonoma County residents.
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For reservations, or more information call: OCA 707 874 9392. OCA is located in Harmony Village in downtown Occidental at 4008 Bohemian Hwy.
******************************** : Insights, activities and open-hearted inspiration for attracting the creative life by authors Rebecca Lawton and Jordan Rosenfeld. www.writefree.us****************************************
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Since 1995, Tiny Lights has been celebrating the power of personal voice with a biannual journal devoted to short essay. The annual essay contest, which offers $1500 in prizes, provides the material for the summer issue, while the winter issue is by invitation only.
The online component of Tiny Lights is designed to catch what can't be contained in the pages of the newsstand editions. Lights Online provides a venue for additional voices, information about Tiny Lights and resources for writers of personal essay. Sparks: Email News & Notes is our free monthly electronic newsletter.
Subscriptions to the print edition of Tiny Lights, which includes original art:
$10 per year (2 issues)
Current issue: $5 each
Back issues: $3 each Checks payable to Tiny Lights Publications, P.O. Box 928, Petaluma, CA 94953
Or take advatage of our new PayPal feature!
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 Susan Bono, Editor
Tiny Lights Publications
P.O. Box 928, Petaluma, CA 94953
(707) 762-3208
www.tiny-lights.com |
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