SPARKS: News & Notes from
Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative
Announcements (Click and Go)
Searchlights & Signal Flares: "Which serves a writer better, suffering or joy?" Featured Writer: Barbara Shine
Call for Flashes
Mendocino Writers Conference
Shameless Self-promotion
Greetings!,   

When did you first fall in love with language and how do you nurture that love? This issue of Sparks offers many ways to connect with words and their power, from the latest Searchlights & Signal Flares , some thoughts on fact and fiction by Guy Biederman , a new issue of Flash in the Pan , postings for various classes and events, and even this video. 

 

3-year-old recites poem,
3-year-old recites poem, "Litany" by Billy Collins

 

 Take some time for word love every day.  

And don't forget to keep writing!

                                     Susan Bono, Editor

 Looking Back at 7th Annual Point Reyes Writing Retreat 

 

Happiness is this view out your writing window! Our weekend at the Lifeboat Station at Drake's Bay was truly magical this year. Thanks to all whose words were as beautiful as the place that inspired them. Patti Trimble and  I hope to write with you all next year!

 

For other wonderful adventures at Point Reyes:

Point Reyes Field Seminars.

 

Searchlights & Signal Flares 
Tiny Lights' Online Writers' Exchange
  
signal tower


Whether motivated by love or a desire for vengeance, memoirists use many shades of the emotional spectrum to color their work. The result may be hilarious or heartbreaking, but this question lingers:

Which is more useful to a writer, suffering or joy?


Read what Barbara Shine , this month's featured writer, has to say on the subject, along with other contributors this month:

Arlene L. Mandell
Becky Povich
Catherine Crawford
Claudia Larson
Don Edgers
Marilyn Petty
Sara Baker
Susan Bono

   

 

 

This Month's Featured Writer: Barbara Shine 

  

 Barbara Shine is a freelance writer, fledgling mixed-media artist, victim advocate, and apprentice crone. She is co-author and editor of The Pen Is Mightier Than the Broom: Memoirs, Stories, and Poems, available from iUniverse.com. Barbara's Web site, www.bshinewrites.com, is undergoing transformation.


 

 

 
WRITERS: It's your turn to shine in Searchlights. Go to the  Searchlights & Signal Flares Guidelines page to find out how.  Here's the next question:   
  What themes do you keep returning to?
 (Deadline 7/25/11)
Extended deadline for Sparks Readers  
Send Searchlights submissions with bio (and title!) to [email protected]

 

Flash in the Pan Online Quarterly

  

broom mightiercover

 

Presenting the   

THE TWENTY-FIFTH FLASH

Ipod Pilgrim by Cecile Lusby 

Gabrielle's Legacy by Arlene L. Mandell
First Words.....after Brenda Miller by Barbarann Ayars
To Thee I Bequeath by Charlene Bunas
Newt Dance by Elaine Webster 

Confession by Jacqueline Doyle 

Sermon On The Beach by Linda Loegel

Remembering Mommy by Cathy Bell

The Balloon by Lynn Sunday

Shortcuts! by Teresa Oefinger

Connect-the-dots by Sara Baker

The Tree Of Life by Eva Silverfine

An Unverified Story About My Father by David Macpherson
Early Departure by Risa Nye 

    
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 [email protected].
Go to:Flash in the Pan

 

                   www.mcwc.org

We're pleased to report

The Writing It Real 

Writers 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 find out more!   

 



 

 

 

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

 

The September 2011 FICTION ANTHOLOGY e-chapbook
is open to submissions of "mini-collections" July 1 through August 21.

 

No fee to submit from 1 to 3 short stories on theme of LOSS
(4 to 5 authors will be published). Payment to be announced.
Detailed guidelines: www.echapbook.com/submissions.htm.

   

Contact Publisher Jo-Anne Rosen:  [email protected]

  

Quarterly online publications of fiction, memoir or poetry
each featuring one author. Read more at:
   

www.echapbook.com 

 



 

Subscription Bonus!

        SUBSCRIBE 

to the print edition of Tiny Lights

and receive a free copy of  

Chasing Memory and Other Essays from Spaces in Between by Lily Owyang

 

Hurry! Supplies are limited! 

   
  Sonoma County Events

WRITERS FORUM, PETALUMA


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.

 

July 21: Stefanie Freele   

 

  In the Middle of Things--Beginnings  

 


Join Stefanie in a hands-on workshop about beginnings. We will be studying examples of published current fiction that begin "medias res" - right in the thick of the story. We'll be discussing how to "trust the reader" by avoiding chunks of backstory. Exercise will produce new and fresh prose.

 

 

STEFANIE FREELE is the recent winner of the Glimmer Train Fiction Open and the author of the short story collection Feeding Strays. Her work can be found and is forthcoming in literary magazines such as American Literary Review, the Florida Review, The Whitefish Review, Vestal Review, Night Train and Necessary Fiction. She is the current Healdsburg Literary Laureate and the Fiction Editor of the Los Angeles Review.She teaches creative writing at the Healdsburg Center for the Arts. www.stefaniefreele.com


 

 

Call 778-4380 (Petaluma Community Center) or visit www.thewritespot.usfor  info.  

 $15 at the door

broom mightiercover
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.  

 

Location:  925-c Gravenstein Hwy in South Sebastopol (next to "Beekind").

Contact: Eric Johnson....823-6152  Our latest works online at:  www.iotapress.com

 

broom mightiercover


Tiny Lights Recommends:


       Sonoma County Free Bookmobile 

Help bring free books to Sonoma County residents.  

 

***************
Walking With Your Muse: weekly writing practice classes in Santa Rosa with Margaret Caminsky Shapiro: 707-575-8820
www.handwritingonline.net  

 

********************


Online Classes with
Ken Rodgers
                                  
********************* 

                  OCCIDENTAL CENTER FOR THE ARTS


For reservations, or more information call: OCA   707 874 9392. OCA is located in Harmony Village in downtown Occidental at 4008 Bohemian Hwy. 


******************************** 


Write Free Monthly Email Newsletter: Insights, activities and open-hearted inspiration for attracting the creative life by authors Rebecca Lawton and Jordan Rosenfeld. www.writefree.us

****************************************





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!

islandSusan Bono, Editor
Tiny Lights Publications
P.O. Box 928, Petaluma, CA 94953

(707) 762-3208
www.tiny-lights.com