| SPARKS: News & Notes from
Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative
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I hope that wherever you live, spring has begun to take hold in your neighborhood and in your heart, stirring you to action!
Here in Petaluma, I'm happily putting the polish on a collection of essays and preparing for new ways to present myself online. In spite of my productive impulses, I also confess to suffering from the early stages of spring fever! How about you? As far as I know, there's only one cure: as winter releases its grip, we should all take lots of little breaks to celebrate the return of warmth and light!
As part of the celebration, check out the new Searchlights, sign up for a retreat, or see what's shaking in Sonoma County. This video might even be part of your cure. It made me think about what writers can do to banish any remaining end-of-winter blahs.
 | | When Graphic Artists Get Bored |
Keep Writing! Spring is coming!
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Searchlights & Signal Flares
Tiny Lights' Online Writers' Exchange
It's said that here on the West Coast the most common question asked of a new acquaintance is, "What do you do?" but in the South, you are more likely to hear, "Who are your people?" This seems to be a more fundamental question, especially for memoirists. This month, with a nod to our Southern neighbors, we've asked our writers,
Susan Winters is this month's featured writer, along with:
Susan Winters works, writes and dances salsa in Reno, Nevada. Her music reviews and articles have appeared in the Reno News and Review. Her latest novel, Ever After, is now available at Amazon. Her blog, createontheside.wordpress.com, celebrates balancing creative pursuits with a full-time job.
YOUR TURN, WRITERS, to join the conversation before it's time to lock up and go home! Go to the Searchlights & Signal Flares Guidelines page to find out how to send a light. Here are the last questions you'll have a chance to answer! How does control factor into your writing? (04/15/14) What do you owe your audience? (05/15/14) How do you feel about endings? (07/15/14)
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Flash in the Pan
Online Quarterly @ Tiny Lights
Our Next Posting will appear in April!
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 throughout the year on the Tiny Lights website.
Go to:Flash in the Pan
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Accessing the Story Within
An Artists Colony at Emandal Farm  16500 Hearst Post Office Road
Willits, California 95490 October 1-5, 2014
Come with me to Emandal Farm in early October to celebrate the change of seasons. The afternoon air will still be summer warm, but the shadows will be richer and the autumn constellations will burn even brighter! Emandal's home-grown, family style food, the magnificent Eel River, and the company of other writers, artists and photographers will help prepare you for a long winter drawn close to your creative home fires. Bring a project to finish or a blank slate upon which to begin. Writers of all genres and levels welcome. Our work together is structured to facilitate your progress and give you time to write. Dare to mark your calendar! Give yourself time to pursue a dream (or let a dream pursue you).
Please contact Tamara at tamara@emandal.com or (707) 459-5439 for registration or questions regarding the facility. Email me Sbono@comcast.net to find out more about the writing program.
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for beginning and experienced writers
...the most personal of the programs
--The New York Times
...dynamic, inspiring, invigorating, supportive
--James Lasdun,
The Horned Man (Harper 2002)
learn to read and work like a writer
writing methods from a Pulitzer Prize winning writer
experience the freedom of persona writing
10-week sessions in San Francisco Information:
415-321-9728
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Read issues at www.echapbook.com See www.echapbook.com/submissions.htm for submissions guidelines. Contact Publisher Jo-Anne Rosen: echaps@wordrunner.com |
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"Are We There Yet?"
An Evening with Off the Page Readers Theater
Off the Page Readers Theater will again showcase the work of Sonoma County writers and musicians, including Susan Bono! In this production, despite the many complications involving cars and trucks and things (and people) that go, getting "there" is all about thought-provoking entertainment!
Directed by Hilary Moore, Pat and Mike Hayes
Show times: 7:30 p.m.
Friday, March 14 and Friday, March 21 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts
Saturday, March 15 at the Arlene Francis Center in Santa Rosa (dinner available at their cafe before the show)
Saturday, March 22 at the Glaser Center, Santa Rosa
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presents
Constance Hale and Michael Shapiro
A Sense of Place: Evoking Character & Setting in Any Genre
March 20, 2014 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Petaluma Community Center, 320 No. McDowell Blvd.
$10 at the door
A Sense of Place: Constance Hale and Michael Shapiro will reflect on how to evoke character and setting in any genre.
Constance Hale is the author of Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch: Let Verbs Power Your Prose, as well as Sin and Syntax and Wired Style. She curates Sin and Syntax, an online salon "for those who love wicked good prose." She has been a staff editor at the Oakland Tribune, the San Francisco Examiner, Wired, and Health magazines, and her journalism has appeared in The Atlantic, Smithsonian, The Los Angeles Times, Honolulu, and many other national publications. Her eight-part series on writing a sentence is at The New York Times' Opinionator. Hale also edits books and is a founder of The Prose Doctor
Michael Shapiro's article on Jan Morris's Wales was a cover story for National Geographic Traveler. He also writes for American Way, Mariner, Islands, and The Sun - and contributes to the travel sections of the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle. Shapiro is author of A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration and wrote the text for the pictorial book, Guatemala: A Journey Through the Land of the Maya. Michael Shapiro
For Info: www.thewritespot.us
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Take Me Out to the Ballgame!
April 10, 11, 12 - 17, 18, 19
7:30 p.m.
Clear Heart Stage 90 Jessie Lane, Petaluma
Petaluma Reader's Theatre pays tribute to baseball just in time for spring training. Their encore production of this popular show includes old favorites:
"Who's on First"
and
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Tiny Lights Recommends
This insomniac's take on
Patty Hearst, Marina Oswald,
Vegas weddings,
sleepwalking murderers & more!
Published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press
"Kat Meads can be funny, eloquent, enlightening and exciting-all in one
compelling essay after another."
-Lee Gutkind, Founder and Editor, Creative Nonfiction
Available from Powells, Amazon, etc.
Tiny Lights contributor Kat Meads teaches in Oklahoma City University's
Red Earth MFA program. (www.katmeads.com)
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Since 1995, Tiny Lights has been celebrating the power of personal voice. Although we no longer produce a print edition of the magazine, the online manifestation of Tiny Lights provides a venue for unique voices and resources for writers of personal essay. Sparks: Email News & Notes is our free monthly electronic newsletter.
Print editions of Tiny Lights, which include original art:
Back issues: $3 each
Checks payable to Tiny Lights Publications, P.O. Box 928, Petaluma, CA 94953
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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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