Memoirous

I can’t believe I’m complaining. This year has been a roller coaster of acceptances for my short stories and micro nonfiction pieces. Maybe elevator is more the analogy, a sideways one. The average so far has been one acceptance a month. Actually a little more because 1)       I haven’t done the best job of keeping track 2)       Journals/editors have also not taken the time to do due diligence in contacting me about my work This has always been the case. I’ve gotten a lot better about tracking my submissions and entering all rejections, pending, acceptances electronically into the grid system. When I do have an acceptance I try to withdraw the piece immediately from other places. Recently, I discovered examples of both of the above. I got an acceptance and said yes. Then forgot. And it was accepted elsewhere where I said yes, again, and then withdrew it, forgetting totally about the former “yes.” The second time was the fault ...

I don’t mean to stain the name of Nigeria or bring dishonor to princes, or assert that anyone from that country is a bad person. I’m sorry if scammers, cons, phishers, and frauds have ruined it for Nigerian princes, turning them into memes. It’s just that I have no way of knowing if an offer I got this week is for-reals. From: Nora Droste Date: Thu, May 27, 2021 at 1:23 PM Subject: Creative Writing and Poetry Conference – We Need Your Experience! To: Hello: My name is Nora Droste and I work for Smart Asset. We are hiring writers and poets with adequate work-related experience for our conference. The objective is to have you share your experiences as a writer and/or poet with everyone attending the conference including some of our employees and members of the general public by invitation only. This is to encourage people looking to become new writers. We request for you to work 1 hour on any two days between July 10th and July 30th, 2021. This will be between 12 PM and 2 P...

 My roommate went on a walk last night brought home a plaque. He’d been walking past a house with a sign out front urging passers-by to take a sign. Even before Covid I’d been used to seeing Little Library or Corner Pantry or other pop-ups. Whenever I visited a friend who once lived in Charlottesville, VA there was a neighbor who had an outreach of original poems. She’d compose them and copy them and have out front in a Plexiglas container for people to take. It was a way to get her work out there and be a blessing. Recently I’ve had a run of acceptances. An essay taken by Quananzine, a humorous story by Funny Pearls also out of the UK, a flash in SCBWI-IL Prairie Wind, and another flash in Teach. Write. In addition, my daughter had something appear in Coffin Bell. In nearly all these instances neither of us were paid or offered payment. I’m beginning to see what I do as the equivalent as the workshop guy or poem lady. I’ve written here before—or should I say whined—about t...

I heard I’d been awarded a DCASE grant from the city of Chicago, for an individual artist. Essentially this is money in and money out. When I applied at the end of 2020, recognizably a terrible year, I wanted to set my sights, hopes on 2021. There is not much agency a poor artist/writer has except dreams. I thought what can I do if awarded this grant, a big if, and went for another big if: the Novel-in-a-Year program out of Story Studio a Chicago literary institution. I’d been aware of Story Studio for the past 17 years since it was started by Jill Pollack and had writer envy when studying the catalog, but, alas, it was a bit too pricey for me. Again, I’d had friends and colleagues take classes and rave about how it was JUST THE THING, a boost to their writing/professional life. It was a way to broaden contacts and network with fellow writers. So at the end of a dreary pandemic-filled year, a year of impending doom and real-life death, I applied for both the DCASE and a slot in th...

I recently told a group I was having a potluck with that I was going to see Little Women. One of the guys said I love that movie. Now, for a couple of reasons, I knew he was confused. Brien is the kind of guy that watches the Bears and roots for the Sox. Come to find out, he meant the movie Hidden Figures—which made me think that both titles seem to diminish the role of women. But, I digress. The weather was so nice, a friend and I rode our bikes there—to discover it was sold out. So we purchased tickets on-line and planned to go later. Again, I digress. Which is life: a series of digressions. Little Women as the book and movie proves, is a series of small moments in lives considered hidden and little. Indeed, they paint, play the piano, write, perform—but this is in a world where they have no agency. They cannot vote and are limited in the occupations they might choose. The man is the head of the house, even if they make unwise decisions and go off to war. We see ...

5 th Grade I lied. I do remember my 5 th grade teacher’s name. Mrs. Medillo. She said in my school year book that I was her “busy bee reader.” I kept track of all the books I read on index cards. I had a stack of them. I didn’t know how to score the books I read more than once. It seemed a miracle that because of redistricting I was able to spend 5 th grade back at my old school Driscoll, except by this time my friends had moved on. We were different on a scale that only a tween would understand. I was desperate to read a friend, a book that loved me for who I was—somewhat nerdy, existential, an optimistic fatalist. Little Women. I could actually see Jo staring into the depth of her grief when she opened Beth’s hope chest, where the mementos of her short life were stored. Even today, my throat catches every time I read this passage. I am Jo, the writer, smudging the outside of my finger as my hand rushes over fresh ink on the page. Secretly I nurture a secret po...

Because I’m trying to read authors from Maine see Artweek, I stumbled upon an old copy of Country Byways by Sarah Orne Jewett published 1881. I’d read a long time ago Country of the Pointed Firs so I was familiar with Jewett. She has a very interesting personal history and is recognized as an outstanding regional writer, though lately her work has not received a lot of interest. Byways according to Wiki is described as “sketches.” Again, I was familiar with this term. Louisa May Alcott wrote Hospital Sketches (1863) about her experience working as a Union nurse during the Civil War. Her literary hero, Charles Dickens wrote Sketches by Boz (1839). Sketches to me seem like an early form of blog posts. From Wiki: A   sketch story,   literary sketch   or simply   sketch , is a piece of writing that is generally shorter than a   short story , and contains very little, if any,   plot . The genre was invented in the   16th century   in England...

The March sisters (Little Women): "I hate being poor,"  sighed her sister, Meg, looking at her old dress. Most of the time I am okay with being poor—I mean what else can I do? Like the March girls who imbued that hearty New England spirit, I embody Midwestern grit and determination, the make-do pioneer attitude. If it rains lemons then make lemonade. Lately what has descended upon me is discontent, a striving for something out there beyond my reach. There is something I want that I can’t get on my own. Any close readers of this blog (all three of you) must by now know that I am restless for the next big thing. Maybe that’s why I keep applying for grants, residencies, scholarships even though I lack really great credentials. It’s a bit like what I blogged about a few entries back. Hope. You send it out there and see what flies home. Esperanza. A flitty, flighty thing is faith. You crack open the coconut to dig at the sweet flesh inside—it might satisfy or leave you only wan...