Thursday, September 16, 2010

Fw: Results: Tom Howard Prose Contest



--- On Wed, 15/9/10, Tom Howard Contest News from John Reid <rastar7@bigpond.com> wrote:

From: Tom Howard Contest News from John Reid <rastar7@bigpond.com>
Subject: Results: Tom Howard Prose Contest
To: simschimeko@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Wednesday, 15 September, 2010, 7:40

Tom Howard Poetry Contest WILL CLOSE SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

 

 Tom Howard Short Story, Essay & Prose Contest IS NOW OPEN

Here are a few tips for winning writing competitions generally from my book, "Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS". Take a look at some of the entries that have won prizes in past years. Genre and style are two things to check. For instance, it's no use submitting a story or a poem written in a flowery or what might be described as an "old-fashioned" style, if that style is not evident in any entries in that particular contest that have won prizes or commendations in the past. 
You're also almost certainly throwing money away if your language is Elizabethan and all the previous winning and commended entries could have been published yesterday in "The New York Times". 
You'll note that on the other hand, Tom Howard winners are written in every style imaginable!
As for genre, ask yourself if any of the previous winning and commended entries relate to your planned genre. For example if no science-fiction or mystery thrillers have captured prize money or at least made the commended list in the past, they're not going to succeed this year either!  
On the other hand, Tom Howard winners have used genres right across the board!  
Amazon have reduced the price of the new, expanded edition of my "Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS". The book has been completely revised, re-written and re-set. Despite all this, and an additional 20 pages of helpful text, the price has been lowered to only $12.50 officially, but Amazon at present have the book on sale for only $11.25!

This book is also available in a Kindle edition. Please use this link: Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS

As for our anthologies of previous Winning and Highly Commended prose entries, please try WATCHING TIME: Anthology of Prizewinning Essays & Short Stories and also Mr Christian and the Bag Lady: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Stories and Keep Watching the Skies! An Anthology of Prize-Winning Short Stories. Even the title stories themselves sound mighty intriguing. 
One of the advantages my own books hold is that they are also available in Kindle editions at these locations: Micaela Morris in Jo's Heaven and A Mountain of Many Treasures and also A Packet of Dreams . On the other hand, the anthologies of previous winning Tom Howard Contest entries will, alas, NEVER be available at Kindle because of copyright restrictions.
My own anthologies are ANYONE FOR LOVE? and Escape to Paradise and Other Poetic Fancies. The first is also available in a Kindle edition at Anyone for Love? (Poetry) for only $4.99 (including Amazon's $2 wireless delivery fee). Also in the Kindle store at the same price, I recommend A Salute to Spanish Poetry 100 Masterpieces from Spain and Latin America rendered into English verse 
As mentioned above, all subjects and genres are welcome for both our Prose and Poetry Contests. For the Prose Contest, for example, you may submit comic and humorous stories and essays, mystery, science fiction, romance and other genres. Even newspaper and magazine articles and interviews. And even one-act plays. The only restriction is that entries must not exceed 5,000 words.

The Tom Howard Poetry Contest is one of the very, very few poetry contests that impose NO RESTRICTIONS ON THE LENGTH OF YOUR POEMS. And you may also submit as many entries as you like!

The Tom Howard Poetry Contest is now open, BUT IT WILL CLOSE ON SEPTEMBER 30! 

 

TOM HOWARD SHORT STORY, ESSAY AND PROSE CONTEST 2009

RESULTS

 

The judges wish to congratulate all the entrants named below on their splendid achievements. We wish we had space to name all the Commended entries as well, but space has forced us to limit ourselves to those entries that were judged Highly Commended and/or prizeworthy.

 

CASH PRIZES:

 

The judges added an extra $150 Most Highly Commended Award, plus a special $100 Encouragement Award, which increased the prize pool by $250, making a grand total of prize money awarded for this particular contest: $5,800.

 

1. Paper Daughter by Emily Jiang

2. The Brave One by M.T. Gabrick    

3. Hall of Fame by Arlene Lidbergh-Jasper

4. The Balcon by Mari Grana

5. It Happened in Monaco by Linda Zabolski

6. The Train to Harare by Lance Mason

7. Challenge the Wind by Judy Willman

8. Indian Train Journey by Annie Eagleton    

9. The Swan Goose by Mary Lou Simms

10. 8 Missed Birthdays by Arielle Kaden

11. Black Saturday by Fern Langmead 

 

Special Encouragement Award $100:  

Penny, the Police and Professionals by Suzanne Covich

 

 

VERY HIGHLY COMMENDED ENTRIES:

Halcyon Afternoon by Amber Herrick

In Search of Spike by Mello White

Ellie by Wendy Dartnall

Winter Sun by Lou O. Madison

A Little Bird Shall Lead them by Diana Thurbon

Jesse's Great Escape by Beverley Lessard

Two Birds by Amanda Stein

Death in Foul Ground by Ted Walker

A Christmas Tree for God by Elizabeth MacDonald Burrows

'Happily Ever After' Left With Daddy by Debra Gundy

One Seashell, Two Seashell, Flap, Flap, Flap by Erik X. Raj

The Red Trunk by Stephanie Burster

An Ecclesiastical History by Fred McGavran

The Oak Tree by Victoria Gouldthorp

Strangers on a Train by Danielle Bennett

Nature's Sweetness by Noelle Bickle

As It Was in the Beginning: Holy Week Seville by Mari Grana

What You Made of Me by N. B. Bourne

The State San by Debbie Fox

 

HIGHLY COMMENDED ENTRIES:

 

After the Banquet Is Thrown by Sheila Strulowitz

Nobody's Child by Sherrie Collins

Hurricane Season in Texas PLUS Ms. Brown by Laura Donnell

The First Day by John Freda

The Russian Officer by Elaine Slater

Killing the Bull Thistle by Rodney Nelsestuen

Breath by Lisa Morris

Take a Leaf from the Tree PLUS After All PLUS Lost by Martin Steele

A Complete Romantic by Julia Kaverzine

Beachcomber by Tim Porter

Cemetery of the Innocent by James Weis

Til Then by Joy Zito Dovel

The Rejection by Vivien K. Harris

Lost Time by Craig Petree

Who Am I by Jason McClearen

Miriam's Miracle by Steve Roberts

"Happily Ever After" Left with Daddy by Debra Gundy

My Mind Is Slowly Going by Shirley Dilley

Magic Fish Potion Number Five by Mark Smith

Fading from View by Simon Luckhurst

Grif by Glynn Leyshon

The Gift by June Hubatsek

Memorial Day by John T. Hitchner

A Time to Keep by James Facos

Legacy by James D. Young

The Boatman by John Corvese

Overalls by John Rehfuss

Searchin' Out Spike by James D. Young

A Place of Peace by W.D. West

You've No Idea What I've Found by Alice R. Marks

The Bell Ringer by Robert Kritkausky

Loving Sam by David McFarland

Live! From Mongolia by Patricia Sexton

Fleeing Callignee by Rebekah Jennings

Chameleon by Rebekah Jennings

Scar the Glowing Haze by Danielle Bryant

Keepsake by Jillian Healand

Sending a Voice – Native Americans in the Movies by Daniel A. Brown

Uncertainty at the Water's Edge by David Jackson

Legend of the White Wolf by Brad Cook

The Corn Field by Robert Yearick

Roses by Jeffe Aronson

The Stock Broker by John Hancock

An Inconvenient Cow by Alana Bregin

40 Degrees by Matthew Lange

Words by Bernie Dowling

It Was the Strangest Thing by Terry Hopper

Orange Sky by Ryan Surace

Before Sweetness Stings by Mary Lee Costa

Withered Garlands by Darlene Marlow

Malabar by Mark Wagstaff

White Butterfly by Dick Sheffield

Tesseract by Anjuli Adler

Home from Taos by Elayne Bentley

Tale of The by Sean W. Murphy

Great Circle by Joseph Rizzo

Beyond the Blue Yonder by Karen Patterson

One Less Counted by Kim Jordana Robinson

Southside Saturday by Leilani Allen

More Than Paper by Emily Dickson

Compline by Alisa Weis

Cecelia by Laura Loomis

Life Is Not a Dream by George Keithley

Night and Fog by George Keithley

The Wolf by George Keithley

Mingus Today by George Keithley

White Snow Blackout by Joseph A. Byrne

Music or Medicine? by Sherwin Kaufman

Shadows Over Yanoun by Michael J. Cooper

You Don't Have To Be an Einstein by Michael J. Cooper

A Real No-Talent Guy by Donald Fitzpatrick

A Bump in the Road to the Moon by Billy J. Adams

The Friend I Never Met by J. Graham Ducker

An American Address by Austin Kenny

Strangers at the Station by Terry Hopper

Travelling Companions by Peter Jones

A New Outlook by Peter Jones

The Beckoning Heart by John C. Maxfield

The Kiss of God by Natasha Jennings

The Great Pharaoh by Vetella A. Camper

Given Time by David Jones

A Canada Goose: Beyond the Deformity by Mary Lou Simms

The Last Henderson Girl by Dennis R. Rader

Feline Meanderings by Jack Carbee

Making the Call by Kevin P. McCabe

Abracadabra Magic by Charlene Wexler

The Mystical Forest by Brian Ellis

The Young and the Swift by Morgan Smith

Arnold's Gift by William Hanson

Bear Legged by Curran Dobbs

The Fortune Cookie by Tom Walters

Who's Thomas Evergreen by Shannon Brown

Lotto by Ellen Portal

Earth-vibrating Laughter by Evans Simubali

The Stupormundi Effect by Alan Ecob

Lazarus, Come Forth! by Brighten Cambridge

Sudden Death by Gillian Lin

Olympic Champion Charlie Greene's Long Run to Faith by Robert B. Robeson

Gone Forever On Christmas Night by Tirrea Billings

The Best and the Brightest by Laura T. Jensen

The Be's and the Bain'ts by Benson Hewitt

A February Parade by Jerry Ezell

The Way of the Rooster by Jerry Ezell

 


Monday, February 8, 2010

Fw: Importance of Opening Lines in Prose and Poetry Contests!



--- On Mon, 1/2/10, Tom Howard Contest News from John Reid <rastar7@bigpond.com> wrote:

From: Tom Howard Contest News from John Reid <rastar7@bigpond.com>
Subject: Importance of Opening Lines in Prose and Poetry Contests!
To: simschimeko@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Monday, 1 February, 2010, 4:15

We are on schedule to announce the winning and commended entries for the 2009 Tom Howard Poetry Contest on February 15. The cash winners will be announced in this Newsletter and a full list of winners will be posted on http://writeway.exactpages.com and http://writing-events.blogspot.com

The Annual $5,550 Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse is open! The annual $5,550 Tom Howard Short Story, Essay and Prose Contest is also now open for entries, but will close on March 31, so now is the time to lodge your story or essay before the judges are swamped by the last-month rush! And also open of course is the current $5,550 Tom Howard Poetry Contest for Verse in All Styles and Genres.

As you know, these Newsletters are issued only twice a month (usually on the first and fifteenth days). Sometimes it's necessary to get information across more quickly, so I've started a blog, http://writing-events.blogspot.com One of its purposes is to provide news of my own poetic endeavors (currently "A Salute to Spanish Verse"), but it will also be used to provide Contest help and information.

For example, in my last Newsletter, I mentioned the importance of an eye-catching title to rivet the judges' attention to your entry right from the start, and I listed some of the titles from the Tom Howard collection , Escape to Paradise and Other Poetic Fancies.

But almost equally important are your first lines and your first stanza. On the current blog, http://writing-events.blogspot.com, I've provided some good examples from the above book.

The website for the Tom Howard Poetry Contest is http://tomhowardpoetry.bravepages.com

The latest Margaret Reid anthology is Love & City Dreaming: Poems by Margaret Havill Reid. Margaret's range and versatility in this book provide an excellent guide to the verse we are seeking for the Margaret Reid Prize.

You'll also find plenty of rousing titles and attention-getting opening lines in our previous anthologies of winning entries such as SAILING IN THE MIST OF TIME: Award-Winning Poems in which 108 award-winning and commended poems are gathered together in a large-format, 196-page book!

For more information, I recommend my Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS: How To Join the Winners' Circle for Prose and Poetry Awards, If you've been wasting your time and money sending great stories or magnificent poems to Contests that immediately place them in the reject basket, here's a book to set you on the right path.

This year, the prize pool for our prose and poetry contests has been increased to $5,550 (including a First Prize of $3,000). Entry fees have not been raised. The entry fee for the prose contest remains at $15 for each short story or essay up to 5,000 words in length. There are ten cash prizes in all, but the judges do reserve the right to award extra cash prizes if they so desire. For the last prose contest, the judges awarded no less than $500 in additional prizes, bringing the total prize pool up to $5,850 instead of the advertised $5,350!

To enter your poems in our current poetry contests, you will find full information at http://margaretreid.exactpages.com OR http://poetrycontests.exactpages.com. You will note that although the prize-money has been increased, entry fees do remain at $7 for every 25 lines.

Unlike almost all other poetry contests, we impose no limits on the number of lines or number of poems you may submit.

You can also visit the home page of http://www.winningwriters.com and click on the contests at the top left of the screen.

As stated above, the Tom Howard Short Story, Essay & Prose Contest is open. Entries will close on March 31, 2010. Again, let me make it clear at once that we are seeking entries in ALL categories, including "literary" fiction, but most particularly we would like to award prizes to popular, everyday, mainstream stories, essays and prose, as even a casual glance at our anthologies of winning and commended entries such as Keep Watching the Skies! An Anthology of Prize-Winning Short Stories will soon make plain. You'll find full details at http://shortstorycontest.0catch.com

One of the key recommendations in my Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS is that you take a look at some of the entries that have won prizes in previous contests. This will give you some idea of the types and varieties of stories and prose pieces that have won prizes in the past. The books I recommend here are the two "Watching" books: "Watching the Skies" above, and WATCHING TIME: Anthology of Prizewinning Essays & Short Stories.

And finally I notice Amazon are still selling the new, expanded edition of "Write Ways..." for only $11.25 (which is considerably less than the original edition, even though the new edition has more pages and lots more valuable information): Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS: How To Join the Winners' Circle for Prose and Poetry Awards, NEW EXPANDED EDITION

Keep writing on!

All my very best wishes!

John


Monday, January 11, 2010

Fw: Interview with Judith Goldhaber, Grand Prizewinner, Margaret Reid Poetry



--- On Fri, 1/1/10, Tom Howard Contest News from John Reid <rastar7@bigpond.com> wrote:

From: Tom Howard Contest News from John Reid <rastar7@bigpond.com>
Subject: Interview with Judith Goldhaber, Grand Prizewinner, Margaret Reid Poetry
To: simschimeko@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Friday, 1 January, 2010, 7:28

The Annual $5,550 Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse is open! The annual $5,550 Tom Howard Short Story, Essay and Prose Contest is also open for entries! And also open is the annual $5,550 Tom Howard Poetry Contest for Verse in All Styles and Genres. To celebrate this occasion, a new anthology of 98 poems by Tom Howard (including 75 previously unpublished) is now on sale at Amazon and other book stores. Please click this link for details: Escape to Paradise and Other Poetic Fancies. The website for the Tom Howard Poetry Contest is http://tomhowardpoetry.bravepages.com

Our previous anthologies of winning entries include SAILING IN THE MIST OF TIME: Award-Winning Poems. 108 award-winning and commended poems in a large-format, 196-page book!

The latest Margaret Reid title is Love & City Dreaming: Poems by Margaret Havill Reid. Margaret's range and versatility in this book provide an excellent guide to the verse we are seeking for the Margaret Reid Prize. Margaret was a great champion of humorous verse, for example, illustrated in this book by delightful parodies like "The Wiz of Wizzinzee" and "Muzzacoffalox". She wrote serious poetry too, like "Face of the City", romantic verse such as "Loving You", spiritual verse ("His Light") , descriptive ("Nodding Among Geraniums"), political ("Myopia"), philosophical ("Was There a Silver Sea?"), reflective ("Time"), satirical ("Blinking into Day"), children's ("Mida, the Spider"), playful ("Superstar'), serious ("Raging Planet"), you-name-it ("The Hall of Mirrors").

Another book I recommend of course is my Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS: How To Join the Winners' Circle for Prose and Poetry Awards, If you've been wasting your time and money sending great stories or magnificent poems to Contests that immediately place them in the reject basket, here's a book to set you on the right path.

This year, the prize pool for our prose and poetry contests have been increased to $5,550 (including a First Prize of $3,000). Entry fees will not be increased. The entry fee for the prose contest will remain at $15 for each short story or essay up to 5,000 words in length. There are ten cash prizes in all, but the judges do reserve the right to award extra cash prizes if they so desire. For the last prose contest, the judges awarded no less than $500 in additional prizes, bringing the total prize pool up to $5,850 instead of the advertised $5,350!

To enter your poems in our current poetry contests, you will find full information at http://margaretreid.exactpages.com OR http://poetrycontests.exactpages.com. You will note that although the prize-money has been increased, entry fees remain at $7 for every 25 lines. Unlike almost all other contests, we impose no limits on the number of lines or number of poems you may submit.

You can also visit the home page of http://www.winningwriters.com and click on the contests at the top left of the screen.

As stated above, the Tom Howard Short Story, Essay & Prose Contest is open. Entries will close on March 31, 2010. Again, let me make it clear at once that we are seeking entries in ALL categories, including "literary" fiction, but most particularly we would like to award prizes to popular, everyday, mainstream stories, essays and prose, as even a casual glance at our anthologies of winning and commended entries such as Keep Watching the Skies! An Anthology of Prize-Winning Short Stories will soon make plain. You'll find full details at http://shortstorycontest.0catch.com

One of the key recommendations in my Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS is that you take a look at some of the entries that have won prizes in previous contests. This will give you some idea of the types and varieties of stories and prose pieces that have won prizes in the past. The book I recommend here is WATCHING TIME: Anthology of Prizewinning Essays & Short Stories. Amazon also stock two of our previous collections of winning prose, namely Keep Watching the Skies! An Anthology of Prize-Winning Short Stories as mentioned above, and Mr Christian and the Bag Lady: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Stories

And finally I notice Amazon are still selling the new, expanded edition of "Write Ways..." for only $11.25 (which is considerably less than the original edition, even though the new edition has more pages and lots more valuable information): Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS: How To Join the Winners' Circle for Prose and Poetry Awards, NEW EXPANDED EDITION

AN INTERVIEW WITH JUDITH GOLDHABER, AUTHOR OF "THE BEWICK'S WREN", OUR GRAND PRIZEWINNING POEM

How did you happen upon such a novel and engaging subject as the wrens' building their nest in a doll's house? 

The simple answer is that the story of the wrens and the doll house actually happened, pretty much the way I describe it in the poem. The more complicated answer is that this poem is one of many I've written in the past few years that draw from a deep well of feeling about the empty nest – my daughters growing up, leaving home, and making their way in the world.  I have never been fond of the confessional style of poetry, either to read or to write.  The word "I" seldom appears in my poems, unless it is spoken by some animate or inanimate stand-in for myself -- a spider or a raven or a butterfly or a duck (or, in one case, the planet). But I pack a lot of personal emotion into these poems.  I am a believer in Robert Frost's words: "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader."

Did the subject seem to instantly lend itself to a traditional rhyming form or did you experiment with other formats as well?

I almost never experiment with other formats.  I am hopelessly addicted to the sonnet (for lyric expression) and to the sonnet sequence (for storytelling).  To me, the familiar rhythm of iambic pentameter (so close to ordinary English speech, yet "elevated"), the ear-pleasing chiming of  recurring rhymes, the orderly progression of ideas from octet to sestet,  and the final jolt of the twist at the end make the sonnet the perfect form for expressing a powerful idea or emotion.  And a series of sonnets, bound together by form, is perfect for telling a long story.  Long narrative poems are hard to read, but a sonnet sequence or cycle keeps the reader going because he/she expects, and gets, a small payoff at the end of each link.   

Approximately how much time did you spend writing and polishing this poem?

Since my poems usually involve some kind of animate or inanimate stand-in for myself, I spend quite a bit of time researching the subject -- reading, Googling, etc.  For example, when I  had the idea of writing about the birds in the doll house, I didn't even know what kind of birds they were.  Once I had identified them as Bewick's wrens, I read everything I could about their habits, and this material provided the inspiration for the detail in the poem.  I even emailed the head of ornithology at the Smithsonian Institution to find out the preferred pronunciation of "Bewick." (Buick? or Bee-wick?)  He responded promptly  -- Buick!  (Everyone likes to help a poet.)  In actual writing time, I  usually write and polish one sonnet, or one link in a sequence, in two working days.  I take a long walk in the morning and wait for an idea and a few lines to come to me, then rush back to my computer and turn them into a poem.   

You also won a Most Highly Commended Award for another entry, "The Garden Spider". In your own estimation, do you prefer one poem to the other, or would you rank them equally?

It's hard for me to judge "The Garden Spider" objectively, because it has a very special meaning to me.  It was the first poem I wrote after a dry period that had lasted for almost 40 years.  And the first line of the poem, "The first step is a drop into the void" is a metaphor for what I was trying to do – reclaim my vocation as a poet.  I had been a precocious, prize-winning poet as a teenager and college student, but the muse had deserted me for 40 years of adult life, marriage, motherhood, and a career as a science journalist.  A poet friend visiting from London, Claire Barnham, dragged me to some poetry readings (which I had been avoiding for many years), and the muse began to stir.  It was October, 2002, and my garden was full of hard-working specimens of Araneus diadematus and their beautiful webs. Always the curious science writer, I wondered how the web was made, and looked it up.  The field guide's description of the spider's web-making began "The first step is a drop into the void", a path I followed. 

How long have you been writing poetry and have you enjoyed any previous successes?

I was born into a family of writers and journalists and poets. I wrote my first poems at the age of 12 or 13.  By high school I was winning state-wide prizes, and by college I was writing sonnets virtually indistinguishable from the ones I write now.  (So really I have not matured at all as a poet – I don't know if that's good or bad.)  My greatest influences as a poet were: a) growing up in the midst of nature, in an ancient farmhouse without electricity or indoor plumbing; and b) reading great poetry early in life, and unconsciously committing countless pages of it to memory.  I carry around in my head an enormous anthology of the poetry that I read in my youth – Yeats, Shakespeare, Frost, Jeffers, Eliot, Millay, Wordsworth.  I never took a college course in poetry, never joined any kind of poetry group, never even considered trying to make a living as a poet or academic.  I did, however, go into "the family business" as a science journalist, specializing in physics and astronomy.  Before long, my kind of poetry went out of style. (Poetry without either rhyme or formal meter never interested me, and still doesn't).  Both the academic world of modern poetry and the vibrant  poetry-slam scene seemed closed to an outsider. The muse deserted me, and though the desertion made me sad, I accepted it and moved on.

In 1988, as a journalist, I had occasion to meet Stephen Hawking, the great British astrophysicist who is paralyzed by ALS.   This encounter obviously touched something very deep in my (paralyzed?)  creative self, for quite unexpectedly, a poem, "Hawking," emerged.  Over the next few years, I wrote the book and lyrics for "Falling Through a Hole in the Air," a musical fantasy  about Hawking, which (with composer-collaborator Carl Pennypacker), was produced at San Francisco City College a few years later.  Another musical, about Albert Einstein's "lost" daughter Lieserl, followed, but has not yet found a producer.  I found it easy and liberating to write song lyrics, but it took another decade for poetry to re-emerge.  When it did, it came in a great rush.  Beginning with "The Garden Spider" in 2002, I have written over 300 sonnets –including one unpublished book-length collection of long sonnet sequences, The Coming Earthquake  (which includes "The Bewick's Wren") and two self-published books, Sonnets from Aesop (100 of Aesop's fables rewritten as sonnets), and Sarah Laughed (tales from Genesis rewritten as sonnet sequences), both illustrated by my husband, Gerson Goldhaber.  Virtually every one of the twelve long sonnet sequences in The Coming Earthquake has won some kind of a major national prize, including the Annie Finch Award of the National Poetry Review, the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for Poems on the Jewish Experience; the Dancing Galliard Sonnet Contest; the "In the Beginning Was the Word" Poetry Contest (twice); the Winning Writers' War Poetry contest, and, now, the Margaret Reid Prize.  Yet only one of  these sonnet sequences  has been published!  They are too long for the journals, and book publishers don't seem to be interested in poets who don't have the usual academic credentials and contacts (for blurbs and reviews).  It's very frustrating.  Cash awards are great, but one also wants to have readers. 

Any words of encouragement that you'd like to share would also be much appreciated.

 Words of encouragement . . . Hmmm.   I would say that despite missing the recognition that comes with being a conventionally successful published poet,  I have derived deep satisfaction from finding my own poetic voice very early and sticking with it for a lifetime.  Some might say that this shows nothing but a lack of nerve.  Perhaps if I had attended some workshops and sleep-away camps for writers back in the seventies and eighties, I might have learned to love (and write) the kind of poetry that others were writing, poems more acceptable to the taste of the times, and I might have avoided the 40-year dry spell.  But I doubt it.  To me, poetry is pure magic; I don't know where it comes from; all I can do is say "welcome" when the muse decides to visit. 

A word about self-publishing. It can work in certain cases.  After numerous vain attempts to interest a publisher, my husband and I established Ribbonweed Press to publish our book Sonnets from Aesop. (We had quickly realized the futility of trying to find a publisher for a book containing 100 sonnets illustrated by 100 full-color, full-page paintings.. The cost of dealing with the pictures would be prohibitive for any publisher, and the book would have had to sell for upwards of $50 to cover expenses.)  By doing a lot of the setup ourselves, and printing in China, we are able to sell Sonnets from Aesop for $14.95.  It was published in 2005 and won an Independent Publisher's Award (IPPY) as outstanding independently-published book of the year.   Sonnets from Aesop (and its later companion, Sarah Laughed: Sonnets from Genesis) has sold well in local bookstores and on Amazon for several years.. Both books are still available (and selling) on Amazon: Sonnets from Aesop. The combination of classical theme (Aesop and Genesis), full-color illustrations, and low price has made these popular gift books, for adults and children.  But I doubt if this approach would work for a simple volume of poetry.  I have not tried it for The Coming Earthquake.

 


Sunday, January 10, 2010

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT WRITING GUIDE




                                                         
 

Please study our System Guide and Writing Guide for more information.

Thank you for joining us!


Monday, December 28, 2009

A PLACE AMONG LITERARY HEAVYWEIGHTS

 GOOD NEWS! YOU CAN SMILE WITH ME, HUG ME, KISS ME OR DO ANYTHING GOOD TO ME. I HAVE BECOME ONE OF THE WRITING GURUS OR
GRANDMASTERS, IF YOU LIKE. I AM NOW SHARING THE SAME PALACE WITH
THE LUMINARIES OF OUR TIME. FIND MY NAME ON THE LIST BELOW. NINETY NINE
POINT NINE NINE PER CENT OF PEOPLE LIVE OUT THEIR DAYS WITHOUT SEEING THEIR NAMES HERE. IF THIS IS NOT A SIGN OF GREATNESS, THEN WHAT IS IT?

Fw: Margaret Reid Poetry Prize Results



--- On Tue, 15/12/09, Tom Howard Contest News from John Reid <rastar7@bigpond.com> wrote:

From: Tom Howard Contest News from John Reid <rastar7@bigpond.com>
Subject: Margaret Reid Poetry Prize Results
To: simschimeko@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Tuesday, 15 December, 2009, 5:24

The Annual $5,550 Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse is open! The annual $5,550 Tom Howard Short Story, Essay and Prose Contest is also open for entries! And also open, as of right now, is the annual $5,550 Tom Howard Poetry Contest for Verse in All Styles and Genres. To celebrate this occasion, an anthology of 98 poems by Tom Howard (including 75 previously unpublished) went on sale this morning at Amazon and other book stores. The website for the Tom Howard Poetry Contest is http://tomhowardpoetry.bravepages.com    

As promised, here is the full Winning and Commended List for the 2009 Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse! The judges wish to extend their heartiest congratulations to ALL entrants who figure on this list:

First Prize $2,000: Judith Goldhaber: The Bewick's Wren

Second Prize $1,000: Samuel Tan: 10 p.m. by the Singapore River

Third Prize $500: Rosmarie Epaminondas-Bohm: Miss Worthington

Fourth Prize $250: Ellaraine Lockey: Coming Home in a Haibun

5 High Distinction awards of $200 each (in order of merit): Carmine Dandrea: A Wake In The House

Elizabeth Davies: Time-Lapse Father—The Migrant Worker

Louis Giron: The Sleeper

Michael John Walsh: The Old Man from Malkala

Christine Hemp: All the Broken Toys

6 Most Highly Commended awards of $100 each (in order of merit): Judith Goldhaber: The Garden Spider

Paul Hamill: Day Sailing

Noble Collins: The Falcon

Debra Gundy: Reflections of Solitude

Alys Jackson: To Drift in Sandstone Folds

Jeanie Mercer: Haiku selections

 

Highly Commended (by number of entries Highly Commended): 

FIVE ENTRIES: Karen Winterburn, The Gift plus Endgame plus Lover Unknown plus Many Mansions plus Breaking Camp. 

FOUR ENTRIES: Tom Berman, Dark matter, dark energy plus On Viewing Comet Hale Hopp plus The Patterns of Chaos plus To every poet, his unicorn; Don Thackrey, Yellow Finch Reflection plus Tabby Toes plus The Relic in the Weeds plus Pa and the Misfits; Eve Burgum, Silver Beads of Ice plus Wishing on the Moon plus End of Summer Song plus The Barn Cat on the Prowl; Theresa D. Smith, Not Green, Everywhere plus A Peacock Villanelle plus The Dark Seemed to Make Room for Them plus Sestina. 

THREE ENTRIES: Lance Mason, My Sweater plus Views of the San Rafaels, April plus Tribute to Theodore; Kayleen Hazlehurst, Wild September Oranges plus From Liquid to Light plus Under the Ylang-Ylang Tree; Betty Leake, Tuscaloosa 1883 plus Death of an Owl plus Four Crows; Bernard Mann, A Jacobean Feast plus Beauty in the Burning plus Forested Hills Whisper; Elizabeth Davies, Sun-Warm Mangoes plus The Missing/Found Girls plus Morning Thunder; Louis Giron, The Sprinter plus Spring 2000, Lake Atitlan, Western Highlands, Gautemala plus No pottery this.  

TWO ENTRIES: Debra Gundy, Stir of Echoes plus The Written Word; Joseph Gorman: Sorrowful Mystery plus Harmless Doves and Hungry Owls; Diane Simkin, The Wait plus Garden of Remembrance; Patrick Walker, The Death Room plus An Old Score Settled; E.M. Schorb, Poetry in Motion plus The Bosnian Cherry; Louis Giron, The Sprinter plus Spring 2000, Lake Atitlan, Western Highlands, Gautemala; Michael Norris, Message from a Stowaway plus No Humdrum Conundrum; Tonni Riley, A Single Chard plus Like Water; Samuel Tan, To Chase the Threshold of Beauty plus Behind Guises; Gordon Leeder, Olga the Little Ostrich plus The Platypus; Paul F. Cummins, Vietnam Redux plus Under Cover; Christina Lovin, Trinity plus Fledge; Berwyn Moore, Tweezing the Bones plus Multiple Sclerosis.

Michaela Norris, Coastlines; Anna Carlson, Escape from Reality; Jennifer Albina, Free from Strings; Lynnda Ell, Sunrise Symphony; Michelle Adserias, Why Is He Here?; Elizabeth Ferrari, Two Weeks; David Hann, The Ballad of Jake Brakes; Susan Holcomb, Empty Window; Casie Smith, Written in the Sand; Kogi Singh, Senses; Iris Fsher, Old Church; Cill Van Der Velden, Unity; Kate Tilley, A Vision Exquisite and Rare; Barry Freeman, Song of Tanzania; M. Higgs, Broken Wing; Karl Williams, In Matthew's Eyes; Meg McGrew, The Runner; Jeff Howe, What I Meant; Jeannie Mercer, Windows Old and New; Michael John Walsh, Call All the Winds; Judith Goldhaber, The Garden Spider; Ellaraine Lockie, Saying Goodbye; Noble Collins, Now That I Have the Time; Charlie Blake, Paradise Ditched; Judi Macomber, Trill; Alberta Fredricksen, I Am; Helen Bar-Lev, Down the River Jordan in a Rubber Dinghy; Ency Bearis, An Introspection Of A Poet; R.N. Peat, At The Turn; Philip E. Burnham, Jr., Waiting for the Red-winged Blackbirds; Kevin Hoidale, Wings; Amie Goodwin, Langston Hughes Rewrite; Veronica Hallissey, Subjective Journey; Jackie Cartel, The Raven; Martin Mahler, Veil of Night; Andrew Barber, Money God; Rob Wright, Four Photographs of Poets; Ellaraine Lockey, Saying Good-Bye; Michaela Norris, Message from a Stowaway; Jordan Reyne, Ghosts [Song 7 in "How the Dead Live"].

 

Commended (by number of entries Commended):

Four Poems: Vivian Franz, Acceptance plus Enlightenment plus Query plus Conspiracy; Sherwin Kaufman, The Child in Us plus A Child's Vision plus Reverie plus Child's Play.   

Three Poems: Robert (Bob) Patterson, A Book, With Pictures plus The Approaching Storm plus Going Home; Frank Salvidio, Magnets plus Calypso plus Canto V.

Two Poems: Helen Bar-Lev, Close to the Solstice plus Letter to a Distant Friend; Carmen Dandrea, A Fable of Flies plus Counting Out My Growth in Deaths; Janet Ireland Trail, The Bookshelf plus Learn from the Masters; Edgar H. Koch, Rondelet Septettes plus Harley Davidson's Debut; Joan Blake, Brownian Motion or Science/Social; Moira France, The Clipper Ship plus Predator and Prey; Floyd E. "Skip" Hughes, In a Glass, Darkly plus Verweilen; Sean Arthur Joyce, Moth Evolution plus Conversations with Crow; Maria Tucciarone, Evocation plus Domination.      

Michelle Adserias, Ode to the Old Gold Rooster; Martina Iacomi, Oceanna; Lynn Sadler, Backward Susan; Kate Prado, The Dreamcatcher's World; Bobby Nimocks, My Epitaph; Ruth Sabath Rosenthal, On Divining Sanctuary; James Eric Watkins, love: recast; Gary Drewniak, Over the Fence; Devon Moody, The Mammoth; Amy Kaufman, Sestina; Daniel Lee Mishkin, Stop and Smell the Roses; Marcella Putowski, Brancusi's Bird in Flight; L. Nkwoma Masi, Message to Mia; Phil Wilson, Timepiece; Austin Diamond, Destiny; Clyta Coder, Stepping Stones; Alice R. Marks, Would I?; Mary Zan Sweet, 8 haiku; Evans Simubali, My Name Is Terrorism; Francis W. Lovett, Holy Wells of Ireland; Marilyn Joy, A Woman Who Once Rode an Elephant in India; Stanley M. Noah, Any Beach Is A Meandering Place; Jejeola-akinola Theopilus Olatunji, EDEN the HOME; Adelina Aleksandrova, The night when you washed my hair; Joanne Durda Watkins, The Shadow of Imagination; Kevin Hoidale, The Hidden; Noelle M. Brannon, A Real Man; Melody A. Mitchell, Watching Her Die; Judith M. Cull, Rubaiyat of Pompeii; Jackie Cartel, When we were young; Martin Mahler, We Must Confront the Dark

 

Our previous anthologies of winning entries include SAILING IN THE MIST OF TIME: Award-Winning Poems

The latest Margaret Reid title is Love & City Dreaming: Poems by Margaret Havill Reid. Margaret's range and versatility in this book provide an excellent guide to the verse we are seeking for the Margaret Reid Prize. Margaret was a great champion of humorous verse, for example, illustrated in this book by delightful parodies like "The Wiz of Wizzinzee" and "Muzzacoffalox". She wrote serious poetry too, like "Face of the City", romantic verse such as "Loving You", spiritual verse ("His Light") , descriptive ("Nodding Among Geraniums"), political ("Myopia"), philosophical ("Was There a Silver Sea?"), reflective ("Time"), satirical ("Blinking into Day"), children's ("Mida, the Spider"), playful ("Superstar'), serious ("Raging Planet"), you-name-it ("The Hall of Mirrors").

Another book I recommend of course is my Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS: How To Join the Winners' Circle for Prose and Poetry Awards, If you've been wasting your time and money sending great stories or magnificent poems to Contests that immediately place them in the reject basket, you need to read this book.

This year, the prize pool for our prose and poetry contests have been increased to $5,550 (including a First Prize of $3,000). Entry fees will not be increased. The entry fee for the prose contest will remain at $15 for each short story or essay up to 5,000 words in length. There are ten cash prizes in all, but the judges do reserve the right to award extra cash prizes if they so desire. For the last prose contest, the judges awarded no less than $500 in additional prizes, bringing the total prize pool up to $5,850 instead of the advertised $5,350!

To enter your poems in our current poetry contests, you will find full information at http://margaretreid.exactpages.com OR http://poetrycontests.exactpages.com. You will note that although the prize-money has been increased, entry fees remain at $7 for every 25 lines. Unlike almost all other contests, we impose no limits on the number of lines or number of poems you may submit.

You can also visit the home page of http://www.winningwriters.com and click on the contests at the top left of the screen.

As stated above, the Tom Howard Short Story, Essay & Prose Contest is open. Entries will close on March 31, 2010. Again, let me make it clear at once that we are seeking entries in ALL categories, including "literary" fiction, but most particularly we would like to award prizes to popular, everyday, mainstream stories, essays and prose, as even a casual glance at our anthologies of winning and commended entries such as Keep Watching the Skies! An Anthology of Prize-Winning Short Stories will soon make plain.

You'll find full details at http://shortstorycontest.0catch.com

One of the key recommendations in my Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS is that you take a look at some of the entries that have won prizes in previous contests. This will give you some idea of the types and varieties of stories and prose pieces that have won prizes in the past. The book I recommend here is WATCHING TIME: Anthology of Prizewinning Essays & Short Stories

Amazon also stock two of our previous collections of winning prose, namely Keep Watching the Skies! An Anthology of Prize-Winning Short Stories as mentioned above, and Mr Christian and the Bag Lady: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Stories

And finally I notice Amazon are still selling the new, expanded edition of "Write Ways..." for only $11.25 (which is considerably less than the original edition, even though the new edition has more pages and lots more valuable information): Write Ways to WIN WRITING CONTESTS: How To Join the Winners' Circle for Prose and Poetry Awards, NEW EXPANDED EDITION

With all my very best wishes for your writing success in 2010!

John


Thursday, November 5, 2009

MOUTHWATERING NEWS

I WISH TO ANNOUNCE TO EARTH AND TO OTHER PLANETS THAT I HAVE OCCUPIED THE RUNNER UP POSITION IN THE TRIPBASE WRITING COMPETITION. LET US MAKE MERRY TOGETHER IN THE NAME OF CREATIVE WRITING.  I AM STILL AIMING HIGHER AND HIGHER. WITH THE PEN, THE COMPUTER AND THE INTERNET I CAN SHAKE THE UNIVERSE. THIS IS NOT THE END OF MY WRITING WORLD. IT IS NOT EVEN THE BEGINNING OF THE END BUT PERHAPS THE END OF THE BEGINNING.

BY EVANS SIMUBALI

CONFIRM MY GLORIOUS ACHIEVEMENT BY READING THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL AND SEARCH FOR MY WINNING STORY "MY AMAZING SUMMER HOLIDAY" IN MY BLOGGING KINGDOM.