Posts Tagged ‘writers’

Featured Poem, ‘When There Is No Other Way,’ by Melissa Fry Beasley

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

top of the world

When There Is No Other Way

I have come
with the same heat
as the sun,
same cold as emptiness.
I am those before me.
This soil is my ancestors
and I am made of secrets,
things we become
when the light has gone.
Black and blue
like butterflies on fingertips
or birds eating some dead thing.
Men are made of consequence.
The world will give you reproaches,
but not relief.
We have risen from that
fearful bed,
the slime of it
clinging to us still.
Strong hands will close
reluctantly into fists
when there is no other way.

Melissa Fry Beasley is a Cherokee poet, artist, and activist from Oklahoma. She is proud to have red dirt running through her veins. She is the Literary Editor of Churn: an art, music, & fashion magazine. You can find her work in print and online in numerous publications including Indian Country Today, Working Effectively With Aboriginal People, Big River Poetry Review, Dog On A Chain Press, Yareah Magazine, and others. She has a blog at http://melissafrybeasley.wordpress.com/, and you can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.

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Want to see YOUR poem featured on ONS? Read this post first: submission guidelines are at the bottom. Good luck!

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Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Got five minutes? Help me create a magic book! (Please.)

Monday, April 22nd, 2013

wswmih

Hey ONS-ers. I have a big, big favour to ask.

I don’t often ask you guys for stuff. I’ve never run ads here, and I even took down my tip-jar ’cause I felt bad about it. But now I’m asking for your help, because I know you’re all super-cool individuals who know a damn good cause when you see one.

I’ve spoken a bit before, here (scroll past the inevitable cake pictures!) about the totally life-changing (really!) work I’ve been doing over the past year with a thing called The Making It Home Project. I won’t say too much about it here, because I want you to go and read all the details at this link instead, but I will say: this is the sort of creative work that I deeply, passionately believe in. Forget fancy book launches, forget big anthologies, forget even the humble poetry slam. This is what poetry ought to be doing with itself: opening up amazing new creative possibilities to people who might otherwise never have read a poem in their lives.

I’m being mysterious, so go see what I’m talking about! But first, listen to the following, heartfelt plea…

You guys all know the power of books — you wouldn’t read this bookgeek blog otherwise. You know there’s something about a book: they’ve got a special sort of magic that no other object has. And a lot of you know how much more magical a book becomes if it contains something that you yourself wrote… right? Well, we want to make a really, really magical book. It’ll be a book we can give to the incredible women we’ve been working with, so they can also experience how awesome (literally) it feels to hold and read and share a book that has your words in it. It’ll also be a book we can give to all of you — for free! — to show you the amazing work these groups of women have been doing.

I’d like to ask you to do three small things.

One: watch our video.

RST Poetry Film taster from media co-op on Vimeo.

Two: click on the link in the image below, go and read more about what we’re doing, and how we plan to make our book.

Three: if you can (and only if you can), donate a pound or two to our cause. Any donation over £5 gets a reward… the more you give, the bigger and cooler your reward will be. If you can’t afford to donate, that is totally OK. But I’d be super grateful if you could spread the word around to anyone you think can help us.

These three things will take you what? Five minutes? If that. But your five minutes will make a massive difference and I promise, I will be very, very grateful to you!

Thanks guys. You rock.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

Featured Poem, ‘Reducio Ab Absurdum,’ by Colin McGuire

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

Poetry @ The Rag Factory 14/12/12

Reducio Ab Absurdum

Shakespeare’s more a performance poet
a throat poet, a fire and tongue type.
A poet of larynx, a diaphragmatic breathing poet
Not a serious poet in a gentleman’s jacket.

I’m a page poet; a take the time and consider
the exact length and breadth of the line poet.
I am an architect with form but never formulaic.
I am a master of design but not mastered by design.

Heaney’s more a performance poet;
a wave-your-arms-and-gesticulate-wildly-and-know-it.
A show it all and throoooooow it at you poet.
Not a serious poet who reads the classics and shows it.

I’m page poet, a literary allusions and allegorical conclusions poet.
A lay subtle structure which unravels a slow-burning conundrum poet.
I take the time to make something so delicate even a breath could break it
yet it withstands that breath, and you cannot fake it.

Sexton is more a performance poet; a shout at the top of your soul poet.
A rant in the mirror solipsistic I-alone-exist-and-will-prove-it-poet.
A should have been an actor instead but never knew it poet.
I wrote this on the loo and you can whiff it poet.

I’m a page poet with stable demeanour and quiet composure.
I build poem liners out of the thin matchsticks of words
and they set sail quietly on calm waters across oceans of eyes.

Rimbaud is more a performance poet.
A of the internet-attention-deficit-quickly-type-it-with-no-edit-poet.
A scribbler of slapdashery, a knee jerk reactionary bound to be burned
as waste under the well read eye of reality.

I’m a page poet. An on the crusade poet. Here to explode
the false dichotomy of page and perform it, show and tell it poet.
Let the words carry the weight we carry. Let tastes divide.
Quality lingers upon the shelf life longer than the debate will have it.

(In the jungle the soul’s wild eyes glare white in the shadow.
The cauldron of the heart sounds like a warm drum.
We continually reach out to that which is comprehensible.)

McGuire: A thin 30 year old Glaswegian man, touch giddy in the head, sometimes poet of mangled form and dirty prose, sporadic drummer, drunk grammarian, waffler, painter using crayons, lover, hater, learner, teacher, pedestrian, provocateur, wanderer, confronter of shadows, irritating whine. He mines the darker regions of Scottish Culture and Psychology. McGuire has produced a collection of poetry and short stories, printed by ClydeSide Press called – Riddle With Errors – and is currently working on a pamphlet due for release in 2013 with Red Squirrel Press. He reads regularly in Scotland and England. Find out more at: http://a-glaswegian.blogspot.co.uk/

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Want to see YOUR poem featured on ONS? Read this post first: submission guidelines are at the bottom. Good luck!

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Featured poem, ‘Fun With Therapy’ by Heather Bell

Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

self-ish

Fun With Therapy

The problem with poets is we like
to sound more interesting than we
are. The poet goes to therapy and says
she has been skinning herself

alive. How interesting! How probable and
dark! The poet writes long letters

to the therapist in which she says

her skills are in high demand, such as

tilting men, finger to head, toppling
them over. Poets like to take it too
far,

disease themselves. No one is ever truly

that lonely, the therapist tells
her. The poet

writes a list of possibilities: tomb
herself into

the house like a pharaoh, disappear. The
moon

is a supermarket, she says. The cat
refuses to come
home. How beautiful and weird! How
humble of

her to acknowledge she has gone off the
deep end,

so early in the game. Here she sees a
sky of clouds in the blot. There she
sees knuckles and a wad of flesh. The
therapist evaluates

the situation like it is a police report:
woman’s face is a tight shiny surface of
worry. Woman’s hands keep moving over
this disappointment. Woman

says she hasn’t told the truth for years
and we have to believe her.

Heather Bell’s work has been published in Rattle, Grasslimb, Barnwood, Poets/Artists, Third Wednesday and many others. She was nominated for the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Pushcart Prize from Rattle and also won the New Letters 2009 Poetry Prize. Heather has also published four books. Any more details can be found here: http://hrbell.wordpress.com

Want to see YOUR poem featured on ONS? Read this post first: submission guidelines are at the bottom. Good luck!

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Featured poem, ‘Embroidering Chinese Pin Cushions’ by Jennifer Wong

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012

103/365 (Explored!) Chinese Pin Cushion

Embroidering Chinese Pin Cushions

We start with a satin circle,
fill it with wood shaving or cotton,
steady the centre, cut out

six square cloths to make
six little dolls whose hands
are almost touching.

Grandma lets me draw their beady eyes,
their meek smiles. You fix them in the right places.
Grandma teaches me how to plait their hair.

From early evening until midnight
We’d sit, talking as we work,
the kerosene lamp glowing in the dark.

We’d make enough to fill
the red-and-blue tarpaulin bag:
three dollars for a cushion. A fortune.

Next day we’d bring our satin needlework
to the missionary church
where the sisters would teach us a song,

Admiring the stained glass windows
and the brass eagle on the altar,
we’d hide our blistered fingers in jingling pockets.

Originally from Hong Kong, Jennifer’s poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Lung Jazz: Young British Poets by Cinnamon Press, Frogmore Papers, Iota, Orbis and others. Her poetry collection, Summer Cicadas, was published by Chameleon Press and her second collection is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. In 2012, she was writer-in-residence at Lingnan University of Hong Kong, and took part in the Poetry Parnassus hosted by the Southbank Centre. She is based in London and works for Magma Poetry.

Want to see YOUR poem featured on ONS? Read this post first: submission guidelines are at the bottom. Good luck!

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Featured poem, ‘Most Fateful Day: A Ghazal’, by Susan Chast

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Autumn Apples

Most Fateful Day: A Ghazal

A hiss echoed from its spiked tongue and you thought
That the snake had not lied to you in word and in thought?

Watch it slide away and take the apple along too
Neither giving it to you nor to God as we thought

Your tell-tale teeth marks are in it too, along with my own—
Seeing our DNA together, the snake will know that you thought

We’d be together in Eden or in jail and– no matter how much
We pay for it–happiness follows this ability to have thought.

But doubt is quite difficult. I liked it much better
When fate was determined and we need not have thought

About all of the options, the leaves of the trees, whether
To beat you or to love you. I wish I had thought

This before, dear Lady, I opened my mouth to your pleases
And caresses and most seductive scatterings of thought.

Susan Chast’s work has been workshopped at dVersePoets and Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads. One of her poems was recently published in the first issue of Nain Rouge Magazine. She blogs at Susan’s Poetry, and you can find out a bit more about her in this interview at Poets United.

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Want to see YOUR poem featured on ONS? Read this post first: submission guidelines are at the bottom. Good luck!

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

More words of wisdom: Douglas Maxwell on the writing process

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Stage mic

Roughly two years ago I posted here about my first ever encounter with the incredible Scottish playwright Douglas Maxwell. He gave a great masterclass on theatre writing — and just on writing in general — for the Scottish Universities International Summerschool, and I was blown away. Since then, I’ve got to know Douglas’ work much better — most recently, I’ve bought his new book, Plays for Young People (psst, it’s awesome), and this Festival I went to see his Dream Play at the Traverse (it was called A Respectable Widow Takes To Vulgarity. Needless to say, it was excellent). But best of all, he was back at SUISS again this year with more words of wisdom for our young writers. Here are just a few I wanted to share with you…

“[Writing] isn’t craft. This is art. There is no rule you must always follow, no matter what all those books say… and you will learn more from just doing your own work than from anything beardy fools like myself say.”

“The temptation for a writer to give up is probably the most constant temptation you’ll face — and you’ll never really break through to a time when everything you write is classic. But you must not give up.”

“You’re writing for a small audience of people like you, not Lord and Lady Such-and-Such. It all works better when you think of the audience as us. Not them — not, I’m going to shock them, or, I’m going to educate them. That’s not the way to go.”

“It’s subterranean autobiography. We’re writing about us. You can write about a world event, but what does it mean to you? Start with real life, and then drop a storybomb in there.”

“There’s nothing wrong with writing as a hobby, but if you really want to really do it you have to finish. You have to write ‘The End’, and send it out there. Otherwise it doesn’t count.”

“Who wants to read a writer who’s got a thick skin? Who says, ‘I love his writing — he’s completely oblivious to the thoughts and feelings of others’? Writers have to have thin skins, they have to be sensitive people.”

“Emotional writing is where it’s at. But when it goes badly, the blood gets everywhere.”

“You’ve got to remove guesswork — either by writing about your own life, or through research. But never guess.”

“It’s hard, because how do you find a voice? It’s a bad phrase, it’s the wrong way around. You’re not trying to find your voice, you’re trying to find a song to sing that suits your voice.”

“If you’re doing it for the money, don’t do it. It’ll kill you… you write it first and then you try to find a home for it. That’s how it really works.”

You can read more of Douglas’ tips for writers in his Playwright’s Guide To Being A Playwright.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

One Night Stanzas presents WATSKY x 2 with George Watsky and Paul Watsky

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

goggles

So… he’s appeared in so many One Night Stanzas posts over the years that — if you visit this site even vaguely regularly — you must know by now. I AM A HUGE GEORGE WATSKY FANGIRL. I’ve thought his poems were awesome since his Def Poetry Jam appearance in 2007. I’ve listened to his self-titled album on countless bus-rides to work to keep my spirits up. I’ve shown his poetry performances to students in my writing and literature classes, because they always dig his stuff. He’s one of my favourite contemporary poets.

So, you can probably imagine the level of SQUEE that happened when George contacted me on Twitter in response to an excited tweet I wrote to say I had tickets to his sold-out London show in August. I added the daft, only-half-kidding hashtag #pleaseplayaScotlandgigtoo. He responded, asking if I knew a venue that might host. Naturally, I leapt at the chance to organise the whole shebang myself, and One Night Stanzas presents WATSKY x 2 was born…

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One Night Stanzas presents WATSKY x 2: an evening of spoken word with George Watsky, Paul Watsky and special guests.

Tuesday 7th August 2012
Doors 7.15pm
Henderson’s at St John’s
Tickets £7 from the Eventbrite page

One Night Stanzas is proud to present an evening of spoken word starring two very different, very exciting poetic talents from the USA.

This is an exclusive, one-off event to mark the end of George Watsky’s multiple-city summer tour. This is the first time that WATSKY x 2 have performed in Scotland and it is their only Scottish tour date.

Come along and enjoy an explosion of spoken word in the beautiful “vaulted dining room” at Henderson’s at St John’s.

George Watsky is a rapper, writer and performer from San Francisco now living in Los Angeles. He won the Brave New Voices National Poetry Slam in 2006 and appeared on the final season of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry in 2007. He has subsequently performed at over 150 universities across the country.

Rapping all the while under the name ‘Watsky,’ George self-released the barely-heard jazz-hip hop record ‘Invisible Inc’ in 2007 and the self-titled ‘Watsky’ in 2010, which peaked at #7 on the iTunes hip hop charts. In January 2011 George’s fast rapping went viral and led to two appearances on the Ellen Show, a slot on Last Call with Carson Daly, and an exploding online profile.

George has performed at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, the NAACP Image Awards on FOX, three times at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and has been featured in XXL, Billboard Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine. Find out more about George at his website.

Paul Watsky lives in San Francisco, and earns his living as a clinical psychologist. He began writing poetry while he was a teenager, and his work has been widely published in literary journals over the past eight years. In 1996 and again in 1997 he was awarded Second Place in the Haiku Society of America’s Gerald Brady competition.

Paul published a full length book, entitled Telling The Difference, in 2010 (Fisher King Press, available through Amazon UK), and in 2006 he was co-translator with Emiko Miyashita of Santoka a collection of work by the well-known 20th century haiku poet (PIE Books, Tokyo). He has a couple of poems in the current issue of The Carolina Quarterly, and online in The Puritan, which is published out of Toronto. Find out more about Paul at his website.

This event will also feature special guests — details TBC.

Henderson’s at St John’s is a fully licensed vegetarian and vegan cafe, and is open until 1am.

Tuesday 7th August 2012
Doors 7.15pm
Henderson’s at St John’s
Tickets £7 from the Eventbrite page

TICKETS from Eventbrite

TICKETS from Eventbrite

TICKETS from Eventbrite

TICKETS from Eventbrite

TICKETS from Eventbrite

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

(Photo credit)

Where is Claire?

Monday, February 6th, 2012

10-Red

So although I promised myself at the New Year that I’d have a quiet year in terms of performing, it seems I’ve managed to get myself signed up for all manner of interesting literary shenanigans in the coming weeks. If you fancy coming to see me read poems, talk about poems and generally Witter About Stuff, here are the places to be…

10-RED, Wednesday 15th February, 19.00, The Persevere Function Room, Edinburgh. £3.00 entry.
10 RED is an evening of poetry in the beautiful Victorian Lounge of the Persevere Bar, Easter Road, Edinburgh. All the poets performing are published by Red Squirrel Press, who kindly published my pamphlet, The Mermaid and the Sailors, early last year. I’m hoping to try out some new material on a friendly crowd! Some great folk on the bill, too — worth coming along for McGuire alone! You can see a trailer for the event right here:

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“Making Poems, Writing Histories, Excavating Myths”: a lecture by Claire Askew for the Melrose Literary Society, Tuesday 21st February, 19.30, The Ormiston Institute, Melrose. £3.00 entry, non-members welcome.
The truly lovely people at the Melrose Literary Society have asked me to come and talk about my current research, and I am incredibly flattered, very excited and utterly terrified all at once. Come and hear me grapple with the question of Why We Write Poems, and investigate the ways in which poetry informs history, history informs myth and the two inform all kinds of creative writing. You’ll also get chance to ask me probing questions!

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Edinburgh Literary Death Match: March, Tuesday 27th March, 19.00, Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh. £5.00/£8.00 ticketed — get tickets here!
You’ve probably heard of the massive worldwide phenomenon that is Literary Death Match…? If not, get on it, because it’s a big deal! I’m super flattered to have been nominated (by the fabby @LynseyMay) and invited to perform at Edinburgh’s hippest literary outpost. The Voodoo Rooms is a gorgeous venue and I’m up against some serious talent… Gavin Inglis = legend! Grab your tickets, quick!

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Three Red Squirrel Poets at Trashed Organ’s “Belonging Fest” Opening Night, Monday 30th April, venue and time TBC, Newcastle
Details of this one are still TBC, but let’s just say it’s going to be good. Watch this space!

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Got an event you’d like me to read at? Talk about? Attend? Email me via claire @ onenightstanzas.com and tell me about it!

Procrastination Station #100: THE ALL-TIME BEST OF

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

100 with peeling paint

So yep — terrifyingly, I have managed to procrastinate my way to 100 whole posts of weird and wonderful blog links, Youtube videos and other internet flotsam over the course of my three-and-a-half years at the helm of One Night Stanzas. In recognition of this epic event, I decided to trawl through all 100 previous procrastination station posts, and bring you my pick of the best lovely links so far. Let the wwilfing commence!

I never did buy the waterproof notebook, but now I’ve remembered about it I sure am coveting it again!

“Few who believe in the potential of the Web deny the value of books. But they argue that it is unrealistic to expect all children to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “Pride and Prejudice” for fun. And those who prefer staring at a television or mashing buttons on a game console, they say, can still benefit from reading on the Internet. In fact, some literacy experts say that online reading skills will help children fare better when they begin looking for digital-age jobs.”

What effect does the Internet have on literacy rates? Will the web kill reading?

All-time favourite words from around the world.

Want a web/phone app that FORCES you to write? You got it!

“Although we all have stories to tell very few of us have a book worth writing in us. I am with John Milton when he argues in Areopagitica that “a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life”. Very few of us are great poets.”

The old adage, “everyone has a book in them?” Not true.

A hilarious list of “ways to be cool.”

“Well, I like poetry that is amusing, that maybe makes me chuckle a little. I’d rather read something reassuring and light than something complicated or gloomy. Is that bad? Does that mean I am a jerk?”

Smart answers to some of the common, and really stupid, questions people ask about poetry.

Want to look up that poem you heard in a movie? Here’s your resource.

Not writing-related (except perhaps for the fact that the blogger misspelled “hilarious” in the post title!), but I greatly enjoyed revisiting these funny/creepy US church billboards.

A great series of interviews with poetry editors.

Altered books is a huge and beautiful vispo and book art resource. So is Fuck Yeah Book Arts!

I have a tattoo of one of these babies now, so it was cool to learn a little more about the ampersand.

“The cash registers were idle much of the time, but the [book]store was full, seemingly peopled by freeloaders sitting in chairs with stacks of books piled at their feet. What was appearent was that very few of those books would be purchased and the books in turn would be dog eared, bent , battered and otherwise made less than pristine. The staff, in turn, seemed as though they could give a flat fuck about the state of the store; sections were out of order. Vain as I am, I wanted to yell at someone.”

CHEAPSKATES AND DEADBEATS KILL BOOKSTORES! — & see some of the world’s coolest bookstores, in pictures.

Colour Me Katie has some sweet, simple rules for Living A Creative Lifealso in pictures!

How could I possibly exclude Gala from an epic link-love round up? One of my all-time favourites of hers was Very Definitely Not Dinner and a Movie.

Holy freaky book art, Batman!

“Certainly you may buck the conventions of the query letter if your work is too amazing/revolutionary/brilliant to be summarized. Why don’t you also try applying for jobs without a résumé, using only your psychic powers. Let us know how that works out for you.”

The ultimate, and I mean THE ULTIMATE take on submission guidelines, by the one and only Rejectionist.

I’m really bad for auto-apologising. I clearly need to re-read this article, on stuff you should never apologise for, and why.

I think I’m in love: a Flickr group devoted to the coolest customised Moleskines on the planet. Hipstertalent!

Ever wondered how a publisher goes about choosing the perfect covers for their about-to-be-published books?

DIY Pirateship Armada: PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIVE HERE. (I am jealous of them.)

“Inside my sheltering head: the sound of rustling green. Husband,
you are the riddle beneath which I dream blossoms and birds, but
when I wake, icicles hang from the eaves, the size of a man and twice as lethal.”

Here’s my favourite poet, being awesome.

Want a story on your shirt? A limited edition story, no less? Head to I Love Boxie.

HOT GUYS READING BOOKS. Enough said.

“We’re all practitioners of an art that doesn’t generally interest or impress the vast majority of people, and most of us will struggle to be heard, read, enjoyed and make a living out of our art. It is therefore quite darkly hilarious that many poets do not read other poets work, and nor do many performance poets attend performance poetry events.”

Jenny Lindsay is fabzilliant in this guest post at LumpInTheThroat, about the “divide” between page and stage.

What happens when bad men are also great writers.

Neil Gaiman’s assistant tells you the 10 Things you should never send to your favourite writer (no matter how obsessively you love them).

Think you can’t fight crime? Try making your damn bed!

How to be the most annoying author ever and why dating a writer really isn’t all that cool.

“Someone wants to kiss you, to hold you, to make tea for you. Someone is willing to lend you money, wants to know what your favourite food is, and treat you to a movie. Someone in your orbit has something immensely valuable to give you — for free.”

I’m not normally into all this self-help type stuff, but the Manifesto of Encouragement is pretty darned encouraging!

You’ve got to love Hark! A Vagrant!. It’s like, the law.

“You think I’m stupid. You think I’m immature. You think I’m a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I’m Comic Sans, and I’m the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.”

Comic Sans speaks out at McSweeneys

A really interesting blog about the difficulty of being a self-promoting artist.

Hey, remember Jacqueline Howett and her comment rage?!

Writing a female character? Use this flowchart!

“Some blind date has persuaded you to go to a poetry slam. On the stage you see people shouting horrifying personal and global traumas with lines like “And I wonder / if George Bush was a woman / would he still let his Dick / do most of his thinking?” A valid question, but it is not the type of ambience that leads to a second date.”

Why everyone hates poetry.

My favourite webcomic strip of all time, I think.

Photos of female writers looking awesome in spite of these disturbing publishing trends.

Typewriter p0rn!

“”Oh, yes. That. Well, the sperm comes out of the man’s penis and it goes into the woman’s vagina. This happens when the two do what’s called, ‘have sex’. And that’s where the egg – there’s usually only one in the woman’s pond at a time – gets fertilised.” Only after the fact did I realise that I had said the words penis and vagina and sex in a strained, sotto voce tone. This was also something my own mother would have done.”
When The Birds and The Bees Talk gets out of control…

Photos of great writers at their typewriters!

Who doesn’t want to see great writers go head to head in a war of words?

“A student said to me yesterday, “I didn’t know professors could have long hair.” I said, “They can. If you do something well, people won’t bother you. That’s true in all professions. If you are the one guy who can fix the computers, you can keep a boa constrictor in your office. No one will say a thing.” His eyes flashed. Possibly he “went over to the dark side”… or something. I felt happy for 11 seconds.”
I still think about this article a lot: on teaching creative writing.

So… why do we all want to be ‘well read’ anyway?

Writing an application for an MFA? Some crucial dos and don’ts.

“If a customer tells me she’s looking for a book by a man and there’s a girl in it but she can’t remember the author or the title, I give her Lolita. If she’s looking for “that popular book about the animals”: Animal Farm. “That controversial book my book club is reading”: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. “The book with a red cover and the word ‘the’ in the title”: The Joy of Sex. I’m a bookseller, not a magician. My dark-framed glasses and skinny jeans possess only so much magic.
If you read nothing else from this post, read Bookseller I Would Like To F***.

So funny. So cringe-y. So true. The Ultimate Celebrity Interview.

25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing Right Fucking Now.

I loved this so much at the time and rediscovering it was a joy! Serious patience and craftsmanship right here:

Basically the most bad-ass bloke ever right here:

My favourite Lady Gaga song. For reals.

My little sister is megatalented.

I SO HEART GEORGE WATSKY.

My favourite short film of all time. (+ an amazing soundtrack!)

Wizard Smoke from Salazar on Vimeo.

Watch. Be amused.

Edinburgh’s hippest cyclist.

Sweet song, and the cutest music video ever.

It’s terrible, but you kind of have to love it.

What he said.

“I’m going to write smart things about Death in Literature.”

Shakespeare vs Dr Seuss (OMG Watsky <3)

Phew! Here’s to the next 100. Have a great weekend!

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One Night Stanzas loves mail. Say hello via claire@onenightstanzas.com. NB: I am physically unable to reply to non-urgent stuff unless I have a free afternoon and a cup of tea in my hand. Please be patient!

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