Becky Haigler Editor/Partner, Silver Boomer Books

http://silverboomerbooks.com/ Author, not so GRIMM: gentle fables and cautionary tales http://laughingcactuspress.com/books.html#grimm

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate! I’ve put my poetry on the back burner for the last couple of months with the holidays and other things going on that prevented my time alone that I usually spend writing and submitting. I hope to get back into the swing next year! It’s been a year of bad health for me (4 surgeries from Jan-May for under the skin cancer on my face) and sinus/sore throat problems I have had since September. I’ll take a more in depth look at my year in writing later. Here is the story behind one of my favorite Christmas Carols, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.

October is Domestic Violence Month (see National Coalition Against Domestic Violence). TurnAround Inc. and W.A.V.E.  (Women Against Violence Everywhere) presents another year of The Purple Poetry Book. The call is for anyone who wants to submit poems, short stories and artwork about domestic/intimate partner/sexual abuse/ body-self images.  The Purple Poetry Book will be published in October, published authors are invited to read. The books will be  sold at TurnAround, Inc. events for a small fee to help support TurnAround, Inc. and its continuing efforts to bring a stop to violence against women in our community. Email aevans@turnaroundinc.org for more info. DUE Thurs. 9-15-2011!!

Here is my poem published in last year’s Purple Poetry Book:

Reflection

by Wynne Huddleston

You ruined my mirror—
each nasty insult from you
was a dirty fingerprint,
a purple circle on my
reflection. Smudge by smudge,
smear by smear, you covered it,

distorted my once-healthy
self-image until I
forgot who I
was. When I
looked at myself then, all I
saw was what you wrote—
“ugly, stupid, unlovable, sinner.”

 ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

Depressing Yourself

by Wynne Huddleston

Depression lends
itself
to surrender,
I mean
you feel
ugly and
unhappy—
what’s the point
in getting
dressed or putting on
makeup
or combing
your hair?
It’s much
easier
to face
the enemy
when you’ve gone
over
to their side.

first published in Camroc Press Review, Oct. 2010

ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

Alcohol Abuse:

Different Roads

by Wynne Huddleston 

in memory of Marcia Wilson Boyd
and C.J. & Crystal Harrison

Dear God,

Please let me wake up
to something different;

when the sun rises high at noon
let it be pink or green—
anything but hot yellow;

let the cattle in the pasture
sing like birds instead of that
awful dull moo;

let cats tell us what they are
thinking when they stare
so mysteriously;

let dark clouds become silver
helicopters that fly us up
to take a bite of chocolate moon;

and bring us down softly to grass
made of gold feathers instead
of hard beds of brown mounded
dirt and pillows of gray

stone. Or, forget all of that if only
You would go back

to that fateful day and delay
their journey to church,
or have the drunk driver take
a different road.

But if you can’t do either, I pray
You’ll give me strength to make it through
each lonely day, the wisdom to stay on
the right road, and the hope that I’ll meet
them again in such a beautiful place.

first published in The Shine Journal, July 2010

 ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

by Wynne Huddleston 

Red, red, red—
government control, swords
upon babies’ heads, staining
mothers’ souls.

Red, red, red—
abortion, coercion, sterilization,
feminine damnation,
perpetration, denies God’s creation.

Rein, reign, rain—
drowning full term babies
females plucked
and crushed like weeds.

Rein, reign, rain—
taking living, breathing
human beings, throwing
them away.

Infanticide, gendercide, suicide—
taken from the streets;
nowhere to hide
from the slaughter of daughters.

First version published in Poetry24, Tuesday, 14 June 2011

© Wynne Huddleston

How do you write about the hero’s journey? Vogler uses a Three Act Structure for his plot line and 12 Stages of the Hero’s Journey. I recently attended a meeting of the Meridian Chapter of the Mississippi Writers Guild in which playwright Elliott Street explained this to us. Being a musician, I immediately saw the correlation between sonata form and the hero’s journey. To continue reading more about this, please click here.

First the decline of Barnes & Noble and now the largest chain of bookstores, Borders, is closing. They could not compete with Amazon’s massive online presence. And Amazon is now selling more e-books than paper books.  Brett Arends of Market Watch warns us The bookstore massacre is coming. Not only are things like books, book stores, and cds disappearing, but cell phones may be fatal to us and other creatures!

The world is abuzz about a study (see original study) in Switzerland claiming that cell phones are killing honey bees.  Now others are saying that while the radiation may harm them, it has not been confirmed that it is killing them. Here’s a neutral view: from cnet news  which calls for a more conclusive study.

Do Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer? I had heard it was conclusive, but this article says more study is needed as in the case of the bees. To find out how much radiation YOUR phone is leaking see Get a Safer Phone.

Here’s my tongue-in-cheek reaction in a poem I wrote about the Kindle and other e-readers when they first appeared.

Empty Margins Rekindled

by Wynne Huddleston

We’ve come a long way—from feathered quills
to ballpoint pens, typewriters to computers;
from paper to laptops, and now, from books
to e-readers. It’s wonderful! At the touch
of a finger you can open an e-book in the new
computerized, iPhone-sized reader. Who

wants to hold a thick, new book, and have to
hold it in both hands to press it open, caress
each page as you turn it, mark your place
with an old envelope or an emery board,
and smell the newness… then have to put it
away on the shelf next to your treasured
photos, keepsakes and trophies. Who

likes the feel of ink staining permanence
as it flows like blood from their veins? Who
wants to hold in their hand a freshly sharpened
number 2 pencil in order to write? Who

wants to drag it across a waiting, virgin
white page, and have to erase or mark through;
scribble rhymes in the margins, draw arrows
and circles for what to move where, and, oh, dear,
check spelling with a real dictionary? Surely no
one wants to rekindle those days… do they?

© Wynne Huddleston

• Read a previous journal or sample if available. This will give you a feel for the style they prefer–rhyme, free verse, spoken word, confessional, etc…

• Also check the genre–such as fantasy, dark, experimental, or general.

• Make sure you follow the guidelines. Sometimes editors are very picky about this and will throw out a submission that did not follow their rules.

• Obviously you should check when the issue for which you are submitting will be published. For example, don’t submit a poem about winter when the issue is coming out in July, unless the theme is on winter.

• If your work is not accepted, read it again to see if there are any mistakes. Submit somewhere else suitable using the guidelines above. If it is rejected 3 or more times consider revising it, remembering to “cut it ’til it bleeds,” and “show don’t tell.”

• Finally, don’t give up! You’ll eventually hit the “write” time, the “write” place, with the “write” poem or story!