Category Archives: Writing

by | August 15, 2011 · 11:00 am

achieving goals


so i finally posted the first of many blogs on my friend alina’s site, www.keydigitalproduction.com! it’s taken me a little more than a month to get started, but it’s there now and i’m pretty proud of it – i think alina likes it to. : – )  the post discusses the legend(s) of baba yaga and how i came to use her as a secondary character in my thesis/manuscript/novel. thanks to alina who’s been very patient while i attempted to create some order out of the chaos of my schedules. you can read and comment on the blog via the above link.

i’ve also secured one of the copy editor positions with www.hippocampusmagazine.com! (happy dance!) it’s a volunteer position, but nonetheless, an important one. managing editor donna talarico maintains high standards for her monthly online publication, and i’m proud to have been accepted as a member of her community. it also gives me additional experience to add to my burgeoning writer/editor resume! thank you, donna, for this great opportunity!

meanwhile, i continue to work on the creation of my own online literary magazine. it’s still in the works. i’m learning the intricacies of such a venture and enjoying the ride. my mfa internship with etruscan press (www.etruscanpress.org) is a great help with the finer details, such as creating a 501(c)(3), business plan, business structure and researching grants. no specific target date yet for the launch of the site, but i’ll be sure to let you know when i’ve narrowed it down.

meanwhile, loving the broadening of my writerly horizons, and hoping that all these educational and volunteer writing/editing adventures eventually fashion themselves into a viable career. until then, county government will continue to be the primary beneficiary of my (paid) administrative skills.

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by | June 28, 2011 · 12:52 pm

new adventures in writing


while at my bi-annual residency required for wilkes university ma/mfa creative writing degrees, i learned more about creative writing education, the wonderful wide world of publishing, and also delved a little deeper into my own motivations for being a writer. what i’ve come away with: the exciting opportunity to blog about anything and everything fantasy (including what’s going on with my own novel and other wilkes students/graduates’ projects!) on a friend’s fantasy website – thank you alina vitali!! so look for blogs soon from me on www.keydigitalproduction.com

another awesome opportunity that i jumped at when it presented itself was to create a literary magazine for my internship capstone in publishing. there are still some specifics to be worked out with my site & faculty mentors, but basically, i’ve come up with an initial “mini business plan” for this site – that i intend to grow beyond my capstone. it will be a legitimate literary magazine with its own website, etc., geared toward members of the military – all branches (including reservists & veterans) – and their families.

submissions will come from those associated with the u.s. military and their families. every genre – including visual art – will be accepted. my target audience will be members of the military, their family and friends, and anyone else supportive of our service members. several friends and acquaintances from wilkes – including my wonderful mentor david poyer, who’s retired from the navy – have already promised to submit pieces and pass along the word to their own contacts. yes, i’ll need to verify people are who they say they are, but i think i’m up to the challenge.

i’m thrilled to have this opportunity and the details are in the works. thank you to donna talarico, fellow wilkie, creator and editor of http://www.hippocampusmagazine.com/ for all the assistance and advice you’ve given me thus far!! it’s been invaluable.

so, be patient with me as i embark upon these two major undertakings, which will begin to take shape in the next couple of weeks. the literary magazine will be online to begin with – one issue per month – with plans for a yearly (or more as time/budget allow) between-the-covers publication.

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by | June 21, 2011 · 5:10 pm

getting back into “writerly” gear


i burned out this past semester. while revising my manuscript and creating a 25+ page literary craft paper. i hit rock bottom, writerly-speaking. my writing made no sense to me and neither did the books i was reading. i had to take a timeout. for about a week. no reading research, no writing the reviews, paper or revisions. just lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, trying to quiet my whirling thoughts…well…that’s what i WANTED to do. in reality, i still had a kiddo to care for & a job to show up for. but i was a train-wreck. in my mind i was screaming for relief. and there really wasn’t any. so i got it in gear. cried myself to sleep a few times, ranted to a few close friends who understood what i was going through, wrote rambling lines of nonsense and got back in the groove. but half-heartedly. i just wasn’t feeling it anymore…

being back together with my “community of writers” here at wilkes u in wilkes-barre, pa, is like being home away from home. i was both looking forward to and dreading the return. the first day or so, i was exhausted from driving straight through from south florida, stressing about my not-quite-finished craft project, manuscript revisions and paper presentation (i don’t have a problem with public speaking, just being unprepared), having forgotten to pack a few essentials, and the fact that internet access at the dorm was non-existent. i really wasn’t feeling like much of a writer.

after attending a few of the presentations on saturday, still had the blahs. spent hours in the computer lab polishing my presentation for sunday morning. because the internet STILL wasn’t working in the dorm. and the university “help desk” was an oxymoron.

paper presentation was successful. people complimented me on an interesting topic ( “Compliant and Defiant: How fictional authors use the craft elements of image, character and setting to successfully portray female Jewish protagonists” – just in case you were curious) and i got a few laughs at my initial attempt to pronounce “apocalyptic” – i always try to stress the wrong syllable & my tongue doesn’t want to wrap itself around the word.

catching up with old friends, orientation for the coming week, and attending the first night of readings helped me to feel more writerly. now that i’ve been immersed in classes for two days, building upon skills already learned in the ma portion of the program, i’m back! NOW the writer has returned. that thrum of excitement that comes with creating something from one’s own imagination is returning. excited about class projects and i expect the rest of the week to continue raising my energy level for the final stretch of the road ahead: internship (probably in publishing) and final (hopefully) revisions of my manuscript.

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