Literary Confessional (Part Deux)

In an effort to balance the scales after I encouraged you to come clean about the books you haven’t read, how about exploring ones that you have?

Now, there are two ways to go about this and I leave the choice up to you (unlike that Frost guy, who, true to his ingrained sense of white, male superiority forced me to take the road less traveled by).

You can, of course, choose to talk about books that were truly meaningful experiences. These are the books you want people to know you’ve read because they make you look smart, thoughtful, or at least literate. There’s nothing wrong with this desire and I actually like hearing stories about these types of reading experiences.

For example, when I read Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays, I wanted to stop being a writer. That book is a clinic in how to write a novel. Nothing extra. Real people. Every chapter ends the way a great book should, and then another one starts. Sure, it’s a depressing account of the loss of meaning in 1960s Hollywood, but it’s so depressing you forgive it.

Or I could talk about Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey. I’d never heard of the 109-page novella about freewill and bridge collapses until I read it. And then, I wanted there to be six more like it so I could teach an entire class titled “See, this is what novels about faith are supposed to look like.” Of course, I’d shorten that title, but whatever.

So feel free to drop down to the comments if option one is the way you’d like to respond. However, if you are feeling more daring, choose option two. Tell me about the books you’ve read that you wouldn’t normally bring up in conversation. Here, let me help.

 I’ve read the novelization of the Mel Brooks' movie Spaceballs at least six times. It’s still funny. Ditto the novelization of John Hughes’ Some Kind of Wonderful. Only read that book if you want to a) feel good and b) revel in nostalgia (the good kind of nostalgia, not that kind that rewrites the history of, say, Native Americans to the point where they were happy to find the reservation).

There are of course other books I could list, but I’d rather you did. So pony up people and let’s hear about the books that moved you (or moved you to silence).

Michael Dean Clark holds a PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is an assistant professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California. Currently, he is taking a break from writing to hike Mt. Whitney and watch the NBA finals.

"The Greatest Show on Earth"

Gwen Weerts, author of "The Greatest Show on Earth" which will be appearing soon in Relief 4.1, writes about how her Creative Nonfiction story began.

I began drafting “The Greatest Show on Earth” in response to a very underwhelming circus performance, which at first led to an inquiry into the nature of spectacle. Interestingly (at least I think it’s interesting), the first draft of the story was written in play/script format, with scene details in italics, and narrative commentary ascribed to a narrator or voice over. I loved the form for this essay, but as the story developed, it became more and more about wonderment, the terrific, the terrible, and less and less about the observer and the observed. The narrator, stage directions, and voiceovers also quickly subsumed the dialogue. As I began to revise the story, I twisted and contorted the storyline to justify the form, but in the end the story won. Still, I love the idea of using the form of a script to advance a narrative, and I’ve been waiting for just the right opportunity to revive it.

I’ve heard it’s a bit of a faux pas to share early drafts of unrevised work (after all, we revise for a reason), but to convention I say “Ha!” So here it is, the opening scene to “The Greatest Show on Earth,” as first conceived:

Act I

Scene One

A mountain vista in the background.  This is Skyline Divide Trail on one of the last beautiful days of the fall.  The low blueberry shrubs have changed into their late-autumn attire, a brilliant russet garment that transforms the alpine meadows from gold to ruby.

Voice Over:  About Skyline Divide, the Hiking Whatcom County book says, “The hike is steep at first, then eases off in old-growth forest for 1.5 miles before reaching a small opening around 5,200 feet. The path soon crosses the wilderness boundary and meets the meadowy crest of the ridge, at one of those places where your whole body involuntarily just says ‘wow.’”

Four hikers enter, wearing packs.

Jen: So, how was the show?

Gwen: Mm, it was interesting.  The drumming was fantastic.

Joshua: The contortionist was . . .

Kris: Pretty amazing?

Gwen: Uh, went on too long. The woman finishes his sentence, one of those irksome things that married people do.

***

Gwen Weerts has an MA in nonfiction creative writing from Western Washington University. She works as an editor for an optical engineering society, and after spending her days immersed in algorithms, debating the most judicious use of a hyphen in the present lens design textbook, she spends her evenings and weekends writing and speaking in run-on, but grammatically perfect, gibberish to her husband, dog, cat, chickens, garden, and anyone else who who will listen. Her essays have appeared in the quarterly publication Adventures Northwest, and she is working on a collection of stories from her year living and learning in sub-Saharan Africa.  Her short story, "The Greatest Show on Earth," can be found in Relief issue 4.1.

Relief News Thursday 5.27.2010

Official 4.1 Cover

It's right there in the sidebar, and doesn't it look great?!

4.1 Presales

If you want to get yourself a copy of issue 4.1 for 25% off, you have three and a half more days to do so.  Presales for 4.1 will only be good until 11:59 PM on May 30. So hurry up and order a copy already!

New Buy Page

Our Web Editor--who is writing about himself in the third person right now--was up very late last night perfecting a new streamlined Relief store. This is because we will soon be offering all of our issues as eBooks for your computer, Kindle, Sony Reader, etc.  We are also discussing expanding our store to include the infamous Relief mug, as seen in pictures below. (We can't make any promises about adding it yet, but if you let us know how much you love it, the chances of it becoming available increase by 100 times--I promise.)

Attention 4.1 Authors

If you are a 4.1 author, please check the e-mail account connected to your Online Submission System account for an e-mail from me. There is some time sensitive information in there, and I don't want you to miss it.

Photo Haiku Wednesday 5.26.10

Photo courtesy of Elaina Avalos. Directions:

1. Write a haiku inspired by the photo and post it in the comments.

For extra chances to win:

2. Follow @reliefjournal on Twitter

3. Follow @Quo Vadis on Twitter

4. Twitter @reliefjournal with your haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

* * *

The good people over at Quo Vadis have generously donated some prizes!!

The weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

* * *

Winner will be announced via Twitter Thursday afternoons.

We can only ship to U.S. addresses right now.

You may only win once every three months, but you may play along every week for Twitter Super Bonus Points.

* * *

Would you like to have your photo featured on Photo Haiku Wednesday?

Email your photos to Michelle: photohaiku@reliefjournal.com

You'll get a photo credit link here on the main blog and you'll also be entered in the drawing for the Quo Vadis Habana journal and bottle of J. Herbin ink the week your photo appears on the blog!

Authors of Issue 4.1

Presenting the authors of our next issue:

	Tom Noe “The Soul for Sale on eBay,” “Hiroshima,” “Awakening Next to My Wife,” “A New Kingdom of the Old,” and “The Lecher and the Wise Man” Poetry Tom Noe is a professional editor and writer whose book publishing credits include: The Sixth Day (for children), Into the Lions' Den and A Friend in God. His most recent project was the libretto for an opera based on the story of Eros and Psyche from Ovid's Metamorphoses. He's currently working on a new play set in a Catholic Worker house of hospitality.
	Thomas Allbaugh “Transistor Radio: A Story of Love and Technology” Fiction Thomas Allbaugh has published both fiction and nonfiction in Blue Moon Review, Mars Hill Review, Perspectives, and Writing on the Edge. He teaches writing at Azusa Pacific University, where he also coordinates the first year writing program. His first year composition textbook Pretexts for Writing was published by Kendall/Hunt in 2009. He lives in Southern California with his wife of almost 21 years and their four children.
	Stacy Barton "I Read Chekov" Fiction Stacy Barton’s stories have appeared in a variety of literary journals including Potomac Review, Relief, Ruminate and Stonework. Her collection of short stories, Surviving Nashville, was released in 2007 and is available at www.wordfarm.net and/or www.amazon.com. Stay tuned for the release of the audio version of her collection, coming soon! In addition to short fiction, Stacy is the author of two plays, a children's picture book, a Ringling Bros circus, and an animated short film. Currently she works as a free-lance scriptwriter for the Disney Company. Visit her at www.stacybarton.com.
	Nicholas Samaras “Considering the Nature of God,” “Lighter Vessel,” and “The Along of My Time” Poetry Nicholas Samaras won The Yale Series of Younger Poets Award with his first book, Hands of the Saddlemaker. His next manuscript is a complete Book of Psalms (150), of which these are three samples. Currently, he lives with his family in West Nyack, New York.
	Michael Wiley "God is Playing to an Audience Who is Afraid to Laugh," "The Stain," "Take this Moment," and "Daniel's Moon" Poetry Michael Wiley is a geezer who spends most of his time wearing stretchy pants and watching wildlife from his back porch. He used to have a philosophy of poetry, but he lost it about the same time he started watching birds. He's not quite a Luddite, but he still uses rabbit ears, his internet connection is dial-up, and he checks his email about once a month. He welcomes comments on his work, but he is likely to forget just where he submitted it, so don't take his non-reponse to your comments personally.
	MaryAnne Wilimek “Passing from Darkness to Light*” Creative Nonfiction (*Editor's Choice) MaryAnne Wilimek lives in northern Minnesota where she spends a good deal of time in the woods or on the waters with her husband Gregg and her dog Murphy. She is fond of gardening, traveling, photography, and occasions for quiet reflection. Her poems and creative nonfiction narratives have appeared in Lake Country Journal, Dust & Fire, and Northwoods Woman. She has work forthcoming in Radix and The Gettysburg Review.
	Lynn Kilb "Eternal Life" Fiction Lynn Kilb is a former broadcast journalist who turned to corporate communications (because the money was better) and then to fiction (because money isn't everything). She is currently completing her MFA in Creative Writing through the low-residency program at the University of Nebraska, and is living the advice she got years ago from a former news director: Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. Lynn has just completed her first novel set primarily on the altar of a Catholic church in Wisconsin, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.
	Kenneth Steven "The Ice" Fiction Kenneth Steven is a full-time writer - poet, children's author and novelist. Some 25 of his books have appeared to date. He lives on the edge of Highland Scotland with his wife Ute, and from here he travels all over the UK to give readings and run workshops both for adults and youngsters alike. He's made a number of programmes for BBC Radio. Much of the inspiration for his work comes from the natural world; he spends as much time as possible walking in the woods and hills around the village where he lives.
	Josh Howatt "Unforgetting" Creative Nonfiction Josh Howatt is a freelance writer and editor. His writing credits include pieces featured or forthcoming in The Wilderness House Review, The Battered Suitcase, The White Whale Review, and Hear Us Roar. He is in the process of editing his first novel, The Law of Lilies, which he has begun shopping to literary agents and publishing houses.
	Jill Bergkamp "Sarah," "Leah," and "Ruth" Poetry Jill Bergkamp is a California native who now lives in Florida. A graduate student in Florida Atlantic University's MFA program in Poetry, Jill now serves as Director of Children's Ministries at the United Methodist Church of the Palm Beaches, as well as teaching English Composition. She was the recipient of Relief's first Editor's Choice Award, and a Rona-Jaffe Foundation Breadloaf Scholarship.
	John Fox "Requiem for a Daughter*" Fiction (*Editor's Choice) John Fox received a Master of Professional Writing degree from USC and an MA in Literature from NYU. He won the 2010 Third Coast Fiction Contest and was a finalist for the Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange Award. His fiction has been published in Tampa Review, Adirondack Review, and Los Angeles Review. At his blog, BookFox, he writes about short stories.
	Jenn Blair "Washed" Fiction Jenn Blair is from Yakima, WA. She has published in Copper Nickel, The Tusculum Review, the Santa Fe Review, and Cerise Press. Her chapbook All Things are Ordered is out this month from Finishing Line Press. She teaches at the University of Georgia.
	Jeanne Murray Walker “Fleeting*,” “Learning to Print Sophia,” “Conference: On Aging and Grief,” “Who is My Nieghber?,” and “St. Louis Museum of Art: Self Portrait” Poetry (*Editor's Choice) Jeanne Murray Walker, poet, playwright, and teacher, is the author of seven books of poetry, including A Deed to the Light, Coming into History, and, most recently, New Tracks, Night Falling. Her poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals, including Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, Christian Century, The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, Image and Best American Poetry. An Atlantic Monthly Fellow at Bread Loaf School of English, Walker has also been awarded a Pew Fellowship in The Arts, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, eight Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships, The Glenna Luschei-Prairie Schooner Prize, and other fellowships and prizes. For 20 years she was the Poetry Editor of Christianity and Literature. She currently serves on the Editorial Board of Image and Shenandoah magazines. Her manuscripts are archived in Special Collections at the Buswell Library, Wheaton College.
	Gwen Weerts "The Greatest Show on Earth" Creative Nonfiction Gwen Weerts has an MA in nonfiction creative writing from Western Washington University. She works as an editor for an optical engineering society, and after spending her days immersed in algorithms, debating the most judicious use of a hyphen in the present lens design textbook, she spends her evenings and weekends writing and speaking in run-on, but grammatically perfect, gibberish to her husband, dog, cat, chickens, garden, and anyone else who who will listen. Her essays have appeared in the quarterly publication Adventures Northwest, and she is working on a collection of stories from her year living and learning in sub-Saharan Africa.
	Eugenia Leigh “Angel Hunting,” “Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows,” “How I Drank Us to Death,” “Plastic Continent,” and “Illegitimi Non Carborundum” Poetry Eugenia Leigh received her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and has led poetry workshops for incarcerated youths and high school students. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Kartika Review, Inkwell Journal, and The Sow's Ear Poetry Review. Eugenia is a Korean American poet born in Chicago and raised in Los Angeles. She lives and writes in Brooklyn.
	Don Thompson “Truth,” “The Word,” “Fried,” “Sin,” and “Light Poetry Don Thompson has been publishing poetry for over forty years. He and his wife, Chris, live on her family's cotton farm in the southern San Joaquin Valley of California not far from the prison where he teaches. He has published several chapbooks in the past few years including Been There, Done That and Turning Sixty (March Street Press;) Sittin' on Grace Slick's Stoop (Pudding House;) Where We Live (Parallel Press;) and Back Roads, which won the 2008 Sunken Garden Poetry Prize.
	Christopher McCracken "But the Ball had been a Ball," "A Jar," "Empty Tree Full of Birds," "Heaven Will Smell Like the Airport," and "Ziplocked Everything" Poetry Christopher McCracken lives in Huntsville, Texas where he studies, among other things, creative writing at Sam Houston State University.
	Amy Frykholm "The Flesh of Strangers" Creative Nonfiction Amy Frykholm is a staff writer for The Christian Century. She is the author of two books: the recently released Julian of Norwich: A Contemplative Biography (Paraclete) and Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America (Oxford). She lives in Leadville, Colorado, the highest incorporated town in the United States.

Nicholas Samaras won The Yale Series of Younger Poets Award with his first book, "Hands of the Saddlemaker." His next manuscript is a complete Book of Psalms (150), of which these are three samples. Currently, he lives with his family in West Nyack, New York.

Literary Confessional

I don’t usually solicit comments on my blogs, but I’m going to this time. Shamelessly. Mostly, I’m asking for response because if I’m the only one who does what I suggest, I’m going to look like a tool. But, no pressure…

What I propose is a little confession. Writers are readers. It’s what we do. It’s where we steal borrow take learn our best techniques. And, well, we enjoy it. If not, we wouldn’t dream of telling other readers about how we wrote the book they love so much. (What, you don’t do that?)

But here’s the rub: we tend to lie about books we’re supposed to have read. Seriously lie, and not just by omission or that nod we give when people ask, “So, have you read (title of unread book goes here)?”

It’s a weird impulse. All these completely unrelated inadequacies jump up your throat when you’re standing with two or three other readers and they’ve all (apparently) read something you haven’t. They know something you don’t. They’re more literarily hip than you. They might not invite you to the next spontaneous book circle because you’re not cool enough. They might stuff you in the next available locker or mock your hair.

Now try that feeling in a Ph.D. program where people throw out books you’ve never heard of and EVERYONE has read them SIX TIMES. So you lie. You nod, dredge up some part of the Sparknotes summary you remember or, failing that, drop some random non-sequitur line from a Mel Brooks movie. Hopefully the conversation moves on and you put the book on your list of books you have to read before promptly forgetting about it until you’re shamed again.

So, I’m going to try and get out in front of this for once (and I think you should too). I figure, if I admit to some of the books on my list of “shouldas” it will hold me accountable to move them over to being “dids.” The following are books I may or may not have led people to believe I read:

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Seriously, I’ve read the first ten pages of this book twelve times and, true to my undiagnosed culturally-induced ADD, I drop it for the latest Chuck Klosterman offering. But, I’m told, if you’re going to read magical realism not penned by Borges, this is where you start.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

While this is really a lit-nerd’s pick (no offense to my friends who are lit nerds), this book is on so many contemporary top ten lists that I sometimes feel like avoiding the New York Times books section as much as the novel itself. I hear it’s quite funny and I am a sucker for footnotes.

Underworld by Don Delillo

While most people I know prefer Delillo’s White Noise (a great book I can attest to directly), I need to read this one if for no other reason than it really suffered for coming out at about the same time as Candace Bushnell’s terrible Sex in the City (a book that is actually worse than the horrible show is spawned). So I need to get over the weird temporal association I’ve made linking the two.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

I actually went to hear Diaz read from his novel a year ago and thought it sounded great. And then I got buried reading for my comprehensive examinations and writing my own book and never got back to it (not that my colleagues who I’ve spoken with about the book would have been able to tell).

Those are some of mine. What are some of yours? The confessional booth of the comments section awaits you below.

Michael Dean Clark holds a PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is an assistant professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California. While he has not read the books listed above, he has read many others. He has also (proudly) seen every episode of Walker Texas Ranger.

Photo Haiku Wednesday 5.19.10

Photo courtesy of Elaina Avalos. Directions:

1. Write a haiku inspired by the photo and post it in the comments.

For extra chances to win:

2. Follow @reliefjournal on Twitter

3. Follow @Quo Vadis on Twitter

4. Twitter @reliefjournal with your haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

* * *

The good people over at Quo Vadis have generously donated some prizes!!

The weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

* * *

Winner will be announced via Twitter Thursday afternoons.

We can only ship to U.S. addresses right now.

You may only win once every three months, but you may play along every week for Twitter Super Bonus Points.

* * *

Would you like to have your photo featured on Photo Haiku Wednesday?

Email your photos to Michelle: photohaiku@reliefjournal.com

You'll get a photo credit link here on the main blog and you'll also be entered in the drawing for the Quo Vadis Habana journal and bottle of J. Herbin ink the week your photo appears on the blog!

Relief News Thursday 5.13.2010

Presales are here!!!

As you can see in the side panel, presales for issue 4.1 are all ready! Order now to ensure that you reserve a copy from the first round of printing.

Also, just under the Relief presales, Lisa Ohlen Harris's new book, Through the Veil, is also available for presales. We've featured two pieces on our blog that didn't make it into her book. They can be found HERE and HERE.

Please support both Relief and Lisa Ohlen Harris by ordering copies of both books.

The official unofficial cover

As you can see in the presale portion of the sidebar, we have a cover for issue 4.1. While it may look impressive there, we're making the final touches to it before we send it off to be printed. When we get the polished cover, it will be featured all over the blog for you to marvel at. Until then, hold on to your feelings of reverence just a bit longer.

* * *

And...Today is Ian's birthday!

This is Michelle sneaking on unbeknownst to Ian.  Everyone please wish our Web Editor (and person we cannot live without) a very happy birthday!!

Photo Haiku Wednesday 5.12.10

Photo courtesy of Sheena Tatum.

Directions:

1. Write a haiku inspired by the photo and post it in the comments.

For extra chances to win:

2. Follow @reliefjournal on Twitter

3. Follow @Quo Vadis on Twitter

4. Twitter @reliefjournal with your haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

* * *

The good people over at Quo Vadis have generously donated some prizes!!

The weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

* * *

Winner will be announced via Twitter Thursday afternoons.

We can only ship to U.S. addresses right now.

You may only win once every three months, but you may play along every week for Twitter Super Bonus Points.

* * *

Would you like to have your photo featured on Photo Haiku Wednesday?

Email your photos to Michelle: photohaiku@reliefjournal.com

You'll get a photo credit link here on the main blog and you'll also be entered in the drawing for the Quo Vadis Habana journal and bottle of J. Herbin ink the week your photo appears on the blog!

Photo Haiku Wednesday 5.5.10

Photo courtesy of Michelle Pendergrass. Directions:

1. Write a haiku inspired by the photo and post it in the comments.

For extra chances to win:

2. Follow @reliefjournal on Twitter

3. Follow @Quo Vadis on Twitter

4. Twitter @reliefjournal with your haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

* * *

The good people over at Quo Vadis have generously donated some prizes!!

The weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

* * *

Winner will be announced via Twitter Thursday afternoons.

We can only ship to U.S. addresses right now.

You may only win once every three months, but you may play along every week for Twitter Super Bonus Points.

* * *

Would you like to have your photo featured on Photo Haiku Wednesday?

Email your photos to Michelle: photohaiku@reliefjournal.com

You'll get a photo credit link here on the main blog and you'll also be entered in the drawing for the Quo Vadis Habana journal and bottle of J. Herbin ink the week your photo appears on the blog!

Relief News Tuesday 5.3.2010

Submissions for 4.2 Now Open!

As of May 1, the submissions system for issue 4.2 was opened!  Go ahead and submit your best work through our Online Submissions System.

If you would like some insight about what we expect from submitters, go ahead and read our Editor-in-Chief's blog titled "An End to Questions."  It comes from the perspective of a fiction editor, but a lot of what he discusses is very helpful to anyone submitting to Relief.

Also, don't forget to look at our Submission Guidelines. While we're a very flexible group, any submissions that don't follow those guidelines have a really good chance of being put aside before the story is considered.

Issue 4.1 is almost done!

This should be the last week of formatting before issue 4.1 goes to print. In about a month, all of you who order pre-sales (available next Tuesday) will be receiving your very own copy of Relief.

Prayer for ccPublishing's President

Michelle Pendergrass took over ccPublishing (Relief's publishing company) just a couple of months ago, but she has hit some very hard times in the last few weeks with illness affecting both her mother and father-in-law.  We ask for your prayers for Michelle and her family as they go through this rough patch of life.

Care for a Sprout?

A while ago I read a post by David Pierce featuring the latest writerly technologies. Pierce implied we can't go back now to pen and paper, not when smartphone applications and so on exist. What kind of dufuses stick with old school? This year began for me with a fresh Moleskine and gel pen. I'm halfway through the little notebook now, jotting random ideas when they surge onto my brain's shore. I did this when my kids were little, capturing gems that I can always find preserved in my file drawer when I want them. Things like my daughter, at four, telling me we should really say "last day" and "last night," or else go with "yesterday" and "yesternight." Shakespeare would have been proud, I thought.

I'm sure the savvy Pierce would point out we now have mommy blogs for that. You can record your child's wisdom plus pictures and music -- all kinds of media, in fact, to make the best memories of moments.

This is true. I follow several amazing blogs by creative young women, most with kids. But the one or two or three I like best contain an interesting element that goes against the exhortation to leave old ways behind. They're by women who make use of technology while learning to sprout quinoa and ferment kombucha and cook and preserve and create and savor life by methods older school than I had imagined.

Then there's my son and survival info. He has found some good sites, like Survival Blog. Great for if you ever want to live off the grid. Or if we someday have to.

This is what gets me: middle of the night, waking to those lurking what-ifs, I drift into wondering. We never know where the country and economy are heading. We live on a planet brightening its orbit with electricity, but after a hundred years plus, we're tethered to that power source, albeit wirelessly. In the blink of a sunspot, everything could switch off, and we would really have to learn a few 19th-century survival methods. (Which reminds me, I need to jot down addresses of my blogging-mama friends whose homes are closest to mine. I'm glad they're learning what my grandma knew.)

Never happen, you say. And on spring afternoons, sunshiny with exercise after I get myself off the computer, I'm with you. I haven't sprouted any quinoa yet. But I'm still writing in spare moments on paper with pen and resting easier about retaining my little words and insights.

Deanna Hershiser enjoys tweaking technology and pondering theology at her blog. Her latest memory-musing about simpler stuff is forthcoming at The Shine Journal.

Photo Haiku Wednesday 4.28.10

Photo courtesy of Jaymi Spencer Photography. Directions:

1. Write a haiku inspired by the photo and post it in the comments.

For extra chances to win:

2. Follow @reliefjournal on Twitter

3. Follow @Quo Vadis on Twitter

4. Twitter @reliefjournal with your haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

* * *

The good people over at Quo Vadis have generously donated some prizes!!

The weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

* * *

Winner will be announced via Twitter Thursday afternoons.

We can only ship to U.S. addresses right now.

You may only win once every three months, but you may play along every week for Twitter Super Bonus Points.

* * *

Would you like to have your photo featured on Photo Haiku Wednesday?

Email your photos to Michelle: photohaiku@reliefjournal.com

You'll get a photo credit link here on the main blog and you'll also be entered in the drawing for the Quo Vadis Habana journal and bottle of J. Herbin ink the week your photo appears on the blog!

Relief News Tuesday 4.27.2010

Calvin Panel Video

As of right now, the video for the Relief/Midnight Diner panel at the Festival of Faith and Writing is still in the process of being split in the appropriate places, changed to a format that is compatible with YouTube/Vimeo, and we should have the first half posted on the blog this Saturday.  We apologize for it taking so long, but the video files are so big that they've been crashing Microsoft's Movie Maker every time it's loaded.  So look for it on here, on Facebook, YouTube, etc. on Saturday.

The Stickman Video

While at the Festival of Faith and Writing, the ccPublishing crew had a lot of fun.  A little too much fun, some might say.  A summation of one of those "too much fun" instances can be found HERE at Heather Goodman's blog.  Her post also contains a link to the "Stickman" video on Facebook.  You can expect that one to make it to YouTube on Saturday as well.

We also recommend  you read Heather's humorous "What I Learned at Calvin."  Some of it is inside jokes, but it is all useful information.

The Case Against Writing Manuals

Speaking of humorous reading recommendations, you should definitely go read "How to Write in 700 Easy Lessons" by Richard Bausch.  It's a great essay that recommends reading good literature over reading "How-to-write" manuals.

What Can I Do With Writing?

Stephen Swanson grows tired of the continual questioning of the power of communication, especially from students.  "Why would I need to write essays," has become a standard of expressing frustration, and even veteran writers feel that way sometimes.  So, he offers this micro-blog...

Why Writing Matters (Vol. 1):

It Pushes Me to Care

("Vol. 1" in no way implies that additional volumes will certainly come in the future, although they might.)

This week, I read this (http://blog.sojo.net/2010/04/21/arizonas-immigration-bill-is-a-social-and-racial-sin/), and it renewed my faith that writing can accomplish the task of informing and motivating in ways that stem from fundamental desires to congregate rather than divide.

Palabras, Parabolas, and the Perception of Flaws

This is the fourth and final installment in a series on “being” a writer. You can find the first three here, here, and here.

I suck at math. Just thought I’d start with that. I was alright until people started adding letters to numbers and then the unknowns won. Kicked my butt is more like it. My geometry teacher rounded up my 69.45 percent to a 70 so she wouldn’t have to oversee my repeating the class. Lucky her, she got me two years later in my second trip through Algebra II (a trip that ended in a gift B-). Tutors didn’t help. Calculators were useless.

The one thing that made sense to me was parabolas. I loved drawing parabolas. Still do. There’s just something spiritual about an infinite curve that meets at the base of its own horseshoe and while simultaneously angling up and away from itself forever. It was, for some reason, a more attainable idea than any Pythagoras ever came up with.

I’ve often wondered why I have this love affair with a diagram, as I’m sure you’re wondering why I feel the need to share my sickness with you. And yes, I do remember this is a column about writing. So let me attempt to make a little sense. When I was in college, I saw a 3-D rendering of a parabola in space. It was a simple computer image, basically turned to provide the depth lacking in the 2-D versions of my high school textbooks. I wanted to hug it. Now, I know why. That’s how stories should be.

In grad school we talk a lot about our “aesthetic.” When I talk to normal people, I call it “what matters to me when I tell a story.” Now I’ll tell both groups this – good stories operate in that three dimensional parabolic space.

First, I want my stories to operate along a vertical plane in which my characters do what I do – wrestle with a God who can be difficult to pin down or even feel at times. This does not mean all of my characters are Christian or even spiritual.But they are all confronted with divinity and respond in the variety of ways people do everyday. Without that vertical component, I see no point in telling stories.

But, just as the lines of a parabola move away from each other, so do many of the horizontal relationships of my characters. Life is hard. Love is harder. And people fall away from each other. Inherent in all of this are pain and hope and trauma and grace. But what I’m most concerned with is the continued presence of that point of connection, the joining of lives that would otherwise continue on, one moving gradually east while the other goes west. And that bond only really happens in the scope of a vertical and horizontal space.

And then there’s the third dimension – what I’ll call depth. For the first few years I flirted with the parabola, she was just a flat, u-shaped thing. But that slight shift of the picture opened up a possibility of growth and change that I want my characters to possess. Our culture trains us to judge people visually and immediately. We size up and reject or accept as soon as we can take in their hair, features, and clothes. Sometimes we make that choice sooner. But sometimes, if we wait, we experience something else about that person. And the experience opens us up to the possibility that our perceptions are flawed; that we are flawed. As a writer, I am possessed by the desire to communicate that our flaws are neither permanent, nor outside the healing influence of change.

So being a writer is about the depth of our flaws, the space between ourselves and the people around us, and the heights to which we are willing to climb or depths we will fall to find what is outside of ourselves. In other words, I’m still drawing parabolas, just without the numbers that might mistakenly make people think my fiction assumes certainty in and of itself.

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Michael Dean Clark is an author of fiction and nonfiction and now an Assistant Professor of Writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. He is also mere inches from earning a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin. His work is set primarily in his hometown of San Diego and has been known to include pimps in diapers, heroin-addicted pastors who suffer from OCD, and possibly the chupacabra.

Photo Haiku Wednesday 4.21.10

Photo courtesy of Elaina Avalos. Directions:

1. Write a haiku inspired by the photo and post it in the comments.

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4. Twitter @reliefjournal with your haiku and #PHW (Photo Haiku Wednesday)

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The weekly winner will receive a Quo Vadis Habana Journal and a bottle of J. Herbin ink!!

Every week Relief will choose a random winner! So play along and tell your friends. See the information below for extra chances to win.

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Photo Haiku 4.17.2010: Special Saturday Edition!

The following picture was created in a game that we played last night. (There is a video that explains where this came from on Facebook.) Write your haiku as a comment and come back often to see all of the other haikus that are written by other authors. (If you're on Twitter, please tweet your haiku with the hashtag #PHS. If you don't have Twitter, we will be tweeting some of the haikus that we love.)

Photos from Calvin - Day 1

Here are two pictures from the group we took towards the end of the day at Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing 2010. The rest of the photos can be found HERE on our Facebook page.  (Catch all of our updates on Twitter.)

Anne Lamott Tells You to Stop Making Excuses

This essay has been making the tweet and facebook rounds, and we at Relief thought it was worth sharing with you, too. Anne Lamott doesn't want to hear your excuses, and she's got a point.