yes!

I got some happy news today. My friend who attended The Word Guild Awards Gala in Toronto last night phoned this morning and told me I'd won the award in the category Article for Children / Teens category. WOO HOO!!

The list of all winners should be on The Word Guild website shortly - after the weekend and the Write! Canada conference is over.

blogging today

here.

when is writing considered 'published'?

I've just read an interesting series of posts in a newly discovered poetry blog (Poetic Asides with Nancy Breen and Robert Lee Brewer). Nancy Breen is editor of Poet's Market. Robert Lee Brewer is editor of Writer's Market, Writer's Market Deluxe and WritersMarket.com.

What I gleaned from "Published is Published" by Ms. Breen is that a poem (or any piece of writing for that matter) is considered published (by magazine editors, contests etc.) if it has been presented for public consumption in the following places:

- on the printed page
- on the internet (where the public has access to it -- including on sites like Facebook. And removing a post doesn't change anything; if it's ever been published on the internet, it's considered published)
- read on the radio
- read/recorded on the internet (e.g.YouTube)
- read in an open reading where the reading has been recorded.

The work is not considered published:
- if it is posted on an internet forum where the poet needs a password to participate in a discussion or to read what's posted.
- if read in public but no recording is made.

Related:
- Is reading in public publishing your poem?
- The importance of setting poetry goals

Hat-tip: www.inkygirl.com via my weekly ICL newsletter - yeah, this is getting bunny-trailish!

winner!

I was thrilled, a few weeks ago, to find myself on the shortlist of the 2007 Word Guild Awards in three categories. The Word Guild is an association of Canadian writers and editors who are Christian. Every year they sponsor a contest where Canadian editors, publishers and writers can enter a variety of writing (from song lyrics to books) published in the previous year. Winners in past years have been such Christian literary luminaries as J. I. Packer, Mark Buchanan and Phil Callaway.

This year's winners were announced at a gala in Toronto last Wednesday, June 13th. I was not able to attend, so had no idea who won until this morning. On checking the Word Guild website, I found the winners posted (at last!)

I won two awards!!! Not in any category for which I was on the shortlist, though, but in two categories for which there was no announced shortlist: Children/Young Adult article (for "A Touch of Wonder" an article about the sense of touch, published by Guide - it's not online, though) and in the Review category (for a book review of Presumed Guilty [by James Scott Bell] syndicated by Advance.net, and published in cincinnati.com).

I am smiling. This is hugely encouraging (not to speak of the fact that I get a little back from the wad I blew on entry fees).

and the winners are ...

Today was the announcement of the Utmost Christian Writers 2007 Poetry Contest results.

Winners and links to winning poems were posted here at 4:00 p.m. MDT today.

Once again, as in 2004, Jan Wood won the top prize. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of this very talented Saskatchewan poet. Congratulations, Jan!

If you are a Christian poet and neglected to enter, all is not lost, however. Utmost is running two more contests.

Check out the rhyming poetry contest (entries to be received by May 31/07).
Check out the Novice Christian Poetry Contest (open to previously unpublished poets only - entries to be received by August 31/07)

drudgery

Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is. Drudgery is work that is very far removed from anything to do with the ideal – the utterly mean grubby things; and when we come in contact with them we know instantly whether or not we are spiritually real.

[...] It requires the inspiration of God to go through drudgery with the light of God upon it. ... When the Lord does a thing through us, He always transfigures it. Our Lord took on Him our human flesh and transfigured it, and it has become for every saint the temple of the Holy Ghost.

- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.

I read this yesterday and thought immediately of a vignette in Jamie Langston Turner’s book Winter Birds. Near the beginning, Aunt Sophie explains why she chose to live with her nephew Patrick and his wife Rachel versus other family applicants interested in looking after her in her old age in exchange for her estate on her death.

The first night of my visit with them, I had watched Rachel slice red potatoes for supper . . . . She handled the potatoes as someone working her way through a delicate puzzle. She first sliced each potato into four segments, then studied each quarter, as if measuring it into equal parts before laying her knife against its red skin. She sliced each quarter into three parts, then gently scraped them to one side of the cutting board before beginning the next quarter.

[...] Rachel took up the saltshaker and gave it four deliberate shakes into the water before turning on the eye. When it grew red, she wiped her hands on the apron she was wearing over her blue jeans, then opened a cupboard door and stared inside before reaching up to remove a can of green peas. She cranked it open with a handheld opener, then emptied its contents into another pan, rinsed the can, and threw it into the garbage.

[...] I hate small, constricted minds (the pictures on the walls were cliche prints of Negroes working as happy slaves and the cookie jar was in the shape of a fat, jolly Negro mammy), but I had seen Rachel slice potatoes and wipe her hands on her apron. I also saw her place a cube of butter in the pan of peas, open a can of biscuits, and take meat loaf out of the oven. It wasn’t the food itself that drew me but the slow grace of her actions, as of moving against resistance, like someone under water, someone capable perhaps of surprising, like a large mermaid.

Doesn't that put a new light on making a simple meal?

Additionally, the above reminds me of the Daily Sacrament Contest. The task is to explore, in short story form, the everyday in light of the eternal--or the sacred in the surroundings of the commonplace. The prize is $250 and publication in Relief. Entry is free!

about "My Messiah"

A few years ago when I was department head of the Grade 5 & 6 Sunday School department of our church, I had the idea of getting the kids to do a Christmas newspaper - but as it would have appeared at the time of Jesus’ birth. This meant we had to study those times, so we could put ourselves into the Bethlehem of the nativity. "My Messiah" was my own contribution to that project.

In 2001 I sent it to Essence Publishing, where it was included in the Christmas compilation Celebrating the Season 2001.

Finally, a few weeks ago, I resurrected it to be worked over by an online critique group. They offered many valuable suggestions on how to improve it. I edited it, and sent it to Dave Long’s Christmas fiction contest (webmaster of the faith*in*fiction blog). It appears here as one of a collection of Christmas stories (to which I will post links as soon as I have them).