Toby Ng - The World of 100

Have you ever asked yourself, what would the World look like as a small community of 100 people? Probably not. However, it is something to think about, as the reality would be startling - as much as you’d think so, the village would only have 7 computers, and only 1 person in the World Village would be educated at University level.

These facts are something that designer Toby Ng has thought about very carefully, and turned the results of his findings into a series of twenty infographics depicting ‘The World of 100’. Although aesthetically beautiful, with sharp lines and bold, vibrant colours, these infographics are often horrifying. 

The posters look as though they have come straight out of a children’s book; is this to mirror the naivety of those that are most likely to be looking at them on their computers?

“Look, this is the World we are living in.”

- Toby Ng

this will help people understand some shit i presume. simple people like pictures.

(via carlalouvengeance)

—

Staceyann Chin:

why chasing straight women

still thrills me

They take ages to seduce, they're rubbish in bed – and then they go back to their boyfriends. But Staceyann Chin still can't resist turning a straight woman's head

• By Staceyann Chin
• guardian.co.uk

• Friday 20 April 2012 

Staceyann Chin: 'You are the chosen one, the messiah, the mandate that pulls her, magnetic, toward her most hidden desires.' Photograph: Melissa Mahoney

There may be a thousand reasons why lesbians love the thrill of a straight girl. Maybe women who chase women possess the same rabid ego we despise in straight men, the same ego that makes a person go giddy at the thought of being "the first" for the straight girl in question. The heterosexual terrain of her flesh, untouched by other dyke hands, smacks of the virgin narrative. Who wouldn't want to be "the first"? Who doesn't like what feels like a conquest? A win?

Maybe it is the thrill of conversion – and that is only if any such crossover can be deemed a conversion. Who is to say such conquests were not sleeper-lesbians, just waiting for the right moment to awaken? I suppose, though, through the right lens, the process could be described as evangelical, this business of meeting, and courting and having a woman decide to jump the heterosexual ship to be with you (even if it is temporary). More often than not, the crossover is accompanied by confessions of, "I've never done this with anyone before." Or, "I'm not into women, there's just something about you that makes me want to try this." Either way, you are the chosen one, the messiah, the mandate that pulls her, magnetic, toward her most hidden desires.

Or maybe we are just like everyone else, desperately looking everywhere for love. Whatever it is, the phenomenon excites us; this lascivious dance between the narrow spaces occupied by the women the world wishes we were and the women who sometimes wish they were us keeps the tradition of lesbians chasing straight alive and flourishing. Yes, we crack mean jokes about it – who wants to invest in a relationship with a LUG? (Lesbian until graduation.) And, yes, we complain about the true cost of cavorting with the bi-curious – the eventual sexual frustration (often, our sexual favours are not returned during lovemaking). But we all do it, over and over and over again, until something happens that makes us say, no more. And this resolution can last for quite a while – years even – until the next dangerously intriguing straight woman struts by, flirting at us, daring us to make her cross the line.

So, invariably, at the average lesbian gathering, the conversation makes its way round to the trauma the dyke heart endures, the collective agony of desiring the almost gay. Most lesbians have a coming of age story about how they survived such a woman. Occasionally, a couple in the room will confess that their 10-year-long, committed, exclusive relationship was born of such a pairing, but too many stories end with the same sad summary. Yes, she went back to her boyfriend. Or, she is married now, to a lovely feminist man, with a baby, or two, on the way.

My story is no different. And while I am the first to ask for the gory details from other women, I am the last to fess up to the rapturous, but futile years I spent chasing women who identified as straight. My excuse is that I was in my 20s in college, in Jamaica (arguably one of the most homophobic places in the world) and just coming out. Frustrated with the cloak and dagger reality of LGBT life in Jamaica, in a moment of madness, or a rare stroke of genius, I walked into the middle of the courtyard and made a public announcement, "Yes. I would just like to say, out loud, the thing I know everybody has been talking about. Yes. I am a lesbian. Yes. I like girls. Now it's out there. So now, nobody has to be all strange about it."

After that grandstanding, no one about whom there was an ounce of homosexual suspicion wanted to be seen with me, much less date me. I like to tell people I had no choice, that to forge new ground I had to go into the thick and frightening forest of the straight girls. I spent about two months studying the lay of the land. I noticed the girls who glanced at me when they thought I wasn't looking. I also took note of how many of them blushed when they caught me looking. I was particularly interested in the ones who seemed to thrive on making me look, but would turn away if it seemed as if I might approach them. Something about the push and pull created a sexual tension I enjoyed.

There was one girl I liked more than the others. I watched her all the time, looking for a way to approach her. I had no idea how this sort of thing was done. I had almost given up when I found her crying in the Philosophy section of the library. I sat on the floor next to her and just waited. It broke my heart to see her sobbing. I wanted to make her stop. I didn't think about it, I just placed my hand between her shoulder blades and kept it there. She wept for another hour before she turned to face me. My hand was still on her back, so it felt natural to pull her closer. I only intended to hug her, but she leaned in and kissed me. For the next six months we did everything together. We became Thelma and Louise. I knew we'd be together for ever.

Then one night while we were in bed spooning, her ex-boyfriend (who was responsible for the philosophical breakdown in the library) called and made a convincing argument for reconciliation. She turned over and gently told me she was still in love with him. Plus, she was beginning to tire of the clandestine nature of our relationship. She wasn't meant for this kind of life. She wanted a house and children one day.

I didn't give her a hard time when she told me her boyfriend was uncomfortable with her seeing me, even as friends. It hurt that she didn't think twice about abandoning the space we shared, but I knew it was only his error that had given me that time with her. She wasn't really a lesbian, even if she really wasn't all the way straight. She was my first not-really-straight girl tryst, but she would not be my last.

Soon, word got around that I was open to girls who had a yen for experimentation. I spent many evenings and many cracks of dawn in the narrow beds jammed against the white walls of the tiny dorm rooms, listening to Sarah McLachlan with some girl I hoped would be moved enough to actually become my girlfriend. None of them was moved enough, or had courage enough. It was definitely a bit of a trip to lie naked with these women by night and be ignored by them in the light of day. Even now, I still get a little excited about the memories before the anger and shame and angst come rushing back.

Twenty years later, I still flirt with these straight-but-not-so-straight women. Only now I know the limitations of such insanities. The trick to surviving the chase is not to take yourself, or the interaction, too seriously. I always choose an opening line that borders on the absurd. "I like the way you make that pink push-up bra look intellectual" – and if she is the kind of sexually ambiguous woman that likes this kind of attention, she will laugh. And if you listen well, you can tell if she is likely to play or nay. It is not because she laughs that indicates her willingness, but how she laughs. It has to be a sort of curious amusement that comes from her eyes and travels to her mouth. Never mention that her skin is beautiful or that her legs go on for ever. Remember, she navigates that sort of cheese from straight men all day long.

Never, ever overtly refer to the electricity crackling between the two of you. Courting the bi-curious requires the skill of restraint. There is a sort of informal manual for lesbian chasing not-so-straight. And the first rule is, you have to be platonic first. Girls who are not-so-straight but identify as straight – even when they admit to being attracted to women – don't want that interest to seem conscious. It's always better if it seems like an impulsive adventure, a thing that just happened. Which means you always begin as nothing more than a friend. No compliments, no kissing, no holding hands, no longing looks. No I miss you phone calls. No yearning. Just casual chitchat girly-girl conversations. You should laugh when she confides in having a crush on some boy. Offer advice on what she should wear when she goes to see him. Be supportive of her relationship. Become her friend, first. Work very hard at being her very best friend. Always remember, you're only her friend. You are not allowed to bend that rule for at least three months.

If you really want a shot at getting close to this woman, you have to wait until there is a crack in the lack of respect her boyfriend has for her. Watch for when he is late, or disrespectful, or inconsiderate. Casually mention that you would never treat a woman like that. Reinforce how she deserves so much better. Store the details. Then wait for him to mess up big. Then, you can tell her that you would never put up with that from a man. Quickly apologise for saying that you think she shouldn't either. Resist the urge to stroke her brows as her doubts about him begin to fester.

Even as she responds, avoid talk of sex. There will be time enough to expound on how lesbian sex has a way of being outrageous – what with the use of bedposts, and clingfilm and handcuffs with fur in the middle. It's a no-no to mention dildos. Do not raise the issue of multi-speed vibrators. Wait until she tells you her relationship with the boy is over. Hug her gently. Empty your head of thoughts of pressing her back to the ground. Straight girls are not interested in swallowing the whole lesbian syllabus in the first class. If she pulls away, let her. This dalliance is for those who possess inhuman amounts of patience. So resist the urge to go after her. Silence the arguments developing in your head. Do not say another word to her. Between you and me, more often than not, if you give her the space, she will come back. I'm not sure how long she will stay. But if you are a lesbian chasing not-so-straight girls, I'm assuming you are willing to risk falling for a woman who may not be your life partner.

Otherwise, you should go in with only the intention to have fun, maybe learn a thing or two. Maybe you will teach her something new about gender-bending and multiple orgasms. Maybe the experience will teach you something about loss. But you must remember that most straight-not-so-straight girls are often unwilling to make the dive into lesbian sexuality permanent. Sure, some are moved enough to dip a hand all the way in, but most of them are only experimenting with the tide. And though most of us dykes enjoy the time of day they choose to give us, in our heart of hearts, we know that such girls require too much effort, and that the costs are often too high. And in the already complicated lives of most adult lesbians, the heady excitement of a short thrill isn't worth the long-term emotional expense.

‘Really you’re African?’

March 27, 2012

By Sean Jacobs 

Filmmaker Shola Ajayi (she’s also a media studies student at The New School in New York City) is one of the people behind this humorous, but sharp, web series on “the African experience in America.” The point behind is to “refute negative portrayals of Africans in the media but it will also work as a window into the lives and traditions of individuals from different parts of the continent of Africa.” Here‘s a link to the trailer and below we’ve embedded the first three episodes. The first features Olajuwon Ajayi (Shola’s sister?) and people messing up her name. The second video includes the question, “Really you’re African?” to a Ivorian who people confuse for someone from the Caribbean.

 

And here are links to episode 4 and episode 5.

For more information, see the series website, its vimeo channel where you can watch newer episodes and on soundcloud for audio interviews.

fyeahafrica:

Hand-painted hair salon signs from Togo (2004)

via Indigo Arts Gallery

(Source: , via howtobeterrell)

Nina Simone ‘Four Women’ 

Take a Stand Against

the ongoing dehumanisation

& degradation of

African Women.

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

—Arundhati Roy
 

 

Thanks to Dr Claudette Carr to bring all the above to my attention.

Biography

by Richie Unterberger

Of all the major singers of the late 20th century, Nina Simone was one of the hardest to classify. She recorded extensively in the soul, jazz, and pop idioms, often over the course of the same album; she was also comfortable with blues, gospel, and Broadway. It’s perhaps most accurate to label her as a “soul” singer in terms of emotion, rather than form. Like, say, Aretha Franklin, or Dusty Springfield, Simone was an eclectic who brought soulful qualities to whatever material she interpreted. These qualities were among her strongest virtues; paradoxically, they also may have kept her from attaining a truly mass audience. The same could be said of her stage persona; admired for her forthright honesty and individualism, she was also known for feisty feuding with audiences and promoters alike.

If Simone had a chip on her shoulder, it probably arose from the formidable obstacles she had to overcome to establish herself as a popular singer. Raised in a family of eight children, she originally harbored hopes of becoming a classical pianist, studying at New York’s prestigious Juilliard School of Music — a rare position for an African-American woman in the 1950s. Needing to support herself while she studied, she generated income by working as an accompanist and giving piano lessons. Auditioning for a job as a pianist in an Atlantic City nightclub, she was told she had the spot if she would sing as well as play. Almost by accident, she began to carve a reputation as a singer of secular material, though her skills at the piano would serve her well throughout her career.

In the late ’50s, Simone began recording for the small Bethlehem label (a subsidiary of the vastly important early R&B/rock & roll King label). In 1959, her version of George Gershwin’s “I Loves You Porgy” gave her a Top 20 hit — which would, amazingly, prove to be the only Top 40 entry of her career. Nina wouldn’t need hit singles for survival, however, establishing herself not with the rock & roll/R&B crowd, but with the adult/nightclub/album market. In the early ’60s, she recorded no less than nine albums for the Candix label, about half of them live. These unveiled her as a performer of nearly unsurpassed eclecticism, encompassing everything from Ellingtonian jazz and Israeli folk songs to spirituals and movie themes.

Simone’s best recorded work was issued on Philips during the mid-’60s. Here, as on Candix, she was arguably over-exposed, issuing seven albums within a three-year period. These records can be breathtakingly erratic, moving from warm ballad interpretations of Jacques Brel and Billie Holiday and instrumental piano workouts to brassy pop and angry political statements in a heartbeat. There’s a great deal of fine music to be found on these, however. Simone’s moody-yet-elegant vocals were like no one else’s, presenting a fiercely independent soul who harbored enormous (if somewhat hard-bitten) tenderness.

Like many African-American entertainers of the mid-’60s, Simone was deeply affected by the Civil Rights Movement and burgeoning Black Pride. Some (though by no means most) of her best material from this time addressed these concerns in a fashion more forthright than almost any other singer. “Old Jim Crow” and, more particularly, the classic “Mississippi Goddam” were especially notable self-penned efforts in this vein, making one wish that Nina had written more of her own material instead of turning to outside sources for most of her repertoire.

Not that this repertoire wasn’t well-chosen. Several of her covers from the mid-’60s, indeed, were classics: her revision of Weill-Brecht’s “Pirate Jenny” to reflect the bitter elements of African-American experience, for instance, or her mournful interpretation of Brel’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas.” Other highlights were her versions of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” covered by the Animals for a rock hit; “I Put a Spell on You,” which influenced the vocal line on the Beatles’ “Michelle”; and the buzzing, jazzy “See Line Woman.”

Simone was not as well-served by her tenure with RCA in the late ’60s and early ’70s, another prolific period which saw the release of nine albums. These explored a less eclectic range, with a considerably heavier pop-soul base to both the material and arrangements. One bona fide classic did come out of this period: “Young, Gifted & Black,” written by Simone and Weldon Irvine, Jr., would be successfully covered by both Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway. She did have a couple of Top Five British hits in the late ’60s with “Ain’t Got No” (from the musical Hair) and a cover of the Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody,” neither of which rank among her career highlights.

Simone fell on turbulent times in the 1970s, divorcing her husband/manager Andy Stroud, encountering serious financial problems, and becoming something of a nomad, settling at various points in Switzerland, Liberia, Barbados, France, and Britain. After leaving RCA, she recorded rarely, although she did make the critically well-received Baltimore in 1978 for the small CTI label. She had an unpredictable resurgence in 1987, when an early track, “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” became a big British hit after being used in a Chanel perfume television commercial. In 1993, her record A Single Woman marked her return to an American major label, and her profile was also boosted when several of her songs were featured in the film Point of No Return. She published her biography, I Put a Spell on You, in 1991, but grew increasingly frail throughout the late ’90s and had to be helped on to the stage during a 2001 Carnegie Hall performance. Nina Simone died on April 21, 2003 at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France, where she had been spending much of her retirement.

Singing the Travels:

Imani Uzuri

Finds the Bold Heart

and Global Soul of Home

on The Gypsy Diaries

Download 01_Beautiful.mp3

 

  

The mysterious figure on the moonlit railway platform, the passerby on the dusty road are not strangers; they are friends and fellow travelers.

 

And to stunning vocalist and thoughtful, globally-inspired composer Imani Uzuri, they spark melodies and musical connections. With the beautiful growl of a blueswoman and the sweetness of a nightingale, Uzuri finds the deep ties that bind her rural Carolina roots to Eastern Europe and North Africa, that bind the purr of sitar strings and the ripple of Japanese folk flute to African-American traditions and the international arts underground.

 

Born of worldly travels and spiritual travails, Uzuri’s rich acoustic songs on The Gypsy Diaries (release: June 5, 2012) find fresh settings for unifying human experiences: the loss of loved ones, the joy of discovering, the alienation and shifts of moving, meeting, and departing. Riveting live, Uzuri will celebrate her new album on June 1 at Joe’s Pub in New York.

 

The introspective, gentler companion to Uzuri’s high-voltage debut, Her Holy Water, Uzuri paints images of travel—the chance meeting, the surprise connection—and reflects in global tones on the nature of distance, love, and our shared, transcendent moments.

 

Imani Uzuri Shares Stories and Musical Journeys on her New album "The Gypsy Diaries" from imani uzuri on Vimeo.

 

Uzuri grew up dreaming of travel, reading adventure novels and poetry under the pecan trees of her idyllic early years in rural North Carolina.

 

Visions of other lands and other worlds entwined with the musical roots that formed the foundation of Uzuri’s intensely focused approach to evoking places and moments with her powerful yet subtle voice. The old Spirituals, the gospel music she heard in her small country church and from her extended family, in particular from her formidable grandmother, sunk in deep.

 

“I feel like my granny’s sensibility shaped me. She had an off-key joyful voice, and every morning she would wake up and start the day singing,” Uzuri remembers fondly. “Her music was about praising and gratitude. She taught me that the intention of singing is to express.”

 

Uzuri honors her foremother, who passed as Uzuri began working on the album, in a profound, bittersweet tribute on “Soul Still Sings.” She takes the lessons her grandmother imparted to heart with in her keen storytelling: Her compelling voice sketches conjured trysts on train platforms (“Meet Me at the Station”) and prayers on a mountaintop (“I Sing the Blues”).

 

Following the inspiration to travel and explore the country, Uzuri found herself in New York, where that long-felt connection between roots and the world’s roads came to life. She fell in love with artists like Mailian diva Oumou Sangare’s beckoning, soaring voice, with the praise and ecstasy she heard in Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s music.

 

“The first time I was introduced to Nusrat’s music, I felt like it was gospel music,” Uzuri recounts. “I didn’t know what he was saying but I understood. Just before his death, I got to see him perform at a Sufi community concert, and it was like a charismatic church service. The integrity and passion was the same.” Uzuri’s open, curious ear has made her an eclectic bandleader who loves to gather stellar multicultural male and female musicians and to bring together unexpected instruments, from sitar and daf to acoustic guitar and cello. Yet the mosaic approach feels seamless, drawn together by Uzuri’s compelling and versatile voice.

 

Along with her personal musical travels, Uzuri also began exploring the world, traveling to Japan, Brazil, Russia, Ethiopia, Hungary, to perform with artists like Bill Laswell and Ethiopian singer Gigi, and as a solo artist. “I moved to New York, and traveling became a part of my life as an artist,” Uzuri reflects, “I started getting all these calls. There’s an artistic underground that spans the globe, and I became part of it. It sustained me. ”

 

On her travels, she sang favorite Spirituals to newfound friends in Moroccan casbahs, visited sacred islands and busy street corners, wondered at resonant churches. As she wandered, Uzuri was fascinated by the fertile tension between separation and connection. And by a feeling of unexpected familiarity that ran through it all: “I heard this euphony of sound pouring out of St. Basil’s on Red Square,” Uzuri recalls. “I went in and sound was washing over me. It felt familiar; I understood the intentionality, the vibration. Everyone who was listening felt it.”

 

The isolation of travel—the railways, transitional spaces, roads and crossroads—intersected with a tangible unity Uzuri felt with the Russian villagers she met, with the Roma musicians she jammed with, with the flowers vendor on the Turkish street.

 

“As part of a collaboration I did in Hungary with Romany musicians, I was taught to sing a Roma lament in Hungarian. I was struck once again by this sense of similarity”—an emotional similarity tangible in the gorgeous ballad, “Lament,” rich with echoes of Roberta Flack. “If you’re transmitting joy or sadness, it’s about sharing the truth of that with the voice. That’s where you feel the connection and integrity.”

 

Joy and sadness play throughout The Gypsy Diaries. The playful mirth of the Caribbean-inflected “You Know Me You Love Me” alternates with the reflective, stirring “Beautiful.” The blues-inflected sounds of a modern-day field holler, “Gathering”, and a swaying call of lovingkindness, “Dream Child,” contrast with the fierce assertions of “Whisperings (We Are Whole).”

 

“Ultimately, this album is about finding my place through the traveling,” Uzuri explains, “the communion, the loneliness, victories, sadness, losses, euphorias, revelations, transformations coming to understand that I am always here: home."

 

Call for Essays/ Creative Writing:

Feminist Studies Journal's

"Africa Reconfigued" Issue

Deadline: 1 December 2012

AFRICA RECONFIGURED

How does feminist scholarship on African regions push conventional disciplinary boundaries? How does feminist work in cinema studies, linguistics, cultural studies, literature, history, and anthropology, for example, reconfigure how Africa is represented in the broader academy? Feminist Studies welcomes submissions on a variety of topics dealing broadly with the continent of Africa, with the goal of featuring exciting feminist scholarship in African Studies and questioning representations of Africa for feminist readers outside the area.

We welcome full-length research manuscripts (10,500 words), review essays, short commentaries on polices, creative writing, and art essays. Please e-mail Editorial Director Ashwini Tambe to signal your interest in submitting material.

Deadline for submitting manuscripts: December 1, 2012.

RESEARCH AND CRITICISM

Feminist Studies publishes research and criticism that address theoretical issues and offer analyses of interest to feminist scholars across disciplines. Although many, if not most, of the articles we publish draw on the methodology of a single discipline, we especially encourage scholars to pursue truly interdisciplinary research and research methodologies that not only showcase but integrate contributions from multiple disciplines.

Submissions should not exceed 10,500 words, approximately 35 pages, including endnotes. Please consult the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style for proper manuscript form and endnote citation style.

How to Submit:

For your submission to be complete, please send all of the following:

• One double-spaced hard copy mailed to Feminist Studies, 0103 Taliaferro Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. (In order to protect anonymity, the author's name should appear only a separate title page and not on the manuscript itself.)
• An electronic copy to submit@feministstudies.org. (Alternatively, you may include a CD with the mailed hard copy.) Please send the electronic file as a Word or WordPerfect document, not as a PDF.
• A 200-word (or fewer) abstract
• A cover note with mailing and e-mail addresses.

CREATIVE WRITING

Feminist Studies is deeply committed to publishing creative work. Beginning with our very first issue published in 1972, we have included creative work in every issue. We have published such distinguished authors as Meena Alexander, Nicole Brossard, Jayne Cortez, Toi Derricotte, Diane Glancy, Marilyn Hacker, Lyn Hejinian, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Sharon Olds, Grace Paley, Ruth Stone, and Mitsuye Yamada.

We continue to welcome all forms of written creative expression, including but not limited to poetry and short fiction in all forms. We are interested in work that addresses questions of interest to the Feminist Studies audience, particularly work that pushes past the boundaries of what has been done before. We look for creative work that is intellectually challenging and aesthetically adventurous, that is in complicated dialogue with feminist ideas and concepts, and that shifts our readers into new perspectives on women/gender.

We only consider original work that is not under review elsewhere. Since creative work will not be returned, authors should retain a copy of their work. If other work is cited in the piece, please use our citation style. Because of space constraints we are unable to publish individual pieces that run longer than 25 pages.

Deadlines for submission of creative work are May 1 and December 1. After each deadline, all work will be reviewed by our creative writing editor. Her recommendations will then be read anonymously by our editorial collective who will make the final decisions. Authors will receive notice of the collective's decision by mid-July and mid-February.

How to Submit:

• Mail one hard copy to Feminist Studies, 0103 Taliaferro Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.

• E-mail an electronic version of your work to creative@feministstudies.org.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries: submit@feministstudies.org

For submissions: submit@feministstudies.org or creative@feministstudies.org (see "How to Submit" above for further instructions)

Website: http://www.feministstudies.org

The 2013 Mary Ballard

Poetry Chapbook Prize

is open for submission!

 

We are pleased to announce that the 2013 Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open for submissions April 1 through June 30, 2012. There is NO fee to enter this contest.

Mary Ballard Wright wrote poetry, but almost no one knew it. She raised three children through two marriages, kept a home, and scribbled verses in those moments when she dared to think of something other than daily life.

In 1979, a tornado swept through her town of Wichita Falls, taking her home and everything she owned. Among the things she lost were her life's work, handwritten poems kept in a closet.

 

Mary died in 2010, and here at Casey Shay Press, we have decided, in her memory, to publish one poet each year. It is our hope to keep others' work from sudden loss, be it a natural disaster, a technical failure that destroys a hard drive, or a personal loss in the theft of the laptop where we kept our work.

The winner of the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize will receive $500, 25 printed copies of the chapbook, and a book contract for the sale of physical and electronic versions of the chapbook.

 

There is NO fee to enter this contest, but each entrant may submit only one manuscript.

 

Rule for Entries:

Deadline: June 30, 2012

 

• The Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize is open to all poets, published or unpublished.

• Poems should adhere to a theme, however loosely.

• We consider themes for adults as well as collections for children.

• Individual poems may be previously published, but poems should not have been published as a group in any form, including self-published collections.

• No more than 10% of the poetry should have been posted to blogs or web sites previously, and print and digital rights to any published poems should have reverted to the author to be eligible.

• Manuscripts may be either a collection of poems or one long poem and should be a minimum of 20 pages and a maximum of 40 pages (not including the title page).

• All poems should be single spaced and typed in size 12 Times New Roman or similar font.

• Each manuscript should include a title page. This page should include the title, a one-sentence explanation of the chapbook's theme, and contact information on the poet. Please use your real name for your submission. If you prefer to use a pseudonym on your chapbook, that will be arranged later.

• If any poems have been previously published, please indicate their titles and where they were published.

• If the poet already participates in readings, poetry groups, or writers' organizations, we would love to hear about that, but it is optional.

• The reading period for the 2013 competition begins on April 1, 2012. Entries must be submitted by June 30, 2012. Submissions will only be considered if received between those dates.

• The quarter-finalists will be announced July 31, 2012.

• We are all-electronic, so submissions should be emailed with a doc, docx, rtf, or txt file attachment to poetryprize@caseyshaypress.com. Please do not copy your poems into the body of the email.

Take a look at our 2012 winner: Uncommon Clay by Darlene Franklin-Campbell! You can read free samples of her work at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

 

Posted by Casey Shay Press

 

Call for Entries for Proposed

Free Creative Writing Course:

Society of Young Nigerian Writers

Deadline: 31 May 2012

The Society of Young Nigerian Writers welcome entries from Young Nigerian Writers between the ages of 15 and 35 who resides in the country or abroad. This contest is organized in order to make a free and simple creative writing correspondence course by e-mail for upcoming and aspiring young Nigerian Writer. The fifty shortlisted entries, mainly poems, short stories and one act plays will be transformed into the Society’s proposed Free Creative Writing Correspondence Course by e-mail. Entries are free. A writer can only submit one work per genre.

MODE OF SUBMISSION

Poetry

Form: Sonnet, Lyric, Ode, Ballad, Epic, Dirge – not less than 40 lines
Language: Entries must be in English Language

Drama

Form: Comedy, Tragedy, Tragi-comedy, Farce – One Act Play
Language: Entries must be in English Language

Prose/Short Stories

Form: Fiction, Science fiction, detective, horror – 1000 words
Language: Entries must be in English Language

ELIGIBILITY

• Entrants must be between the ages of 15 and 35. The following information must be included:

1. Age
2. Telephone Number
3. Address
4. Short Profile
5. Web link of works
6. Where he/she heard about the contest
7. Short comment/advice on the proposed course.

• Submit entries online to: societyofyoungnigerianwriters@gmail.com

• Submission deadline: May 31st, 2012.

• Individual participant should include his/her letter of permission to make use of his or her entry(s).

BENEFITS FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS

• Award of Certificates of Participation to all participants

BENEFITS FOR ALL SHORTLISTED PARTICIPANTS

* Award of Certificate of Excellence + 1 year free membership of the Society (Automatic Associate Membership if unpublished), (Automatic Full Membership if published).

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROPOSED CORRESPONDENCE COURSE

• To promote creative writing and works of Nigerian Writers between the ages of 15 and 35.

• To contribute toward the growth and development of creative writing among Young Nigerian Writers.

• To encourage creative writers and literary artists

• To give recognition, reward and award (RRA) to deserving writers

• To highlight the roles of creative writing in the Society.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries: societyofyoungnigerianwriters@gmail.com

For submissions: societyofyoungnigerianwriters@gmail.com

Website: societyforyoungwriters.webs.com

 

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