Writers-in-Progress

Inventory is Finished

The novel I've been working on for two years is finished. 1:10 am on July 19, 2008, 308 pages. Two years. Better than the last one, which took four, but not as good as the first, which took four months.

What always strikes me when finishing these long projects is the lack of fanfare. You expect to feel some huge surge of happiness, expect the inner equivalent of spinning lights and confetti and maybe a brass band, but when you type the last words, it's just quiet. And that's okay.

My advice: when you arrive at this moment, enjoy it. Soon enough doubt creeps in about the ending, oh and the middle and the beginning too. And the revisions begin. It's only 'just finished' for so long.

And that's the point - you crossed the finish line. You committed to your writing and yourself and you stuck to it. Be proud of yourself.

Now I'm going to bed!

Help Educate Women in Pakistan and Afghanistan

I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea and wanted to share this amazing example of true service to humanity by Greg Mortensen with you. Here's the story from the blurb on the back:

"In 1993, a mountaineer named Greg Mortensen drifted into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram mountains after a failed attempt to climb K2. Moved by the inhabitants' kindness, he promised to return and build a school. Three Cups of Tea is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade, Mortensen built not just one but fifty-five schools--especially for girls(my emphasis)--in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit."

This is a reminder to all of us that one person can make a difference. You don't have to go to Pakistan and build schools, but you can donate at the website to act globally, and you can look around your neighborhood and community to see where you can make a difference locally. Ask yourself, 'Whose life(ves) can I make better today?' and follow your heart.

You can find info on Greg's Central Asia Institute (CAI), donate, and buy the book at www.ikat.org.

While you're there, watch the videos and look at the pictures. So inspiring! Please note that you can make an ongoing monthly donation of any amount and direct your money to the CAI program of your choice.

Freshly Squeezed Book Trailer

Nicole Schultheis and her partner, Flyw, at f&b media works created this fab book trailer for the anthology. Thanks Nicole and Flyw!

If you'd like to work with f&b yourself, email them at: fbmediaworks@gmail.com

NEA Report: Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005

Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005 is the first nationwide look at artists' demographic and employment patterns in the 21st century. Artists in the Workforce analyzes working artist trends, gathering new statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau to provide a comprehensive overview of this workforce segment and its maturation over the past 30 years, along with detailed information on specific artist occupations.

Maryland showed up several times in the Top Ten States categories as having a lot of writers, producers, directors, and architects.

Link to NEA website where you can print the report:

Artists in the Workforce Report

Prologue to a Sad Spring - Poem for Baltimore Museum of Art

Have just wrapped up my ekphrastic poetry workshop at the Baltimore Museum of Art, which will culminate in a reception with a poetry reading to close the exhibition Looking Through the Lens, photographs, 1900-1960. I had 8 terrific poets who really threw themselves into the form. I am terribly impressed with their skill and passion. I've been asked to open the program with a poem of my own inspired by the exhibit, so am sharing the piece and the photograph.

PROLOGUE TO A SAD SPRING

after a photograph by Edward Weston

We might mock the gothic, silent
movie look of it except for the tree—

laughing with all its dark tongues,

abandoned to its own black
lightning. Beside it, the woman

is a premonition of loss. She gives

her lover an anxious look,
edging towards the freedom

of the shadow, where the tree will

catch then cast her into a storm-
smudged sky of flying or falling—

her choice. Only in this mirror

backed by the sun can those of us
who have posed for the last

photograph in love, though the end

was years away, see what he won’t—
how she’s already crossed over,

how the lines of body and branches

mark the hour, the image a clock,
frozen at the time of leaving.

Christine Stewart, Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved.

MD State Individual Artist Fellowships

The 2009 Maryland State Fellowship guidelines and applications are now available. The funding categories available for 2009 include:

Dance: Choreography
Music Composition (World, Classical and Non Classical)
Playwriting
Poetry
Visual Arts: Crafts
Visual Arts: Photography
Visual Arts: Sculpture

All applications must be submitted online.

Applicants can click here to access the MSAC Individual Artists Fellowships Application.

The deadline for 2009 applications is July 31, 2008.

In June of 2008, the Maryland State Council on the Arts will hold three technical assistance grant workshops throughout the state for residents interested in applying for individual artist fellowships. The workshops will address the application process for the categories offered for 2009 fellowships. All sites are wheelchair accessible and provide accessible parking. Sign interpretation will be offered for the hearing impaired. The workshop schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
5:30-7:30 pm
Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts
801 Chase Street
Annapolis, MD 21401
http://www.marylandhall.org

Thursday, June 19, 2008
5:30- 7:30 pm
The Writer's Center
4508 Walsh Street
Bethesda, MD 20815
http://www.writer.org

Thursday, June 26, 2008
5:30-7:30 pm
The Creative Alliance
3134 Eastern Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21224
http://www.creativealliance.org

To register for a Maryland workshop, please contact Joanna Raczynska at Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation at 410-539-6656 ext 101, or e-mail joanna@midatlanticarts.org. See each location's web site for directions to the workshop.

Contact:
email: karen@midatlanticarts.org
web: http://www.midatlanticarts.org

Gregory Orr & Clarinda Harriss reading

Smartish Pace Reading Series

Friday, June 13, 2008

6:30 PM

The Walters Art Museum

600 N. Charles Street, Baltimore

410-547-9000

The reading is free and open to the public.

Gregory Orr is the author of nine poetry collections, most recently Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved (Copper Canyon, 2005). His memoir, The Blessing (Council Oak, 2002), was chosen by Publisher's Weekly as one of the fifty best non-fiction books of the year. He has written three books of essays including Poetry as Survival (U. of Georgia, 2002). Orr has received a Guggenheim, Rockefeller and two NEA fellowships; in 2003 he received an Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches at the University of Virginia where in 1975 he founded the MFA Program in Writing. His new poems appear in Smartish Pace, Issue 15.

Clarinda Harriss is the author of seven books of poetry with Mortmain just released from Half Moon Editions. Novelist Geoff Bakers has said of her work, "Clarinda Harriss writes poems with precision and humor about Baltimore, sex, mortality…." She teaches at Towson University and directs BrickHouse Books, Inc., Maryland's oldest continuously publishing literary press.

The poets will be available to sign books after the reading. We look forward to seeing you on the 13th!