A Call for Messy Truths...
LITFRIENDS Newsletter#3
This is the online version of our newsletter from Jack Walker Press, Amy Lou Jenkins, and FirstPerson Writing
Mothers and Fathers and Messy Histories
This Mothers and Fathers Day season has me thinking of my roots and family stories. If you've ever watched Skip Gates' Finding Your Roots, you have seen people who lost their families' history and wish to restore the stories. Family stories disappear even when they are astounding tales of loss, bravery, accomplishment, and hiding from societal shame. I didn't ask my Grandmother if she regretted leaving school after grade 6. My family story of a great-grandfather who went west and was supposed to find his fortune and then call for his family was complicated. I found the proof of his new family, but never learned the story that led to him dying in a poor house in Texas. I don't know my relatives' stories, the cost of their choices, or their motivations. These unknowns can keep families clinging to stories that are not true or have all the wrinkles ironed out. Refusal to address and own truths and complexities keeps our people and our nation adhering to a whitewashed culture. We see false sanctimony everywhere. It's not truth; it's not love. Our true stories and memoirs can serve the future.
–Amy Lou Jenkins
Watch Viola Davis' Interest and Surprise as She Learns Family Truths
Share Your #WriterNews on our FB page. Go there.
1. #WriterNews
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- Professor Margo Jefferson has been awarded the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize for Constructing a Nervous System: a Memoir (Pantheon, 2022)
- Kima Jones of Durham, North Carolina, won the second annual Granum Foundation Prize for her memoir, Butch.
2. #CallsForSubmissions
These Markets Want Your Work
- New Orleans Review, is seeking submissions for fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Contributors can receive $300 for prose and $100 for poetry if their work is accepted. The deadline for submissions is May 31, 2023. In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, all API writers are exempt from submission fees during the month of May. It doesn't matter where you currently reside or were born. Details.
- Quarter Press: Quarter(ly) Accepts submissions of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art that align with our specified themes. A $5 payment is offered for accepted works. Submission deadline is May 31, 2023. Details.
- The Baltimore Review is seeking submissions for various genres, including poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, videos (inclusive of poetry), and cross-genre pieces. They offer a payment of $40 and the deadline for submission is on May 31, 2023. Details.
3. #WritingArticles +
- Hook your reader from the first line of your memoir. Read Memoir Openings.
- Let’s look at more examples with The First Line of Ten Successful Memoirs.
Mary Karr Takes a Deep Dive into Memoir
4. #BookReview
Even if You Think You Don't Care About Fungi-consider
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Every terrestrial plant and every human rely on fungal networks for existence. There are many reasons to read Sheldrake's eloquent and exuberant exploration of this oft-overlooked kingdom of life upon which we depend. Sheldrake oozes with celebration, intellectual fervor and a literary style that charms the reader into finding fungi as fascinating as he finds them. He makes fungi fun. Read the review.
End Notes
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