After I attended the Midwest Writers Workshop this summer, I made a vow to write about it. I had gone to other writing conferences, but this one felt different. Warmer, helpful. Permanent. As a dutiful outreach coordinator whose mission is to offer writers opportunities to publish and improve their craft, I reached out to Jama Kehoe Bigger, the long-term director of the workshop. Jama didn’t disappoint. The warmth and enthusiasm which will envelop you as you read on is the same whether conveyed in writing, from a podium or in a conversation. Karol Lagodzki: Jama, … Continue reading Resources for Writers Series: Midwest Writers Workshop→
When I returned home from the grocery store a few weeks ago, in the Boonsboro neighborhood of Lynchburg, I looked up to see that my next-door neighbors’ shutters had been removed from the front façade of their house, leaving the darker green older paint exposed in the shutter area, and the lighter green, newer paint around it, creating a faux shutter phenomenon. It looks good. We don’t really need shutters, I realized. We can have faux shutters, using the old paint behind the shutters to create the illusion. In the last decade, commerce has exploded … Continue reading The Faux Phenomenon by Laura Marello→
Here are the things I’ve always found challenging: Organization Instructions (written, spoken and pictorial) Maps (obviously) Sciencey things Paying attention The good news about these long-standing issues is that now that I am of a certain age I’m not overly concerned when I find I have accidentally sent the uneaten slab of a dinner ham in my husband’s lunch box–instead of the thinly sliced sandwich I made for him. Or that I’ve zoned out while driving and missed my exit by many, many digits. Or misplaced the Costco receipt somewhere after the cash register and … Continue reading The Upside of Being an Airhead→
I’m not surprised that I adore copy editing Streetlight Magazine. It’s a wonderful marriage between my slightly obsessive-compulsive tendencies and my love of reading. Perusing numerous pieces of writing while searching for extra spaces, improper italicization and the incorrect use of dashes is something I could do all day long. While I admit I get irrationally excited every time I find something to fix (especially since it doesn’t happen that often), my favorite part of the job is that I’m reading from varied genres. As an English major I spent my share of time … Continue reading The Path Home→
About a dozen years ago, I was in Wexford, Ireland, to meet the artist Bridget Flannery for lunch. We exchanged gifts. Hers was a handsome print of a recent painting, which now hangs in the foyer of my house. Mine was a signed copy of my book. Oh, Katherine, she laughed, I’ve bought a dozen copies of this book and given them to friends. Then we went around the corner to see her new exhibition. The centerpiece was a large abstract, from her series Pause. I was drawn to it immediately. She … Continue reading The Deep North→
After training as a journalist and spending years covering stories all over the world, I returned to my family home in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood in Washington, D.C. and began to listen in a deeper way to the stories of the people who live here. For 15 years now I have been writing short audio monologues in the voice of my neighbors, focusing deeply on place. When these disparate stories are gathered together, a chronicle of a single neighborhood will emerge. The three boys who were 12 and 13 when I wrote the following poem … Continue reading Street Poetry by Katie Davis→
Monday, October 10, is (or was, depending when you’re reading this) Columbus Day—in case you were wondering why there was no mail. Columbus Day, recently voted National Holiday Mostly Likely to be Abandoned in the Near Future, is a federal holiday with a short history as well. Proclaimed in 1937, by President Franklin Roosevelt, it commemorates October 12, 1492, You know, 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue—and by the way landed in what was then known as the New World (though probably not to the people already living there). It was also, of course, … Continue reading Seen Any Good Sales?→
Have you sold a novel for a seven-figure advance? Yes? Then this post is not for you. Still here? Skedaddle. Go write something. Yes? Okay. Now that we’re all alone, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Karol Lagodzki, and I have recently joined Streetlight Magazine’s staff as an outreach coordinator. I see my job as that of a conduit between writers and what they need. You will hear from me about our writing contests, free or inexpensive marketing and craft resources, and those writing conferences which represent good value for the cash-strapped among … Continue reading Resources for Writers: Snowflakes in a Blizzard→
It’s hard to describe the feeling of freedom I felt when I left my job as editor of an online business research and analysis site, and started to write a middle-grade novel on honeybees, pollination and Colony Collapse Disorder (the still mysterious syndrome that is killing millions of honeybees around the globe). I had been a business journalist for more than three decades in Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia, where I now live. All of a sudden, with the decision to write a work of fiction, I could make up names, make up quotes, make up … Continue reading Facts and Fiction by Robbie Shell→
I often use this poem, The Summer Day by Mary Oliver, in my poetry workshops to demonstrate the importance of paying attention in the writing of poems: Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale … Continue reading A Hidden Glimmering→
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