a river of stones: January 2012

The river of stones started in January 2011 with a blog and an invite: "Why would you want to join in? - Because choosing something to write about every day will help you to connect with yourselves, with others, and with the world. It will help you to love everything you see - the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the beautiful and the ugly. You don't have to be a 'writer' to get involved. The process of paying attention is what's important."

The result: more than 350 people across the world paying more attention to what was around them, and writing small stones. The birth of a new community of daily writers. A new movement - a river of stones. Which turned into a book in summer: pay attention: a river of stones - and induced an ongoing twitter stream: twitter/smallstone.

The River: January 2012
Now the next river is taking first shape with an announcement and an invite to join. 'The river' consists of everyone writing small stones during January, whether you keep them in your notebooks or publish them somewhere on the web. This January we will be cheering you all on by organising 25 guest posts by all kinds of marvellous writers. All infos are online at: The River: Jan 2012 

About the river organizers
Fiona Robyn is a novelist, Buddhist and creativity coach and blogs about being a writer at Writing Our Way Home. Kaspalita is a Buddhist priest and blogger and is married to Fiona.

Foreign Flavours (Writers Abroad)

The online writing group Writers Abroad released their second anthology of short stories and non-fiction articles: Foreign Flavours.

The anthology takes as its theme food, drink and recipes from around the world. It is a tantalizing collection of fiction and non-fiction, full of spice and flavour and sprinkled with mouth-watering recipes. Including 64 contributions and 33 delicious and appetising recipes, this wide-ranging, sometimes bittersweet, contributions show how adaptable an ex-pat has to be to leave familiar dishes behind and venture into the culinary unknown.

Contributors live in and have written about the following places: Albania, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Corsica, Cyprus, England, Fiji, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Malawi, Mallorca, Morocco, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, Wales.

All proceeds of this anthology are going to The Book Bus, a registered charity whose mission it is to increase child literacy in Latin America and Africa

About Writers Abroad
Writers Abroad is an online writing group, founded in 2009. It provides a forum for ex-pat writers to exchange ideas, views and news on writing and to offer support and constructive feedback on each other’s work. Membership numbers are limited but ex-pat writers can apply to join if they are able to support the group’s initiatives and aims.

Foreign Flavours by Writers Abroad
250 pages
$14.93

Mixitini Matrix - Issue 1

Mixitini Matrix is a multigenre, multidisciplinary journal of creative collaboration that features fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and visual art created by two or more people, or works offering perspectives on the process of creative collaboration.

Editor Leslie LaChance says: "I cannot be creative in a vacuum; I don't think anyone can. My creative life is fed by other artists and thinkers, near and far, present and past. That is certainly true for other artists as well, and is, indeed, a "given" in the creative process. I wanted to develop an online publication through which we far-flung artistic kindred spirits could acknowledge our connections to others, share our work and enjoy the fruits of our collaborative adventures."

The debut issue of Mixitini Matrix is available online at Mixitini Matrix - Current Issue. It includes work by Marilyn Kallet, Joe Kendrick, Rachel Joiner, Jack Rentfro, William Henderson, Laura Still, JeFF Stumpo, Leonardo Ramirez, Clint Alexander, Henri Michaux, Darren Jackson, Dorothee Lang, Steven Wing, Brian Griffin and Wayne White.

About Mixitini Matrix
Mixitini Matrix is a collaborate work itself by by Leslie LaChance (Editor&Publisher), Mattie Davenport (Managing Editor), Brittney Reed and Kate Hein (Assistant Editors) and Jeff Wilkerson (Design and Development). Mixitini Matrix aims to publish at least twice per year, fall/winter and spring/summer. They will begin to accept submissions for their spring 2012 issue on January 15. Invited formats and suggested collaborations can be found on their submission page.

related links: first issues, on writing

The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide

The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide provides practical advice for authors and publishers on how to market their books. Although the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide was originally written for the benefit of authors who publish and distribute their ebooks at Smashwords, the suggestions included in it are universal.

The guide begins with a short summary of how the Smashwords platform assists an author’s marketing, and then continues on with over thirty book marketing tips any author can employ, and that cost nothing to implement other than the investment of time: "Some of the tips require only a couple minutes of your time, yet will reap dividends for years to come. Other tips require a greater ongoing investment of your time and attention. Do the easy things first."

Direct link to PDF: The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide

Mark Coker is founder of Smashwords, an ebook publishing and distribution platform for indie authors, publishers, literary agents and retailers. His is co-author of Boob Tube, a novel that explores the wild and wacky world of Hollywood celebrity. He also wrote the The 10-Minute PR Checklist.

The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide
by Mark Coker

The Peppermint Bottle - Sherry O'Keefe

Sherry O'Keefe's The Peppermint Bottle crosses boundaries, borders and genres. Originally blog posts, the pieces in this collection are finely crafted vignettes and illustrated prose poems full of wry and touching observations, and are now gathered in a format that emphasizes how brilliantly these pieces stand alone but also interconnect.

"Lost and found objects and snippets of strangers' conversations point to both our isolation and connectedness. The thoroughly charming narratorial voice is equal part dreamer and quirky practical, but always astute, and interested in exploring the surreal disjunctions in everyday life that most people don't notice - or don't write about." - Rose Hunter

An excerpt is online at BluePrintReview: The Peppermint Bottle.

Sherry O'Keefe is a direct descendent of several Montana pioneers and was raised in a remote power camp along the Missouri River in Montana, learning early on there are no rowboats waiting in the dawn. Mother to two, sister to four, cousin to dozens, in many ways she is the least of the story-tellers in her Irish family. She attended MSU-Billings on a music scholarship where years of playing viola taught her to count to four repeatedly and how to appreciate the off-beat on and off the concert stage.

She is the author of Making Good Use of August (Finishing Line Press). Her most current poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Escape into Life, Camas, Switched-on Gutenberg, THEMA, Terrain. Org., PANK, Avatar Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Prick of the Spindle, Inkwell, Pirene’s Fountain, The High Desert Journal and Main Street Rag. Currently working on a full collection, Cracking Geodes Open, she is a poetry editor for both IthacaLit and YB Journal.

Sherry O'Keefe: The Peppermint Bottle
98 pages, full color
also available as kindle e-book

>language >place anniversary edition "Streets, Signs, Directions"

> Language > Place is a joined blog cyber journey featuring international perspectives on language and place.

One year ago, the first edition of the language/place carnival went live. Since then, almost monthly, a new edition followed - each a journey in itself, hosted by different bloggers in places that reach from Hong Kong to Slovenia and New Zealand to the States. Now the anniversary edition launched. The theme of this edition is: Streets, Signs, Direction.

Following its own theme, this edition offers 3 ways to explore and visit the contributions: a found poem, based on single lines from each contribution, an itienary of contributions with notes and links and a geographic map which also includes the former editions.

Call: Edition #12 of > language > place will be hosted by poet & writer Linda Hofke. The feature theme for edition #12 is “Food" - but as always, a wide range of contributions is welcome. Submissions are now open, deadline 20th November, guidelines.

About the  >Language >Place blog carnival
To create a collaborate cyber journey that features international perspectives on language and place, in different formats, and with different languages included - that's the concept of this collaborate project. The main language is english, the carnival consists of a central page that links to all participating blog. An overview of previous editions and more background information is available at the Language Place info page.

> language > place anniversary edition (#11)
a web project

related links: web projects, anthologies

Lost Children: A Charity Anthology

A collection of 30 flash stories from around the world, The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology is now available for purchase! All proceeds go to two children's charities to support exploited, neglected and abused children PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children and Children 1st Scotland.

The anthology is now available for purchase on Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble.

Stories featured were sent by writers from the USA, Poland, Hong Kong, Portugal, India, Scotland, England, Canada, and one told by a Lost Boy of the Sudan to his teacher. Authors included: Susan Gibb, Sam Rasnake, Nicolette Wong, Susan Tepper and many more - the whole list is up at: The Lost Children blog.

About the book + the editors
The project began as a flash fiction challenge when Fiona Johnson and Thomas Pluck donated to the two charities, over at Ron Philips' Flash Fiction Friday and Fictionaut. 30 of the best stories were chosen to be included in this anthology, edited by Fiona, Thomas and Ron.

Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Only $2.99 (all proceeds go to charity)
The e-book is available at Amazon, Barnes&Noble and Smashwords in various formats.

PS: For Smashwords, you don't need to register and simply can pay via paypal and get access to multiple formats, including pdf. (the Ed just tried, works well).