Foreign Encounters - Writers Abroad

Writers Abroad has published their third Anthology entitled "Foreign Encounters" - a collection of stories, non-fiction and poems. All proceeds from the sale of Foreign Encounters will be donated to Books Abroad, an organization that helps to educate children worldwide by sending free school books that are carefully chosen to match the need of each school.

About the book: 
Encounters can be a chance meeting, a planned get-together or even a confrontation. This collection of stories, non-fiction and poems features a variety of foreign encounters: with family, friends, lovers, animals, cultures, or just with one's own prejudices and preconceptions.

About Writers Abroad
Writers Abroad is a community for Expat writers. The group was formed to help overcome the potential isolation and difficulties that Expat writers may face in their adopted country. Therefore the aim of the group is to provide mutual support via feedback, critiques and editing to enable members to develop their writing skills with a view to further publication including competitions.

Foreign Encounters
305 pages, paperback

24-Hour Comics Day 2012: Comics online (and survival tips for creative marathons)

Just a couple of days, then it's NaNoWriMo again - the time of writing a novel in one month. The comic artists already completed their creative marathon: for them, it's creating a full 24-page comic in 24 consecutive hours.

Thousands of artists from around the world join the 24-Hour Comics Day Challenge every year. This year, the event was on October 20th - and many of the comics are online already. To see photos from the different locations and the comics in process, visit the 24-Hour Comics Day blog.

24 Hour Comic Day Links, Notes, Comics:

• Comments and comic links @twitter: twitter #24hcd
• 24-hour comics online: a collection of English and German 24-hour-comics
• 24-hour comics online: 113 French and International artists
• Comments and comics links @Facebook/24 Hours Day
• Pages and whole comics on Tumblr: 24hcd

Advice for creative tasks 
These might also be good for other creative marathon tasks:
Surviving Twenty-Four Hour Comic Day

The history of the 24-Hour Comic day

The original 24-Hour Comic was created by Scott McCloud, who says: "In 1990, I dared my friend Steve Bissette to draw a complete 24-page comic in a single day. To seal the deal, I agreed to do one too. I did mine, Steve did his, and two decades later, thousands of cartoonists have taken that same challenge."  - More about the day, on the official 24-Hour Comics Day website.

Extended Comic Reading Session
In a coincidence of time, there also was a comic fair happening in Germany exactly at 24 hour comic day, which lead to an extended print comic reading session, with "Noel, or: Charles Dickens goes Batman" + "In Search of Peter Pan" + Comic artists live:
Graphic Novels of the Dickens, Steampunk and Alpine kind (or: what are you reading?)

International Book Fair Frankfurt 2012 - impressions, themes, snapshots

Last week, the Frankfurt Book Fair opened its doors again - it's one of the largest and oldest book fairs, a meeting point for over 7300 exhibitors from more than 100 countries, with a tradition that spans more than 500 years. The first 3 days of the fair are business days, the weekend is for the general public.

The guest country this year is New Zealand. Focus themes were: e-books, science and education, art books, comics. Some impressions with links:

authors 

books + books

and the Nobel Prize for Literature goes to... Mo Yan

(more here in an extra blog post: words, wars, books..)

Comics 

Forum Discussions: E-Books (the neverending theme)

Guest Country New Zealand - extra hall (more)

"Long before books, there were stories"

Open Air Reading Zone

Science Books

CERN at the Book Fair with the Higgs-Field + the 1. www-server, more here:
the beginning of the web: "vague but exciting"

E-Book Installation

Reading Tent

word cubes: to learn, to know, to explore

and: Gutenberg Museum at the Book Fair

Handmade Prints

Frankfurt Skyline

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the power of words, or: a girl with a book

(forwarded by Ushrat Sultana, UK Parliament)

Writers + Artists share their "View From Here"

In a celebration across boundaries that is inspired by the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, where New Zealand is featured country, writers and artists from both countries share their persoanl "View From Here".

"We asked contributors to share entries for the theme "View From Here" and we ended up with a beautiful collection of photography, poetry, story and reports from all around New Zealand and Germany," says Michelle Elvy, who edited the issue.

The views reach from the north of New Zealand and meander through Northland to the west coast, from big city to country meadows, and all the way to ChristChurch — and in between scoot from Bavaria to Scotland, from Berlin to Hikurangi.

Contributors include Trish Nicholson, Beate Jones, Paula Green, Siri Embla, Gus Simonovic, Christopher Allen, Gill Hoffs, Andrew Bell, Marcus Speh, Piet Nieuwland, Leanne Radokjovich, Frances Mountier, Hinemoana Baker, Lesley Marshall, Rae Roadley, Helen Lowe, Karen Tribbe, Vaughan Gunson, Cecelia Wyatt, Maureen Sudlow, Michelle Elvy and Dorothee Lang.

Link: A View From Here

Lit-Roundup: diversity, the poet's task & to be published now + 3 Reviews: Kino, Best Behaviour, The Lyre + 2 Interviews

On being published, diversity, the poet's task, the purpose of art...

What does it mean to be published now? 
An interesting discussion on writing and being published started in the fictionaut forum and continued in the blog of author Marcus Speh.

A More Diverse Universe Reading Tour 
Concerned by the lack of diversity in fantasy fiction, particularly fantasy fiction of the epic nature, a group of bloggers who got together to create a "More Diverse Universe". The idea of the blog tour: to highlight fantasy/sci fi/magical realism novels written by a person of color. The full blog page with links is now online.

The Purpose of Art + The Poet's Task
Ponderings on art, poetry and words, from the quote: "A poem is a machine made of words" to the Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (ModPo) class, which sparked the discussion on the purpose of art (" Is the purpose of art to think about what art is?") - and: What's the task of a poet?
 
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Reviews, Books, Blogs

Christopher Allen reviews the novel "Kino": "Jürgen Fauth’s Kino arrived yesterday. I’m apprehensive. Jürgen is the co-creator of Fictionaut. What if I don’t like the book? Until I open it, I have no idea what it’s about—except for the word Kino, which I know means cinema in German."

Jean Morris takes you along for a read of Will Buckingham's "The Descent of the Lyre": "You’ve been looking forward to the new novel by Will Buckingham, a favourite blogger and a remarkably clever, versatile and talented writer. You very much liked his first published novel, Cargo Fever, about a man-like ape on an Indonesian island. It was a one-off, weird and wonderful and immediately engaging, where so many excellent novels these days are more of the same."

Alex Miller reads Noah Cicero's novel "Best Behaviour", and finds it "both pleasant to read and devastating. Cicero writes with a political edge that sets him apart from the “alt lit” crowd."

Dorothee Lang reads around the world, this time: Ayiti by Roxane Gay and African Sunrise by Nnedi Okorafor: Ayiti, Africa, and stories that aren't a story (global reading challenge)

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2 Interviews: Anonymous Photography & Banned Books

Stephanie Dean interviews Patty Carroll about her project "Anonymous Women" at F-Stop: Patty Carroll: "And so when you can't see the eyes it's like one of those things where it's mysterious and kind of surreal but it also denies you access to the identity of that person. Right?" Anonymous Women

Last week was Banned Books Week. At Guernica, Alice Walker - one of America’s most censored writers - talks with Megan Labrise about finding wisdom in the songs of ancestors, why her acclaimed novel won’t be translated into Hebrew, and approaching writing in a priestly state of mind: Alice Walker: Writing What's Right


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Blog Notes, Reflections Reads, Photos, Moments, etc:

For more reflections & reads visit:

• the blueprint blog roll
• the virtual notes lit / web blogroll

Sea Bandits - Yay Words!

Sea Bandits is a project from Yay Words! - Poets were invited to submit short form poetry and artwork about the sea and/or thieves/thievery. Each poet who submitted was guaranteed at least one poem into the collection, the formats range from haiku, tanka, sequences, rengay, haibun, haiga to prose poems.

The collection is part of an ongoing series edited by Aubrie Cox, she notes: "As I was putting this collection together, it occurred to me that it’s nearly been a year since I started putting these PDF collaborations together on my blog, starting with the backlit fog at the end of September 2011." (note on the process)

Contributors include: Melissa Allen, Asni Amin, Johnny Baranski , Richard Cody, Kirsten Cliff, Martin Gottlieb, Aubrie Cox, Merrill Gonzales, Mark Harris, Yousei Hime, Shiteki Na Usagi, Cara Holman, Alegria Imperial, Kris Kennedy, Dorothee Lang, Ron Moss, Peter Newton, Christina Nguyen, Kathy Nguyen, Ellen Grace Olinger, Stella Pierides, Sapna, Lucas Stensland, Carmen Sterba, Alan Summers, Christine L. Villa, Michael Dylan Welch and Angie Werren.

You can download a free Pdf here:
Sea Bandits PDF

La Munkya

an epic three-and-a-half minutes narrative written by a kid

 

thanks to Tim Jones for spreading the word munkya: "‏@timjonesbooks: "I think this might be the best and funniest three-and-a-half minutes of pure narrative ever"

PS: there also is a Making-of-La-Munkya clip

and if you are in the mood for more book clips, try: "Read it Maybe"

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