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

**

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?
 
**



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)

**

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


**

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"

**

Hybrid Beasts - Red Lemonade Community

Hybrid Beasts is a crowdsourced, mixed collection that developed in a collaborative process that was driven by readers and writers.

The collection features texts that are a hybrid of different genres - crossover between prose, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, essay, commentary, memoir, short story, poem..

Guest edited by Molly Gaudry, the collection includes hybrids written by Erik Wennermark, Kathryn Mockler, Jana McCall, Berit Ellingsen, Luke Dani, Gabe Wollenberg and R.V. Branham

You can read more about the project at the Hybrid project, and you can download the collection as free PDF or e-pub at: Hybrid Beasts

About Red Lemonade 
Red Lemonade is a writer community (like Fictionaut, but smaller) where writers post manuscripts and readers can comment to the texts directly in the text on the webpage, plus write comments in the margin. Here's more info about Red Lemonade

__
PS: the feature image is a visual hybrid of the pdf-cover and the photo in the editorial

now on: A More Diverse Universe Blog Tour

A More Diverse Universe is a blog initiative by a small group of bloggers who got together out of concern of the lack of diversity in fantasy fiction, particularly fantasy fiction of the epic nature by a blog tour. The idea of the blog tour: to highlights fantasy/sci fi/magical realism novels written by a person of color.

The call went up in August (here's the original call with introduction), and many, many bloggers followed. Yesterday the blog tour started, it runs from Sunday 23 to Saturday 29 September

The full schedule of the blog tour with links is online here: A More Diverse Universe: The Schedule

Hiromi Goto, current Writer-in-Residence at Athabasca University, has written an introduction for the blog tour: "The resonance of culture is difficult to measure. Essentialisms aside, one’s culture(s) creates a particular context of experience and understanding of the world. There is a grammar of seeing and perceiving that comes from being from a specific culture... I want to read stories and books that will let me see my world in different ways, not re-inscribe the world I’ve learned through the public education system and popular culture. Let me dream in a language not my own." (Hiromi Goto's Blog )

The hashtag for the blog tour on twitter is #diversiverse

2 ways of voices, or: a PS from the editor:
i wished i had come across the link to the blog tour earlier, when the call was out. in a coincidence, i chanced upon it after blogging about the very topic of global voices today, as part of the "It's Monday what are you reading" blog meme. a quote from the post: "You can easily read around the world and still stick with authors that entirely belong to your own hemisphere. Which will make it a very different read (and world impression) compared to reading around the world in the voice of the authors of the different continents." - here's the link: Ayiti, Africa, and stories that aren't a story (global reading challenge)

Read It Maybe

A "Call Me Maybe" parody from a bookstore:

The Short Story #10, a book video by Open Books: "Read It Maybe"

What does it mean to be published now?

Last week in the Fictionaut forums, a question by David Ackley (which picked up on yet another thread on the theme of "previous publication" in the age of the internet" lead to a longer thread: Fictionaut Forum / What does it mean to "be published" now? What's your definition of "publication?" Some quotes from the answers:

"They mean people are aware of you. That your work is being read, discussed, passed around..." - Darryl Price

"An editor reads it, accepts it, puts it out for the world..." - Linda Simoni-Wastila

"To me, publishing means that my piece is out there to be read in a format where I am incapable of personally making changes to it." - Magda Sullivan

"Getting a story published anywhere out there is still one of the great thrills of a lifetime, for sure" - Barry Friesen

CHANGE
"The thread also includes notes on the changing state of the literary world, or rather: the way the technical development changes a lot of things, including publishing. - "I am very excited about what electronic technology offers writers and readers. I am concerned that there is little quality control. In the end, having so much out there makes it more difficult to actually get your stuff read." - Linda Simoni-Wastila

"With anybody being able to put up their novel for sale on Amazon Books in five minutes flat, and anybody being able to put stuff on their own blog at will, publishing's become fully democratized. Ha. ... There's so much wonderful writing that the public never gets to see, because there's no model yet, during this long transition, to attract eyeballs to specific work." - Barry Friesen

The thread now also is moving on in blogs, like in the blog of author Marcus Speh, who notes: "While I’m affected (and saddened) by some of the experiences shared here, I don’t agree with the negative views on the demise (?) of either publishing or bookshops. .. The replacement of one paradigm by another, of one world by another, never is a pleasant process. It isn’t pleasant for people on either side: those who are left behind feel left out and dismissed; and those who build the new world share all the discomforts, uncertainties and fears of the pioneer."

Again, the theme lead to a thread which is online here: What does it mean to be published now? Some quotes from there:

"On “publication”, I’m bemused by the panic about the “changes” — it’s clear that e-publishing is going to be a giant part of the future reading experience, but is this really so different to our past? It used to be that stories were told around a fire — maybe even before fire — and this continues. .. Any old arse can write a book and publish to The Whole World! But in truth it’s no different to the man with a tale who takes it to the pub and wets a few palates before beginning because on the internet like any other stage or place or piece of paper, it’s all about storytelling, and all about the people who hear or watch us – and people haven’t changed." - Martha Williams

"One of the things I would LOVE to see being slapped into the garbage can is this idea of “vanity” publishing. Technology has given us all the tools to put out, truly INDEPENDENTLY, a brilliantly made (and hopefully written) project, if one is willing to work hard." - Lx

**

Writing & Reviewing
It seems to be a time of taking a fresh look at things, and of pondering - parallel to this theme, the review debate is also ongoing - and probably is also induced be the change of parameters - not only is the process of writing democratized, but also the process of reviewing. More on that theme, here: The Art of the Book Review + the Book Reviews Rage