By 3 p.m., Wed., Feb. 8, please briefly describe the incident or scene that you will use as the basis of your short prose submission (no longer than 500 words and closer to 250) to cur.ren.cy. Read the submission guidelines below before posting. It's important that your prospective subject be journalistic as well as literary. Keep in mind Henry James' criteria for judging a piece of writing: 1) What is the writer trying to achieve? 2) Did the writer achieve it? 3) Was it worth achieving? The last is also the most important.
http://www.currencylit.com/submit
8 comments:
I'd like to write about my great grandmothers' death. She passed away when I was around 11 or 12, and her death changed my life. She had always told me I would be the writer in the family, and everytime I write I think of how proud she would be of me. Her death really shocked me and to this day I still do not think I'm over it. I remember everything about her death, the phone call, my mom crying in her room, telling my siblings she passed (it was my brothers birthday), reading a psalm at her funeral, writing a letter and put it her casket, reading a eulogy at the family dinner...and so on. I believe her death shaped my life dramatically and would make for a good submission to currency.
Three years ago I went to San Jose, Guatemala on a volunteer trip. I worked on building a model farm with a non-governmental organization called UNESCO. I will never ever forget waking up the first day on the farm and not having a cell phone to wake me up, a shower to wash in, and having to eat pita and eggs that tasted and smelled like a living, cackling hen. Life on that farm was a wake-up call for me and everyone else that was on the trip. We didn’t just see first hand how the local people of San Jose, Guatemala lived; we experience their daily life. The trip really did open my eyes and had a profound effect on my, especially when I was back in the United States. This is why I feel like this would be a scene for the basis of my short prose.
In August of 2004, I got a phone call, from family members in Florida, saying that my Aunt had overdosed and almost ended her life. I remember my Father and his sister's getting together and immediately heading down there to before she had passed away. I got that second phone call which resulted in me never seeing my aunt again. No one in the family knew how much my Aunt had suffered towards the end of her life. No one knew why she finally ended her own life. I've only met my Aunt maybe a handful of times. But in those handful of times were infinite memories that I will never forgot. It's a terrible feeling when you want to get to know someone a lot more but you don't have the option. This hard time within my family, I feel would be a good submission to Currency.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and ever since I was little, my parents would always take my brother and I to see the Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons being blown up in the city. Besides watching the characters come to life, my favorite part has always been the contrast between the balloons and the setting. The enormous and colorful balloons are pinned down to the ground between rows of dull, gray and brown tall buildings to the point where it almost seems unreal. But to bring you back to reality, there are huge crowds with people shoving everyone else, children screaming, people stopping to take pictures, and the police directing traffic. I think it would be interesting to write about this scene for my submission.
I kind of want to write about the fifth Evangelist, aka my mother aka the Gospel according to Karen. I like humor so much, and she sure enough provides plenty of it. I kind of want to take her fanaticism towards the Lord over the years and condense it into like her greatest hits. One involves going on a holy water war path around the house to rid it of evil. I'm sure I'll be banned from Cur.ren.cy.
I would like to write about my study abroad semester because I think that definitely changed me as a person. I traveled to foreign cities, listened to different languages, and tasted each countries "known for" foods. I have many humorous, but then frustrating, stories that I could choose to go into detail about and create a good submission.
Maybe I didn't give my self enough time to think about this, but from reading other people's story ideas, I feel I don't have a particular life changing or significant moment, scene, or incident that I could passionately write about. I see some people chose to write about the loss of a loved one, and death is something I have been having to deal with lately.
My grandfather passed before finals weeks last semester, and I was sad, but I haven't seen him in so long that it took a while to set in. I was unable to make it to his funeral in Georgia where he lived with my grandmother, aunts, uncle, and cousins.
If it's one thing I feel can be the basis for my short prose submission to cur.ren.cy, are the changes I've been through since coming to college. But strongly, how death has made me look at life lately and the way time is moving. I turned 21 this past Saturday, Feb. 4, and it made me really think about life, as I always do, but from a perspective of how I want to and should life it. And getting to where I want to go from where I am.
I also went to a funeral of a women I knew named Dawn, from my childhood community this past Friday. I don't consider my self religious, but I do believe in God, and I got to hear the good word at her service. I felt I needed to hear the things the minster/pastor (I don't know which one to use) said. It was good to see that her daughter seemed to be holding up well. We're nearly the same age, and I could only image what she is going through. It was also shocking that she passed. She was so full of life, and it just happened, from Cancer.
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