Butterfly Fears Heights

Photographers Kirby and Cindy Pringle have finished their third Happy Tails children's book, The Butterfly That Would Not Fly.  Main characters, Earl and Pearl, discover an acrophobic butterfly and attempt to help the butterfly migrate to Mexico.

To pre-order a copy of The Butterfly That Would Not Fly, go to the book's page on kickstarter.com.

Kickstarter is a website where artists post either project ideas or completed projects in order to  find funding.  Sometimes, the artist(s) asks for a partial amount necessary to fund the project, outside of other funding that they already have; or the artist(s) asks for full funding.  

The Pringles are offering pre-order of The Butterfly That Would Not Fly through Kickstarter in order to help defray the printing costs for the 32-page, full-color book. Readers may contribute any amount to the project; with a $20 donation comes an autographed, and paw-o-graphed, copy of the book.

From the photographers: "We're very excited about the new book. We also hope to inspire people to grow flowers and milkweed to help the butterflies."

For more information about the Pringles, outside of their Kickstarter page, please see their website, Dogtown Artworks.

Story Forthcoming in Glint: The Midwife

Barber Pole
by Sally M,
Used under CC
license

Her story "The Midwife"
will be is published in the
May June 2012 issue of Glint.  

"The Midwife" will be
in her next book
Midwest in Memoriam.

Story Summary:
Susan has inherited
the barber shop
business that has
been passed down
through her family
for several generations.

She has also inherited
the delivery end of the
business.

Roll-Call for Readers: Do You Exist?

 Some rights reserved by MissTurner ,
Used under CC license

So, she has been working on her syllabus for the Creative Writing class that she'll be teaching in a few weeks.  A stack of books is teetering on her table, sticky-noted at this story or that poem her students will read and discuss on days they aren't discussing their own creations.

Meanwhile, she has also been reading outside of these books, and maybe it's just her luck, but she keeps landing on rather depressing articles.  For example, Nicholas Carr's article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" in which he discusses the way internet reading is affecting our brain patterns and, thus, ability to read deeply.  It's the true, sordid tale of how once-avid readers are losing their reading skills, much like a piano player who, after a twenty-year break, returns to the bench to find that her fingers have lost their songs.

Then, there's a more recent article out in The Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled "We Can't Teach Students to Love Reading"; here, Alan Jacobs compares reading habits from the advent of the printing press to the shift in post WWII students to present-day reading.  Some of his essay is a response to Carr's book that was inspired by the above-mentioned article. Jacobs concludes that, and she thinks rightly, that it is a much different task to teach students who have never experienced deep-reading how to do that by college but that it is more possible to reinvigorate those who have, at some time in their lives, experienced deep-reading and the benefits and joys.

A more, perhaps, uplifting article in The New York Times came out last week entitled "Your Brain on Fiction", which summarizes recent studies that show how the brain is triggered by reading fiction in similar ways as to when it's having sensory experiences outside of reading. Of course, it's a bit disheartening that anyone should have to go to such lengths to prove that reading is beneficial, but that the studies existed and an article was written to relay this information is one of those "sign of our times".  She supposes.  Because while it's nice that people are taking the time to research such things, the conclusions are akin to what Ian Frazier lampoons in his essay, "Researchers Say".

 Some rights reserved by Roel Wijnants,
Used under CC license 

But, see here, it seems to her that it might be awfully depressing to be a [starting] writer right now, especially since all these reports keep being released about how people aren't reading anymore, or how, for example, there's evidently something wrong with Oprah for elevating the reading taste of her followers because readers with higher literary tastes don't buy market romance.  (Oh, Culture Industry.  Oh, oh, oh.)

So, this is what she would like: 

One sentence, but no more than ten sentences, in which you explain


1) why you read fiction or poetry (or both), OR 
2) what you look for when you go hunting for a new book, OR 
3) who your favorite writer is and what it is about his or her writing, you think, that draws you back, OR
4) why you no longer read fiction or poetry

 Some rights reserved
by gypsy999, Used under CC license 

Just post your mini-essay at the bottom of this blog.  Feel free to stay anonymous, although it would be nice if you could state both your general location and age (Ohio, U.S., 41-years old).

Her idea is to then print out the answers for her students and discuss them since, after all, you, reader, are one of their potential audience members in years to come.

For one, she hopes that the responses will encourage her students to know that readers do, in fact, still exist.  And, two, she hopes that the responses will show the variety of readers who read and for a variety of reasons.

Think of this as a sort of  Roll-Call for Readers, a sort of rallying anthem for the troop of writers she will meet in a few weeks and then teach for the next few months.  Writers who, no doubt, have been told already that no one reads anymore and that there is no life in writing about people who don't exist for people who don't exist.


Do you exist, reader?  


(Click on the title of this post to access the comment form.)

Inside Their Eyes: Shelter Dog Portraits

Something lovely has been happening in Tuscola, Illinois at the Douglas County Animal Control and Shelter.

Her brother and sister-in-law, Kirby and Cindy Pringle, are professional photographers with a deep fondness for animals, and have begun volunteering at their local animal shelter by photographing the shelter dogs. The shelter then posts the animals' photographs on their Facebook page, along with adoption details.

Whippet, photograph by Dogtown Artworks

What seems like every day, another elegant photograph of a recent addition to the shelter is posted, which becomes a rather disheartening situation because the photography is beautiful but another animal-in-need is not.

As the Facebook page unfolds itself, it is simultaneously becoming a sort of online art gallery.  A gallery that testifies to the bond between dog and human, and the effects the loss of such a relationship has on our dog-friends.

Often, adoption photographs of shelter dogs feature them in the kennels, behind chain-link fence or wire, and the cages often act as a barrier between the viewer and dog, thus causing the dogs to seem as though they deserve to be there--since the nature of the cage is to confine, to isolate, to keep what must be dangerous out.  

Brindle-Mix, photograph by Dogtown Artworks

These non-traditional adoption ads allow the dogs to communicate to the viewers with dignity.  Here, the dogs are allowed to show themselves outside of the fence, in the way that animals at shelters would if they weren't there.

A shelter is--at least for the ones she has visited--an often anxious, stressed environment that would drive anyone, dog or human, into rattling their cages, staring off, or barking despondently, no matter how friendly their hearts and sweet their temperaments outside the cage.

But shelter behavior, of course, is often enough to make the potential adopter move onto the next kennel, and the next (often past the adult dogs and toward the puppies), or maybe just out the door.

These are empowering photographs, and a beautiful testament to the power of art and the power of the bond between ourselves and our dogs.  Together, the world of longing and love is put into better focus.

These are our undesirables.  But the Pringles are showing us how to see them as they are: full of desire.

_____________________________________

To view more of the dogs at the Douglas County Adoption, 

or for information about volunteering or donating, 

please visit their Facebook page.

For more information about the photographers, 

see their website, Dogtown Artworks.

Three puppies at Douglas County Shelter,
photographs by Dogtown Artworks

Lake Effect 2012: Now Available, Contains Sparrows

2012 Issue of Lake Effect,
Cover Art and Design
by A.J. Noyes

Published out of Penn-State Erie, the new issue of Lake Effect (Volume 16/Spring 2012) is now available for purchase. Her story "Winter's Wooden Sparrows" appears within its pages.

This is her second time working with Lake Effect, as six years ago they published my story "Digging" (Issue #10), a story about a girl and boy who discover their siblings and father buried in the forest.  "Digging" is in The Floating Order, while "Sparrows" will be in her next book, Midwest in Memoriam, which she recently began sending out to publishers.

If a pattern has begun, then in six more years she''ll have another story for another book.  That's a rather nice idea.

Our dog Gretta does not like to read recommended works,

evidently, but she had a long day

(Copyright Erin Pringle-Toungate)

The Nortang Bears Forthcoming in Sand Journal

Image from here

A bit of lovely news:

Her very short prose piece, The Nortang Bears, has been slated for publication across the waters in SAND Journal, an English literary journal based in Berlin, Germany.

Due out in May 2012

Robert Pinsky in Spokane, February 2012

Former Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky, will be in Spokane February 28 and 29.

Laurel wreath,
from here

Gonzaga University: February 28, in the evening 7:30-8:30, Cataldo Globe Room

Spokane Falls Community College: February 29, 11:30-12:30, in sn-w'ey'mn, Building 24, Room 110

Both reading events are free and open to the public.

From the Child's Shelf: Sendak's No Bumbler

Sendak, Maurice. Bumble-Ardy. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.

Maurice Sendak's new book Bumble-ardy is the story of a pig celebrating his first birthday party, which is his ninth birthday. The backstory, which is told in preface, is that Bumble-ardy's family "frowned on fun", which explains his lack of birthdays hitherto, and his parents were recently killed. Although his parents were butchered, the fact that humans would have been the ones to murder them isn't emphasized. And so, all readers of the book are immediately set up as the antagonists to this world. 

The story begins with Bumble-ardy moving in with his aunt and his decision, against her wishes and knowledge, to throw himself a birthday party. A masquerade party. The party lasts most of the book as the animals, dressed as humans, drink "brine", dance, and celebrate the life of Bumble-ardy--and, as such, life itself. But it's a strange dance to celebrate an equally strange life. Without surprise, as it is with any celebration of life comes life's comrade-in-the-wings: death. 

When any talk of controversy or irritability about Bumble-ardy rears, it's typically in regards to the presence of death (although, a cursory glance at the GoodReads page for the book suggests that adult readers are equally irritable due to Bumble-ardy not being Where The Wild Things Are). 

However, death is not a focus of the story, is never central to any page, stands in the background, and only becomes apparent on subsequent reads. Perhaps it is death's representation as natural and part of the scene that causes some readers to focus and dwell on it, and in dwelling, become concerned that their children are dwelling in the same ways. Perhaps if readers view death as unnatural and something to be feared, heckled, ignored, repressed, and otherwise stricken from reality, then Bumble-ardy works as a counter to those notions. 

EDITOR IN OZ: May be human, only behind curtain

When I attended the Dublin Phoenix Convention as a guest last year, I met John Kenny, co-editor of Albedo One magazine. During the convention he solicited a story from me, which I then wrote for the Aeon Press anthology he edited, entitled Box of Delights.  Because I had a good experience with him as an editor, I started following the blog he recently began.  And he recently wrote a good blog article on submission strategies for writers.

It stood out to me for a number of reasons, one is likely because I find myself in a rather new situation as a long-time submitting writer: I have a number of new stories, and all of them are thirty-to-forty pages long.  Most magazines no longer accept story submissions of such length, and those who do typically cut off at 10,000 words. The few remaining either charge a $3 "reading fee" to submit or don't seem really that interested in reading long stories to begin with.

Of course, what writer with half a thought in her head would decide to write long stories ("novelettes", suggests Duotrope) at the very moment everyone else has decided that a story the size of a dead leaf is best?

Image of Writer Submitting Stories Pre-Ebook

Needless to say, I've been spending some additional hours thinking about submissions and, in many ways, feel like I'm re-experiencing what it was to send out my stories when I was 15.  Except it's not as exciting, the dazzle is gone, I don't save all my rejections in a jean purse, and online form rejection letters are--as I'm noticing--often made to seem like they're not form letters, which makes the task of submitting (and managing them) all the more frustrating.

In the good old days, the rejection form, and its variants, implied a certain code to the writer based on how it was written and signed.  Little differently, I would assume, than how a writer's cover letter--its formatting, tone, and content--will say something to the editor about the professionalism, or lack thereof, of the writer.

But in regards to the code of rejection letters: A rejection addressed to "Dear Writer" and signed with a photocopied editor's signature (or simply "The Editors") meant that the story didn't merit more than this.  It was just another story, and so the writer would know something about what just happened and how to think about re-submitting.  The same rejection letter but with a real signature above the photocopied one meant the editor was sending a sort of compliment.  It was a rejection but the editor took the time because of this particular story.  And so that would tell the writer something.  Thus, a handwritten P.S. on an otherwise form rejection was really something.  This is what was meant by "I got a good rejection."

But many magazines are emailing form rejection letters (equal to a photocopied Dear Writer form rejection) but making them look personal.  And while I'll save my deeper thoughts on pseudo-personal form rejections for another day, perhaps you can see why automated online rejections that fill the writer's first name into the "Dear" field and the story's title in the Thanks for submitting your story ___________ can be a bit confusing:

'The Floating Order Feels Significant'

Women: A Cultural Review recently published a review by John Regan, a Cambridge graduate and lecturer at University College Dublin.  His review, "More Than Women and Cats", regards two collections from Two Ravens Press: Regi Claire's Fighting It and Erin Pringle's The Floating Order.

In an overall positive review, about The Floating Order, Regan at one point calls Pringle "a master of tragicomedy" and later writes:

"Just as her stories thrive on a kind of profitable restlessness, The Floating Order feels significant by virtue of its narrative, structural and thematic variety."

Quite nice, quite nice.

Obviously, Dr. Regan has excellent taste.  Cheers!