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Octavo Digital Rare Books
High-quality digital reproductions (PDF or CD) of important rare printed works. Catalogue includes medieval illuminated manuscripts, Shakespeare folios and more.
October Full Moon
by Marilyn McVicker
Standing on the hill, I look down the cove.
The roof glows radiant in the moonlight. It is
so bright, tonight I can see this page, clearly.
Stars canopy above. A chill in the air.
Dark forest forms a fringe to the scent
of rotting leaves, decaying grass. Last remaining
katydids sing their fading ostinato. Air is
electric with light, life at its zenith.
Inside my fleece jacket, I am warm. My blood
pulsates the liquid music of my life. Alive
in my veins. Electric.
When I am too old to stand here any longer,
will I wish I had stood here more?
Odd Mercy
By Gail Thomas. This elegantly crafted, life-affirming chapbook won the 2016 Charlotte Muse Prize from Headmistress Press, a lesbian-feminist poetry publisher. Thomas' verse knits together several generations of women, from her once prim and proper suburban mother descending into Alzheimer's, to her young granddaughter surrounded by gender-bending friends and same-sex couples. She grounds their history in earthy details like the taste of asparagus, locks of hair from the dead, and old newspaper clippings of buildings raised and gardens planted by blue-collar forebears. The centerpiece of the collection, "The Little Mommy Sonnets", poignantly depicts a sort of reconciliation at the end of a thorny relationship, where differences in ideals of womanhood fall away, and what's left is the primal comfort of touching and feeding a loved one.
Ode
By Luci Shaw
The stillness of last night's dew, falling,
The ripeness of a perfect peach,
The coupled sound of two loons, calling,
My friends' connections, each to each.
The thorny rose's sharp perfection,
Forgiveness offered to a foe,
The firmness of a son's connection
Though seasons come and seasons go.
A violent thunderstorm retreating,
A candle's flame, however brief,
The sudden joy of kindred meeting,
Or autumn's colors, leaf by leaf.
The promise of a friend's arrival
To share a meal and dream a dream,
To work together for revival
Of some beloved, forgotten scheme.
Life's rhythmic pulse forever thrumming
in tune with love's eternal song.
Forgive me, if you hear me humming
for joy that you and I belong.
Ode to a Fallen Sparrow
By Helen Leslie Sokolsky
I stand riveted
within a circle of sparrows
feeling like an immigrant
trespassing on their gathering.
Squalls of white swirl around us
the snow falling steadily
in an unchanging rhythm.
One sparrow starts wandering away from the others
limping slightly
making his way to the park benches
now camouflaged in winter's coat.
He seems to find comfort on those pillars
so many stories carved into the wooden slats
voices of summer's past.
I toss some crumbs, my alms to him
he sprinkles me with down
the two of us, twisted vines
pulled together across all this stillness.
Carefully steadying himself on his podium
hurt leg tucked in feathers
the sparrow begins to trill some half notes
and from that tiny frozen heart
a fugue clamoring to wake the earth
resounds in all its splendor
his resurrection symphony.
Ode to the Forty Year Patient
By Andrew Mercado (writing as Chris Smith)
They held a patient at the hospital for over forty years, yes they did!
He was committed to the hospital when he was barely more than a kid.
They held him here, excessively, for no good reasons,
Do the math; they held him here for over 160 seasons.
They held him locked up, not to go free,
Even though he was acquitted of a crime on a not guilty plea,
For year after year and day after day,
O'Lord have they made him pay.
They took away more rights and lowered the quality of food,
To the point that it is indigestible and overall rude.
He cannot sleep due to the light,
That peers into his room each and every night.
They took away hours at his patient job, so money he could not make,
All the while, the hospital just kept on the take, take, take.
For all the while, the hospital stole his life,
And replaced it with worsening continuous strife.
The hospital won't let him go, not even now,
They want to drive him for their "pound of flesh", like a horse and plow.
From the world, the hospital kept him hid,
Until they can bury him and say, "Good Rid!"
of dementia nonsense before departing
By Simon Peter Eggertsen
my grandmother licks at a dried red peach,
thinks of her life still and the rust crush of age.
distracted by the jumble of weakened sense and memory:
she tastes the delicate blade of a gray winter knife
shave through the dense white matter of summer light;
she smells the prismed edges of sugary autumn sand
slip from the dull languor of blue summer dew;
she sees the glee of a thousand green spring wisps
chase away the doubt of black autumn shadows;
she hears the red-fire frenzy of a summer morning sky
subdue the cold aquamarine hues of winter-splayed 'cicles,
she feels the yellow veneer of a spring wind merry-go-round,
glaze into the orange haze of autumn's plumes;
she re-senses, without knowing, the color and order of her seasons.
Off the Yoga Mat
By Cheryl J. Fish. Three New York intellectuals on the cusp of their 40th birthdays fumble toward maturity as Y2K looms. Every environment in this gentle yet deep novel is fully realized—from the anarchy of the "freegans" in Tompkins Square Park, to the domestic rituals of Finnish sauna culture, and the Black community of pre-Katrina New Orleans. The protagonists' lives and loves intersect repeatedly, like complex and shifting yoga poses, hopefully leading to a bit more enlightenment by the time we reluctantly bid them goodbye.
Office Depot
Free delivery with qualifying orders.
Ogden Nash (1902-1974)
Master of American light verse. "How are we to survive?" asks Nash. "Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolousness. I think our best chance—a good chance—lies in humor, which, in this case, means a wry acceptance of our predicament." Bio. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Ojo
By Donald Mengay. In this Joycean novel about queer life in the American West, a young man flees his repressive Cleveland suburb and the ghost of his first lover, to find himself as an artist in a trailer on the edge of the Colorado desert. In the small town of Ojo Caliente, Jake's unlikely family-of-choice comes to include a swinging pastor and his lesbian wife's feminist book club, a construction worker torn between his passion for Jake and his comically fertile wife, and an assertive Latino lover who lives in a household of sharp-tongued trans femmes. This fragile utopia is further riven by the advent of AIDS, yet sensuality and farcical humor leaven the grief. Reading this multivocal, stream-of-consciousness story is like overhearing tantalizing snippets of strangers' conversations on a long train ride. One gradually learns to recognize their voices without context or transitions, and the close attention required to follow the narrative makes its scenes that much more memorable. Ojo is the second book in a planned trilogy that began with The Lede to Our Undoing.
Old Book Illustrations
Images from this searchable database of vintage book illustrations are free to download for your graphic design project. The site attempts to ensure that all images are public-domain and legally accessible in your jurisdiction, but the risk is ultimately on you to confirm permission.
Old Graveyard
By Richard Eric Johnson
Gnarled roots creep beneath
The old leaning trees still shading.
Faded epitaphs and names from other eras
Hide now on tilted, fallen, weathered stones.
Stark are the remaining angels and
Obelisks trying to stand this stillness.
A small stagnant, algae-thickened pond
Meditates a barely discernible sky above.
Insects crawl, buzz in flight and
Beg a swatting of the hand.
From this point one sees an old road of
Crumbling asphalt stretching for neighboring hills.
A grand new super highway drones
Somewhere out of sight.
No one has been here
In a very long time.
Older Writers and Finding Success
What to say when older writers ask me, "Am I wasting my time?"
—Annie Mydla, Managing Editor
Despair is a common theme in many writers’ lives, but that despair is usually linked to fears of growing older and losing one’s mojo, or losing the interest of agents and publishers, or the ability to generate a living from writing.
- Writing Into Your Seventies and Beyond, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett for Gotham Writers
Earlier in the year, I completed a critique for a well-written memoir by a writer in his mid-sixties. After reading my comments, which were largely positive, the author wrote back that the critique was too generous. He told me that I had failed to answer his only question: "Am I wasting my time?"
While this is a question that nearly all writers face, it can carry a special urgency for writers over retirement age. There's often a sense that time might be running out for the hit, the blockbuster, the artistic and social triumph that will justify years of hard experience. There's a lot riding on the manuscript. It can mean more than just itself.
Maybe that's why some of the most dissatisfied critique feedback I've gotten has been from older writers who seem disappointed that I didn't tell them to put down the pen. Is it their fate to slog on alone, racking up pages that no one will read? Maybe a scathing critique would provide some kind of release.
Doling out scathing critiques is not the role of a developmental critiquer, though. My job is to read a manuscript and tell the author the strengths and growth points. Often, this includes expressing genuine admiration for what the writer has accomplished.
When a positive critique receives the follow-up question, "Am I wasting my time?" my response is most often, "Of course not!" But I have the uncomfortable awareness that to the author asking the question, my response might be inadequate.
"Am I wasting my time?" I wonder if there are other questions hidden underneath it: "Does anyone care about my writing?" "Will I find commercial success?" "Does anyone care about me?" "Am I worthwhile?" "Do my thoughts matter?" "Am I creative, or just a fake?" "Have I accomplished anything in life?"
If I read your manuscript and thought it was good, then my critique will make that clear. And yet—something about these situations makes me feel like to the writer, I'm a surrogate for the wider world. It's as though my affirmation as a single reader and critiquer can't replace what the writer feels like they need, but can't get, from the reading public.
I think a lot about the experience of the older writers among us. And, fortunately, other people do, too. I recently had the pleasure of reading an article by Denise Beck-Clark, The Elderly Unsuccessful Creative: On My Deathbed, I Will Still Want to Write. In the article, Beck-Clark writes,
Ultimately, there's the question, "Have I lived a meaningful life?" Or, given all the time I spent writing, not to mention learning, thinking, and talking about writing—identifying as a writer—has it all been one big, sad waste of time and effort?
For me, the pain of this question is its underlying contradiction of the personal versus the interpersonal. On one hand, it's a question that virtually every writer will ask. On the other, it's a question that virtually no one else can answer. I would venture to say that no mere reader, critiquer, agent, publisher, or horde of fans would be able to respond to any writer's satisfaction. Some of the most successful writers have also been the most unhappy. The problem of self-worth, self-expression, and public recognition remains incredibly thorny.
But that's no reason for a writer to give up—let alone ask someone else to tell them to give up.
Finding Success Outside the Manuscript
One thing I have noticed as a critiquer is that many older authors who ask, "Am I wasting my time?" do so in the context of their first or second manuscript. At that stage of the career, a manuscript can feel monumental, a milestone, a monolith. So much has gone into creating it—a lifetime of emotional processing, for starters. Traditional publishing might seem like the only way to do this monolith justice.
Moreover, the writer may have been told their entire life, "You know, you could write a book!" Completing the manuscript and getting it traditionally published could seem like the fulfillment of a social vote of confidence. If the writer doesn't get the book traditionally published, it might feel like failing the people who believed in them.
In the context of modern publishing, though, this "all or nothing" attitude might be putting more pressure on the older writer to succeed with the book manuscript, and nothing but the book manuscript. That's a tough bind to be in. Selling an agent or publisher on an entire manuscript is inherently difficult, because it's such a big investment for everyone involved.
Meanwhile, there are so many smaller, less-investment-heavy, and just-as-professional publishing opportunities besides full-length book publication. If you are an older writer looking for ways to get your work in front of readers, take a look at the four methods below.
1. Try flash nonfiction
Have you been wrestling with a book-length memoir manuscript? Chances are, your document contains an abundance of passages that could stand alone as flash nonfiction (creative nonfiction, memoir, fictionalized memoir). These very short stand-alone pieces range from 100-1,000 words. With just a few strokes of a mouse, you could paste likely-looking passages into a new document, tie off the beginnings and endings, and send them to journals.
It might be worthwhile doing some research on flash nonfiction to get a feel for the genre. The publishing cycle is more rapid than with full-length books, so there are more opportunities, and feedback typically comes more quickly. Some places to start with your research might be:
Writers on the Move: What is Flash Memoir?
Writing Women's Lives Academy: The Benefits of Writing Flash Memoir
If you read about flash memoir and like what you learn, you might want to experiment with submitting excerpts from your existing work to flash nonfiction journals such as the ones listed on these sites:
Erika Dreyfus: Where to Publish Flash Nonfiction & Micro-Essays
Submittable Discover: Flash Nonfiction Markets
Writer's Digest: 5 Flash Fiction and Nonfiction Markets
Brevity: Flash Creative Nonfiction Markets (link opens a PDF)
Flash memoir thrives on momentary impressions without larger context, so it's likely that little, if any, additional editing would be needed before submitting each excerpt to a journal. I'd encourage you to send each of the excerpts you select to at least ten journals and see what happens. You might get a better result than you expect.
2. Seek out publications that are looking for older writers
"Writers 40+" is a thriving market all its own, with many publishers and a solid reader base to keep it lively. Agents, publishers, and journals are actively looking for writers in middle age and beyond.
Opportunities for all genders:
Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magaine
The Speculative Literature Foundation's Older Writers Grant
Lambda Literary's J. Michael Samuel Prize for Emerging Writers Over 50
McKitterick Prize: For a first novel by an author over 40
The Next Chapter Award for emerging writers over 40
Opportunities for women:
Shirley Holden Helberg Grants for Mature Women
Hosking Houses Trust writers' residencies
Two Sylvias Press Wilder Series Poetry Book Prize for women over 50
3. Make writing social
Face-to-face interactions allow writers to cut through the abstractions of "finding their audience" and witness their work's impact directly on readers and listeners.
Joining a writers' group or class locally or online is a great way to get work in front of others. Older writers are welcome to participate in groups for writers of all ages. This article from Artful Editor has great ideas on making writing social: How to Connect with Other Writers.
There are also groups specifically for older writers to meet and enjoy each others' company and experience. Both local, in-person groups like SWit'CH, and online venues, like the Senior Planet Writers' Studio, are great ways to connect one-on-one about writing.
Going to author talks and readings, open mics, book clubs, and writers' conferences can also be a great way to meet and network with other writers.
If you're looking for ways to get involved with other writers face-to-face, it might be a good idea to get into the habit of checking local listings on a regular basis. Lists of upcoming writing gatherings and workshops (both for all-ages and for older writers specifically) are often available at libraries, community and senior centers, and meetup.com.
4. Get involved with anti-ageist activism in the arts
When I asked our head editor, Jendi Reiter, what they thought about the topic of older writers and success, they immediately wrote back:
My first thought is that you should check out the Twitter account @noentry_arts which highlights unnecessary age restrictions in literary and arts applications. They've been successful at pressuring some sponsors to be more inclusive of older writers, amplifying opportunities for older writers, and spreading the word about articles and opinion pieces touching issues of ageism in writing and the arts.
It can be wonderfully heartening to see how we can fight back against artificial limitations against older writers. Getting involved with anti-ageist activism can be an affirming way to assert one's own right to creativity, as well as to meet and support fellow creatives. Read @noentry_arts's posts here: https://twitter.com/noentry_arts
Have any thoughts on finding, or not finding, success and satisfaction as an older writer? Write to Annie at annie@winningwriters.com to share your thoughts.
On (Not) Tracking Movement
In this 2021 essay in in CRAFT Literary, fiction writer and teacher Mike Goodwin advises eliminating mundane action from your narrative. Too many beginning writers waste space with step-by-step descriptions of routine behavior, without using those moments to reveal character or plot. Using the work of minimalists like Raymond Carver as examples, Goodwin breaks down how to write a straightforward scene where every detail counts.
On Battery Hill
I push snow with my feet,
suck ice cookies off one mitten
while dragging the sled
behind like a stubborn dog
on an icy leash
to reach the tin drum bonfire
crowded with Big People
laughing, warming hands,
their faces lively
over the fierce coals.
My dad brings me;
he loves the outdoors. His skin
is thick and ruddy, his voice booms
out, a baritone with basso rumbles.
He stays up by the fire, smacking
his hands for warmth, lets me take the hill
myself. The hill is a test;
fly fast enough to go straight down,
but not slide into the frozen lake.
Footsteps
show me where I've been:
all mixed up, criss-crossed
with the runners and feet
of others. Bundled
in big coats, caps, scarves,
anonymous, you can't tell
if I'm a boy or girl—
even I'm not sure yet.
No one knows me here,
my wet bed, my little lies,
how easy it is to make me cry.
Copyright 2009 by Niki Nymark
Critique by Tracy Koretsky
It is winter here in the United States and the beginning of a long season when we will be reminded of Christmas at every turn and thoughts for many move to family. Perhaps that is why I find myself so drawn to this dramatic persona poem by Niki Nymark, of St. Louis, Missouri, author of A Stranger Here Myself from Cherry Pie Press.
Unlike my last two critiques in which I focused upon a few lines or phrases, the issues with "On Battery Hill", as I perceive them, are more systemic.
Let's start with what's working. Nymark has constructed a durable underlying narrative structure. In three stanzas divided roughly in half in terms of plot, she moves the story consistently forward. First she places the character, then gives her a goal—in this case, a visual target. Stanza two begins by introducing the next character (father) then raises the stakes both emotionally and physically with "the hill is a test".
Notice the restraint of the placement of that phrase. Many poets would succumb to the dramatic effect of ending the stanza with it. Nymark makes a more subtle choice.
She then returns to her protagonist and has her drop her gaze. This completes the action—the visual target—begun in stanza one. It also creates a springboard to move the poem into metaphor, the mixed-up footsteps akin to the protagonist losing herself, then questioning herself, then doubting, arriving finally at her touching confession.
This is enough plot for a short poem. Need to tell more story? Write more poems.
So, plot settled, what this narrative will need is a distinctive voice and a setting. With these, I think, Nymark comes up against some problems.
The voice as it currently stands is inconsistent. "Big People" for example, is not the same level of diction as "a baritone with basso rumbles"; "anonymous" not the same as "ice cookies". The author needs to make a choice. Is this a poem in the voice of an adult remembering or of a child experiencing? Remember, there's no law in any country as far as I know that says you can't write two poems and save your favorite phrases!
If the author does choose to adopt the dramatic persona of a small child, she might try simplifying the verb tenses and shortening the sentences. Run-on sentences can be very effective when writing in a child's voice, but even within these run-ons, try and stick to just the present and past tenses.
We are always taught to be perspicacious in poems, but with dramatic persona, this can make the voice unnatural. At least to my ear, "bonfire inside a tin drum" sounds more childlike than its current, more economical, structure.
Remember: dramatic persona is acting. Before beginning to revise, the author may want to use a few theater techniques to help ground her character.
Probably Nymark already knows everything she needs to know about her young speaker: how old she is, how stable and safe and happy. Nevertheless, it might be useful to locate a few pictures of children that age and ponder them.
Next, even though it may not be included in the poem, she might take some time to fill in the family background. For example, where's Mom right now? Has the little girl seen the hill before, perhaps been on it during another season? What is her relationship with her father?
Now it's time to imagine being there. Poll the character's senses. Nymark might examine in her mind the color of the sky, the sounds of other kids, or of the snow. How cold is the speaker? Is she hungry? What can she see of those coats and caps at her particular height?
In dramatic persona, setting is conveyed through props. These are the objects with which the character interacts. Nymark has given us mittens, sled, tin drum, bonfire. Actors take time to explore their props, to handle them, even though that may just mean pantomime. Through this exercise Nymark might find more fresh and specific details—perhaps something about the sled. She might even find more objects to add, though, in the end, for a poem this brief, the three she has named might prove the perfect amount.
Interestingly, Nymark has not described the hill or the lake. This may be an artistic choice, because to dwell on a description of either would greatly change the poem by enlarging the importance of the setting to the point of metaphor, but I offer it as food for thought.
Finally, she is ready to tell the story out loud while acting her character. I suggest she plan to do so at least several times. It can be helpful to intentionally let go of one's own natural rhythm and experiment with others. For this poem, Nymark might even try affecting a childlike voice. Suddenly it may no longer seem natural to describe the father's skin as thick and ruddy as she discovers ways to convey the same notion in an authentic and consistent voice limited to a child's vocabulary and experience.
Warning: these suggestions will probably lead to a longer draft! Many of the best ideas in a dramatic persona poem come from an initial overwriting. She might even try forcing herself to write as fast as she can. Why? Because writing a dramatic persona is about giving up conscious control of the text and allowing the imagination to take charge—at least for a few drafts anyway. Such poems both require and foster empathy. Perhaps because of that, they are enormous fun, both for the writer and the reader.
Where could a poem like "On Battery Hill" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Wild Violet Writing Contests
Postmark Deadline: December 18
Online literary quarterly offers $100 apiece for unpublished poems and short stories
Dream Quest One Poetry & Writing Contest
Postmark Deadline: December 31
This website featuring accessible work by emerging writers offers online publication and prizes up to $500 for fiction, $250 for poetry
Pennsylvania Poetry Society Annual Contest
Postmark Deadline: January 15
Top prize of $100 plus smaller prizes for poems in two dozen categories including formal verse, humor, and a variety of themes; no simultaneous submissions
Wednesday Club Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: February 1
Free contest offers prizes up to $700 for unpublished poems by authors aged 18+ who live within a 50-mile radius of St. Louis, MO
Memoir (and) Prizes for Prose or Poetry
Postmark Deadline: February 15
Free contest from magazine of personal essays offers prizes up to $500 and publication for "traditional and experimental prose, poetry, graphic memoir, narrative photography, lies, and more"
This poem and critique appeared in the December 2009 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
On Building a Poetry Manuscript for Publication
In this 2021 blog post from Cincinnati Review, poet and editor Sean Cho A. breaks down the screening process for contests and open reading periods, and suggests how to structure the beginning and end of your manuscript to showcase major themes. Sean Cho A. is an editorial assistant at Cincinnati Review's Acre Books imprint and the winner of the Autumn House Press chapbook contest for American Home.
On Entering Your Poems in Competition
Kurt Heintz advises poets on the kinds of online contests worth entering.
On Making the Poetry Manuscript: Advice from Tupelo Press Editor Jeffrey Levine
Jeffrey Levine, editor of the prestigious independent publisher Tupelo Press, offers solid advice on collecting your poems into a coherent manuscript and presenting them to best advantage.
On My Father’s Dashed Hopes of Returning to Normandy Fifty Years Later
Cold for June again this year.
Only in this stupid way
is her heart weak, but his
hale for her, so he won't go,
by himself, saying
it does not matter, those beaches
remain, great gun shocks will resound, strewn
litter of machines and men be again, the floating
harbors and bodies,
will always be there.
Sure a day that defined, refined him in its fire,
the fear, decks slicked by vomit, lip smacking waves, air rip of 88 shells, gun smoke
war fogs, the need for him
Rockaway lifeguard joined to a
life saving service
the need to pass the drowning men, returning
from the troop ships to the beach and back again,
—must get inland, link up, repulse counter
attacks to broom them back to the sea—(where only death is)
the count of drowning men dwindling,
melting into the cold sea,
this as good as any
image of war.
And he is right, what remains remains.
When they do go, they'll find some
of his fellows, some returning in every month
of every year, to remember what they were before
that day and place, what became.
And it is fit she return with him,
since for her he fought in that last good war.
Cold for June again this year. I
will go to Normandy some year
and they will all, all be there.
Copyright 2008 by Michael P. Riley
Critique by Jendi Reiter
Michael P. Riley's "On My Father's Dashed Hopes..." captures the stoic bravery of the generation that fought in World War II. Reticent about the horrors they saw in America's "last good war", these men and women now must call upon that same quiet strength to confront old age with dignity.
It's easy to imagine the narrator's father saying "Cold again for June this year," perhaps in a gruff Yankee voice, as his only comment on his cancelled plans. These are people for whom small talk must speak volumes. (As the military posters said, loose lips sink ships.) While their children and grandchildren, products of the therapeutic culture, are more in the habit of talking their feelings out, this veteran's wife might feel that the most sensitive thing he can do is spare her the reminder of her infirmity and avoid a conversation that would leave her feeling guilty.
His tactful sacrifice mirrors the one he made fifty years earlier, also (the poem tells us) for her. Then, he went to Normandy, plunging into the fear and chaos of battle; now, when that coastline is at peace, his sacrifice is to remain at home, supporting his wife in her fight against illness. The enduring tenderness of their marriage creates a small safe place amid the tumult of "decks slicked by vomit, lip smacking waves, air rip of 88 shells, gun smoke".
The poem's final lines bring past and present together, suggesting a completion that transcends time. "I/will go to Normandy some year/and they will all, all be there." In the end, there is no need for anxious haste. Whenever the speaker visits, the dead and the living will greet him, reconciled and reunited. The repetition of "all" assures us that death is not a permanent barrier—healing news for those veterans who remember, with relief and guilt, "the need to pass the drowning men" and continue their advance up the beach.
The ending echoes and resolves the earlier lines where the confusion of time periods was not so benign: "those beaches/remain...the floating/harbors and bodies,/will always be there." In a sense, he was not lying to his wife when he said he did not need to revisit the battlefield, since it is always with him, a part of his identity, that "day that defined, refined him in its fire".
What the veterans actually rediscover when they return to Normandy is their peacetime selves, "what they were before/that day and place, what became." Safe at home, they still carry the war inside them, and must go back to the scene of the violence in order to understand how peace feels. This is but one example of Riley's skillful use of paradox to weave connections between the wartime experience and the present day, crafting a war poem that is also a gentle love story.
Where could a poem like "On My Father's Dashed Hopes..." be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Wells Festival of Literature International Poetry Competition
Entries must be received by June 30
Prizes up to 1,000 pounds for unpublished poems; no simultaneous submissions; "poems must not exceed 35 lines of text in length"
Oregon State Poetry Association Contests
Postmark Deadline: September 5
Prizes up to $100 in open-theme category, $50 in other categories
Surrey International Writers' Conference Writing Contest
Entries must be received by September 5
Canadian literary conference offers prizes up to C$1,000 for poetry, fiction, essays, and children's literature; online entries accepted
Firstwriter.com International Poetry Competition
Entries must be received by October 1
Writers' resource site offers prizes up to 500 pounds for published or unpublished poems, 30 lines maximum; enter online only
Lucidity Poetry Journal Awards
Postmark Deadline: October 31
Prizes up to $100 for poems in "clear and concise English" that deal with people and interpersonal relationships
This poem and critique appeared in the July 2008 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
On Not Noticing
In this 2018 essay from the blog of the literary journal Ploughshares, novelist and writing teacher Adam O'Fallon Price analyzes how fictional characters can be individuated by what they notice, and fail to notice, in the scenes they describe. Since perception is selective, a description with too many details can make the scene seem less realistic.
On the Idea of Order: Manuscript Advice from Tupelo Press Editor Jeffrey Levine
In this blog series, the editor of prestigious literary publisher Tupelo Press offers advice on the ordering and editing of a poetry manuscript.
On Writing Fat Characters
In this Craft Capsule column from Poets & Writers, fiction writer Christopher Gonzalez (I'm Not Hungry but I Could Eat) talks about being true to the interiority of fat characters, portraying their bodies in respectful ways, and pushing back against the default image of queer men as white and muscular.
One Morning
By Margaret Gish Miller
My husband tells me You were laughing
in your sleep. Funny how nightmares haunt,
like an anaconda swallowing your sister,
but how illusive whimsy is.
Sister & I playing at midnight,
a guessing game we make-up with
O, our friend whose father is sleeping.
The night is dark. No moon, creek
running through buried black-
berries, crick of cricket
dusty roads, the pond.
In the freezer, cost-saving loaves of Wonder
Bread sit stacked, ten for a dollar; Hostess
Cupcakes, dozens, quick-sweet snacks,
two rounds of fudge cake, bitter-
sweet chocolate crust, white icing squiggle,
hieroglyphs of happiness. We play
Who am I? while O's father slept,
a pedophile same as our father,
a million files of defilement
in American homes. Yet I
knew no name for it then
and so we played.
First Sis, down on all fours, head swinging. Mickey
I guess right, Mickey, O's sway-backed old horse. Now
O crouches down, waddling on two feet, head jerking—
George Sis cries. Yes, George the duck, who even
at this late hour waddles, quacking Throw me
into the pond—and we do.
As for me, Maggie, I lie on the bed still as a chrysalis
balled in a ball. A turtle, O guesses. No. You slowpoke.
No. Remember—whoever misses gets cupcakes
smashed in the face.
Oh, what a smashing good time—screaming—laughing
waking his father, hearing him cry Get to bed you kids!
One Throne Magazine
Founded in 2014 at Dawson City, Yukon, One Throne is an online literary magazine published quarterly (always on the first day of each season). Editors say, "We showcase the foremost in writing, spanning genres, and running the gamut from elegant prose and poetry, to plot-driven stories, to speculative fiction." One Throne also hosts contests where entrants receive a writing prompt and have 24 hours to write their entry. The prize is a percentage of entry fees.
OneLook Dictionary Search
Search nearly 1,000 online reference works at once. Get definitions, translations, rhymes, synonyms, antonyms, encyclopedia articles and more. Fast and practical. A good place to start any research project.
OneLook Dictionary Search
OneLook is a search engine that aggregates word definitions from over 1,000 dictionaries. There is also a reverse dictionary search function, in which you can enter keywords to describe a concept, and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept.
Online Etymology Dictionary
Find out the origins of thousands of English words. Discovering how different words are interconnected can prompt some creative juxtapositions in your writing.
Online Etymology Dictionary
Etymology is the study of word origins and how vocabulary has changed over the centuries. This free reference site gathers data from several accepted etymology guides to create a searchable database. Blog entries on the site cover topics such as the development of modern English spelling, principles of etymology, and how to spot fake word derivations.
Online Marketing for Busy Authors
By Fauzia Burke. If you're getting lost among all the options for marketing your book, this quick and well-organized guide will give you a helpful overview of the available tools and why to use them (or not). Especially useful are the opening chapters about deciding on your goals and dreams, because you can't figure out the what till you know the why. The advice seems most on-target for writers of commercial nonfiction (business books, self-help, cookbooks), but fiction writers will also find good tips here. Use this book to plan your overall strategy, then supplement it with more detailed guides on the specific topics that are relevant to you. Burke is an online publicist who has worked with bestselling authors such as Deepak Chopra and Sue Grafton.
Online Poetry Classroom
An extensive resource for high school English and Language Arts teachers, sponsored by The Academy of American Poets. Includes thematic lesson plans, essays on teaching, and hundreds of classic poems to teach. National Poetry Map of America lists literary organizations, festivals, presses, bookstores and poets by state. Teacher Forum lets you share ideas with other educators. Get advice on the best ways to teach poetry. Teaching Resource Center page contains links to other valuable resources.
Online Poetry Classroom - The Literature of War
Introduces high school students to poetry through the theme of war. Harvey Starbuck of Olathe High School (Colorado) describes his course in detail and provides links to poems, lesson plans, teaching strategies and a webliography.
Online School of Poetry
New venture seeks to bridge the worlds of literary academia and slam poetry. Instructors include former California poet laureate Quincy Troupe, performance poets Patricia Smith and Regie Gibson, prizewinning author Tom Daley.
OnlineConversion.com
Conversion calculators for currency, clothing, cooking, computers, and weights and measures of all kinds. A gigabyte, for example, is 1,024 megabytes. The year MCMLXXXXIX is 1999. And in the kitchen, six drops make a pinch.
Only Poems
Launched in 2023 by award-winning poets Shannan Mann and Karan Kapoor, Only Poems seeks to publish longer suites of poems by each contributor in order to showcase their style and range. Authors receive $55 for each feature. They are open year-round to submissions of up to 10 pages/10 poems. Unpublished work only. Follow specific formatting guidelines on website. Editors say, "We love prose poems, traditional forms (ghazals, villanelles, sestinas), love poems, sex poems, speculative poems, and experimental questionnaires, but we are not married to a style or genre."
Onym
Onym's reference site collects resources to help you generate catchy and appropriate names for fictional characters, places, or products. In addition to the usual dictionaries, thesaurus, and baby name lists, Onym includes profession-specific glossaries (e.g. legal, nautical, and mathematical terms), historic slang, world mythology, and random word generators. (However, political sensitivity and avoiding cultural appropriation are up to you.)
Open Culture
Educational media website Open Culture provides this archive of over 500 literary classics available as free e-book downloads for your computer or mobile device. Genres include poetry, literary novels, science fiction, philosophy, and children's stories. There are also links to other free e-book libraries.
Open Minds Quarterly
Open Minds Quarterly is a publication of The Writer's Circle, a project of NISA/Northern Initiative for Social Action. Open Minds Quarterly is dedicated to writers worldwide who have survived depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. The journal publishes fiction, book reviews, poems, and first-person narrative accounts, and sponsors the annual BrainStorm Poetry Contest for mental health consumers and survivors.
Open Road Integrated Media
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its e-books through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media. Their mission is to give publishing's "vibrant backlist" fresh exposure in the digital marketplace. Open Road has published e-books from legendary authors including William Styron, Pat Conroy, Jack Higgins, and Virginia Hamilton, and has launched new e-stars like Mary Glickman. Their current projects include reviving out-of-print LGBT classics for e-book readers.
Operation Memory
Second collection by well-regarded poet and critic is intellectual without being pretentious, full of witty surprises and self-mocking cultural observations. "Many are called and sleep through the ringing."
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
This darkly comical autobiographical novel is narrated with deadpan wit but also a certain tenderness toward her own and her family's eccentricities. Raised by a fervent Pentecostal mother in a provincial British town, the protagonist finds her world shaken to its core when she discovers her attraction to other girls.
Origami Poems Project
The Origami Poems Project features instructions for creating your own mini-collection of poetry that can fit on a single sheet of paper, to be folded origami-style into book form. Participants' books, with folding instructions, are available for free download from the website. The project was founded by Rhode Island poets Lynnie Gobeille, Jan Keough, and Barbara Schweitzer, who also distribute the featured books as free gifts at local libraries, coffee shops, art centers, and bookstores.
Orison Books
Orison Books publishes spiritually-engaged poetry, fiction, and nonfiction of exceptional literary merit. Editors say, "In our view, spiritual writing has little to do with subject matter. Rather, the kind of work we seek to publish has a transcendent aesthetic effect on the reader, and reading it can itself be a spiritual experience. We seek to be broad, inclusive, and open to perspectives spanning the spectrums of spiritual and religious thought, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation." Anthology proposals and fiction and nonfiction manuscripts are accepted year-round. There is an open reading period for poetry manuscripts in the spring and a contest in the winter with a large cash prize and prestigious judges. See website for online submission guidelines.
Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry
This selection of autobiographical and critical essays by an award-winning poet eloquently explores how the poetic imagination fruitfully problematizes the self, potentially liberating us from fixed identities based on race, class, sexual orientation and personal history.
Other People’s Flowers
Launched in 2018, Other People's Flowers is a weekly podcast that showcases submissions of poetry, fiction, and essays. Previously published work is accepted if you own the rights, but the podcast acquires the audio rights to your entry if they read it aloud on the show. Last new episode is from June 2019, but the archive is accessible here.
oTranscribe
oTranscribe is a free web app that makes it easy to transcribe recorded interviews, readings, and lectures. The finished product, with interactive timestamps, can be exported to Google Docs, plain text, or word-processing markdown format.
Our Lady of Acid Rain
By Mark D. Hart
With the lime of her body
sweetening the forest floor
in ecstatic effacement,
this plaster Virgin melts earthward,
the body of a woman imagined
free from corruption, safe in heaven,
her virtue like a stored cask.
Mold now greens the bulk of her,
taking her back, once all-white,
church-pure, immaculate.
Blurred, eroded by the sour tears
of an exhausted sky, her face
like ours someday.
A half-teepee of stone slabs shelters her
on a spur off the main trail.
Clearly others have found her,
depositing evidence of devotion—
various seashells, a candle
that spattered the rock with wax,
a rosary, a perfect red maple leaf,
pine cones, coins.
Originally published in the McNeese Review, nominated for a Pushcart Prize
Our Mothers Would Not Let Us Watch
By Linda Neal Reising
Our mothers would not let us watch
from any closer than the backyard.
There were no sirens
or flashing lights,
only a row of rusty pickups
and one sheriff's car.
The men were fishing the mine pits,
those gaping mouths that never swallowed,
except during July and August
when the sun glinted off the water,
sending a secret code to summer-bleached boys.
There was a fence,
but its sagging wires called sneakered feet to climb,
"Come learn the truth the parents try to hide."
They shed their clothes
and left them, shells on a chatpile beach.
The men plucked three bodies out
and gently laid them on the tailgates.
When my father returned,
I wanted to ask him what they looked like up close.
Were their eyes open?
Had the water leached the tan from their arms?
Instead, he grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard.
And his eyes were pools
that had no bottoms.
Out of Malibu: An American Exodus
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Malibu commemorates the young son's
birth. The sculpted balsa family spends
Christmases here in a lean-to
on a bluff. A star leads others to them,
then and now.
In that time of times—no light
guided law abiding
citizens on their trek, only warm
sandy days, bitter desert nights.
No intention of becoming myth
or graven image but here they are.
A likely place to settle. Like Sinai,
familiar palms, near a sea, hard winds
weather them, still as stones,
hearts hardened to wood,
feet statue still. Exiles altered
from folk to revered. Their design
never to be worshipped, they ask
this night for compassion
and so it was.
Their feet quickened
from carvings to flesh. The choice
to stay or leave now theirs,
they travel interstate byroads
at night when they will not frighten
other sojourners, they—homeless,
shoeless, unfamiliar robes, faces
still immobile from decades
practicing the art of crèche. This new
adventure across rocky peaks, great
plains. An arch marks a river, mighty
as any they had seen, this monster land,
roads like veins, Mapquest's
blue design. As Chaucer's pilgrims sought
redemption they trudge East, leave
behind those who thought they loved
them but imposed burdens beyond
imagination, less urgency than before,
their son born, free of civic bondage.
New-turned pine aches not like ancient
flesh. In weather they had not known
earlier they walk and rest, idols
unnoticed in the snow, part of December's
pageant.
This time they follow no light
but their own, come upon an open swath,
Washington's obelisk, rotunda like Rome's,
somehow their kin, erected for the ages.
Beneath their feet the Post, sodden, headline
bawls War. Fine drizzle diffused
by starlight they stand before another,
newer wailing wall, a granite gash.
This, this! Their destination.
Rain turns to doilies (as this small
tribe turned from human tissue
to wood and back again), decorates
their cloaks, caps, hoods, slides
down the polished façade
before them. Wet-white punctuation
attach themselves to incised
names on this family's
own reflected images. They
reach to touch them
to quench the flow.
