A LINE in TIME 5-31-2011

Greetings, Y'all Poets, Bards, n Troubadours,

Memorial Day is done and gone. Hope y'all remembered all those who've given all, or nearly all, for the rest of us. Hope your BBQ was done to perfection, the surf at the beach ideal, the concert or the show rocked. If you stayed home, I hope it was warm and quiet or warm an inviting. In all, I hope your 3-day weekend was a rewarding one. If you spent it cutting grass and breakin' a sweat, maybe you at least washed it out with a really cold beer or wrote a poem on it.

FLASH!!!  URGENT ALERT!!!  There are only 30 days left to submit poems, photos, artwork to Skipping Stones for consideration for publication in Volume VII planned for release in November.  But we gotta absolutely MUST have your $5 submission fee and up to 5 poems NOT LATER THAN midnight June 30.  Digital copy in Word Perfect, MS Word, pdf, or WordPad formats; graphics in pdf or jpg formats. See details [what, when, how] on the website ChesBayPoets.org and click on the picture of Skipping Stones Vol VII.

Congratulations to Bob Young of Virginia Beach on the publication of his new (and long overdue) book of poems If Not Now When published by Poetica Publishing Company.  Click on the title for a link to the publisher to order. Or you can wait for him to rock and roll through doing a reading.  Additional congratulations to Chesapeake poet Phyllis Johnson for her fourth book of poems, Poetic Dreamer.

Friday evening the Prime-Time Poetry Show will entertain your need for verse in your ear and a venue for you to read as well at Bean There Cafe in downtown Norfolk.

Remember THIS Saturday is the last of the current season, the last of the PSV Saturday Series Poetry Reading at the Williamsburg-James City County Regional Library at Norge. Now say that ten times fast without reading it...and instead of PSV, let it be fully spelled out - Poetry Society of Virginia. Go ahead. Maybe, instead of that, just show up Saturday morning at the Norge library ready to hear some of the best poetry you are likely to encounter the rest of this entire year.  The new series will pick up again in September.

http://ChesBayPoets.org tells most all, albeit misses one or another from time to time. Most of the cited events and venues can be found on the website, often on a link on the Home page or at least from the link to Monthly/Weekly events on the front page as well as from elsewhere inside the website.

The Venue at 35th Street in Norfolk hosts an evening of open mic entertainment from music to story-telling to poetry to drama every Monday evening and late-week and weekend entertainment most of the time. Check 'em out at www.venue-35.com


Tuesday next week look for Word-4-Word Poets.  ChesBayPoets.org click on the link in the RH sidebar on the Home page. Challenge is to look at your bookshelf at home and pick one word from the title of each of ten books, then write a poem using them one per line.  [not part of the challenge, it might be interesting to list the ten books you selected from your bookshelf, though not necessarily within the poem].


Look ahead to the Hampton Roads Writers third annual Writers' Conference at the Double Tree Inn in Virginia Beach.


Looking to pick up a few bargain books or such? Mary Kledzik wants to help. She's having a yard sale on Saturday, June 4th, 8 AM—1PM at 1027 Magnolia Ave. Norfolk. Rain date: Sunday afternoon. I’m selling at least a hundred poetry books and journals for bargain prices. Many are hardback and signed by the authors. Also, have hundreds of art and literary books.
Mary Jean Kledzik. Hope you can come!


Writing won't make you fat, nor get you drunk. But if we don't munch and drink while writing and sharing our stuff, then why do we do it? - write, I mean.


Hoo ahhhhhhhhh
8>)
          pete/the mindworm

THE WORD HEARD 5-27-2011

   I have spent the last 4 days cleaning up and bringing up-to-date the CBP website with maddening frustration. I've been able to clean up the Home Page and a few of the "interior" pages.  So far, however, despite deleting a conglomeration of old pages and elements, leaving more digital space to post new information, I have been unable to post a couple of new pages, most notably "POETRY PROSE and PIZZA". Nevertheless, check the Monthly/Weekly link on the website

www.ChesBayPoets.org

   So, to bring you up to speed for the "right now, right here" of the next few days. Tonight Synnika Lofton hosts Prime Time Poetry at Bean There Cafe in downtown Norfolk; the good folks at The Muse  in Norfolk always have good stuff going on (check the website link to The Muse), as do the good folks at The Venue at 35th in Norfolk (right now look for "Dirty Barbie and Other Girlhood Tales" playing Fri/Sat this week and next). This is the 4th Friday evening, and as ever the poetry reading with soup, contributed eats, and libations (check the CBP Monthly/Weekly link) at Jack Callan's house in Norfolk.

  Tomorrow afternoon Iris Art Studio in Poquoson is hosting its regular featured reading with Daniel Pravda  (check the link on the CBP website).

   Next week, the First Saturday, look for the last session of the current season of the Poetry Society of Virginia Saturday Series of readings: this is a star-studded cast if ever there were one, you don't want to miss this one - Sofia M. Starnes, J. Ron Smith, Joyce Carr Stedlbauer, Henry Hart, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, and Nathan Richardson.  Again, check the link on the CBP website.

I'm also still trying how to figure out how to link my google calendar with this blog.

Anyway, there you have it for a couple of days.

Writing won't make you fat, nor get you drunk. But if we don't munch and drink while writing and sharing our stuff, then why do we do it?

Hoo ahhhhhhhh:?0
   pete/the mindworm

The WORD HEARD 5-10-2011

Greetings Y'all Poets, Bards, n Troubadours,

This is one of my mid-week missives alerting all to a few of elements of interest:

First, I must once more push for you to not forget this weekends Poetry Society of Virginia annual Poetry Festival in and around Williamsburg and Norge.

Second, I get wind of a return of a virus that SNOPES notes made its initial journey across the digital domain in 2006 and has since resurrected several times and is again doing the rounds (also verified by TRUTH OR FICTION.COM).  Be aware of it:


 Do not open any message with an attached file called 'Invitation' regardless of who sent  it. It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which 'burns' the whole hard disc (C) of your computer!!!!  This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list.  So, If you receive an e-mail called 'invitation', even  though sent by a friend. Do not open it!!!

  
 Microsoft has classified it as the most  destructive virus ever.  This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday,  and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus.  This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where other vital information is kept.

=====================================================

Now, for those of us looking to get our books or chapbooks published or our CDs recorded, here are two very credible local area resources who are poets themselves...like you and me.

First, a lesson most of us learn when we are ready to field our first book collection of our poems is that the "mainstream" publishers won't even consider anything without a major credential like "Poet Laureate" of a country or a well-known Poet Laureate of a state.  Don't kid yourself:  the publisher won't even start a print run of fewer than something like 50,000 books.  So, if I don't know half of the current population of nationally and internationally known poets (and would be reluctant to buy a $15 or $25 book of verse from an unknown poet even on the national scene), why would I expect anyone but the 50 - 150 poetry fans in the Hampton Roads area to whom I expose to my poems at local readings, to buy a copy of my book for $15?  So, it stands that, short of that national-international prominence, no publisher is going to publish 50,000 copies of my book of poems. I will have to go the "small press" route.

I think of two local publishers in particular, each of whom is frequently visible at readings as MC or as a reader of his or her own work, would be happy to bring your book into its public reality:

Michal Mahgerefteh of Poetica Publishing Company has very strong credentials as editor and publisher  of the international journal Poetica as well as several books of local poets including the Chesapeake Bay Poets anthology Skipping Stones and books by authors like Daniel Pravda, Jack Callan, Robert E. Young, Frank Kozusko, Frieda W. Landau, and David King, as well as several writers from much farther away than Hampton Roads.  www.poeticapublishing.com

Synnika Lofton, under the imprint of his "lables" Guerilla Ignition Records and Guerilla Ignition Publishing, is ready to take you to your next level. I know several poets who are happy to sell CDs of their poetry performed at open mic events or in a studio setting, and not be concerned with a chapbook of their work. In either case (or both), Synnika is ready and eager to help you put your cd or your chapbook into the hands of your fans, listeners, and loved ones. Contact Synnika through Global Poet Network (www.globalpoetnetwork.ning.com) or through his online store www.guerillaignitionsuperstore.com.

These two are not the only game in town, but they both are very good. Several others are active in the Hampton Roads environment; you just need to look around. In any case, you have here two very reliable resources with whom to look into your future.  From time to time I expect I will also expose one or two other resources along the way. This is a good place to start.

Now go write your tail off.

Hoo ahhhhhhhhhh

:?)

      pete/themindworm

   

A LINE in TIME 5-6-2011

Greetings Ya'all Poets, Bards, n Troubadores,

Heads up poets n other authors, it's goin' on TODAY:  Poetry at the library at Norge and this is a hot one, ya'all. 11 a.m.  Featuring


Suzanne Rhodes

Joan Ellen Casey
Linda Ryan
Don Loop
Linda Partee
Ed Lull

The middle four are all reading for the first time in the Saturday Poetry Series.  Joan Casey was one of the $750 winners in the Metro Project category of the PSV contest.  Linda Partee's opening poem is very 

creative and powerful.  New faces - new talents!  And don't forget next week's Poetry Society of Virginia Annual Poetry Festival.

For those who don't want to make the drive to Norge, the Hampton Roads Writers host a workshop in the Traveling Pen Series. Here's all the scoop directly from HRW:  Consider attending the (SATURDAY) May 7th Traveling Pen Writers’ Workshop.  It’s from 10 AM - Noon, Hampton Main Library, 4207 Victoria Blvd., Hampton. Check-in begins at 9:45.  The topic of this month’s workshop, of special value to all fiction writers, is entitled Realistic and Effective Dialogue in Fiction. 

Workshop Description: This workshop will address the big picture, how to write conversations that are true to your characters’ sex, age, ethnicity, vocation, etc. and that capture and keep the reader’s interest. It will also address the detailed mechanics of dialogue format, grammar and punctuation, and how to avoid common mistakes. Bring in 2-3 pages of your own writing that contain a dialogue exchange between characters, for you to work on.

The workshop instructor is a well-published Colorado novelist, Beth Groundwater.  She has published eight short stories, and her first mystery novel, A Real Basket Case was released by Five Star, an imprint of Gale/Cengage Learning, in March, 2007. The book garnered good reviews from Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and other national reviewers and was nominated for the 2007 “Best First Novel” Agatha Award. The sequel, To Hell in a Handbasket, was released by Five Star in May, 2009, also to good reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Gumshoe Review, and other national publications. Beth’s science fiction novella, The Epsilon Eridani Alternative, was released by Virtual Tales in eBook and paperback in December, 2009. The first in her new Rocky Mountain Adventures series, Deadly Currents, was released in March, 2011. Visit her website at bethgroundwater.comand her blog at bethgroundwater.blogspot.com.

This low-cost* workshop offers a great opportunity to network with other local writers.  I hope to see you there.  If you plan to attend, please let me know as soon as possible so we can print enough handout material for everyone.  *$13 for HRW members and $15 for nonmembers

I am posting on the poetry website a comprehensive notice from the Muse offering their stunning array of classes and workshops. Just go to the Chesapeake Bay Poets website and click on the Muse link in the LH column.  ChesBayPoets.org

Monday evening three popular area poets will be reading from and signing their books at the Meyera Oberndorf Central Library in VB from 6:30 to 8:30.  Danial Porvda (A Bird in the Hand Is a Dumb Bird), Frank Kazusko (The Man in the Moon Has no Testicles), and Jack Callan (Little River on the Milky Way) will each be be there for your entertainment and delight. Don't miss it.

Also to be found on the Chesapeake Bay Poets website is an exhaustive summary of all the amazing classes and workshops and readings offered by Norfolk's The Muse.

I'm sure there is more to expose, but I am out of time and must still smooth out the website so you can find all the information you want and I have promised. Fingers crossed...it ain't perfect quite yet. This week I am attempting to attach the Google calendar to this entry, I want to post it on the website as well, but it ain't there yet. Step by step. We'll see how it works.

Thanks for hangin' in there ya'all.

It it works, let it. If it don't, fix it or let it go. Same for machinery and for poetry.

Hoo ahhhhhhhhh

:?)

     pete, the mindworm