Reaching New Heights

by Catherine Giordano

I am going to have one of my stories published in a national anthology:  Not Your Mother’s Book—On Parenting. The story in titled “Figuring It Out” and it is about how my son learned that there is no Santa Claus. The story is both humorous and heartwarming. The book will be available in September 2013. Look for it where ever fine books are sold.

In addition to my independently published books (self-publishing print-on-demand books in now called “independent publishing”) I have a few other writing credits, all from smaller regional publications.

·         Three of my poems were included in a poetry anthology Love and Other Passions; Poets of Central Florida (2012).

·         I have had two stories published in The Florida Writer, a magazine for members of The Florida Writers Association.  The stories were “I Organize, Therefore I Am” (Volume 5, Number 4, 2011) and “Accidental Kidnapper” (Volume 6 Number 3, 2012). My third story, “Yellow Bird”, will appear in the next issue available in June 2013 (Volume 7, Number 1, 2012).  I’m proud to say that I have submitted stories three times and been accepted all three times.

·         I had poems and essays published in the LIFE at UCF newsletter (2011, 2012)

·         I had a couple of my news print poems published in an online journal, Poetry Breakfast.

·         I had a column and news print poem published in The Winter Park Observer, a local newspaper.

I decided to take up my childhood dream of being a writer in 2011, so I have now been writing for about two years. In addition to poetry, I write essays, short creative non-fiction (taking a true story, but writing it as if it were fiction) and the occasional piece of flash fiction (very short short-stories.)  

I have submitted my work for publication sporadically, but I feel encouraged now to submit on a more consistent basis.

And who knows, maybe I have a great novel in me.

So far I haven’t gotten paid, although I could have obtained royalties from Not Your Mothers Book. The amount of payment would have been very small because the royalty has to be split among 60 authors, so I opted for ten free copies of the book instead.

My next milestone—get paid.

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Twisters Wrath

I wrote a poem about tornados last year, but I could have just as well written it yesterday.

Read the poem on my News Print Poetry 2012 blog:  Twisters' Wrath

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The Violet

by Catherine Giordano

The Orlando Sentinel publishes “Ask Amy” and advice columnist.  This week “Rita in Burbank California sent a letter with this quote which she attributed to Mark Twain. ‘Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.’

I do public speaking and one of my talks is “All About Apologies … and Forgiveness.” I think that quote should get incorporated into the talk.

It’s such a beautiful statement—it is a wonderful image for a poem.

 

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Snip-potry

I’m working on a better name.  Your suggestions are welcome.

The idea of Snip-Potry is to write little “poem-ettes” about small things that you observe each day.  It helps me overcome writers block—I only have to do about 25 words or fewer and maybe the “little poems’’ will spark an idea for a longer work.

In the mean time, I’ll do an “Everyday poem” as often as I can, hopefully every day.

 

  

Girl Rising

I saw the movie, Girl Rising, last week.  It is a wonderful movie and I recommend it.

I thought it should be the topic for one of my poetry snippets. By the way, I am dropping the name snippets—far too common a word—and going with Snip-potry (pronounced Snip-Poe- Tree.) at least until I think up something better. 

I did a poem inspired by the movie.

Snippets

by Catherine Giordano

I attended the Florida Writers Conference on Saturday April 20.  I almost didn’t go, but I’m so glad that I decided to go.

When I first looked at the workshops it seemed so “been there, done that.”  Editing, ebooks, marketing—I’ve been to so many of those workshops.  In the end, I decided to go just because it is fun to meet other writers.

It turned out that these were the best workshops I have ever attended.  Every single one was so valuable and gave me so much more than I expected.  It was an amazing day.

There was a poetry workshop given by Peggy Miller.  She is always wonderful.  The whole workshop is like an hour long poem.  What I took away from this workshop was an idea to get me writing again.

She suggested that we take just a couple of minutes each day, look around us, look out the window, whatever and then just write what we see—just a couple of lines.  I did that right on the spot and I have been trying to remember to do that every day.

The results are what I am calling snippets.

The Anthill

The crow sees

the ant hill of life

moving

at something less than 24 frames per second.

The Vineyard

Creativity

grows in the vineyards

of the mind

but must be aged

to become

like a fine wine.

No Escape

A squall, a storm;

the wind rattles

within my chimney

like a banshee

banging on the walls.

These snippets can stand alone or they might be incorporated into a longer poem.

If you are having writers block, try writing snippets.

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UCF Book Festival

by Catherine Giordano

On Saturday April 13, UCF will host a Book Festival in the UCF Arena.  This is always a fun day with great speakers, a chance to meet and talk with well-known authors at author signings, and of course, lots of books to browse and even buy. And it is all free!

Call me old fashioned, but I love paper books.  I love to touch them, smell them, read them, and put them on my book shelf.  (I have a whole wall of books in my office.) I know e-readers are the future and have a lot of advantages, but I’m just not there yet.

Whatever your preferred method of reading and your preferred genre, you’ll have a great time at the UCF book festival.  Cooking demos, talks about fiction, mystery, history of Florida, romance, children’s events, a poetry reading, and even a poetry slam. 

A few children’s events start at 9 am; the adult events start at 10am. The lectures/readings end at 4pm, but the arena remains open until 5pm.

The only problem is the problem of too much going on at the same time.  It is so hard to choose which event to attend.

I hope to see you there.

For more information, go to http://education.ucf.edu/bookfest/