Happy Independence

Happy Independence Day to all yous in America!

We're celebrating here at the homestead too: also with independence on our minds. Today is Queen Teen's 19th birthday. Happy Birthday! It's her first birthday as a non-student and a let-loose-on-the-world adult. This time next year, she won't be a Queen Teen anymore, at all.

So, what will she be?

That's what we'll all be wondering as we pass the fudge cake and champagne later this afternoon. She's got no job lined up (the economy and all) and plans for university are on hold while she sizes up this moment: no commitments right now, no binding ties, and a good handful of cash to start her on her way thanks to my dead generous and loving mother. She could do as Baino's daughter did and go see the world. Or she could find a nifty place to intern for a few months, or get a used RV and see all of North America from sea to shining sea. Or she could do like Don Shimoda, and walk away from it all and be a modern mechanic Messiah.

Er, well, probably not that last one. But I do hope that if she goes away, she comes back soon, and with someone nice. Yes, I admit it, I'm in the market for a nice son-in-law, someone who will treat her like a princess and fix my car on occasion and tell me my cooking's the best he's ever had. I'm rather bummed that Kay's wonderful son is taken already (congratulations Sarah!), and I'm trying to remember how old is Peggy's sweetheart of a youngest son ... but hey, Mr. Know-it-all's got a handsome fellow at home too. Not sure of his age either, but he can fish, and that skill's handy. Granny Sue, surely you must have an unattached son or grandson or nephew close by? I'd like to keep her close to home now that she's able to leave it if she wants to, even if it's the summer home she chooses.

If she reads this, she's going to kill me now. So, moving rapidly along now, for the day that's in it:

American Girl accepts nonfiction only, and judging by what I had to go through to find their guidelines on their site at all, they're not exactly begging for our submissions. The magazine is aimed at girls (one presumes American girls) aged 8 and up, and offers a variety of departments including cooking and real-life profiles. Send your submission by mail to the address at the bottom of their guidelines page (get out) and please wait 12 weeks for a reply. They also publish books; guidelines are on the same page. No mention of payment, but my sources tell me (*ahem*) it's professional range.

The North American Review is the oldest literary magazine in America, looking for quality writing in many forms, and pays accordingly. They receive an amazing 10,000 submissions each year, so make sure yours stands out. Their Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize offers $1000 top prize and requires a reading fee; the page hasn't been updated from 2008 yet but it does say "annual", so...

The American Scholar, "is published quarterly for the general reader by the Phi Beta Kappa Society...considers nonfiction by known and unknown writers; unsolicited fiction and poetry are not encouraged." Well, hey, that's not a complete no, right? But if you prefer writing articles, or are PBK, or intrepid as all-git-out, or just willing to risk a rejection letter for a chance at (wow, is this right??) up to $500 per accepted submission?....well, go for it.

Johnny America doesn't pay for contributions but I couldn't help including it partly because of the name (I am so going to call a future pet "Johnny America" now). Other reasons? One, it's a humour magazine, and the world needs more of that. Two, the submission guidelines begin with the sentence "Johnny America is a large rabbit who lives in a bungalow on the Moon between two rivers of wine (one red, one white)"... and then it just gets better, especially when they get around to describing their editorial process involving Richard the Intern and the lazy editor who hopes for explosions. GO READ IT! This is the publication of the Moon Rabbit Drinking Club & Benevolence Society. Oh good Lord. Where has it been all my life?

Pax Americana made the list by virtue of its Latin name (because Latin is cool) and its desire for the irreverent. Their non-mention of payment on the submission page (implying that they don't pay of course) is made a bit eyebrow-raising-worthy by their request for donations. Heeey... maybe I should try doing that? All forms of poetry and prose are welcome if you'd like to try them out.

Have a safe and joyful weekend, everyone, no matter where you are.

I Can't Stand The Rain

"The good news is," said the rheumatologist when he told me I had fibromyalgia, "is that it won't kill you. The bad news is, you're living in the worst [very bad word deleted] country in the world to have any kind of arthritis, and if you stay here you'll only suffer."

He got that right. The rest of the world ('cepting Baino's half) are enjoying summer out there, while Ireland sits under a chill North Atlantic rain in what the calendar says is supposed to be July.

Surely, if arthritis patients suffer in such weather, our Health Service Executive should be giving us arthritics all grants to cover moving expenses to Orlando. Why not? Think of the money the HSE would save, in years of Physical Therapy for each of us, and doctors' visits, and all these free paracetamol tablets we get. Ooh, I curse your short-sighted stupidity, Mary Harney; it's financial decisions like this one that have crippled our national healthcare system and doomed Irish cancer victims to early graves. Booo! (But send us to Orlando and all is forgiven.)

I hate rain. I especially hate cold rain. And, cold rain in summer? The worst, if only for the injustice of it. My joints and back are sore, and the rest of me is just tired and sad. The dog is restless, and if we let him out he comes back muddy and stinky. This afternoon the pony walked up to our window and stood looking in, as if hoping he'd be invited in like the dog, dripping as he was. We sat in our warm dry sitting room, drank our whiskey coffee, and stared back at him.

Meanwhile, the photoblog often draws comments and e-mails about how beautiful it is here, and how lucky I am. Oh. Really.

And here I was beginning to think that I could even face getting on an airplane, just to get out of here.

Wet Ink,"the magazine of new writing", is supported in part by the Australian Council Literature Board. You can send them fiction (including genre fiction---let me make a note here--), essays, and other prose or poetry. They pay, and they pay well, and bless them they even provide a cover letter that you can just fill in the blanks and send.

The Manchester Fiction Prize can go in this rainy list, as Manchester is hardly dryer or warmer than we are in Ireland. If you don't mind tossing £15 (that's pounds sterling, notice--all of using other currencies may experience sticker shock at the conversion) then you can send in a story and take a chance at the £10,000 prize. That would cheer up anyone, no matter how hard it rained.

The Raintown Review is a perfect-bound semi-annual journal of poetry and prose. "We are more interested in metrical works, including well-rendered blank verse, sonnets of every variety, villanelles and triolets. End rhyme is neither a crime nor a requirement....Any prose we accept will have to be written well enough and be of such import that we can't refuse to publish it." The submission page describes "payment" as one contributor's copy. Personally I don't call a contributor's copy payment, I call it a courtesy. I'm just sayin'.

Cerulean Rain is a bit more honest, saying up front that they "do not pay for work we publish at this time". But, they do publish novel excerpts, and that might do a good turn, publicity-wise, if your novel-in-progress is excerptable. They like experimental, dark, and non-conformity: read the guidelines and more about the publication before submitting please.

And before all this non-paying crap gets too depressing (as if I wasn't depressed already):

Beneath Ceaseless Skies is straight after my own heart, publishing literary adventure fantasy. The submission guidelines are blissfully specific and they pay professional rates for accepted works; they'll even consider novella-length fiction.

Funny... I'm cheering up now.

And, once again, I'm very sorry to anyone who has the title's song now stuck in their head, as I do.

Pass the Guinness? Oops too high, too low, too oh, NO.

We're having a rough day at the homestead, cleaning before the house-sitters get here, and packing, cleaning, plus making all the last-minute arrangements of billpaying and service-stopping and emptying the refrigerator. That last one leaves us almost regretting that Daddy got such a generous supply of Guinness for Father's Day from the eldest. That now needs to be polished off...can't have it wasted after all.

The sacrifices we make for our holidays, honestly...

Turns out that Guinness are celebrating the 250th anniversary of Arthur Guinness putting his signature to a 9,000 year lease on Saint James' Gate in Dublin, and as part of the festivities they're offering a few prizes to their loyal boozers customers.

Well, that sounded interesting, so I took a look at the prizes.

One is a trip into space (or at least the upper atmosphere) aboard the Virgin Galactic which will take the winner 70 miles above the earth, travelling 3 times the speed of sound, in an airplane-spaceship hybrid type thing. Uh, Challenger. Pass.

There's also a journey to the bottom of the sea off the coast of Norway, where the winner can enjoy his/her Guinness in a deep-sea pub. Now, call me picky, but I think I'd enjoy my pint a whole lot more off the coast of Hawaii. I mean, NORWAY? Isn't Norway really just an abbreviation for NORth-of-where-hell-freezes-so-no-WAY? Yeah, I think it is.

The last of the big prizes is a personal, exclusive performance by the Black-Eyed Peas at a secret venue. (Ooohhh, secret!) Ok, I'll admit I had to google 'Black-Eyed Peas' and wade through a whole lot of southern recipes to find out just who they were. Oh wait... Fergie? My Humps?. Egads. But after the other two prizes, what choice is there but this one? ...Can I bring a gun?

So yeah, obviously I won't be trying for any of these, but if the competition takes your fancy, you can read more about the Guinness Experience giveaway right here. You need to be at least 18 to enter the website. Or ok, you'll need to say you're at least 18, to enter the website.

Now if, like me, you found those adventures just too high, too low, or too irritating, there's always those inner adventures to turn to...

Small Beer Press accepts queries for novel-length manuscripts or short story collections, and publishes 3-6 titles per year.

Spaceports & Spidersilk is a bit hard to say if you ask me, but kids like it. If you like to write for kids, they'll pay $2 per story and $10 for artwork.

Ocean Magazine appears quarterly and will consider stories, essays, poetry and articles about (no surprise) the ocean, whether scientific or spiritual. Photographs also welcome--the next deadline is 15th July, but if that's too close the next is in October.

Oceanview Publishing, "where great books are always on the horizon", accepts manuscripts for adults, especially mystery, thriller and suspense. Check out their News page: many of their titles are bringing home awards.

In looking for "Black Eyed Peas", the closest I could find fiction-marketwise was the Black Warrior Review... well that's close, right? If you're serious about writing you mostly likely know these folks already; not easy to get onto their pages but surely worth the try. Their Fifth-ever Contest is currently open, with a tempting prize of $1,000, but they're asking a whopper of a reading fee, enough to buy you a few pints of Guinness instead, if you come to your senses in time. Good luck if you go for it anyway.

Meanwhile, another pint's finished here, so it's back to the refrigerator I go. Ugh, this packing lark is hard work...

Like All Award Ceremonies, It's Just Too Long...

I can't believe June's gone. I wanted to write stories for about 20 markets and competitions this month, but only submitted one story anywhere... and it wasn't the Bridport. Oh sad.

There were plenty of other things I didn't get done too, like posting the five awards & memes that were passed my way recently. I didn't mean to ignore them, honestly I didn't, but oops, d'oh, the days got away from me and I just never got around to it as one topic after another came up for a day's post and pushed the meme-post back a day or two...and then another day or two... and then a week had gone by, and more.

But as Skipper Penguin said to Private Penguin, 'Don't give me excuses! Give me results!' So finally, today, I unleash upon you... the Awards, the memes, and the tagging. And I'm glad to do it finally, because if you haven't discovered the folks who passed them to me yet, you're in for joy.

Tanvi at Holey Vision chose me for the Noblesse Oblige Award which is just humbling, coming from her. Almost every post she writes leaves me laughing and crying at the same time, and among all my fellow bloggers she's one of my biggest inspirations. Go visit her to learn about her latest pole-dancing class, how she teaches photography to the blind and visually impaired, and about her amazing childhood memories of Africa. She's just irresistible, and I'm sitting here waiting to read her memoirs (finally, one I'd want to read!). So I hope she writes them someday...

The rules of this one are many, and are listed on her blog (a few posts down the page.) I'm hoping this post qualifies as the brief article they want, but I have written another more in-depth one about the whole blog-thing that I hope to post soon too.

Who am I tagging for this one? You'll see, in a moment...

Meanwhile, JC at Lilacs and Cats handed me with the Honest Scrap award, which asks you to list ten things about yourself that people may not know, and pass it on to 10 other bloggers. I enjoyed reading her list so much, with some things making me laugh out loud and others showing me a kindred spirit, that I'm ashamed of myself now that it's taken me so long to reciprocate, especially because I love her blog and am amazed by her personal story (you can read a sketch of it on her sidebar). So here's my 10:

1. I'm hearing impaired: not enough to bother learning sign language, but enough that if there's any background noise at all, I can't hear the words of a conversation. People I meet in person think I'm nice because I smile and nod while they talk, but I'm really doing that because I can't hear a darn word they're saying to me.

2. The one thing that never fails to make me stand a little taller, or smile, is remembering that my father was a decorated veteran of the Second World War. I was born a few days after his fiftieth birthday, and knowing I was the fiftieth birthday present for such an amazing man just made me love myself.

3. I'm pop-culture-challenged. I haven't heard any of the songs in the current top 10, I've never seen an episode of Lost or any reality TV show; when Elizabeth mentioned that Billy Mays died I had to google him to see who he was and then I thought it was the baseball player; and I have no earthly clue how cricket is played or how American football is scored. No, I'm not from Planet Earth, and yes, I do live under a rock in a cave. Thanks for asking.

4. My favourite movie character of all time may well be David O'Hara's Stephen in Braveheart (the crazy Irishman). But, how a medieval Irishman got himself the name Stephen instead of Donnchadh or Aodh or Muirchertach or something normal, is beyond me.

5. I'm terrified of flying. I know it's the safest possible mode of transport, but every time I show up for another flight I'm ready to poop my pants. It gets worse with each flight I take, and I sense the time is coming soon when I'll need sedatives to get on a plane at all, or that I simply won't go anywhere that requires flying.

6. My favourite paperback fiction character is absolutely Sasha Misurov, the young Russian wizard of CJ Cherryh's Rusalka trilogy. I love him more with each re-reading, and I've read those three books many times.

7. I can't swim and don't really want to learn.

8. About 15 years ago, while we were living in Baltimore, we heard through the Irish-emigrant grapevine that there was an Irishman incarcerated in a federal prison three hours away. In a mad moment of solidarity, I offered myself to all the jumps and hoops of a security clearance, and managed to visit him a few times and write letters, so that he wouldn't be quite so alone. He was one of the nicest people I'd ever met, told interesting stories and shared many insights that still inspire me, and he'd sacrificed his life in a way, to the war in Ireland and a life on the run across the globe. Then he was transferred out of that prison, we left America to raise our kids nearer to family, and that was it. I missed our visits. Later I found out the CIA recognises him as the IRA's 'chief technical officer'. Holy crap. And now that he's published his memoirs I can read about all the adventures he couldn't tell me about, back then. This revelation doesn't change who he is, to me; I don't judge others. In fact I'd enjoy having another cup of coffee together---this time without the paper cups and armed guards.

9. I loved my library work, but I never want to apply for another job again in my life. Whenever I've started a new job, somebody connected to it has died within the first week. Every time. At my last job interview, I even confessed this bit of oddballity (which was oddballity in itself really), and was hired anyway. At the end of my first Friday, the staff jokingly congratulated me on not killing anybody my first week, and I laughed with them, thinking the curse had finally lifted. Then that weekend one of their students fell off a roof and died, and everyone was overly kind to me on Monday morning. Never. Again.

10. I don't wear a watch and don't carry a mobile phone; I never know nor care what time it is. Fortunately I never need to know either.


So, back to these awards...

Thom's in a class by himself today (in a quarantine kind of way) for tagging me not once, not twice, but three times in the last two weeks. Good grief.

Now I've got (most recently) the Humane Award, which to be fair I'm sharing with about 72 other nice folks Thom has chosen. "Recipients of this award should write a post about it, linking to the person gifted the award, along with ten of their own nominees.”

He's also nailed me with a Super Comments Award. I must admit that my comments on other blogs are sometimes far more interesting than my own posts, mainly because they're inspired by other bloggers...although I hope my mother isn't Up Above reading the comments I've been leaving chez Thom, because if she has, she'll likely be waiting for me at the gate with the BIG wooden spoon when my time comes. Which isn't fair, and it's not my fault that Thom had to get the last word on yesterday's post here, with that willy comment...

Anyhow, no rules attached to this one, except to pass it on to five others. More on that in a minute.

Back on the 15th of June, he also passed me the One Lovely Blogger Award. Awwww...
and I'm to pass it on to fifteen bloggers of my choice.

Jaysis. Fifteen? By my count and rule-reading for all the above awards, that puts my tagging list up to a whopping total of forty-four fellow bloggers. But in choosing my victims, my conscience can now be clear and five meme-monkeys are off my back. I have to say that being thought of and chosen by three such amazing people left me choked up and a bit embarassed--it's humbling to be included in these!

But now, the tagging.

dah-dah-DAAAAHHHH!!!

I used to take tagging at face value and choose bloggers I really thought deserved each award or meme before I passed it on... and doing that got me thanked, ostracised, cyber-hugged, vilified, and eventually threated with personal harm. So I stopped doing that... but then, it seems rude to be given a gift and just sit there on it.

Meanwhile, this blog has blessed me with some wonderful friends, a few of whom I'm met in person or exchanged e-mails with or guest-blogged for, and some of whom do me the huge kindness of visiting every post I write, no matter how short or long or profound or funny or plain dumb it is, and many of you comment every time, or sometimes, or even just once in a while.

I love you guys. You deserve all these awards (in a good way), and if you'd like any one, off you go with it and enjoy, and I'll look forward to reading your post on it. But as to obligation and being tagged, you're off the hook---even if you've only commented here just once.

The rest of you? The ones who read/visit/subscribe/follow, and haven't made any comments yet at all? You're TAGGED, baby! Feedburner's telling me I've got nearly 150 subscribers and Google says I've got 88 followers but hmmm... I'm not getting quite that many comments. So if there's honour among lurkers, you will now choose one of those lovely graphics up there and give us a post. Go on, it'll be fun. For the sake of irony and giggles, may I suggest the Super Comments Award?

Oh, and Moo-Dog. You're tagged too. I'm sure you knew you would be, and how could I disappoint you?

The rest of you taggees can wiggle off that hook by leaving a comment right now...

Ah sure, go on.