Center for Autobiographic Studies

CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Two Review, an independent print journal of international poetry and creative nonfiction published annually, is now reading for the 2010 (January) issue. More information about the journal and guidelines may be found by visiting http://TwoReview.googlepages.com/.

1. Seeking Submissions from Practicing Librarians (U.S. and Canada) for ALA Editions The Published Librarian: Successful Professional and Personal Writing (American Library Association)

Foreword: Bob Blanchard, Adult Services Librarian, Des Plaines Public Library. Contributor to Illinois Library Association Reporter; Thinking Outside the Book: Essays for Innovative Librarians (McFarland, 2008)

Introductory Note: Wayne Jones, Head of Central Technical Services, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Ed., Ontario Library Association, Access; Ed., E-Journals Access and Management (Routledge, 2008)

Contributors must have enough publication credits for practical, concise, how-to articles to help the reader. No previously published, simultaneously submitted, co-authored material. Two articles sharing the range of your publishing experiences: 1900-2100 words total; for example, one article could be 1000 words, another 900-1100 words on another topic. Librarians with ethnic backgrounds serving diverse cultures .are encouraged. Contributor's sign an ALA Writer Agreement before publication. Compensation: a complimentary copy, discount on additional copies.

Editor Carol Smallwood, MLS, has written, co-authored, edited 19 books such as Educators as Writers for Scarecrow, Libraries Unlimited, Peter Lang, and others. Her work has appeared in English Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, The Detroit News, Poesia, and several others including anthologies. Pudding House Publications published her chapbook, 2008; Words and Images of Belonging co-edited with Aurorean editor is with an agent; a recent book is
http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3575-3

Possible topics: book promotion, online publishing, where to send reviews, research skills for historical novels, using editing a library newsletter to edit books, diversity in publication, ideas from students for YA books, using tools like BIP to locate publishers for your books, storytellers turned picture book authors, interviewing, networking, using a technology edge, promoting your books at conferences. Using issues librarians face such as censorship in poetry, essays, memoir, short stories, columns.

The deadline for current cycle of submissions is November 30, 2008.

Please submit 3-4 topics with proposals with a 65-70 word bio beginning with your library of employment, highlighting your publications. Place LIBRARIANS/your name on the subject line to: smallwood@tm.net

2. The Poet in Us: Tips on Writing by and for Today's Women

Foreword by Robin Merrill, Maine Poets Society President 2006-2007. M.F.A. Stonecoast. With hundreds of poems published, some from her chapbook Laundry & Stories (Moon Pie Press) were featured on Garrison Keillor's "Writers' Almanac." http://www.robinmerrill.com

Afterword by the editors of Iris Magazine, an award-winning publication celebrating and empowering young women through provocative articles, essays, and fiction pieces that are uplifting, inclusive, and literate. http://iris.virginia.edu

Markets for women, why women write, time management, using life experience, women's magazines, critique groups, networking, blogs, unique issues women must overcome, lesbian and bisexual writing, formal education, queries and proposals, conference participation, family scheduling, feminist writing, self-publishing, teaching tips, are just a few areas women poets are interested.

Practical, concise, how-to articles with bullets/headings have proven the most helpful. Please avoid writing about "me" and concentrate on what will most help the reader. A question and answer format for interviews may be used.

Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages

Foreword by Carolyn Lesser, Webster University, St. Louis, MO, nonfiction writing faculty; natural science children's books published by Harcourt, Alfred A. Knopf; essayist, poet, photographer, keynote speaker, artist.

Afterword by Dr. Loriene Roy, 2007-2008 President of the American Library Association. Professor, University of Texas at Austin, founder of "If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything," a national reading club for Native American children.

Please consider sharing the important milestones, life changing events, transitions in your life--material that would broadly fit the "Women's Studies" genre that is highly readable, moving and relatable. There are the passages that occur to us (for example, losing a loved one, and then the passages we choose (such as adopting a child). Please focus on those pivotal moments and why they were important passages for you.

Currently, we have enough material on: chronic/acute illness; getting a degree; career changes; relocating.

Suggestions for topics as of yet relatively unexplored: changing/leaving/going back to a new or former religion or mode of spirituality (no preaching, please); how participation in outdoor adventure changed your life; milestones about deciding to be true to yourself (such as coming out, ending a negative friendship, setting healthy boundaries).

This book celebrates our passages as women, from one moment into another, from one door to the next. Often it is after the navigation, that in reflection, we see that some of the most difficult are the ones we have learned the most and have had lasting effects as well on those around us.

Guidelines for The Poet in Us: Tips on Writing by and for Today's Women and/or Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages:

Step 1: send your proposed topics before writing articles to avoid duplication; proposed topics must be accompanied by a 65-70 word bio with your present position, location, relevant publications, career highlights for the contributor page; please use POETS or PASSAGES/your name on the subject line to brackett-vincent@encirclepub.com.

Step 2:(if your topics are approved): deadline for current cycle of submissions (by e-mail only) is November 15, 2008. Again, please use POETS or PASSAGES in the subject line; send to Cynthia at brackett-vincent@encirclepub.com in a Word document (.doc format only) using 12-point font.

Article specifics: word total for 1-2 articles based on your experience: 1,900 minimum; maximum 2,100. Two articles preferred. If submitting two articles, please break them up fairly evenly in word count.

No previously published or simultaneously submitted material. Contributors must be reside in the U.S. Books such as this can typically take up to a year to compile. Contributors receive a complimentary copy and contributor's discount on additional copies.

Co-editor Cynthia Brackett-Vincent is publisher/editor of the esteemed Aurorean poetry journal; poetry instructor; award-winning poet; author of The 95 Poems chapbook (2005) and contributor to Educators as Writers: Publishing for Personal and Professional Development. In 2007, her poems received a citation, honorable mention and second place in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, New England Writers and Maine Poets Society competitions. View Cynthia at http://www.encirclepub.com/poetry/aurorean/editor

Co-editor, Carol Smallwood has written, co-authored, and edited 19 books such as Educators as Writers for Scarecrow, Libraries Unlimited. An award-winning writer, her work has appeared in English Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, Iris, and several others including anthologies; chapbook, Pudding House 2008; Educators as Writers, Peter Lang 2006;
and http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3575-3

3. Women Writing on Today's American Family

Foreword: Robbi Hess, Journalist, co-author, Complete Idiot's Guide to 30,000 Baby Names (Penguin Books); Editor, Byline Magazine

Afterword: Melanie Mayo-Laakso, Writer, Publisher and
Editor, MotherVerse: A Journal of Contemporary Motherhood

This is a book about writing and publishing about family by women with family publication credits. Possible subjects: markets; why women write about family; using life experience; networking; unique issues women must overcome; formal education; queries and proposals; conference participation; self-publishing; teaching tips; family in creative nonfiction, poetry, short stories, novels. Contributors have already covered: blogs, using family history, managing time, privacy issues.

Practical, concise, how-to articles with bullets/headings have proven the most helpful to readers. Please avoid writing about "me" and concentrate on what will help the reader. A question and answer format for interviews may be used.

Two articles each 950-1050 words; minimum 1900, maximum 2100 words total. No previously published or simultaneously submitted material or co-authors.

The deadline for current cycle of submissions is November 15, 2008.

Contributors receive a complimentary copy and contributor's discount on additional copies. It is common for compilation of an anthology to take upwards of a year, but I will be in touch with updates on securing a publisher.

Editor: Carol Smallwood has written, co-authored, and edited 19 books such as Educators as Writers (Peter Lang, 2006); chapbook, (Pudding House 2008); The Published Librarian (American Library Association, forthcoming). My work has appeared in English Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, Iris, The Detroit News, several others including anthologies; a recent book is http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-3575-3

Please send topics for feedback/65-70 word bio. Place FAMILY and your name on the subject line, send to: smallwood@tm.net

Most publishers return rights to contributors after publication. Contributors will be asked to sign a release from the publisher and therefore may agree to the details of the contract or withdraw.

Publication news on writers who have consulted with Tristine

Elyn Saks recently received an excellent reveiw in Publisher's Weekly for her upcoming memoir, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness. The review states:

"In this engrossing memoir, Saks, a professor of psychiatry at U.C.-San Diego, demonstrates a novelist's skill of creating character, dialogue, and suspense. From her extraordinary perspective as both expert and sufferer (diagnosis: "Chronic paranoid schizophrenia with acute exacerbation"; prognosis: "Grave"), Saks carries the reader from the early "little quirks" to the full blown "falling apart, flying apart, exploding," psychosis. "Schizophrenia rolls in like a slow fog," as Saks shows, becoming imperceptibly thicker as time goes on." Along the way to stability (treatment, not cure), Saks is treated with a pharmacopeia of drugs and by a chorus of therapists. In her jargon-free style, she describes the workings of the drugs ("getting med-free," a constant motif) and the ideas of the therapists and physicians (psychologist, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, cardiologist, endocrinologist). Her personal experience of a world in which she is both frightened and frightening is graphically drawn and leads directly to her advocacy of mental patients' civil rights as they confront compulsory medication, civil commitment, the abuse of restraints and "the absurdities of the mental care system." She is a strong proponent of talk therapy ("While medication had kept me alive, it had been psychoanalysis that helped me find a life worth living"). This is heavy reading, but Saks's account will certainly stand out in its field."

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness is available for pre-order through Amazon.com. Just click on the title.

Congratulations!

From Kirkus reviews:

The memoir Bill Cosby might have written if he were a clever Jewish girl from suburban New Jersey sent to summer camp in the Maine woods.

A brand-new teenager in 1974, humorist Schneider spent eight weeks at kosher Camp Kin-A-Hurra (a seemingly Native-American term that's actually Yiddish for "may no evil find you"). It was a dump, run by an amiable hustler who had added nothing to the ramshackle enterprise since 1922. There the young captive Mindy mouthed age-old folk songs with campmates Dana Bleckman, Betty Gilbert, Borscha Belyavsky and Autumn Evening Schwartz. The quick-witted girls played softball indifferently, hiked ineptly, baked challah and frequently visited the boys' encampment across the lake. Goofy parents showed up, much to their progeny's mortification. Mindy Schneider's short-term goal: getting popular and getting a boyfriend. Would it be Kenny Uber or Philip Selig? At summer's end, who would bestow her first kiss? The author winsomely recalls sleep-away dreams, growing into a training bra, struggling to control inconvenient rashes, and awkward hormones. She punctuates her droll entertainment with references to junk food and TV staples of a generation ago, embellished with songs and snapshots from old Kin-A-Hurra.

A sweetly humorous fugitive from the Young Adult category, playing dress-up for nostalgic adults.

Congratulations!