I went to Granta Mag's Paris event today

& got my 17 euro (!) book signed by Dinaw Mengestu & Mark Gevisser (who spelled my name wrong, haha).
My 1st autographs ever :)

Art

Say it out loud, it's like spoken word.

Literary magazines

More so than winning competitions, my ultimate goal, obviously, is to be published.
Novels, screenplays, songs, editorials, articles, non-fiction...I want to write it all.

So far though, I haven't submitted to magazines. A lot of it has to do with them accepting only post submissions which costs money I don't have since I'm not in the US. Though that's mainly an excuse for me and my fear to hide behind.

I'm writing this now to make myself accountable: I'm working on a non-fiction contribution which I hope to finish and send by the end of next month at the latest. I've never written anything like that; it feels like submitting a diary entry in a way.

But now it's out there so I have to do it.
Who knows? I might even be selected :)

I've just submitted to 5 different competitions

I always plan on submitting to all the competitions and magazines around & then just before pressing 'submit' - or 'pay now' as the case may be - I chicken out & think of all the reasons why I shouldn't.

They won't like my style
They won't like the genre
They won't like the language
I don't have any money
My story sucks
I suck & I'm also stupid

I've just submitted to 5 different competitions & I'll be submitting more stories to literary magazines whether or not I place or win.

An excerpt of my story - Dreamtaker (1400 words)

"He was the worst storyteller I'd ever come across yet his little bursts had created a thread in my mind, and I could see everything that had happened to him. The young and beautiful artist, riding triumphant on his rising star, the large and imposing, equally beautiful, equally charismatic dreamtaker, promising to take the artist to the next level. I leaned forward, anxious for this new pause to end."

I'm terrified

but tomorrow I'm submitting to the following competitions:


Cazart
Global short stories
Brighton Cow
Unbound Press
Dark Tales
Exeter
Gemini magazine
Meridian writing
Bristol competition
Writer mag
American Short Fiction
Writersdigest
Bridport prize

I'm not sure if I'll write a different story for the following publications, but I will submit to these as well:

Glimmer Train
Granta magazine
The Paris review
Zoetrope
The Georgia Review

Jean Michel Basquiat - The radiant child

This weekend I wanted to watch something real.

I wanted to be affected by images on the screen in a way that no Hollywood movie can. I wanted to see real lives, real paths, I wanted a touch of humanity.

I started out with Waiting for Superman, which I reviewed previously. Then I came across this documentary: Jean Michel Basquiat - The Radiant Child.

My knowledge of Basquiat is tenuous at best. A few years ago I knew of him only his name. I didn't know he was dead, I didn't know he was black & I didn't know he'd died so young. Since then I've come across articles, book excerpts, interviews that reference him in some way so I eventually learned all this about him but not much more.

I went into the documentary blind as it were.

Waiting for Superman

Going into a documentary like this, you know from the start it's going to tug on your heartstrings.

There's also no surprise about what the message will be.

Education, in America in this case, but here in France as well, is in an abysmal state. We know this.

Barack Obama and other Americans like to quote French statistics on education spending, in order to show that they could be doing better.

The sentiment is commendable but the stats are wrong. We, in France, are also facing spending cuts, poor education in low-income areas, and what seems like a government unwilling to take the necessary steps.

Kindred - Octavia E. Butler

I read this book three years ago. It was part of a friend's required reading.
She gave it to me because I was looking for something new to read.

It tells the story of Dana Franklin, a 26-year old black woman living in California with her white husband. The relationship is entirely run of the mill and I remember liking that the book made no big deal about this interracial couple.

This detail turns out to be an important plot after all point because it shows that Dana is a woman, whose life is unaffected by racism, slavery, intolerance. She's a free woman and it's normal to her.

On her 26th birthday, she is summoned through time, back to the antebellum South, by a young white boy. Rufus Weylin is the son of a slaveowner, and, it turns out, Dana's ancestor.
1st wake up call for Dana.

In total, Dana is summoned six times, and each time she must save Rufus from death. This means saving him even after he has raped a young woman. Failure to do so means erasing her timeline. Each time, too, she stays longer, meaning she has to learn to live on the plantation as a slave. For 20th century Dana, this means obeying her white ancestor. Failure to do this means being whipped, raped or killed.

I do all but three on this list

But I think it's pretty much unavoidable.
Sometimes I feel like my shit is made of cinnamon and rainbows, then I remember that a lot of people hate cinnamon.

wishes for sons - by Lucille Clifton

i wish them cramps.
i wish them a strange town
and the last tampon.
I wish them no 7-11.

i wish them one week early
and wearing a white skirt.
i wish them one week late.

later i wish them hot flashes
and clots like you
wouldn't believe. let the
flashes come when they
meet someone special.
let the clots come
when they want to.

let them think they have accepted
arrogance in the universe,
then bring them to gynecologists
not unlike themselves.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/79