Diana Crane Awarded 2015 Write Well Award

Diana Crane has received the 2015 Write Well Award  for her story, "The Visitor," which appeared in the Winter 2014 issue of Still Point Arts Quarterly.  

The Write Well Award was established by the Silver Pen Writers Association, a non-profit organization that encourages and fosters creative writing careers, and is named after the Write Well, Write to Sell blog by Rick Taubold and Scott Gamboe, also a part of Silver Pen. The award seeks to recognize excellence in published short fiction in both print and electronic magazines. 
 

Diana Crane grew up in Canada, taught sociology in the United States, and has published several books of nonfiction on topics related to fashion, the media, and the arts. She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and twice the recipient of a Fulbright award. She now lives in Paris where she writes fiction as well as articles about fashion and the arts. She also co-edits a fashion studies journal.

Please click here to read "The Visitor."

Images in this story are by Susan Landor Keegin.

Spring Rain Winter Snow Honored by the Haiku Society of Ameria

We are delighted that our children's book Spring Rain Winter Snow received an Honorable Mention in the annual book awards by the Haiku Society of America. The haiku in Spring Rain Winter Snow are by Edward J. Rielly, and illustrations are by Angelina Buonaiuto. 

Spring Rain Winter Snow celebrates the four seasons with insightful haiku and enchanting illustrations. The pages of this lovely book are filled with opportunities for children to gaze, wonder, question, and smile. Both children and adults will enjoy this book for its engaging approach to the magic of nature's seasons.

JUVENILE NONFICTION / Concepts / Seasons
JUVENILE NONFICTION / Poetry / General

ISBN: 978-1-941830-94-9 (print; hardcover) $19.99

More Information  |  Purchase


Samples pages:

Three Writers Nominated for Write Well Award

Three featured writers have been nominated by Shanti Arts for the 2014 Write Well Award, which seeks to recognize excellence in published short fiction in both print and electronic magazines. Winners will be announced in August 2015.

Nominated writers are:

Diana Crane, for "The Visitor," which appeared in the Winter 2014 issue of Still Point Arts Quarterly. 

Diana Crane grew up in Canada, taught sociology in the United States, and has published several books of nonfiction on topics related to fashion, the media, and the arts. She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and twice the recipient of a Fulbright award. She now lives in Paris where she writes fiction as well as articles about fashion and the arts. She also co-edits a fashion studies journal.
Crane's website | Amazon page

Frederic Smith, for "The Old Man and the Ballerina," which appeared in the Winter 2014 issue of Stone Voices.

Frederic Smith is a southern Californian who went to Princeton and Cambridge. Twenty years ago he tired of practicing law and turned full-time to writing. He is the author of numerous stories and a novel, See How We Run, which received the lead reviews in the New Statesman and the Irish Times.  

Susan Scott, for "Still Life," which appeared in the Spring 2014 issue of Stone Voices.  Susan Scott collaborates with artists, scholars and activists on a wide range of creative projects and serves as a lead editor with New Quarterly magazine, home to the Wild Writers Festival in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Scott teaches memoir, short fiction, and the well-wrought essay; 2014 workshops include the annual French River Creative Writing Retreat and Stone by Stone: Writing Spiritual Memoir, with Prajna of Amida Mosaic Sangha. A memoir in-progress, Sainted Dirt: Stories from the Fringe, explores the gifts of spiritual displacement. A chapbook, Temple in a Teapot, was launched on the Mormon Women Writers Literary Tour.

Loving Awareness

Lukas Riebling, Flaming Heart.

How does one become loving awareness? If I change my identification from the ego to the soul, then as I look at people, they all appear like souls to me. I change from my head, the thought of who I am, to my spiritual heart, which is a different sort of awareness — feeling directly, intuiting, loving awareness. It's changing from a worldly outer identification to a spiritual inner identification. Concentrate on your spiritual heart, right in the middle of your chest. ~ Ram Dass

Let go of it?

One cold day a bearskin was floating down the river.

I said to a man who had no clothes,

"Jump in and pull it out."

But the bearskin was a live bear,

and the man who jumped in so eagerly

was caught in the clutches of what he went to grab.

"Let go of it," I said, "Fighting won't get you anywhere."

"Let go of it? This coat won't let go of me!"

~ Rumi, "The Pull of Love"

A Bear Fighting a Tiger, 1610

Leonard Cohen: He's My Man

I've rediscovered Leonard Cohen....he's my man.

"I generally find the song arises out of the guitar playing, just fooling around on the guitar. Just trying different sequences of chords, really, just like playing guitar every day and singing until I make myself cry, then I stop. . . . I don't weep copiously, I just feel a little catch in my throat or something like that. Then I know that I am in contact with something that is just a little deeper than where I started when I picked the guitar up."

An Afternoon with Bergman - Ingmar Bergman

As editor of two art and literary journals, I have the pleasure of reading an amazing variety of submissions—gripping stories, inspiring characters, surprising endings. Of those pieces that are selected, I then have the delight of putting them in layout, which involves doing a very close read and creating the visual display, the "look and feel," that will enhance the telling of the story and the delivery of the message.

Today I had a very special treat. I was working on a piece that will appear in the upcoming summer issue of Stone Voices. Called "I'm Anxious, Mr. Bergman," by Leo Tracy, its story is entwined with that of the 1972 Ingmar Bergman film Cries and Whispers.

Tracy tells the story of a young man dealing with searing questions about life, love, joy, destiny, cruelty, and death. His internal struggle is made even more difficult because he is gripped by anxiety and OCD. While visiting his uncle, the young man goes to see Cries and Whispers—not ever an easy movie to watch, but far less easy while gripped with emotional fragility. As for me, a close read of this piece made me determined to see Cries and Whispers. So I checked Hulu for availability . . . and there it was.

The film tells the story of three sisters, one of whom is dying of cancer. Through flashbacks, the problems of the family are revealed: infidelity, jealousy, arrogance, and even hatred. This makes dealing with the death of a sibling extremely difficult. Only the family maid is able to comfort and care for the dying woman and does so out of genuine love and affection.

The film is a thing of beauty. Costumes and furnishings are splendid. Poses, postures, and facial expressions of characters are precise and expressive. The flow of the film is slow and serene, but also perfect; one can't rush through the kind of emotional spectacle presented here. Adding to the drama, the color red is used to punctuate scene changes and certain highly emotional moments. It is a memorable and complex creation.

"I'm Anxious, Mr. Bergman" is ultimately about the intertwining of life and art. We bring ourselves to art, our anxiety, sorrow, desperation, as well as joy, freedom, and sense of fulfillment. If we are open and engaged, art helps us churn through all the muddled pieces of our lives. Sometimes art is enjoyable and refreshing; sometimes it tears us wide open. But do it, we must.