The Diarist’s Journal is published three times a year in February, June and October by Hollie Rose. The publication is a rich and lively discussion of journaling, diary keeping, and the community surrounding it. The journal is calling for submissions of reviews of diary-form novels as well as opinion pieces on keeping diaries for publication, diary hoaxes, diary controversies, and the place for fictionalization in the diary.  Rose will be doing an issue on travel journals.  Her ideas seem limitless. For specific deadlines and to query her with your idea or about publishing a journal excerpt, email her at JavaGoddessBooks@aol.com.

Red Hen Press offers two annual book awards, the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Book Award and the David Family Environmental Book Award.  The Poetry Award was established in 1998 in honor of the poet Benjamin Saltman (1927-1999) and is for a previously unpublished original collection of poetry.  The award is for $1000 and publication of the wining collection by Red Hen Press. There is a $20 reading fee.  2003 is the inaugural year for Red Hen’s newest book award, the David Family Environmental Book Award.  This award is for previously unpublished original manuscript of non-fiction writing and is open to all authors.  The award is for $1000 and publication of the manuscript by Red Hen Press, which will distribute the book countrywide and set up events to promote environmental awareness.  The press names Dreaming the Earth by Thomas Berry as the kind of book that inspired the award because of its reminder that we need to live in harmony with our planet and its inhabitants.  For complete guidelines for these literary awards visit www.redhen.org.

Susan Bono, publisher of Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Essay, is passionate about the personal essay. She believes that they “lend a sense of the familiar to what at first seems to be an uncharted universe.”  She publishes a contest issue each June as well as two other issues a year.”  Subscription and submission information is available on line at www.tiny-lights.com.  The mailing address is Tiny Lights Publications, PO Box 928, Petaluma, CA 94953.  If you visit online, you will see that Bono is posting well-phrased answers to writer’s questions such as: What keeps you going? What do you want from your writing? How do you deal with rejection? What is an editor’s purpose?

In a recent email Susan Bono wrote:

 Tiny Lights made Bitch magazine’s spring 2003 “bitch list!” Those of you who know how smart and funny Bitch is will understand why I’m thrilled by their analysis:

Tiny Lights: “Subtitled ‘A Journal of Personal Essay,’ this lean newsletter delivers just what it promises, in a multitude of styles and voices. It’s a little like the New Yorker, if you took out all the ads, pretentious reviews, and listings of New York-only happenings and were left with just those occasionally brilliant pieces on something you never thought could be so fascinating.”

Check out Bitch on the Web: www.bitchmagazine.com

Then go to the latest Tiny Lights’ “Searchlights & Signal Flares at http://www.tiny-lights.com/searchlightsandsignal.htm

Life Boat is a relatively new journal for people who love good writing and good stories.  The journal accepts poetry, oral biographies, reviews of memoirs, interviews with memoir authors, black and white photography and long and short autobiographical stories and essays.  The editors write, “We prefer to think of reminiscence as the truth of now and then, and not solely the truth of then, and so we enjoy writing that mixes sensate details with imagination.”  Visit www.lifeboatjournal.com for more information.  The next deadline is August 1, 2003.

Fourth Genre is a journal devoted to essays and memoir.  As the editors promise, the journal “explores the boundaries of contemporary creative/literary nonfiction.”  In addition to fifteen or essays and memoirs, the semi-annual issues include author comments on the essay form, interviews and round tables with authors, and book reviews of a host of personal nonfiction books. For submission information, email fourthgenre@cal.msu.edu or write Michael Steinberg, Editor, Fourth Genre: Explorations in NonFiction, Department of ATL, 229 Bessey Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI  48824.

An unusual essay contest is advertised in the May/June issue of Poets and Writers.  Author Cathie Pelletier and her husband are offering amazing awards—the first prize is a house and 35 acres of land in Tennessee’s Davy Crockett country.  Essays entered must meet a topic requirement and word length limit as well as be accompanied by a reading fee and entrance form, available on line.  The theme of the essay is why you want this property.  If you want to learn more about Poets and Writers (a magazine with a fabulous classifieds section for reading about contests, grants, and submissions wanted) visit http://www.pw.org/.  This is a magazine that most libraries have.

Shell and The Economist are offering an annual essay-writing contest.  This year’s prize is $20,000 for the first place winner, $10.000 each for two second place winners and $5000 each for five third place winners.  You can view guidelines and past winning essays at www.shelleconomistprize.com.  The essays are very much like articles–be aware that writing for this venue may require research.  If you have something you want to get out into the world and can back up with factual information, this contest might be a motivator for you.

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is a bountiful affair if you are interested in hearing writers talk about themselves, their books, and the writing life. Some of my favorite events have included panels on memoir writing, writing young adult fiction, the music of language in poetry, and the usefulness of dysfunctional families for writing fiction.  Even if you live in LA, you can only attend a fraction of what is offered on the last weekend of April.  Wherever you live, you can order unedited tapes and sometimes CD’s of the writers’ talks and panels starting with the annual conference in 2000.

The prices for self-publishing are coming down.  Xlibris will send you a free publishing kit to learn all about it. Visit www.xlibris.com or call 888-795-4274 to receive the literature.  Their publishing associates will explain what you get for how much money–their packages start at $500 and go to $1600 and all include ISBN numbers, essential if you are going to try and interest stores in selling your book. They offer publishing, copyediting, and marketing and the different packages contain different amounts of each.  They are proud that many of the winners in Writer’s Digest’s self-published book contest have produced their book using their services.

If you live almost anywhere in California and use dial-up Internet services, you might want to know about Los Angeles Fee Net.  It is a group of volunteers who makes sure that people can get unlimited Internet access for $50 dollars per year and there are local access phone numbers all over the state.  Visit www.lafn.org to find out more about this worthwhile service–people who might not have wanted to spend a lot for browsing the Internet might be able to do it now.

Abebooks is a very well-established online broker of used, rare and out-of-print books.  They represent the combined inventory of literally thousands of small, independent bookstores.  The site has a very good search engine to help you navigate your way.  Visit www.abebooks.com to see how this site works and how it can help you find books you have wanted to read.

The Paris Review’s 50th Anniversary Anthology is out!  Picador in New York has published the 30-dollar, 751-page anthology of writing selected from all the previous issues of this famous quarterly.  Read John Updike, Zelda Fitzgerald, Bobbie Ann Mason, Kenneth Koch, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Kurt Vonnegut, Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, Grace Paley, Patti Ann Rogers, Philip Roth and so many, many more.  I approach it one or two stories or poems a day, and it is a wonderful treat.  Reading the book will introduce you to the quarterly if you don’t know it already.  Most libraries have copies and, of course, you can subscribe. Visit http://www.parisreview.com/ for more information on the book (including a complete list of contributors) and for information on other publications and the quarterly.

As writers we need to be reading, and if you are tired of browsing Amazon for info about books and also want resources to supplement the book reviews you are reading in your newspaper, you might find Pages Magazine out of San Diego useful.  It’s a glossy that does a good job interviewing authors about books and covering issues readers are interested in–encouraging the young reader, for instance. The editors offer information on what professional writers are reading. Visit their website at www.ireadpages.com to learn more about the magazine and its contents.

In the movie “Stone Reader,” East Coast film and video maker Mark Moskowitz documents his search for Dow Mossman, who wrote a novel called The Stones of Summer. The filmmaker did not get into the book in 1972 when he purchased it after reading a good review in the New York Times.  Twenty-five years later, he found it among his things and this time couldn’t stop reading.  He wanted to read more by Mossman, but he couldn’t find any subsequent work by the author or anything about him.  He decides to film his search for the author.  Moscowitz’s audience is treated to meetings with the book critic who gave the book its great review in 1972, the book’s agent and several writes from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop where Mossman studied.  Because of the film, which won two awards at the 2002 Slamdance Film Festival, The Stones of Summer will be reprinted next year.  Most important, because of the film, Mossman gets to meet someone who far exceeds any author’s ideal reader!

If you visit the Random House website, you will find excerpts of several new books from the press.  I find this a great way to get the sound of great poets and stirring writers into my ears.  Then I feel more apt to sit and write.  A reminder: don’t let anyone else’s voice keep you from writing — instead of saying, “I’ll never be that good” and giving in to a feeling of unworthiness, say, “I like that.  Let’s see what my writing has to say today.”  Writing is really one long conversation about the human condition and you have something to add.

And finally, an online and in-print resource for those interested in writing children’s books.   Visit write4kids.com to learn about Children’s Book Insider, a subscription-based newsletter (available by mail or online) for those who write for children.  At the site there is an opportunity to receive a free e-book about getting started writing picture books as well as information on how to submit articles as well as how to subscribe.  Several women I know who have written many books for children subscribe and have written articles based on their expertise.

I hope items on this eclectic list interest you and that you enjoy tracking down the information that is relevant for you.