Living Together But Apart Anthology

We have received this call for submissions. Please submit works to the email address below, not to Mapping Me.

Living Together But Apart Anthology:

Call for submissions for an anthology about lifestyle choice: If you are or have been involved in an intimate, committed relationship in which you have lived long term in separate domiciles, the editors seek thoughtful, narrative non-fiction accounts of that experience. The writing should explore the challenges and benefits of such an arrangement. Stories of permanent, long-term relationships are of particular interest. Submissions should be approx. 4 – 14 pages, in standard manuscript format (double-spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman font) with full contact information on the first page.

Submit by mail to Linda Breault, 918 Murdoch Street, Creston, BC, V0B 1G4 or by e-mail to breault.gillespieTBA@gmail.com Please include your e-mail address or an SASE.

Deadline: April 1, 2011.

November Update

The Mapping Me team are currently is the slow phase of the book development. Tamara is overseas pursuing numerous leads while simulataneously working on her own projects. For myself, I am juggling the demands art directing for television, my novel and poetry collection yet for both of us, Mapping Me is never far from our minds. We are both excited by the range of voices we have selected. Nevertheless the process is a slow one as we are both keen to develop a project of which everyone can be proud. If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at mappingme(at)gmail(dot)com.

October Update

Thanks all who submitted to Mapping Me. We are in the process of emailling all those who submitted. We are not accepting any more entries to the project. Our aim is to have a complete manuscript my the end of this year and finalise any shortlisted contributors. Thanks to all.

Infinite Dance Crew

For anyone in Lower Hutt, please consider attending the fund-raising event for Infinite Dance Crew. This event is to help them get to The Netherlands to compete in the FISAF world championships.

Date: 25th September, 2010

Time: Doors open 6 pm, starts 6:30 pm

Place: City Church, 22 Marsden St, Lower Hutt

Price: Adults $10, children under 12 years old $5.

Tickets at the door, or Pre-sales from: Langi’s Island Style, High St, Lower Hutt.

More Information: Infinite.worldofdance@gmail.com

Submissions

Hi all.

First of all thank you very much for all your submissions. We have been snowballed with a fantastic response but it does mean that our response time is going to be slower than we anticipated. I will hope that we can contact everyone by the end of September/beginning of October. As a writer myself, I do appreciate the agonising wait!

For those who have expressed concerned about the 7.1 earthquake that hit NZ on the 4th of September, thank you for kindness. Tamara and I are based in Auckland, far out from the devastation. All my friends in Christchurch are accounted for so a good outcome!

Sweta Srivastava Vikram's Kaleidoscope: An Asian Journey of Colors

It is said that the human eye can identify approximately 10 million different shades of color. Yet how we perceive color depends upon our subjective experiences as well as the wavelength of light. It is no wonder then that Sweta Srivastava Vikram's Kaleidoscope: An Asian Journey of Colors uses a dazzling spectrum as a meeting point between reader and poet to share the most intimate and human of experiences. Each poem captures authentic emotion that makes Sweta's words so accessible to the modern reader. Essentially, Kaleidoscope is a marriage of ideas and moments that whisper its punch lines and allows the brevity of language to carry the full emotional impact long after the poem has finished.

From a young girl's charming innocence (When daddy tells me grandpa is a star in the sky....I take out my Wonder woman transport..., and ride through optimism to bring him back) to a middle aged woman's defiance (colour me red), this chapbook is the dazzling display of a poet who teases us with fresh imagery and delicate linguistic craftsmanship.

The result is a stunning array of 19 poems that transcends the singularities of ethnic identity.Published by Modern History Press, Kaleidoscope: An Asian Journey of Color is available from the Ingram Book Group and New Leaf Distributing, Betram's books and of course at Amazon.

Deadlines And Guidelines.

Just a reminder that our deadline is the 1st September. We are getting a few submissions which aren't following the guidelines so I'm re-posting them. PLEASE READ THEM. It's really problematic when we have to turn away writing because they don't conform to our word count requirements. Submission guidelines are a pain - I'm a writer and I know they can be tedious as ever to read but they serve an important function of maintaining even story lengths, pace and structure. They help us to help you.

Secondly, Tamara and I are based in New Zealand. Please don't just put in your country/state of origin as as DE or FL OR WA or SA. These mean nothing to us. If you are from the United States, tell us. If you are Scottish, living in Siberia - let us know. The reason is quite simple: we are hoping to obtain a broad demographic but in order to do so we need to know where you awesome writers are.

Overview

Mapping Me: A Landscape of Women’s Stories is an anthology of fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, photography and artwork. Its objective is to explore the connections – the invisible threads – that exist between women across the globe. Our starting point is to place the most basic question of identity, “Who am I?” within the complexities of culture and ethnicity. How do women respond to motherhood, rage, loss, relationships and loneliness across cultures? Do we share the same concept of grief and sadness, joy and love? We ask the writers and artists to tell stories, which negotiate the demands placed upon everyday women by society. The goal of this project is the sharing of such stories that allow the readers to draw their own conclusions whether or not culture is a divisive state between women.

Content

Mapping Me: A Landscape of Women’s Stories is about transcending the physical geography of our contributors as they map the internal landscapes of their lives. Our themes are those ‘points which connect us.’ While the female reality varies across countries, still we laugh and we cry. We may not personally understand the experience of arranged marriages, bound feet, or restrictions across checkpoints but we can understand a mother’s love, a daughter’s pain and a young girl’s giggle. Some of our themes explore the bonds between women, shifts in consciousness and experiences in extreme situations but all our stories are by women and their choices. Our objective is to breakdown the different stereotypes in an entertaining - and sometimes comical – way. This anthology gives voices a chance to be heard and the reader an opportunity to listen to positive female stories outside of tabloid global gossip.

Some Questions To Think About

So what does this mean for you? Well really, it is up to you. Some questions we have we been asking artists and writers to think about are:

1. Who are you? Are you a 'Culture' first or a 'Woman' first? What is your voice?

2. How do you negotiate the cultural and/or societal authorities that tell you to be thin, pretty, get married, have children, worship, obey/disobey, have a career, stay at home etc.

3. Do you have a burning story about an event, a lost love, heartbreak, arranged marriages, unarranged marriages, infertility, fertility, or even a bathroom cluttered with make up.

4. Do you want to express conflict? Family dynamics? Frustrations over rivalries, children, demands of home and work, silences, arguments, tension with extended

families. Do you have a story of revenge? Manipulation? Women are complex creatures and we are capable of great loving as well as great evil too. We are, of course, human.

5. Who do you see in the mirror each morning? How does your culture affect your body image? Does it? Do you fight against it? Do you buy into any stereotypes? Do you have a funny story to share. We are looking for humour too. This is not a grim book.

Categories

Please select a category and create a story, poem, creative non-fiction or artwork.

· Category 1. Stories of movement and motivation, restriction and escape.

· Category 2. Stories about food and nurturing.

· Category 3. Stories about, touch, love, sexuality or virginity.

· Category 4. Stories about self-image, judgments, perceptions and observation.

· Category 5. Stories about motherhood, family, marriage, fertility, birth.

· Category 6. Stories of laughter, fun, malice, viciousness.

Additional Guidelines

Please make sure your work conforms to the following guidelines:

· For round two, contributors’ literary works must be original and unpublished.

· You may submit as many works as you wish.

· Writer’s Word Count Guidelines

1. Short stories: no more than 1000 words
2. Creative non-fiction: no more than 1000 words
3. Poetry: 4 to 6 pieces.

4. Flash fiction - anything less than 500 words.

· Your work must be submitted as either an attachment in a rich text format (RTF) or a word document (doc). No PDF files or docx files, please! We simply cannot work with these file formats. Alternatively, you may paste your work in the body of the email. If your writing has a specific format, attach it as a file to the email.

Works can be submitted in your mother tongue. Please provide an English translation with your submission.

· Artwork Guidelines

· You may submit as many paintings, photographs or a mix of art and prose as possible. We accept JPG files (no JPF)

· Submit your work to Orchid Tierney and Tamara Azizian at mappingme@gmail.com

· Please provide a cover letter and include a short biography (no more than 50 words).

· Let us know under what categories you are submitting your works.

· Deadline is the 1^st of September 2010

· Our reading period is 1 to 3 months

Please do not send links of your writing or artwork. We will not read them.

Payment

We regret that are unable to provide payment to contributors as this is a self-funded enterprise.

Any questions please contact us at

mappingme (at) gmail (dot) com or visit us at www.mapping-me.blogspot.com