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Yesterday I taught a teen writing workshop at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ. As I told the teens…

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Poetry, Fiction & Creative Nonfiction
Judge: M.T. Anderson
Prize: Publication in Hunger Mountain online
$250 to first place winner in each genre, $100 to runners-up

Hunger Mountain is looking for talented high school students to enter poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction in the Hunger Mountain Prize for Young Writers. They accept any form of poetry. Fiction can be experimental or traditional. Creative nonfiction can be personal essay or mini memoir.

The Judge for the competition is National Book Award Winner and New York Times Bestselling author M.T. Anderson, author of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation; Burger Wuss; and Feed.

For complete guidelines and to learn about past prize winners please visit www.hungermtn.org


Please send work to the following address:
Hunger Mountain Prize for Young Writers
Hunger Mountain
Vermont College of Fine Arts
36 College St.
Montpelier, VT 05602



A film by: Ivan Acosta (Author of EL SUPER)

Latin Jazz USA and MVD Visual are pleased to announce the release of Rosa and the Executioner of the Fiend for worldwide distribution on March 23, 2010.

Ivan Acosta, is the writer of the award winning film, EL SUPER, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary at the Bronx Museum of Arts, this week. Acosta has written 12 theater plays and 7 screen plays, including his feature film, AMIGOS, Candido - Hands of Fire, and How to Create a Rumba. The original script of Rosa and the Executioner of the Fiend won 2nd place at the International Literary contest, “Letras de Oro”.

The film relays the story of Rosa, a Holocaust refugee, who has lived alone for more than 50 years in an apartment across the United Nations. When an intruder gets hold of her place, she takes him for a thief, a rapist and then a Nazi agent. But he is none of that. His mission is "to execute the greatest fiend the world has ever known". The drama that connects these two fictional characters is linked to five real episodes: the escape of thousand Jews from Germany aboard the St. Louis, in 1939; their arrival in Havana and their entrance denial; the indifference by the United States that send them back to Europe; and the tragedy of the Cuban children who participated in the (Pedro Pan Rescue Project), and a historical U.N. General Assembly of world leaders.

This DVD is in English with Spanish titles.




CAST:

Graciela Lecube - Rosa (HOLA) Life-Time Achievement Award, 2006
Gabriel Gorcés - Amaury
Ruben Rabasa - Landlord
Susan Rybin - Social Worker
Ino Gómez - Secret Service One
Jules Santos - Secret Service Two
Ileana Canales - TV Reporter
Ricardo Razuri - Supermar

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Two exciting goings on from Vermont College of Fine Arts! The first from Miciah Gault, the editor of our literary magazine, Hunger Mountain:

Please join us for the Hunger Mountain Spring Fundraising Auction, featuring manuscript critiques with notable authors and agents, and limited edition letterpress broadsides. All items will be available at: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/thehungermountainstore beginning at noon EST on May 2nd. Bidding ends at noon EST on Saturday, May 9th. One-on-one critiques in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, writing for children, and writing for the stage will be conducted by phone, email or mail. This is a great way to study with a writer you admire and support non-profit literary publishing!

Not only are we offering an opportunity to work with authors such as Michael Martone, David Jauss, David Wojahn, Donna Jo Napoli and Tim Wynne-Jones, we also have a full-length children’s/YA fiction critique donated by literary agent Mark McVeigh, founding member of the McVeigh Agency, as well as a middle grade/YA critique offered by Tracy Marchini, agent assistant at Curtis Brown, Ltd. Picture book authors and illustrators Laura McGee Kvasnosky and Marion Dane Bauer will also be offering their expertise. Been toiling away on a script or stage production? Bid on a full-length play critique with playwright Gary Moore. Sue William Silverman is offering a full-length creative nonfiction manuscript critique, complete with a complimentary signed copy of her latest book Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir.

Other authors offering critiques in the auction include Philip Graham, Jess Row, Thomas Christopher Greene, Natasha Saje, Xu Xi, along with children’s and young adult authors Sarah Ellis, Martine Leavitt, and more. Also available are signed broadsides from the Stinehour Broadside Award Series including work by authors Alice Hoffman, Neil Shepard, and David Rivard and Lucia Perillo. These letterpress broadsides are all signed and numbered, limited edition, and frame worthy, making them the perfect gift for anyone who appreciates the artistry of literature! All purchases are charitable in support of Hunger Mountain's non-profit mission to cultivate engagement with and conversation about the arts by publishing high-quality, innovative literary and visual art by both established and emerging artists, and by offering opportunities for interactivity and discourse.

The link is: http://stores.shop.ebay.com/thehungermountainstore

The second announcement is from author and faculty member Ellen Lesser about the Post-Graduate Writers Conference coming up this August. And of particularly interest to me, for the first time there is a track for young adult authors led by award-winning authors An Na and Kathi Appelt.

Vermont College of Fine Arts, home of the nationally acclaimed MFA in Writing and Writing for Children and Young Adult Programs, has since 1996 offered a summer conference dedicated to advanced writers seeking to recharge, reconnect, and nourish their creative development.

The Postgraduate Conference is open to all experienced writers, with graduate degrees or equivalent backgrounds. We emphasize process and craft through our unique structure based on intimate workshops limited to 5-7 participants, and including individual consultations with faculty, readings by faculty and participants, issues forums and master classes—all in a lively, supportive community of writers who share meals, ideas, and social activities in scenic Vermont.

The historic campus of Vermont College of Fine Arts is host to the annual gathering. Along with the rich menu of Conference events, participants enjoy the amenities of downtown Montpelier—the nation’s smallest and arguably most charming state capitol—just a few minutes’ walk from the College, as well as the beauty and recreational opportunities of the surrounding countryside and Green Mountains.

The Conference features prose workshops in novel, short story and creative nonfiction. In poetry, we offer regular workshops as well as ones focusing on book manuscripts. New for 2009, we have added two workshops in writing for young adults, and look forward to an exciting cross-fertilization with the other genres.

Our award-winning faculty for summer, 2009 are: Carol Anshaw and Clint McCown in Novel; Ellen Lesser and Michael Martone in Short Story; Lee Martin and Sue William Silverman in Creative Nonfiction; Nancy Eimers, Cleopatra Mathis and William Olsen in Poetry; Robin Behn, Major Jackson and Charles Harper Webb in Poetry Manuscript; and Kathi Appelt and An Na in Young Adult. Click “Faculty” below for biographical notes on these outstanding author-teachers.

Contact Ellen Lesser, Conference Director, with any questions, and to chat about how our program can serve you, at (802) 828-8835 or mailto:[email protected]

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Seven young adults between the ages of 12 to 17 shuffle inside the Children Shelter’s classroom. The boys loom large. The girls shift from motherly to sexy and back, like blinking red lights.

I break down some stories to them with a focus on the Beginning 1/4 of the story and ending at The End of the Beginning. I ask them to write the beginning of a story real or imagined that leads to a moment of no return, a moment when life shifts, when good turns bad or bad to worse. I suggest that the character want something that now becomes seemingly impossible to attain.

For a girl with clear brown eyes, her main character wants more time with her dad. The End of the Beginning is when her dad dies. Another girl shows a mom in heaven remembering her beautiful little girls. The End of the Beginning is when the girls go live with an uncle with a belt.

For the Middle of their stories, I asked them to describe the new world the main character is now living. I ask for three bumps that shake the character, stop the character, interfere with his/her dreams and leads to a Crisis. The Crisis is is the dark night of the soul.

Before I release them to their writing, we play charades. The two biggest boys and a girl with incredilbly long eyelashes act out emotion cards. The other kids and volunteers and counselors guess at the emotions. I stress for descriptions of what they see that leads them to know the emotion. I wanted them to "show" the character in the emotion, not "tell" the character.

To demonstrate anger, the biggest boy grabs a chair, swings it over his head and slams it to the floor. The girls reel backwards and scream. Counselors leap to their feet. I ask him to do it again but without the violence. Then we dissect his facial expressions to find the more subtle signs of anger and rage.

After a lunch of pizza and juice, we trudge back inside for the End. The room is stuffy and close, but feels safe and womb-like.

I give examples of characters overcoming tremendous odds at the Climax and being deeply transformed by the experience. We talk about what stories mean overall: a tough time leads to a lifelong belief that people are no damn good? (my father throughout his life) Good triumphs over bad (the girl with the belt). Bad triumphs over good (the boy with the rage).

My hope is that giving the kids an opportunity to get the bad stuff out of their bodies and moving is good. Rather than let it sit and fester, to bring the fear and disappointment out to the light of day is a good thing.

What have you left buried deep inside????

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