Tara Lynn Masih's Blog, page 5
October 6, 2015
Best Small Fictions 2015 Launches!
available online, including: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1938466624
55 reasons to want to read the debut volume: Adam O'Fallon Price, Anna Lea Jancewicz, Anya Yurchyshyn, Blake Kimzey, Bobbie Ann Mason, Brent Rydin, Casandra Lopez, Catherine Moore, Chris L. Terry, Claire Joanne Huxham, Dan Gilmore, Dan Moreau, Danielle McLaughlin, Dave Petraglia, David Mellerick Lynch, Dawn Raffel, Dee Cohen, Diane Williams, Emma Bolden, George Choundas, Hiromi Kawakami, J. Duncan Wiley, James Claffey, James Keegan, Jane Liddle, Jane Swan, Jeff Streeby, Jonathan Humphrey, Julia Strayer, Kathryn Savage, Kelly Cherry, Lauren Becker, Leesa Cross-Smith, Lindsey Drager, Lisa Marie Basile, Maureen Seaton, Michael Garriga, Michael Martone, Misty Shipman Ellingburg, Naomi Telushkin, Randall Brown, Roland Leach, Ron Carlson, Ron Riekki, Rusty Barnes, Seth Brady Tucker, Stefanie Freele, Stephen Orloske, Stuart Dybek, Valerie Vogrin, William Todd Seabrook, Yennie Cheung, Zack Bean
August 26, 2015
Goodreads Giveaway for Best Small Fictions 2015
5 copies are available for free over at the giveaway site for the debut of Best Small Fictions
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
"It takes many small things to make something big. Fifty-five acclaimed and emerging writers—including Emma Bolden, Ron Carlson, Kelly Cherry, Stuart Dybek, Blake Kimzey, Roland Leach, Bobbie Ann Mason, Diane Williams, and Hiromi Kawakami—have made the debut of The Best Small Fictions 2015 something significant, something worthwhile, and something necessary. Featuring spotlights on Pleiades journal and Michael Martone, this international volume—with Pulitzer Prize–winning author Robert Olen Butler serving as guest editor and award-winning editor Tara L. Masih as series editor—is a celebration of the diversity and quality captured in fiction forms fewer than 1,000 words."
We've gotten some great early Goodreads reviews and blog reviews. So check it out for yourself! We're reviving an annual series from the 1950s, and it's been a great experience to give it life again, with a new nod to hybrid fiction.
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
"It takes many small things to make something big. Fifty-five acclaimed and emerging writers—including Emma Bolden, Ron Carlson, Kelly Cherry, Stuart Dybek, Blake Kimzey, Roland Leach, Bobbie Ann Mason, Diane Williams, and Hiromi Kawakami—have made the debut of The Best Small Fictions 2015 something significant, something worthwhile, and something necessary. Featuring spotlights on Pleiades journal and Michael Martone, this international volume—with Pulitzer Prize–winning author Robert Olen Butler serving as guest editor and award-winning editor Tara L. Masih as series editor—is a celebration of the diversity and quality captured in fiction forms fewer than 1,000 words."
We've gotten some great early Goodreads reviews and blog reviews. So check it out for yourself! We're reviving an annual series from the 1950s, and it's been a great experience to give it life again, with a new nod to hybrid fiction.
March 19, 2015
The Sound of Music's 50th Anniversary
OK, I admit it, I love the film. Its iconic, it appeals to everyone (or almost everyone), it's tale is timeless, the music is perfection, the film cinematography breathtaking, the acting superb. So much came together in it. But did it tell the real story? For fans of the film and play, I highly recommend Forever Liesl. It's well written and gives the inside story behind the scenes, along with photos and updates on all the actors. There's a reason it remains a bestseller.
Happy 50th!
Happy 50th!
November 19, 2014
The Best Small Fictions 2015
I am thrilled to announce I'll be series editor for The Best Small Fictions 2015, due out from the wonderful Queen's Ferry Press next October. This year's guest editor is none other than Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler.
If you are an editor or publisher of small fictions, please check out the guidelines on the QFP website. We are taking submissions till January for 2014 work.
http://queensferrypress.com/blog/the-...
If you are an editor or publisher of small fictions, please check out the guidelines on the QFP website. We are taking submissions till January for 2014 work.
http://queensferrypress.com/blog/the-...
October 22, 2014
Writing Translated into Dance
I am thrilled that Stephen Clapp (Dance Box Theater) chose an excerpt from an essay I wrote about my personal experience with flooding to incorporate into his MFA dance thesis at George Washington University. He performed it to a standing ovation. It was cool to hear my words mixed in with Gore's and Obama's! And touching to see how my crisis moments were translated into someone else's body movements (my section starts at the 37 min. mark).
http://www.danceboxtheater.org/projec...
Windswept "explores the divisive dialogue around climate change, its causes and effects, and potential courses of action to mitigate its impacts. Through dramatic choreography, spoken word, insightful narrative and a unique, original music score, Windswept addresses the possibility that we may be in the midst of an anthropocene extinction."
Put simply, it tackles the issue of global warming and is an important contribution to the climate change dialog.
My essay appears in full in Facing the Change: Personal Encounters with Global Warming.
http://www.danceboxtheater.org/projec...
Windswept "explores the divisive dialogue around climate change, its causes and effects, and potential courses of action to mitigate its impacts. Through dramatic choreography, spoken word, insightful narrative and a unique, original music score, Windswept addresses the possibility that we may be in the midst of an anthropocene extinction."
Put simply, it tackles the issue of global warming and is an important contribution to the climate change dialog.
My essay appears in full in Facing the Change: Personal Encounters with Global Warming.
June 25, 2014
Best of Summer Cli-Fi Fiction
I just learned this new term, and love it: Cli-Fi for climate fiction, a newish genre. The Daily Climate includes a summer reading list. Happy to see
on the list, and some wonderful books that normally would get overlooked, such as
translated from Finnish.
Check out the list and see if anything looks worth adding to your Goodreads list, and happy summer!
http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsr...
on the list, and some wonderful books that normally would get overlooked, such as
translated from Finnish.
Check out the list and see if anything looks worth adding to your Goodreads list, and happy summer!
http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsr...
May 23, 2014
Will You Marry My Library?
When writer Mary Larkin sent me a wonderful essay by Anne Fadiman titled "Marrying Libraries," I was inspired to interview a few writing couples to see how they handled this issue. Some fun answers that will apply to all booklovers who have to share their precious libraries. Thanks to Grub Daily for posting it:
https://grubstreet.org/grub-daily/wil...
Includes a quote from the 2014 winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award, Steve Yarbrough
https://grubstreet.org/grub-daily/wil...
Includes a quote from the 2014 winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award, Steve Yarbrough
January 8, 2014
The Most Memorable Books I Read in 2013
OK, another list. Despite my antipathy toward them, I decided to make this subjective one to highlight some books that might get lost out there. And I want to stress that these are not necessarily the best books I read, there were many others, but that these not only were great books but additionally left a strong impression that lasted into the start of 2014. So here they are, in categories:
Popular Literary Fiction:
This book had everything I love under one cover: history, wilderness, intense details, place, adventure, romance.
Poetry:
Beautifully written and conceived, one of the most powerful collections I've ever read.
Young Adult:
Not perfect, but I will never forget this tale of abduction set in the dry lands of Australia.
Flash Memoir:
Beautifully crafted, a daughter's homage to her father as he loses his memory.
Short Stories:
I learned much about Bombay and its people on the fringes through these wonderful stories.
HAPPY READING IN 2014!
Popular Literary Fiction:
This book had everything I love under one cover: history, wilderness, intense details, place, adventure, romance.
Poetry:
Beautifully written and conceived, one of the most powerful collections I've ever read.
Young Adult:
Not perfect, but I will never forget this tale of abduction set in the dry lands of Australia.
Flash Memoir:
Beautifully crafted, a daughter's homage to her father as he loses his memory.
Short Stories:
I learned much about Bombay and its people on the fringes through these wonderful stories.
HAPPY READING IN 2014!
October 7, 2013
How Two Writers Merged Two Characters
This fall, I was privileged to be asked to submit work to a new online magazine called Counterexample Poetics. Headed by rap artist and flash enthusiast Jamez Chang, the idea is to work in collaboration with another writer. I was thrilled to work with James Claffey, author of the recent collection Blood a Cold Blue.
This was the idea we had: to merge two characters from our published stories. I felt that Brandy in "Ghost Dance," which appears in my story collection, would work well meeting up with Stela, who appeared in a Claffey story of the same title.
Thus: "Eighteen Crosses, One Madonna" was born. And finished off with a moody photo from artist Yvel Clovis.
Collaboration is a very different experience, and in this case, a rewarding one that took us to fun places in our story! I hope you have time to read and enjoy, it's flash and very short and includes a ghost in time for Halloween:
http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/...
Scroll over names and titles for linking up to our individual stories and to the collaboration.
This was the idea we had: to merge two characters from our published stories. I felt that Brandy in "Ghost Dance," which appears in my story collection, would work well meeting up with Stela, who appeared in a Claffey story of the same title.
Thus: "Eighteen Crosses, One Madonna" was born. And finished off with a moody photo from artist Yvel Clovis.
Collaboration is a very different experience, and in this case, a rewarding one that took us to fun places in our story! I hope you have time to read and enjoy, it's flash and very short and includes a ghost in time for Halloween:
http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/...
Scroll over names and titles for linking up to our individual stories and to the collaboration.
August 20, 2013
The Last Dog Days of Summer Reading
When I was a child, one of the greatest joys of summer used to be the extra time I had to read. I'd join the library reading club with my brother and every year we'd rack up the theme stickers for each book we finished and stick them to our book maps; then we attended the end-of-summer party (no one was left out, even those who only got one sticker). I recall pirates and ghosts and goblins and fairytale figures....
Today, no incentive but my own. And the comments on Goodreads from the new friends I've made from around the world. I hear there is good news on the horizon, book sales are up! But indie stores are still struggling. And new blogs are noting that the old method of viewing books on public transportation (meaning paper covers), is becoming obsolete. So don't be afraid to ask that person next to you on their iPad or Kindle what they are reading...word of mouth is still the best way to get your summer reading list going! And Goodreads recommendations, of course, where all covers are visible.
Enjoy the last Dog Days of Summer Reading!
Today, no incentive but my own. And the comments on Goodreads from the new friends I've made from around the world. I hear there is good news on the horizon, book sales are up! But indie stores are still struggling. And new blogs are noting that the old method of viewing books on public transportation (meaning paper covers), is becoming obsolete. So don't be afraid to ask that person next to you on their iPad or Kindle what they are reading...word of mouth is still the best way to get your summer reading list going! And Goodreads recommendations, of course, where all covers are visible.
Enjoy the last Dog Days of Summer Reading!
