Lydia Ondrusek's Blog, page 2
April 21, 2011
Block!
[OmniLit][Kindle][KindleUK][Nook][Smashwords]
Erin...
Block!
[OmniLit][Kindle][KindleUK][Nook][Smashwords]
Erin has never been secretive, but she's starting to wonder; is it still keeping a secret if you just don't tell anybody? What if nobody asks?
Could what Margret and her friends (or henchmen) are doing be Erin's secret? Erin is being bullied at school. She hasn't reported the abuse to anyone in charge, not her teachers, or her parents–she hasn't even talked to her twin brother Tim about it. Erin believes her reasons for not discussing what's going on are good. Or she did. She's not so sure anymore.
The bullying has gone from insults to physical attacks that are getting dangerous. They're bad enough that now Erin is scared to go to school. It's stopped feeling like a safe place to be. Can what she's learning in taekwondo help?
March 22, 2011
From Echelon Press and Quake – “The King of the Marshmallows”
Life isn’t fair, Mark Holden knows that. The doctor says he has Asperger’s Syndrome, and nobody knows why. What they do know is Asperger’s makes it harder for Mark to understand how other people think, including teachers.
At a taekwondo school, though, you don’t have to figure out what people mean or how they think. It’s a physical activity. Everyone starts the exact same way, in a white uniform with a white belt. You’re only better if a belt you’ve earned says you are, and respect for others is a requirement. Mark likes that.
He thinks a roomful of white belts looks pretty much like a roomful of marshmallows, though. Not like the black belts his mom talks about, in the Olympics; not very tough at all. And who wants to be king of the marshmallows?
When he starts taekwondo, Mark discovers that he and four other kids from his school are in a class full of adults! They’ll have a lot to learn, the faster the better, about taekwondo and each other – but they’ll find there’s nothing like a little heat to make marshmallows stick together.
Episode #1
Ready! by Lydia Ondrusek (Ages 13+)
[OmniLit][Kindle][KindleUK][Nook][Smashwords]
Mark’s Asperger’s Syndrome makes things hard for him at school. Mark’s mom and dad think MORE school is the answer. They can’t be right–can they? When they enroll Mark in the new taekwondo school nearby, he finds that his class is filled with adults–and four kids from his school he’s never met before. So now he’s got to meet new people (ugh), learn MORE new skills (ack), and oh yeah…somewhere in there, he’s got to figure out how not to flunk English.
From Echelon Press and Quake – "The King of the Marshmallows"
Life isn't fair, Mark Holden knows that. The doctor says he has Asperger's Syndrome, and nobody knows why. What they do know is Asperger's makes it harder for Mark to understand how other people think, including teachers.
At a taekwondo school, though, you don't have to figure out what people mean or how they think. It's a physical activity. Everyone starts the exact same way, in a white uniform with a white belt. You're only better if a belt you've earned says you are, and respect for others is a requirement. Mark likes that.
He thinks a roomful of white belts looks pretty much like a roomful of marshmallows, though. Not like the black belts his mom talks about, in the Olympics; not very tough at all. And who wants to be king of the marshmallows?
When he starts taekwondo, Mark discovers that he and four other kids from his school are in a class full of adults! They'll have a lot to learn, the faster the better, about taekwondo and each other – but they'll find there's nothing like a little heat to make marshmallows stick together.
Episode #1
Ready! by Lydia Ondrusek (Ages 13+)
[OmniLit][Kindle][KindleUK][Nook][Smashwords]
Mark's Asperger's Syndrome makes things hard for him at school. Mark's mom and dad think MORE school is the answer. They can't be right–can they? When they enroll Mark in the new taekwondo school nearby, he finds that his class is filled with adults–and four kids from his school he's never met before. So now he's got to meet new people (ugh), learn MORE new skills (ack), and oh yeah…somewhere in there, he's got to figure out how not to flunk English.
June 24, 2010
So Why Do I Care If Lydia Ondrusek Has A Website?
Because this is where you go to find out what I've been doing lately — which is to say, where you can find stuff I've written. So if that's something you want to do, this is where you should be.
Once upon a time I was Lydia O. on a site called Gather.com. There are still some pieces of mine there, including a long nonfiction piece I'm rather proud of called "Hysterical".
Anne Stuessy at www.sniplits.com has been kind enough to purchase and produce several of my pieces for her amazing site, where short fiction is available as DRM-free mp3 downloads. Membership is free and will get you a free story a week, plus access to a wide selection of authors and stories of all genres and sizes. Anne purchased my microfiction "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and produced four of my fifty-worders in a package called "Home and Away Stories." You can get all five pieces for — are you ready? Ninety-six cents, total.
Josh over at Yankee Pot Roast took a piece called "Everything I Need To Know I Learned Watching Bravo". It's just what it sounds like.
Once Upon A Time Everyone Had Bodies – Burst Literary EZine Fall 2008 issue
Heat — Flash Me, Oct. 31, 2008 release — this was an entry in their Lightning Flash Fast contest
Open Sesame — Flash Me, Oct. 31 release — this was an all-fantasy issue for Flash Me; they took it to the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary. Open Sesame, like Heat, is only available through purchase of the issue.
Shelter — Flash Fiction Online, Dec. 2, 2008 release — free subscriptions available here:
http://www.flashfictiononline.com/.
From The Back Of a Photograph (No Name or Date) — Falling Star Magazine Winter '08-'09 issue — PRINT, baby! Distributed at: City Lights Books in San Francisco, Beyond Baroque in Venice (L.A.) California, Bowery Poetry Club in NYC and the Poetry Cafe in London.
Work Ethic – Flash Me Magazine, Spring '09 issue, live April 30
Shift – Every Day Fiction, live May 27, 2009
Gruff – New Myths, live June 1, 2009
How It Happens (poem) Falling Star Magazine, Summer 2009
Delivery (poem)– Crash #1, January 2010
Sip (poem)– Five Fishes Journal, Oct. 2009
Nola, When She Sings (poem)– Five Fishes Journal, March 2010
One-Up — Everyday Weirdness, May 9, 2010
Crossing, 3 Ways of Looking at a Volcano (poetry)– Leaves and Flowers #1
The Crawl At The Bottom Of The Screen (poem)– Leaves and Flowers #2
Four (poem)– Leaves and Flowers #3 (not yet released)
Wisdom (poem) — Apex Magazine, July 2010
Every Vote Counts – Zombie Summer, No Time To Say It Blog, September 2010
Sargassum – Poets for Living Waters project, September 2010 (poems written in response to Deepwater)
Hateful – GUD Magazine, Summer 2010
Contests:
Sept. 2007 — Dallas/Fort Worth Writer's Workshop Short Story Contest, third place, Words, Words, Words
July 2008 — Texas Nonfiction Writers Bad Writing Contest, first place, When Love Shuffled Off This Mortal Coil
May 2009 — Finalist in Writer's League of Texas Manuscript Contest, mainstream division
Writing Lesson, contest entry for Biblioasis' "Kill a Critic" microfiction contest
