Kory M. Shrum's Blog, page 20

#Read a #poem #Friday #amreading

One GirlBY SAPPHO
TRANSLATED BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI                               ILike the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,Atop on the topmost twig, — which the pluckers forgot, somehow, —Forget it not, nay; but got it not, for none could get it till now.
                               IILike the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,Until the purple blossom is trodden in the ground.

Learn more about this amazing poet here.

Happy Release Day @AmyGregory548! @TwinOpinions #giveaway

Happy Release Day, Amy!




Ryan At Last is now for sale. You should snag your copy, join us for the super fun facebook party, and enter the giveaway below!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Doing All The Things

Apart from the lovely poems I've been posting, I know I haven't posted much in the way of content lately. I must admit that in the insanity of:

-finding a house in just 10 days
-closing on a house
-packing
-painting/preparing new house
-moving all the stuff
-wrapping up production on the audiobook of Dying for Her
-Preparing publication of Dying Light, the fourth book in the Jesse sullivan series
-the fall semester is starting, which is always crazy for a teacher/student like myself
-reading/reviewing books for several writer friends

I'm a little busy over here! But I am not complaining. I like staying busy and to be honest, if I was offered one more class to teach I'd say "I'll take it."

So I'm reaching out to ask you guys what your best organizational strategies are? How do you manage your time and make the most of your days when demand is high?

Just looking for tips! :)

Kory

Happy Birthday to Me! #free #books #coupon

August 9 is my birthday! 

And because I am at a place in my life where I feel incredibly grateful, I want to give all of my amazing supporters a gift. I know that traditionally YOU should be giving ME presents, but just this once, I'll let it slide.

For Saturday and Sunday, you can get a copy of all three Jesse Sullivan Novels for FREE.


Promotional price: $0.00
Coupon Code: GF98W
Expires: August 10, 2015

You can use this coupon for yourself, your friends, or gift it. I don't care. Just go to https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/535043

to select the book and redeem your code. You can download the .mobi (if you have a kindle) or the .epub (Nook, etc)--whatever you're into.

Who loves you? ;)

Kory

Read a #poem #Friday #amreading

homage to my hipsBY LUCILLE CLIFTON
these hips are big hipsthey need space tomove around in.they don't fit into littlepetty places. these hipsare free hips.they don't like to be held back.these hips have never been enslaved,   they go where they want to gothey do what they want to do.these hips are mighty hips.these hips are magic hips.i have known themto put a spell on a man andspin him like a top!

my dream about being whiteBY LUCILLE CLIFTONhey music andmeonly white,hair a flutter offall leavescircling my perfect   line of a nose,no lips,no behind, heywhite meand i’m wearingwhite historybut there’s no future   in those clothesso i take them off and   wake updancing.

Learn more about this amazing woman and poet here.

Read a #Poem #Friday #amreading

Confession of a Luddite     by Nancy Eimers(28-hour power outage)It had been raining, and it would rain.
Without the streetlights tending them
trees turned into a forest,the houses had fallen back,
I found myself coveting old brass keys
to doors that are lostand the keys to my old typewriter
for like piano keys,
when you pressed themsomething pressed back.
Bill beside me, the two of us walked along
in an elder darkthough an oaf-ish light blared
in a couple of houses powered by the roar
of generators draining the darkas if it were a basement of water.
But dark was a folk art, dark was a primitive
science composing the very wetnessof bark.  No government
could have taken over0
so quietly.  Without newspapers or stars.Without the sounds of cars or shoes.
For a moment, nothing needed anything.
Every now and then we came upon candlesdeep in houses
and throwing a see-through light,
light that had no argumentwith the dark.
Learn more about Nancy Eimers here. Read more poems here,  or buy her books here.

August #Writing #Contests: #amwriting #poetry #fiction

August 1
Art and Change Grants
Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize
Story Quarterly Nonfiction Prize

August 3
Individual Artist Fellowships

August 8
Gival Press Short Story Award

August 10
Pen Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowships

August 15
Arcadia Nonfiction Contest
Grayson Books Poetry Prize
Indiana Review 1/2K Prize
X.J. Kennedy Award for Creative Nonfiction

August 31
Gemini Magazine Flash Fiction Contest
Glimmer Train Short Strory Award for New Writers
Bathelme Prize for Short Prose
Prize in Translation
Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award
Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry
Serena McDonald Kennedy Award
Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize

Are you the owner/founder/manager of a small press? Running a contest this month? Let me know and I'd be happy to add you to the list! :) 

Read a #Poem #Friday #amreading

After You’ve Been Gone a Long Time by Blas FalconerThere are no rubies here, but saying so brings one to mind. And they aren’t petals as much as one furled bud with a very long stem.Ants take everything away, little by little, before you know.You came home briefly, for instance, and I was asleep, so it was as though you hadn’t come at all, but something was missing.More time, I thought, might be like more water and make it taste less bitter, but only made it more to drink.Sometimes, I can’t bear waiting. If you were here, you’d see what I mean, someone staring off all the time.Once, when I fell, my mother gasped, which only made me cry louder, and people gathered around to see fear that looked like pain. That’s what I’m trying to say.The neighbors mow the yard, and it sounds like a plane overhead where everything is clear.
Read more about this amazing poet here or buy his books here.

#weneeddiversebooks #TBR #amreading

It's a list! Sorry if you hate lists. But this is a good-natured list, if nothing else.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. In fact, it is the exact opposite of comprehensive. This is a very tiny list of multicultural books I've read recently and would recommend to anyone who would like to expand their multicultural reading list.

If you are looking for list of 100 books, or 50 books that white people should be reading, then click those links. If that many books seems daunting, then start here with these few that helped me to see the world a little differently.


brown girl dreaming

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.






Fledgling and Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

As one of the greatest science fiction writers of her age, and one of the few of color, Octavia Butler explored racism and discrimination in her work.



Fledgling (Vampires)

Fledgling is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly unhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted-and still wants-to destroy her and those she cares for and how she can save herself. "Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of "otherness" and questions what it means to be truly human. Octavia E. Butler is the author of 11 novels, including "Kindred, "Dawn, and "Parable of the Sower. Recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and numerous other literary awards, she has been acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations that range from the distant past to the far future.



Parable of the Sower (Dystopian)

When unattended environmental and economic crises lead to social chaos, not even gated communities are safe. In a night of fire and death Lauren Olamina, a minister's young daughter, loses her family and home and ventures out into the unprotected American landscape. But what begins as a flight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny... and the birth of a new faith.






Salvage the Bones--Jesmyn Ward

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. While brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting. As the twelve days that comprise the novel's framework yield to the final day and Hurricane Katrina, the unforgettable family at the novel's heart--motherless children sacrificing for each other as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce--pulls itself up to struggle for another day. A wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bone is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.




Never Fall Down- Patricia McCormick


Based on the true story of Cambodian advocate Arn Chorn-Pond, and authentically told from his point of view as a young boy, this is an achingly raw and powerful historical novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace. It includes an author's note and acknowledgments from Arn Chorn-Pond himself.

Be prepared to cry your eyes out.









Wanting Mor by Rukhsana Khan 

Jameela lives with her mother and father in Afghanistan. Despite the fact that there is no school in their poor, war-torn village, and Jameela lives with a birth defect that has left her with a cleft lip, she feels relatively secure, sustained by her faith and the strength of her beloved mother, Mor.

But when Mor suddenly dies, Jameela's father impulsively decides to seek a new life in Kabul. He remarries, a situation that turns Jameela into a virtual slave to her demanding stepmother. When the stepmother discovers that Jameela is trying to learn to read, she urges her father to simply abandon the child in Kabul's busy marketplace. Jameela ends up in an orphanage.

Read a #Poem #Friday #amreading

Heart Condition - Poem by Jericho Brown




I don't want to hurt a man, but I like to hear one beg.
Two people touch twice a month in ten hotels, and
We call it long distance. He holds down one coast.
I wander the other like any African American, Africa
With its condition and America with its condition
And black folk born in this nation content to carry
Half of each. I shoulder my share. My man flies
To touch me. Sky on our side. Sky above his world
I wish to write. Which is where I go wrong. Words
Are a sense of sound. I get smart. My mother shakes
Her head. My grandmother sighs: He ain't got no
Sense. My grandmother is dead. She lives with me.
I hear my mother shake her head over the phone.
Somebody cut the cord. We have a long distance
Relationship. I lost half of her to a stroke. God gives
To each a body. God gives every body its pains.
When pain mounts in my body, I try thinking
Of my white forefathers who hurt their black bastards
Quite legally. I hate to say it, but one pain can ease
Another. Doctors rather I take pills. My man wants me
To see a doctor. What are you when you leave your man
Wanting? What am I now that I think so fondly
Of airplanes? What's my name, whose is it, while we
Make love. My lover leaves me with words I wish
To write. Flies from one side of a nation to the outside
Of our world. I don't want the world. I only want
African sense of American sound. Him. Touching.
This body. Aware of its pains. Greetings, Earthlings.
My name is Slow And Stumbling. I come from planet
Trouble. I am here to love you uncomfortable.

Learn more about this awesome poet here.