Kern Carter's Blog, page 113
August 12, 2021
Why I Keep Coming Back to Writing
A story of where my upbringing, self-expression and healing intersect.
August 11, 2021
Call For Submissions — Reflect On Your Progress
One thing that’s important for me to do as a writer is to constantly evaluate myself. What are my long vs short-term goals? How am I making progress towards each of those? What can I be doing better or what should I stop doing in order to improve?
These are just a few of the questions I ask myself. I also do a more in-depth self-reflection that asks more personal questions around why I’m writing and its significance in both my personal and professional life.
So that’s the task we’re giving you for this prompt. Reflect on your journey as a writer/creator. What have you learned for the first part of this year? What have you accomplished and what lies ahead?
Same rules still apply:You can submit to this or ANY of our past writing prompts. Just scroll through our previous newsletters. They’ll be marked “Call for Submissions.”If you’re already a writer for CRY, go ahead and submit.If you’re not a writer for CRY but would like to submit to this or any other prompt, let us know and we’ll add you ASAP. Include your profile handle in your message or comment.Be as creative as you want in your submissions. As long as you stick to the topic, we’ll consider it.Just because you submit doesn’t mean we’ll post. If you haven’t heard back from us in three days, consider that a pass.Please reach out if you have any questions at all. If you are new to Medium, here’s how you submit a draft to a publication.
Call For Submissions — Reflect On Your Progress was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
August 10, 2021
August 9, 2021
Call for Poetry Submissions— Your Story of Yin and Yang
As the story goes — an old grandfather tells his grandson that there is a battle between two wolves within all humans. One is evil — representing anger, jealousy, resentment, ego. The other is Good — representing joy, peace, love, hope, kindness, and truth.
The boy asks, “well, which one wins?”
And the grandfather responds, “ The one you feed.”
But this battle isn’t as black and white as it seems.
We must learn to accept the darkness as part of ourselves as well.
We can’t push it away.
We must come to understand the darkness in order to manage stressful situations from a place of calm and higher knowledge.
PROMPTSo, what does the dark wolf look like in your mind’s eye?
What does it say?
Conversely, what does your light wolf look like in your mind’s eye?
What does it say?
Make them talk to each other and you’ll find out how you truly view your life story.
A few new rules:Keep your submission to ~ 350 words max.Format the poem as it is meant to be readFocus on clarity—make sure your piece has a clear premise and takeawaySame rules still apply:You can submit to this or ANY of our past writing prompts. Just scroll through our previous newsletters. They’ll be marked “Call for Submissions.”If you’re already a writer for CRY, go ahead and submit.If you’re not a writer for CRY but would like to submit to this or any other prompt, let us know and we’ll add you ASAP. Include your profile handle in your message or comment.Be as creative as you want in your submissions. As long as you stick to the topic, we’ll consider it.Just because you submit doesn’t mean we’ll post. If you haven’t heard back from us in three days, consider that a pass.Please reach out if you have any questions at all. If you are new to Medium, here’s how you submit a draft to a publication.
Call for Poetry Submissions— Your Story of Yin and Yang was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
August 5, 2021
August 4, 2021
I Almost Conformed When Telling My Adoption Story
Isn’t better to stay true to who you are and to your story?
As most of you know, I’m an independent contractor for a website called Adoption.com. I write various articles about adoption, and all 2,000 words have to have some tone of positivity and had to be uplifting. When I got the opportunity to write about my own adoption story, well let’s just say that I didn’t have such a great upbringing when my twin and I were adopted.
Living with 14 siblings, you’re bound to get lost in the shuffle, and less favored. I won’t go into much detail about my private life, but if you’d like to read my article, here’s my personal adoption story.
As much as I wanted my article to be rainbows and butterflies, I knew I had to write down what was true and how i really felt. I was very hesitant to even share my story because I didn’t want my editor to hate how harsh it was. But to my surprise, it ended up getting published.
I have to still write great articles highlighting the greatness of adoption, and it does get heavily tedious. I am thankful for this opportunity, but giving the people of the adoption community what they want to read has become like nails scraping against the chalkboard. Maybe I’m tired of constantly conforming to myself as this hopeful advocate for adoption. Yes, there are many great adoption stories, and most have become “inspiration porn”. Shouldn’t I a be able to also point out the negatives of adoption too? What about the kids who get adopted into bad homes? What about the adoptions that go wrong? How about the adoption stigmas?
I’m not saying I should fully focus on the bad things in adoption, but have a balance between good and bad. Maybe then I won’t have to keep feeling like banging my head against the wall as I type about the fantasies of what adoption should be. One thing for sure is I’m damn glad I didn’t conform my heartwrenching story into fluff.
I Almost Conformed When Telling My Adoption Story was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
New Editor Joins CRY Magazine
Spoken word artist heads new poetry section for creatives on Medium
