Writing opportunities

The information below comes by way of Latinidad®, Marcela Landress's website. These offers may require entry fees or other costs.
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$25,000 POETRY PRIZE

Deadline: May 15
The Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize offers $25,000 for an outstanding book of poems. For more information, click here.


SQUAW VALLEY

Application Deadline: May 10
The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley offers workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Faculty includes Dagoberto Gilb and Alex Espinoza, among others. For more information, click here.


$50,000 BOOK PRIZE

Deadline: May 1
The St. Francis College Literary Prize offers $50,000 to a mid-career writer for an outstanding 3rd to 5th book of published fiction. Self-published books as well as English translations are eligible. For more information, click here.


MACDOWELL COLONY

Deadline: April 15
The MacDowell Colony offers residencies to writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Past attendees include Oscar Hijuelos, Angie Cruz, and Alice Walker. For more information, click here.


CHICA LIT WORKSHOP

Start Date: April 14
Love novels like Dirty Girls Social Club and Waiting to Exhale? Have an idea for a novel of your own? Want a supportive writing community led by an author who has actually published chica lit with major publishing houses? This 8-week course is for you! For more information, click here.


LEGAL FICTION PRIZE

Deadline: April 8
The Harper Lee Prize will be given to fiction that best exemplifies the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change. International and self-published entries are welcome. For more information, click here.


ANGER AND REVENGE CONTEST

Deadline: March 16
Creative Nonfiction will award $1000 for the best essay about anger and revenge, frustration and retribution, outrage and reprisal. For more information, click here.


SHORT STORY CONTEST

Deadline: March 15
A prize of $1000 and publication in Tusculum Review is given for a short story. For more information, click here.

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To read more about Marcela Landress and for other writing information, click here.

Denver author signings missed

The hot Chicano comic

From Chicano vampiristico (sic?) Mario Acevedo, comes this note:
"To read about the new Felix Gomez Comic Killing the Cobra, in a special edition newsletter, click this link."
Happy fanging,
Mario"

There's two covers to this issue and I have to disagree with Mario's pocho tastes and say this one ain't the winner. Reminds me of Charlie's Angels, the vata vampira edition.

Here's the Cover B version. I'll take votes from all readers, whether you're registered, a resident or even don't look like your legal.

Anyway, I missed Mario's debut signing in Denver--pinche! I also missed Manuel Ramos's Denver debut Tattered Cover Bookstore signing of King of the Chicanos. Still down about being job-less and had hundreds of computer entries to make on grades, tests, etcetera. (At least my wife went and got me four copies I can Ebay to subsidize my unemployment checks.)

Anyway, I'm sure you'll find something about Mario's event on his website soon and he will have another signing for the comic book, 3pm, June 6, at the Broadway Book Mall, 200 So. Broadway, Denver. He'll do a PowerPoint of how the comic came together, with more pictures than what he presented my first grade class that had them totally fixated on doing their own comic.

And Ramos posted a piece yesterday about what my wife told me was a huge, great event. Tattered sold out of all the copies they had, which probably means King will make Denver's bestseller list for awhile. I'm just finishing the novel and suggest you get one before all that's available is the 2nd, 3rd or 4th editions.

Borrowing from the master, Lalo

Inspired by and patterned after the classic poem "Stupid America" (1969) by the late Abelardo "Lalo" Delgado (QDEP), an old friend and academico Donaldo Urioste sent us this piece about Arizona and its recent anti-immigrant/anti-Mexican mania.

Stupid Arizona
See that Mexican
Walking the streets of your cities
and the barren lands of your countryside.
He doesn't want to harm you,
he just wants to work
and earn a decent wage
but you won't let him.

Stupid Arizona,
hear that Latina
Speaking Spanish and broken English
throughout your callous communities.
She is a future scholar
of Ethnic Studies, Chicano history, Chicano literature
whose potential will perish
Because of your draconian policies.

Stupid Arizona,
remember that Chicano
detained and vilified
by ICE and your local police agents.
HE is the rising Phoenix
of the Great Southwest,
But in Arizona
His ashes will expire
never again to glimmer in the horizon.

donaldo urioste, 5/10
Professor of Spanish & Chicano Literature
School of World Languages & Cultures
California State University, Monterey Bay, Seaside, CA
durioste aT csumb.edu

Funds to research your book

From Marcela Landress's Latinidad website comes this info:

"Working on a book that requires travel and/or research you simply can't afford? Apply for a writing grant. An excellent source is the NALAC Fund for the Arts; past recipients include Angie Cruz, Nelly Rosario, and Sandra Rodriguez Barron. Application forms will soon be available on the NALAC website. Read this month's Q&A with NALAC Executive Director Maria Lopez De Leon to learn more.

Getting ganas from estudiantes

On an upnote about my last week as an employed 1st-grade bilingual teacher, 35 of my present and former students gave a chingón presentation at the school talent show. Here's the content of the chant/dance they did, something we use year-round:

¿Por qué estás aquí?
¡Para aprender!
¿Por qué quieres aprender?
Para subir, de nivel,
y ser, más inteligente.
¿Más inteligente?
¡Sí! para ir,
a la universidad.
¿Para ser?
Para ser doctora! Para ser astronauta! etc. . .

You had to be there to appreciate the chanting cadence, the hand-clapping, finger-snapping, foot-stomping, strong-voiced spirit that comes from estudiantes con ganas.
Especially when their Para Sers at the start of the year consisted of mesera, carpintero, mamá, but now end with several,
¡Para ser maestro!

Es todo, hoy
RudyG