NorthernPros.com

Shameless Promotion

2007-05-21T05:34:00.000-07:00

I am going to take this opportunity to shamelessly promote a project that two of our staff memmbers are, and have been, a part of for the past few years - the Monterey County Film Commission's twelfth-annual Screenplay Competition.

Here's a little information about the contest.

Every year, the MCFC awards aspiring screenwriters a monetary grand prize and promotional opportunities for their winning feature-length screenplays.

The MCFC also gives an On-Location Award for the best screenplay with a Monterey County backdrop or written by a Monterey County local.

The Monterey Screenplay Competition was established to promote the art of screenwriting, and to encourage new screenwriters in the entertainment industry.

Since then, we've focused on maximizing our connections - creating the opportunity for screenwriters to gain access to powerful organizations that can really get a screenplay sold.

This year, the winners are getting even more cash than they have in the past, AND continued access to real connections!

This year's awards include $2,000 Grand Prize; $1,000 Runner-Up; $1,000 On Location Award. Winning screenplays will be announced in November. 2007.

In addition to increasing the monetary awards for this year's contest, the Monterey County Film Commission has partnered with Nestech Companies to offer winning screenwriters the opportunity to have their screenplays reviewed by a Monterey Peninsula-based film investor.

Submissions must be completed, feature-length screenplays between 90 and 120 pages.

The entry fee is $50 for all screenplays. They must be mailed and postmarked before June 30, 2007.

Competition co-chairpersons are also NorthernPros staff members Wendy A. Goldman and Ben Spencer.

The best (and really the only) way to submit your screenplay is by mail. If you have questions about the contest, visit their website ... www.filmmonterey.org. Here's the MCFC's address and contact info:

P.O. Box 111
Monterey CA
93942-0111

Tel ... (831) 646-0910

Email ... info@filmmonterey.org

Found Novel Notes, part two

2007-05-14T07:09:00.001-07:00

As I finish reading the last words of a found novel and notes, I am reminded of the writing of those last words. How the fire burned in the fireplace. The intensity of emotion that passed as I realized there was no going back to it. The story was finished. Complete.

I am not feeling that way now. After having read the tale originally from the inside out, reading it as an outsider I am dissatisfied. The characters, though once magnetic and fiery now seem a bit dull. The inspiration, I think dwindles about one third of the way through…

I could go on, but I won’t. I should edit it, but will I?

Ultimately, it’s your decision what to do with any of your work that will determine what you do with old work when you innevitably return to it whether by intention or accident.

Some people literally put their writing in a safe box. Some people try to sell it for years without success. Some people simply write to write, without yearning for economic success because of it.

I answer the question by returning to the beginning of the novel. With a stiff cup of coffee in hand and a pen, I scratch words and ideas in the margins, cut entire scenes because in the end I know these scenes do not develop the characters or move the action forward.

I have become exceedingly accurate at doing this.

Each scene is cut to the essence. Soon enough, there is no filler. The story is an empty canoli shell. But this in my opinion is the best part, the sweet shell.

In my opinion when you leave someone enough space to breath their own ideas into the tale, their own interpretations of what a character should or should not have said or done, they will surely find the tale lodged in the problem solving cubicle of thinking where it will ruminate, take seed, grow further than it was ever intended to.

It depends largely on your intentions.

My intention is to make it a better story. It always is.

Found: First Novel Notes, part one

2007-05-14T07:08:00.001-07:00

Recently, I was cleaning out a small room in the house so I might better utilize it for something other than storage of random art things and wine.

In doing so, I came across a box containing notes and magazine clippings and books and memorabilia I had collected. The theme of the items in the box was a novel, my first attempt at one at least.

Please note at this time: The novel was not also in the box.

But in a flash I was rewriting it. I could quite literally smell the room where it all begins, the confusion of characters as they wake.

I found myself waxing.

That might be what this is ... a waxing. A rebuffing of the terms of the novel, as I once understood them. To sit down with it again. To rework it, publish it.

The question is how . How do you return to a project ten years in the making and two fifths finished?

The box is a good place to start.

In this particular instance, I set myself up fairly well. When originally I was doing research for the novel, I collected enough fodder to get me started and keep me writing indefinitely.

There are character sketches and deep rooted paradigms that branch out as to be the sky's competition of breadth. I attempted to know my characters better than they knew themselves. I needed to know them in order to bring them to the scenes they were in.

Even now, the steps are evident. From obstacles to character goals and scenes. I lay the notes from the box in columns on the floor. I draw a line of tape down the back of a complex of scenes and hold it up. That scene literally gets taped to another, and another.

Soon there's a family tree of the story.

I could sit down right now and begin where I was. In theory.

It wouldn't be hard. But I decide the better route is to see if there's a manuscript laying around somewhere.

And I go back to cleaning the storage room.

- Benjamin Spencer
Executive Editor

Taking the Lead

2007-05-07T04:48:00.000-07:00

You pick up a newspaper. You buy a magazine. You open a new book. The first sentence, the first paragraph, these are the most important lines in any of the articles, the beginning of the story.

The question is how to write an incredible lead. How do you pen an opening that includes and dissolves the body of information being disseminated to its inevitable end?

The best leads own everything and divulge nothing. They include the total summation of the story but leave enough wiggle room to suggest this isn't all the data. They tease.

From there, assuming you've hooked the reader into continuing, you dissect each point that was made in the lead into the real story, the long story.

I like to think of the reader sitting across the table from me. The reader isn't reading, she's listening (what are words but a transferal of thought) to a summation of an incredible experience I had as a reporter in Chicago. I say something that creates more interest. When I'm finished with the cliffs notes version, she says, "tell me more."

This is the reaction you want to create with your lead. And it's as easy as telling it straight, and quick. Of course, it couldn't hurt, the language you use, the twists of fate.

Here are a couple of good first lines:

This was the year he rode the subway to the ends of the city, two hundred miles of track.
Libra - Don DeLillo

Monday, 27 January 129 lbs. (total fat groove), boyfriends 1 (hurrah!), shags 3 (hurrah!), calories 2,100, calories used up by shags 600, so total calories 1,500 (exemplary).
Bridget Jones, The Edge of Reason - Helen Fielding

The first first line, from Don DeLillo, is the opening to a novel about Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of President John Kennedy. The second first line from Helen Fielding is about an obsessed modern everywoman.

In each instance you get an idea of the setting, the mental state of the character around whom the story is about to unfold. Granted, the selections above are from fictions, and a newsy intro would undoubtedly read another way. However, in order to make the point of capturing the reader in the very moment that is at the crux of the matter, it is of great import to verbally lead them there.

My suggestion: Visit a library or bookstore and open everything on the shelves. Read the first line. Read the first paragraph. Does it inspire you to keep reading? If so, why? If no, why not?

If you're having trouble writing your own lead for something, try grabbing every bit of information you can and cramming it into a sentence that funnels to a singularity. If possible refine the entire story to a word.

If you can do that, well, you can write the rest of it too.

Found: First Novel Notes, part one

2007-05-07T04:45:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was cleaning out a small room in the house so I might better utilize it for something other than storage of random art things and wine.

In doing so, I came across a box containing notes and magazine clippings and books and memorabilia I had collected. The theme of the items in the box was a novel, my first attempt at one at least.

Please note at this time: The novel was not also in the box.

But in a flash I was rewriting it. I could quite literally smell the room where it all begins, the confusion of characters as they wake.

I found myself waxing.

That might be what this is … a waxing. A rebuffing of the terms of the novel, as I once understood them. To sit down with it again. To rework it, publish it.

The question is how. How do you return to a project ten years in the making and two fifths finished?

The box is a good place to start.

In this particular instance, I set myself up fairly well. When originally I was doing research for the novel, I collected enough fodder to get me started and keep me writing indefinitely.

There are character sketches and deep rooted paradigms that branch out as to be the sky’s competition of breadth. I attempted to know my characters better than they knew themselves. I needed to know them in order to bring them to the scenes they were in.

Even now, the steps are evident. From obstacles to character goals and scenes. I lay the notes from the box in columns on the floor. I draw a line of tape down the back of a complex of scenes and hold it up. That scene literally gets taped to another, and another.

Soon there’s a family-tree of the story.

I could sit down right now and begin where I was. In theory.

It wouldn’t be hard. But I decide the better route is to see if there’s a manuscript laying around somewhere.

And I go back to cleaning the storage room.

Finding Poetry in the Everyday

2007-04-16T05:45:00.000-07:00

What is poetry but wonderment? A convergence of displaced words that describe the understanding of a need for speech as a response to a stimulus that is all but discernable in its essence of meaning by a vocabulary determined centuries before the potential item of discernment manifested into a poem. Capiche?

Words always have been for playing, to me. Poetry is a reflection of a playful spirit. This to me is the essence of poetry’s big bang. Not the heady importance of what the poem could mean, but the experience of the poem, the language that (if we are attuned to imagination) defies and describes the very thing that captures our attention in the first place: sunlight; behavior; a pretty girl; a heckler in the crowd.

Poems can obviously be written about anything, in any style (verse, blank form, as an experiment using mathematics or shreds of newsprint). But what a poem embodies is the discovery of moment, that race of blood to the intellectual muscle when one experiences an idea, concern, joy, sympathy, curiosity.

What a poem is not is an uncaptured moment – whether kept private in one’s heart or publicized in words – it must be appreciated to be truly experienced.

How you come to that is simple. It involves two tools you already have: a direct relationship with the tangible world; and at least some level of awareness that this relationship with the tangible world is unique and limited in duration.

Once you are able to come to terms with this simple collaborative situation, you may begin to experience a bit of the wonderment that is so often blamed on the Muse.

But this isn’t an article about how-to write poems. This is a commentary on inspiration.

Inspiration, wonderment, being human are all very much intertwined and poetry is one very prevalent ornament of our existence here as a species on this planet. It is a testament to our collective ability to notice and manipulate our surroundings.

Being in tune to our surroundings is the key. Finding the poetic turns of phrase, light, and coincidence in your every day experience is the basis for all poetry. And like anything, the more you do it, the more you do it.

Poetry is habit forming. First you begin to notice things, then you want to apply words to those things (as a note or a journal entry) but the words aren’t quite right. You look in your thesaurus but those words aren’t right either, at least not the way they’re put together, so you come up with something on your own, something that says exactly what it is you are reflecting on in that moment.

This is poetry. Wonder on the page, or in your heart. So long as it is being experienced, somewhere, by someone, it will always be.

4 a.m. + robusto con zucchero é poesia

2007-04-16T05:41:00.000-07:00

“Because we cherish life, we cherish the poem as a life-sustaining force. Its strength is the strength of an object: a thing made, a thing present in the orders of our perception.”
- Robert Kelly, A Controversy of Poets

When the amalgam of human poetics is ultimately accepted as a viable part of the evolution of our species, and thus honored on a Sunday afternoon with a brass band or twenty-gun salute (that would be ironic), it will be the poets of the time that attempt to bring forth a meaning of poetics with poetry.

There will be poets on the stage, poets in the field, and poets behind the scenes. I wager there will intellectual attempts to classify millennia of breath and language as art, while others will submit a historical discourse about individual poets and ‘schools' that changed the schema before the schema was ready for change.

This is the nature of our art, our Poetics. It is not difficult to see, the repetitive insistence of poetics as it advances culture, the importance of poetry in defining contemporary efficiencies and maladies in society with emotional and abstract forms.

What is difficult to see is the truth of poetry apriori. It is a sensation; something known even while it is tantalizingly out of reach.

In the moment, in the making of the line, in the capture of articles that define a wanton wandering expletive, there are signals of the poet moving forward and leaving his true time behind. Yet, there she remains on the page.

Later when the poem is published, regardless that it has been alive on the page for months and years, the reader experiences the rebirth of the poem. It recurs every time the poem is read - the truth of the poem is revealed.

The effect poetry has on humanity is in the very nature of what makes poetry so important to human culture. They are clues to a sensibility of the poet's surroundings, to the poet's language, to her need for explanation, and the urge of time at her back.

Poetry is a release and a capturing, a dichotomy in language and breath of the ferocious inner-point that is contemporary human experience in nature. It always will be.

That is why we honor it. That is why we repeat its terms when we write poems. We are obliged to. We need to. It has become a part of who ‘we' are as a species, to be creative in the ways we seek to express our selves.

Therefore, if I were to guess how they might honor poetry in the future, it would have to be a world-wide event; an interpretation of the importance of the nature of poetry to the existence and development of human kind. My suggestion:

A plum for everyone in attendance. That is to say delicious, so sweet and so cold .”

on National Poetry Month

2007-04-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

We are now into April. The buds on the plants have blossomed; the bare trees are turning out leaves. The birds, the bees, the sun have risen into the sky. The soil, now rich with water sprouts of wild grasses is never more comfortable to lie in.

What better time to sit around and read poetry.

In 1996, the Academy of American Poets named April as National Poetry Month. Since then, multiple organizations have focused on the month as a festival of language.

In (most) every local community this month there are scores of potential meetings, readings, lectures, films, all dedicated to verse (and derivations thereof). There are also thousands of websites and Internet libraries dedicated to educating visitors about what poetry is and can be.

Some of my personal favorites include, but are not limited to … Poets.org, webdelsol.com, /tinfish/ …

At any rate, there are so many opportunities to explore poetry this month that I urge you to at least try reading one poem a day. It's not like a sit-up, or a walk through the park, but it is an occasion to feel the inspiration of a season.

In an effort to aid the cause, NorthernPros Creations and Cadillac Cicatrix are posting one poem per day with one image per day by New York City-based media don Joel Morrison during the month of April.

Look into Poetry whatever way you can. If so inspired, attempt to write a poem. If a poet, try writing one poem per day.

If you have a difficult time finding inspiration, look around you. Spring is here. Try looking at life through a leaf of grass.

Literally, I'm suggesting one book (in case you didn't see the segue coming), Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass , available everywhere books can be found.

To that we END with "Thoughts" from Whitman's epic ode to vie .

“Of public opinion,
Of a calm and cool fiat sooner or later, (how impassive! how certain
and final!)
Of the President with pale face asking secretly to himself, What will
the people say at last?
Of the frivolous Judge – of the corrupt Congressman, Governor,
Mayor – of such as these standing helpless and exposed,
Of the mumbling and screaming priest, (soon, soon deserted,)
Of the lessening year by year of venerableness, and of the dicta of
officers, statutes, pulpits, schools,
Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader of the institutions
Of men and women, and of Self-esteem and Personality;
Of the true New World – of the Democracies resplendent en-masse,
Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them,
Of the shining sun by them – of the inherent light, greater than the
rest,
Of the envelopment of all by them, and the effusion of all from them.”

- 1860 / 1881

Finding Projects To Achieve Success

2007-03-19T07:43:00.001-07:00

In 1987 the movie The Secret of My Success starring Michael J Fox hit theatres. The plot unfolds around a young mailroom clerk, Brantly, who mistakenly answers a telephone when he shouldn't, which leads him to proving his metal in a major company and eventually taking over the top seat and winning the woman.

This week's article isn't going to focus on the film. My point is to suggest that answering the telephone (or answering the call) to become involved in projects is sometimes the best way to achieve your goals.

In my own experience, I have achieved some success by going after what I want. But what happens when you hit a wall, or all the streets seem to be leading away from your desired destination?

The best thing to do is relax. Time and patience will always win over aggressive search and conquer missions (that often turn out badly) to achieve a goal you've been imagining is possible.

Much like when you are lost in the woods, the best thing to do is focus. Make a list of your expertise, your skills, etc. Take into account the various things you have experienced in your life. Is there anything you've done that could lend a hand in diversifying your skills and helping you to achieve a desired end?

For instance, a good friend of mine is an actor in New York City. He has been going to auditions for years. He's done some plays and tested for pilots and felt generally happy with his roles and also professionally "stuck" at times.

One day, after having auditioned for a part in a big production, he was again stymied by more experienced actors. However, after the audition, he overheard a stagehand telling another stagehand how to mix two cans of paint that shouldn't be mixed together.

My friend stepped around the corner to address the potential issues with mixing the two paints and he ended up with a job as a set designer. Now, it wasn't acting, but he was a part of the production. This led him to other jobs that in turn have led to other jobs.

Now, another example of adapting ones career is Dan Futterman, screenwriter of the movie Capote (2005).

Before Dan hit the big-time with Capote, he was primarily an actor ( Will & Grace, Sex In The City, Judging Amy ) of sometimes-small parts, including (but not limited to) "Second Punk" in The Fisher King .

In a recent interview with Creative Screenwriting Magazine, Futterman addresses his changeover to screenwriting. He says that the chance meeting of his future wife on the set of Homicide: Life on the Street was a catalyst to his eventual success with the screenplay.

As it turns out, he courted her with the idea he'd been kicking around for the screenplay. It was in the gestation stage, but ultimately Futterman was given the nomination for an Oscar for his screenplay about Truman Capote.

"In 1959, Truman Capote, a popular writer for The New Yorker, learns about the horrific and senseless murder of a family of four in Holcomb, Kansas. Inspired by the story material, Capote and his partner, Harper Lee, travel to the town to research for an article. However, as Capote digs deeper into the story, he is inspired to expand the project into what would be his greatest work, In Cold Blood ." (IMDb)

Much like Capote, Futterman, and others, one secret to success is often deviating from your current course. It can be difficult. It can be successful, but ultimately it's your decision as an artist on whether you are going to take a chance on another form.

In some cases, this is easy enough. Projects land in your lap and you dig in. At other times, you have to look for something to work on, a project to get attached to.

The key here is how deeply you dive into the water provided. And then, how well you swim.

CLMP + NorthernPros = Bright Future

2007-03-19T07:35:00.000-07:00

NorthernPros begins this week on the heels of an announcement by The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses that NorthernPros and Cadillac Cicatrix have been accepted into the prestigious fold of independent literary journals worthy of the CLMP (i.e. Good Housekeeping) seal of approval.

“The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses serves one of the most active segments of American arts and culture: the independent publishers of exceptional fiction, poetry and prose.

“Literary magazines and presses accomplish the backstage work of American literature: discovering new writers; supporting mid-career writers; publishing the creative voices of communities underrepresented in the mainstream commercial culture; and preserving literature for future readers by keeping books in print.” www.[clmp].org

Being a part of this organization is a big step for NorthernPros Creations.

Taking a look back on a few very special moments in our history when we have been inspired to continue plodding along at a very satisfying and deliberate pace, I am humbled to realize that NorthernPros has maintained a budding importance in the lives of the writers and artists that we support.

(Some of you might recall the old days, when NP was a fledgling chapbook publisher in Upstate New York, promoting weekly poetry events in Boulder, Colorado, or a book restoration service in Iowa City, Iowa.)

Our mission statement has always been to feed good writing to hungry readers and to support writers and artists and organizations that seek or support a career or lifelong hobby in the arts.

Of course there are no roads worthy of traveling if the road is smooth and tame.

Learning what it takes to be an altruistic businessman has been a meditation on patience and an exercise in persistence (most times in lieu of financial success).

All that said, with this announcement by the CLMP, NorthernPros takes another deliberate step toward projects that nurture and encourage the community that feeds our spirit.

We are glad to be here. We are happy to help. Our work is only beginning.

Stay tuned, keep writing.

The Art of Adaptation

2007-03-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

If when I was in college studying the poetics of O’Hara, Plath, Creeley, Cummings, Olson, Kyger, Guest, Hughes, MacLow, adnauseum, you would not have been able to convince me that I would (at the age of 32) be spending more time making wine than writing poetry, I would have guffawed and probably written a poem about it.

Ah, youth. That inflexible persona of confidence now seems a bit immature, considering the adaptations I have made in my life so that I might be able to continue writing, and maintain some level of balance in my life.

Writing can develop into an obsessive process, for me. I know it can be that way for others too. Research and character/story development, series of poems or paintings – for glorious amounts of time you are invested in presenting certain qualities to the senses: words, images, three-dimensional structures, etc.

Then, when the project is finished, (if you’re like many artists who are “trying to make it”) you begin promoting your work, selling it (or trying to).

But what happens if you don’t sell it? What happens if it lands you in the big-time and ten years later the fame and money have begun to bore you? What happens if you are not interested in selling it, and you’re only interested in doing it? What do you?

You adapt. You make changes to your life so that you can either continue doing the work or you find a way to walk away from it.

I know some of you have seen the movie Sideways. The movie was based on a novel of the same name by Rex Pickett. Whether it is a great story or a mediocre movie, we will leave that discussion to the critics.

What I would like to address about Sideways is its theme of Adaptation.

What some of you may or may not know is that Rex Picket had been trying to sell his screenplays and story ideas in Hollywood for years, without success.

I have it on good authority that there was a breaking point for Pickett. After a meeting with a development executive who wasn’t interested in another of his projects, he was asked what he would do next. Whether Picket knew it or not, his answer to that question arrived in the form of a novel.

Unexpected as it might be for a screenwriter to write a novel, that’s what Pickett did. He got the unpublished novel in front of the right people. They loved it. They made the movie and the novel was published.

In other words, Pickett adapted. He changed his strategy and found a way into the big-time. Thus the name of the movie – sometimes in life you can’t always go forward, sometimes you have to go sideways.

Of course there are other ideas out there about what "Sideways" means. For example, in the book, there are references to “sideways” as a metaphor for being drunk.

I’m sure there are other interpretations as well. I am willing to adapt my personal beliefs about what sideways “means” if you are able to comprehend the matter as a variation on the theme of adaptation.

In my experience, adaptation has included learning how to cook, work construction, write and design newspaper copy and books, start businesses, design web sites, make wine, be friendly to strangers who are rude, clean up the trash the raccoons have dumped all over the yard, prune plum trees, restore classic cars, paint, in order to continue to write on a regular basis, whether I was trying to sell myself or not.

My life has given me a lot of fodder for my craft, indeed. But more importantly, learning to adapt to change has been about maintaining a balance between the necessities of reality and the pull of my dreams.

In the end it’s not about the success you may garner from the work that you do, but that you do good work. Keep doing good work.

A commentary, rather than an article, on Google

2007-02-26T06:16:00.000-08:00

In the past five years or so since I was introduced to Google, I have come to appreciate and respect its systems that search for content based on your desired content search, and I have come to use their administrative services (often free) to great satisfaction.

But, I underestimated their programming abilities and was promptly made aware of the significance of their web crawlers when they found the secret web site we had been debugging for weeks and outed CadillacCicatrix.com publicly last week.

Basically, I had designed the website for the premier issue of the Cadillac Cicatrix and loaded onto a server behind the home page in order to make sure all the systems were in check and seamless before removing the curtain and announcing it.

Everything was a go, but for a few links here and there. But, I held back. Kind of like a father pretends to search for his keys (when they’re in his jacket pocket) in order to delay driving his child off to college.

We have been working on this first issue for the better part of a year: announcing our intention to create the magazine; initiating our first contest; judging the contest and awarding a winner; opening up the magazine to submissions, ads, comments.

Google saw through the curtain. Literally. And they peeked.

Unnerving in a way …

I am currently reading The Search, How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, by John Battle. It is a scary and enlightening book about the power of search mechanics in online systems such as Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista, etc.

In no short order, relatives and friends and researchers from the future will be able to look back on us all and review our culture by searching our searches, which (I don’t need to tell you) are a mirror of our intentions.

So, in fifty years, when my children have children (notice my intention here), they may be able to look back and see just what I was doing in my life by what I searched for on the Internet. They might see that I intended to release Cadillac Cicatrix on March 1, but was outed by Google’s efficient systems even before I intended to announce those intentions.

In the end, I’m not mad at Google. I’m not even a little upset. I simply feel like the dad whose keys are obviously hidden too closely to his intention to keep his child at home.

Whatever my intentions, whatever our cause … Cadillac Cicatrix is open for business.

ePublic Relations Through Blogging

2007-02-20T06:20:00.000-08:00

In very short order an unknown author or artist can go from stage right to the spotlight if she knows how to promote herself.

In today's market, there is no shortage of writers looking to sell their writing. But there are good and bad ways of promoting ones wares.

Today, I'm going to take a look at a look at how to promote your work and/or hobby with the intention of initiating simple public relations strategies that get noticed.

First up, get yourself a blog. Everyone has by now heard of and experienced the Blogosphere in some fashion or another - either you have a blog or have read someone else's. If you don't know about blogs or what they are, consider taking a tour through Blogger.com some time.

A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. It's that simple. And then again it isn't.

Blogging is not for the faint of heart (if you do it frequently), nor is it difficult to blog or get responses to your blog. All it takes is a little time at the computer and a diligent attitude toward what you are doing.

My only problems with blogging are 1) that everyone's doing it and if everyone's doing it, then the chances of your blog being noticed depends more on your marketing capabilities than your blogging prowess, and 2) blogging has become so successful that blogs are becoming just another place to put advertising.

The art of marketing is not difficult to learn, but it can be a drain on your finances (often enough) and without a good strategy to market your work you could end up dissatisfied with the results or lack thereof.

If you do choose to initiate a marketing program, work within your budget. Don't be taken by organizations that make money by locking clients into contracts they are not ready for.

The key to blogging successfully is doing it regularly and involving your blog in communities that support your type of effort. One way to find other bloggers who are doing similar things (i.e. writers, artists, agents, publishers) is to search blogging communities and send a link to your own blog or an email about what you're doing.

It's likely, though not guaranteed, that other bloggers will embrace your effort and support you. Some bloggers I have known are also turned off by other bloggers due to the competitive nature of blogging. That's the business though. Everyone's going after the same chunk of cheese.

Whatever the downsides to blogging might be it is a surefire, inexpensive way to get the word out about what you are doing.

One after another, if you are blogging regularly, the announcements build up; a history begins to form out of what you are doing presently. Soon enough, there is a trail of personal success (however you measure it) and people will begin to take notice.

Like most hobbies that turn into a career, it's about getting up everyday and doing it. Duration plus effort and repetition equals success, which is often measured by persistence and patience.

Keep writing, keep reading.

Beating Writers Block

2007-02-12T06:51:00.000-08:00

I know a writer who has such a fear of writers block that when he is experiencing it, he stays away from his notebooks and typewriter because he feels he can't write anything good.

Inspiration is the answer for him. If what he is writing isn't delivered directly from the muse, he feels it is unworthy and so he does not write when he has writers block.

In my opinion, these are wasted days. There are scores of exercises to get your mind working and impart the empty page with ink again.

One way that I inspire myself to write is by listening to music. Often times it's the words of a song, and similarly the arrangement of those words that touches us in the first place. But now take a few of the words that appeal to you and write them down. Try using it as a first sentence. Or make it the midpoint of a story.

For instance: The following lyrics from The Fiery Furnaces once inspired me to write a story about the character I "saw" in the song, and what became of him.

Damp in Dumbarton dip about the 14th of May / The publican dropped me a line, thought there had been foul play / The farmer up the hill came in with his knife / He mumbled something darkly about his young wife / Riding up on the postcoach I thrummed on my notebook. (from Inspector Blancheflower on the Blueberry Boat album)

I am particularly sensitive to music and lyrics however, and quite often I use lyrics to launch writerly exercises or start the writing process.

Considering another method, take an article from a magazine or a newspaper (either at random or one you like) and a pair of scissors. Read the article for interesting possible word arrangements. Now, literally, cut them out of the story and paste them together. Many times, you will be able to write a poem, or something short, like a haiku. But at least you're writing.

A similar strategy using the newspaper or magazine article for inspiration is to write something about the article, imagining you are a character involved in the story, or a witness to it.

Assuming that doesn't work, try a bit of word jazz to find a title that inspires you to write. Choose a word, any word. You can like it, you can hate it, you can open a dictionary at random and put your finger down. However you want to choose the word you're going to use is fine.

Now write that word down the middle of the page, top to bottom. Now write one word either before or after the word you have chosen for each time you've written the word. Use adjectives, verbs, non-words, and words in another language, whatever you like, so long as you fill in each position with at least the word you chose originally and the modifier.

You might be interested to find out that this method is how Allen Ginsberg created the phrase "Hydrogen Jukebox." It comes from a verse in the poem Howl: '...listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox...'

Another good way to beat writers block is meditation. Quieting the mind opens dams of unconscious language. A closed eye meditation is particularly good (in my opinion) for drawing out images and potential fodder for writing.

Barring these options, know that the Internet is a wonderful place to learn about what others are doing to get their creative juices flowing. A general search using the term Writing Tips yields an average 16 million articles.

If after trying any of these suggested techniques to beat writers block, and the 16 million others, you find yourself still at a loss for what to write, try reading. A lot of my personal writing fodder comes from themes in other authors' books, and sometimes from subjects I have very little background in.

Be inquisitive. Find subjects you feel strongly about. Write about them. Write about family, friends, love, hate. Write about common themes. Write about unpopular themes. Write about something you feel no one has ever written about (unlikely), but whatever you do, don't stop writing. You'll likely regret it. I would.

Subject: What to write about

2007-02-05T06:32:00.001-08:00

A lot of times when I sit down to write I have something I want to say. I have notes and an idea about the course of the poem or story or article. Partly, this is because of the habits I've formed as a writer. Luckily, I also have an overactive imagination and am easily inspired by simple things. Ultimately, I am sitting down to the keyboard or notebook with intention.

Intention is the key. It is a catalyst for action. How you uncover that intention is the subject of this week's article.

Poems are a good example of a short exercise you can do on a regular basis. Poems are typically short (these days), abstract language balls wound up or unfurled with images that have high-impact. To write a good poem, a poem that touches the reader, the poet must abstract a concept into words that carry the desired effect in very short form.

Try utilizing a topic of interest; perhaps something you do everyday. You likely have some understanding of the nature of several subjects and a vocabulary to describe it. What are the nuances of what you do that sometimes make you stop and smile, or scratch your head, or clench your fist? It's quite possible that other people feel this way too, about this subject and others.

Abstracting: One way to “abstract” the subject is to reduce it to a single image or scene. Take one instance from your day; something you can reduce to an idea. Using the words specific to that subject, deconstruct a scene or a picture into words that can define the subject at its very base.

An example: You go to the same coffee shop every Monday through Friday and order the same thing from the same counter clerk. One morning, the clerk isn't there. You become befuddled. Will the rest of your day be the same? Or, maybe the clerk is there. Maybe you order something different. Suddenly it inspires the clerk to quit her day job to follow her dream. It could happen. It probably has happened.

Or maybe: You are a poet in the army stationed in Iraq. Your words are bullets and Kevlar and hope and sand. There are obstacles and successes every day. But you notice subtle similarities in the way it happens, a routine of orders, and repairs to material, injuries.

Subject matter can come from anywhere. It does come from anywhere. It's everywhere. It's in the words we say and the things we do; it's in the efforts we make and the forlorn moments when our love is away. All you have to do is look for it.

Turning to stories (novels and screenplays included), though typically not abstracted the way a poem is, stories specify the essence of what it is to be human in a more narrative form. They include similar difficulties we all face today and now.

In order to capture the right mood, the writer must capture what it is about the whole story in scenes and/or narrative montage and deliver the reader to a sensible or absurd end. However, stories, novels and screenplays require more work than poems. Though that has little to do with the subject you choose, stories do require subplots and more information to flesh out what is happening between the lines.

One way to harness a subject is to read about it in the newspaper or a journal or a book. Other ways include being told a story that stimulates your inspiration or leaves you feeling empathy for those involved.

When discussing subject matter as it pertains to writing articles, or in journalism, often times a senior editor assigns a story. In this way, the writer need not dig deep to find the subject of his story. But he must find a way to bring the entire story into a few short lines.

In many ways, abstraction of the subject into images and short sentences is how a lead (the first paragraph of a news article) is written. The whole story is all there. The rest of the article unfolds from the concept of the lead. Quotes and facts are then included and a conclusion is tacked onto the end.

There is no shortage of subject matter, or ways to say what you want to say. Finding something you can write about well is the key. Good writing about an uncomfortable topic far supersedes bad writing about a playful subject that everyone can agree on.

Be bold when you write. Be strong. A reader, though they may have willingly picked up your book or the magazine in which your article appears, still needs convincing.

Subject: What to write about

2007-02-05T06:32:00.000-08:00

Finding Your Creative Space

2007-01-29T05:16:00.000-08:00

In last week's article I discussed finding time to relax after finishing a project. This week, I'd like to discuss finding your own space to work productively.

For most artists, whether visual or language-oriented, the single most important issue in making art is finding a safe and comfortable place in which to create. In many cases, the space finds us - a room in the house that no one uses, for instance. It is an instinctual and difficult item to find at times, but without it we are not able to do the real work.

I have friends who have created their own unique spaces in which to work: built sheds one hundred feet from their homes; re-floored a section of a warehouse to squat in an abandoned loft; turned closets into a bedroom in order to use the larger living room to paint in. There is no one solution. All you have to do is look, and listen to your gut.

When you find a place, ask yourself a few questions: Can I get my work done here? How much time can I dedicate in this place? Will I be distracted? Will I be inspired?

If it's the right place, you will know. If it's not right, be honest with yourself. Sometimes it takes a few days to get used to it. Sometimes, changing workspaces is difficult. The way Jack White puts it in the song Little Room , When you're in your little room / and you're working on something good / but if it is really good you're gonna need a bigger room / and when you're in the bigger room / you might not know what to do / you might have to think of how you got started / sittin' in your little room.

Artists who create their own space within their space often include totems and notes and sketches as an inspirational reminder of the work they are doing. In my space (an extra bedroom turned into a library and office), I have a large poster announcing a Picasso exhibit at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence Italy; there's a picture of Picasso in his studio, it's a mess, he is staring at the camera taking his picture, he is young and strong and it's inspiring to me. This is the sort of thing I'm suggesting - something in your space that inspires you to continue returning to this place in order to live out your dreams.

Finding and/or designing your space are one thing, but doing work there is the more important issue. A productive workspace is crucial to an artist; it feeds us and keeps us coming back for more. If we can't create, we won't return. If we don't return, we don't get any work done - it's the whole snowball rolling down the mountain thing.

This week, let's all go to our workspaces and feel them out. Is it aiding your cause or deterring it? What could you do to improve it? Maybe just a little cleaning will suffice. Maybe you've known all along the space you chose was inappropriate, but it's all you've got. In this case, you must make it your space or find another.

It all depends on how important your art is to you. If you're diligent enough, you can and will find and create an incredible space in which to work.

- Benjamin Spencer
Senior Editor

Combating Inertia - Relaxing After a Project

2007-01-22T06:18:00.000-08:00

For some writers and artists, it's difficult to find momentum in their work. They work in spurts, producing several pieces in a short amount of time and then it wanes. The creativity subsides and they find something to fill in the spaces between when they are once again arranging the charms of the muse. But what do you do when your work has been more than a spurt? When you have been working on the same thing for years? How do you step back from it when you're finished? What do you do to relax?

After long projects that have sponged every bit of my energy and attention, I feel an incredible sense of inertia. I liken the sensation to stepping off of a treadmill at the club. I have been walking in place. I stop the machine and walk to the fountain for a drink and in those few moments it appears as though my body is contriving more movement than is accurate. In other words, one step feels like ten, and ten feel like two hundred. It's inertia.

At the club I know the sensation will pass sometime before I hit the showers. With writing, I sometimes feel as if my momentum will be lost if I do not maintain the pace. In my case, a novel is the perfect medium to discuss, both because I have written a few and because I know it takes time and energy to combat the need to return to the desk and go over every line again.

In last week's article, I alluded to Stephen King's memoir, On Writing. In the book, King proposes some very simple guidelines that he believes are important to stick to in order to maintain a healthy balance in one's life. I'll paraphrase: Begin your story in a locked room. Do not come out until the work is finished, and keep the door closed. Then put the story in a drawer for six weeks and come back to it. This time, leave the door open (to possibilities that could enhance your story). It should take you about one year to write one book - by many artists accounts, this is about right. For others, ten years is appropriate.

So, you've been on the writing treadmill now for some time. The book is finished. What do you do now? How do you combat the urge to return to the desk?

In some instances, I have heard writers suggest that moving right into your next project is a good way to relax. For instance, reading, doing research, going for walks thinking about your new characters or subject matter, or traveling to Britain to read Civics papers in the Oxford Library in order to begin work on a collection of essays at the end of your study period ... you get the idea. There are countless ways to "relax" after the marathon is over.

In my own life, having recently finished the project to launch Cadillac Cicatrix, I must say I'm feeling the inertia again. Both the creation of website and the journal have required much attention for close to a year and a half. During that time, my schedule has remained steady: up at four a.m. to read submissions and proof drafts of each story/poem/essay or design NorthernPros.com and CadillacCicatrix.com, before going to work.

That's where the writing and the creativity cease drawing my physical attention at least. Many times I can be found daydreaming at work, thinking about the words, a storyline, book reviews, art, but this is my six weeks. Work (my job, I'm the Cellar Master of a California winery) is relaxing - although at times hectic and rigorous. After work, I dedicate my time to my family and know that I can return to the muse in the morning when I am fresh and the ideas are uninhibited.

That is a daily cycle however. And methodology is imperative to good work I believe. But, now the journal is complete and I am sending it out the galley to reviewers for pre-release analysis. What do I do now?

Well, I am taking a week to throw myself down a mountain on a snowboard. I am drinking wine and invigorating my senses in nature. I am getting away from the desk and the technology and the pace I've been keeping. This hasn't always come easy - I had to teach myself how to make the conscious decision to step back and let the work I've done come to a current of its own.

For me, doing the things that make me most happy makes the writing (or any project) more fun. Reading, traveling, adventure - these are all great ways to get away and grow. Many times it's in these moments that we come up with our next project. It could be a conversation we have that initiates a note about a character or a scene or a drawing. The only thing we need do as artists is to make ourselves available. The muse comes in many forms, after all. We must not always lock ourselves in a room to be dubbed a writer. That cliche went out the door already and is having a good time down at the local watering hole.

If you have difficulty creating a space in which to relax, meditation is another great way to settle the mind. My sister does yoga, she finds it relaxing and invigorating. Some of my friends go on a vacation where all they do is sit on a beach (rain or shine) and watch the waves roll in.

There is no shortage of things to do if you can just pull yourself away. Even that is easy once you do it a couple of times.

See you on the mountain slopes. I'll be the guy reclaiming control of his groove.

- Benjamin Spencer
Senior Editor

Entering Contests

2007-01-15T08:57:00.000-08:00

A week or so ago, Jan 8, 2007, the Sobol Award Staff announced it was canceling its highly criticized first novel contest due to an insufficient number of entries. Shortly after its inception in 2006 the literary community labeled the contest as a scam, largely due to its $85 entry fee and the winners’ subsequent contractual obligations to Sobol and its affiliates. One year later, the contest was shut down.

I guess it goes to show that big-time agents and publishers are fading from the limelight that artists are seeking for their work. Freedom of the press is available to anyone who has the will to publish. But that is not the point of this commentary.

What I would like to address is the ebbing contest pool and how to float through it without being scammed.

If you search the phrase “literary contest” on Google, you get 1.4 million results. How does the inexperienced author find the best contest to submit their work to? Certainly no one has enough money to cover the entry fees of every one of those contests.

My advice is to look deeper than the Internet. Subscribing to literary magazines is one good place to start. Many lit mags have a contest listing of reputable organizations with a history of finding quality work from annual, semi-annual, even quarterly or monthly contests, and news about other prizes. Also, investigate the possibility that a local organization (i.e.: a local writers group) might hold a contest that you could enter.

Know your work. Know the industry differences between fiction, short fiction, very short fiction, flash fiction, etc. Does what you want to submit fit the category offered by a particular contest?

Take a look at your body of work. Has anyone (besides your friends or family) ever read it? Know that other authors have spent hundreds of hours pouring over their submissions to the same contest you are considering entering. Several of them have won other contests. Is your work ready?

Look at the entry fee. Compare its weight on your budget and in relation to the award offered for the winning submission. READ THE RULES of the contest. Be sure that your rights remain intact whether you win or lose.

If you do begin submitting your work to contests, keep a log of what’s gone out and who has responded, how much you’ve spent (that includes entry fees and postage – sometimes you may be able to use it as a tax write-off*).

There are contests for emerging and accomplished writers. If you have searched and are still confused, ask an author that you respect or their opinion. And be prepared for rejection. I know someone who submitted his collection of poems to over 115 contests before he won a substantial award. (Likely, it was not only an award for the quality of his writing but for the karmic value of his persistence.)

Be patient, be persistent. Very good things come to those who work hard and wait.

- Benjamin Spencer
Senior Editor

* ask your tax man whether you qualify for any write-offs when it come to promoting your work through contests.

Finding the right workshop

2007-01-15T08:53:00.000-08:00

In the spring of 1995, I was a sophomore in college in upstate New York. My creative writing instructor, Whitman scholar and poet Sam Abrams, handed me a pamphlet about the Naropa Summer Writing Program in Boulder Colorado and suggested I attend. I had never heard of the place, but I had recently read "On The Road" and knew who Jack Kerouac was. Naropa's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics was the host of the writing program.

I went. Blindly. I didn't do any research. I only knew one name of one author who was going to be there. Allen Ginsberg. I paid a few hundred dollars for a couple of weeks of the program and drove from New York to Colorado with a couple of friends. With some hindsight I can say it was one of the best moves of my life. It was the summer I met Allen Ginsberg (We spoke during the program and occasionally in the years to come about the use of breath when performing, and ways to beat writers block). It was the summer I committed my life to the written word.

However, this is an aside. The point of this article is to offer a few key items to think about when looking for a good workshop to attend. I offer that story to suggest that with some luck and a little patience you can find a truly memorable experience that feeds your art and builds relationships.

1) The first thing to think about is what type of workshop you want to attend. What are you looking to accomplish? If you want to hear other acclaimed authors speak about the craft of writing, you might look for a shorter weekend series that features back-to-back panels and live interviews with authors. In some cases you can take part in longer workshops in an ala carte fashion, handpicking the classes and/or lectures you want to attend. If you are interested in a more hands-on workshop where you actually get to work with the authors who attend, then you should look for a longer more intense workshop, perhaps one that lasts as long as a month.

2) That brings us to cost. How much are you willing to spend? This will determine with a varying amount of accuracy, what where how and when you will be able to attend a workshop. If you have some flexibility (and are very patient) you may find a really good event as far as a year in advance and begin saving money to attend. A few hundred dollars can sate your appetite. A few thousand dollars could earn you a contract with an agent, or help you perfect the novel you've been working on. Free, local workshops sometimes offer frequent events, talks, and workshops with credible authors working in your own community.

3) You should weigh your investment in any workshop with its reputation, the authors, and modalities it features. If you see a new workshop with a large entry fee and unknown "authors," you may want to look elsewhere. Big conferences sometimes are too big and you can get lost in the fold. Look for workshops that at least offer you the sort of treatment that you believe balances its cost.

4) There are varying degrees of comfort that we are all willing to deal with. When choosing your next workshop, you should ask yourself if you are willing to sit on the floor of a cabin with fifty other people to hear a reclusive legend talk about how to make coffee without a filter. Or do you want a lot of luxury and not a lot of talk about, or time spent writing? Do you want a mild level of comfort and a lot of talk and time dedicated to writing? Find the workshop that fits your idea of what a workshop is and should be.

5) Then there's location. Where you are able to go for a workshop depends heavily on your budget. If you are able to travel, I suggest looking to parts of the world that you want to go. Whether it's Santa Barbara, California or Ezra Pound's castle in Italy, you should think about where you want to be and go there. If you can afford to take time off from work to travel for a few weeks, try it.

Choosing the right workshop is ultimately a very subjective decision. If after doing research and coming to the conclusion that attending a workshop isn't right for you at this time, consider your local bookstore. Sometimes reading a good book about writing is all you need to get inspired. One good book is Stephen King's "On Writing," a very intimate look at the author's struggle to not only keep writing but to stay alive.

With a little research you will find the perfect workshop for your needs. One place to start looking is on our own links page at NorthernPros.com. We offer scores of links to workshops around the world. If you know about a good workshop that's not on our site, contact us.

Good luck and happy hunting.

- Benjamin Spencer
Senior Editor

The World Question

2007-01-02T08:54:00.000-08:00

On January 1, John Brockman released his tenth annual World Question with responses from the extraordinary public of "third-culture thinkers" that he has been cultivating and publishing through The Edge Foundation for a decade.

This year's question: What are you optimistic about and why?

According to Brockman, each annual panel consists of scientists "whose work and expository writing is taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives."

In a statement released on his website Monday, Brockman asserts that though things may seem to be getting worse (based solely on scientific and non-scientific assumptions of the physical world and cyclical patterns of human relations on earth), the prodigious community of thinkers who keep us perpetually on the edge of discovery seems to think otherwise.

Responses to this year's World Question run the gamut. From cosmological discovery to increasing personal genome strength and the downfall of Agnotology (the cultural production of ignorance), the one underlying theme of a majority of the responses came in a short piece by Irene Pepperberg, a Harvard Psychology research associate.

Pepperberg quite simply states that she envisions a second (and better) Enlightenment in the not so distant future. The first Enlightenment, of course refers to the historical intellectual movements of the eighteenth century, "which advocated Reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, government, and logic, which would allow human beings to obtain objective truth about the universe" (Wikipedia, Enlightenment).

"Like some other respondents, I'm not particularly optimistic at the moment," Pepperberg begins. "Human civilization, however, seems to proceed in cycles overall, and I believe that we are due - even if not quickly enough for my tastes - for a new positive cycle. Every Golden Age - the flowering of reason and good - has been followed by a withering, a decay, a rotting, a descent into superstition, prejudice, greed; somehow, though, the seeds of the next pinnacle begin their growth and ascent, seemingly finding nourishment in the detritus left by the past ... to a renaissance, a new enlightenment ... a profound, global shift in the world view for the better."

Many times, social, scientific, and cultural changes are the result of or a response to discovery. Pepperberg's statement is echoed throughout this year's responses, and I too see the seeding of such a movement - largely due to the advent and availability of individual democratization through media.

However, I believe this germ is the response to the psychosis of our preceding generation rather than to the invention of a means by which we might all be able to freely disseminate our ideas. Lucky for us, perhaps, evolution is "telescoping" by years instead of eons and our skills are becoming sharper quicker, more defiant.

We are able to detect and are not so readily sold bullshit when we see it. And because human evolution currently reveals itself through the arts and sciences, it is all but sure we will see a major multiplication of our efforts to define and articulate a new humanity through the arts and sciences in the coming decade.

How (or similarly 'if') this Second Enlightenment comes into being will be the direct result of our efforts. Will we allow for a commoditization of health or wealth, sensitivity or aggression, systems of daily creativity or languid doubt in the future? What does any of this have to do with NorthernPros.com, literature, or art? How, you might ask, does this involve you? This is a question you'll have to ask yourself in the coming year.

Me, for one, I am optimistic about a lot of things: my young family for one, and my career(s), my general buoyant human inertia. I am optimistic that I will continue doing everything I can to be as completely human as I am. Hopefully, what I do is understood and reflected and perpetuated. Hopefully, I'm not wasting my time. I am optimistic that I am not.

Happy New Year, happy writing, happy searching. Stay tuned.

- Benjamin Spencer

Senior Editor

The New Frontier

2006-12-18T05:55:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the new NorthernPros.com

Well, it's been a long time in coming, but we've done it, we've got it, here it is – the new website, the next phase.

When NorthernPros was founded in 1995, developing literary and artistic communities was paramount to the course of our effort. It was a grassroots endeavor – we published the occassional chapbook of literature and shook a lot of hands – the internet was still very young.

In 2001, we adapted what and who we knew into a system of lists that we published online as NorthernPros.com. Over the next couple of years our community grew. Now featuring scores of "communities" and organizations on the Web who promote writing and art as a career or lifelong hobby, NorthernPros.com has reached another step in its goal to continually link good writing to hungry readers.

Our next step was a two-parter, really. First, we required a redesign of our home site. If you've seen the old site, then you know that it did its duty, but it was old and clumsy and it would not assist us in the forging ahead. What you see here is the result of much contemplation, a baseline from which we can grow.

The second-half of our next step was the launch of the forthcoming journal Cadillac Cicatrix in print and online. Cadillac Cicatrix was originally a one-time publication created by students at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. It has since blossomed into the semi-annual title under which NorthernPros publishes work by emerging and established writers and artists.

With the merging of NorthernPros and Cadillac Cicatrix into a single effort, we expect to: 1) Publish frequently;
2) Offer an ever-growing list of links to artistic communities on the Web; 3) Rinse and repeat.

In the next few months, we will be focusing on the launch of Cadillac Cicatrix.com and its print counterpart. We have been hyping this thing for a long time, and we are very happy to say it's finally here. The galley is being edited, we can taste the salt in the wind.

Come January 1, 2007, we will be making frequent announcements here on the HOME page. Posts by NorthernPros about NorthernPros will go directly to our BLOG page. In addition to frequent posts about what's happening at NorthernPros, we will be featuring daily links to literary news and events of interest.

In the end, we are very happy to give you this new site in an effort to help you grow as an artist and get you published.

– Benjamin Spencer
Senior Editor

Story Contest Winner Announced

2006-06-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

June 10, 2006

Salinas Author Martin H. Dodd Wins National Story Contest –

CARMEL VALLEY, CA - NorthernPros.com is proud to announce Salinas author Martin Dodd as the winner of its national story contest held in January 2006. The contest was set up to launch Cadillac Cicatrix, a new journal of writing that champions the work of innovative and accomplished writers from around the world.

Dodd received a $250 award for his story, Dead Roses. The story will be published in Cadillac Cicatrix and online at CadillacCicatrix.com this summer.

"Dead Roses was inspired by a chance meeting in a friend's life," Dodd explains. "I became intrigued with how a trifling event profoundly affected so many lives – now including mine. My story is to suggest the chain reaction in which each decision by each person inevitably affects the choices of everyone."

Dodd began creative writing at age 31 and won short story contests in the 1960's. After retirement, at age 67, Dodd resumed writing in 2002. Since then, he has published poetry and short stories and won awards from Writer's Digest (2004), Writers Weekly (winter 2006), and the Central Coast Writers Group (California 2003, 2004).

The contest judge was Peter Orner*, award-winning author of Esther Stories and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo.

"Peter Orner was the perfect judge for this contest," said Benjamin Spencer, founding editor of NorthernPros.com and Cadillac Cicatrix. "Peter's prose is crafted with these delicate emotional grenades. His stories continue detonating even after you've finished reading."

Orner is the 2002-2003 winner of the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He holds both an MFA from the University of Iowa and a degree in law.

Spencer's theory for the new literary journal is simple – "Start a grassroots effort to publish and promote incredible writing." Spencer, who has been editing and designing news and literary publications since 1995 said, "The writing is most important. It's not enough to simply publish writers anymore. The writing has to leap like a frog chasing a fly down the street."

"The unique thing about Cadillac Cicatrix is that it's giving attention to new and accomplished writers and the Monterey Peninsula," said Wendy Goldman*, a screenplay analyst with NorthernPros. "Carmel, Monterey and Big Sur have expansive literary histories. We are very proud to contribute to that past and the future of the peninsula's literary reputation with this journal."

Chaz Reetz-Laiolo* is a prose and screenplay editor with NorthernPros. "It is so important that authors are encouraged to develop the craft of story. The best stories are retold for generations," he said. Reetz-Laiolo was a Merit Scholar at the acclaimed School at the Art Institute in Chicago.
Cadillac Cicatrix has an August publishing date. It will be available online at CadillacCicatrix.com and distributed nationally in print.

# #

* Martin Dodd began creative writing at age 31. He won short story contests at Hartnell College in 1966 and 1967. He then pursued a career in community service. After retirement, at age 67, Martin resumed creative writing in 2002. Since then, he contributed poetry and short stories to an anthology: The Barmaid, The Bean Counter, And The Bungee Jumper and his poetry appeared in Chicken Soup For The Recovering Soul. His short stories have appeared in several issues of The Homestead Review and won awards from Writer's Digest (2004), Writers Weekly (winter 2006), and the Central Coast Writers (California 2003, 2004).

* Peter Orner is the 2002-2003 winner of the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His story collection, Esther Stories , was a New York Times Notable Book, a Finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award, and winner of the Samuel Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction. Orner holds both an MFA from the University of Iowa and a degree in law. His work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize Anthology and has appeared in a number of national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review. Orner currently lives in San Francisco and teaches at San Francisco State University.

* Cadillac Cicatrix was founded by former students of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Boulder; the School at the Art Institute, Chicago; and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, Iowa City. Authors published in Cadillac Cicatrix are promoted by NorthernPros Creations as featured artists without cost to those authors. NorthernPros.com is an all-access literary resource for writers.

* Wendy A. Goldman has held executive positions at Magnusfilms; The Polone Company; The Knight Company, and the Monterey County Film Commission. She is on staff at the Monterey Museum of Art and volunteers at the John Steinbeck Museum.

* Chaz Reetz-Laiolo is editorial director for NorthernPros.com and Cadillac Cicatrix. He was the recipient of the prestigious Merit Scholarship in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he completed his MFA. Nominated for Best New American Voices 2006, his fiction can be found most recently in Fourteen Hills Review. He lives in Oakland, California with his daughter, Isa.

* Benjamin North Spencer is the founding editor of NorthernPros.com and Cadillac Cicatrix. He has been a member of the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa and is a graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. His novel Godspeed on the Beggars at Dawn was featured at the Unpublished Underground Gallery in New York in 2005. He is a member of the Monterey County Film Commission. Spencer lives and works in Carmel Valley, California where he is currently doing research for a novel about the wine industry.

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Cadillac Cicatrix || Issue One

2006-03-05T00:15:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes. Even before the print version is up and running we have managed to get an online portal for CADILLAC CICATRIX.

We know some of you may be curious what the title means and where the phrase comes from and how we came to use these two particular words together.

From our point of view, the definition is obvious. But we're curious if you know what it means, or what the history of Cadillac Cicatrix really is.

In fact, we are so interested that we are willing to publish the first twenty (20) incorrect answers in our first edition coming out this summer ('06).

Slated for publication this issue, we have a handful dynamite authors and artists who have come forward to help us launch this journal in real style. Also slated for this issue are the results of our first story contest !

As of today's date, Feb. 4, we are compiling the finalists list. A winner from that list will be chosen by our judge, Peter Orner (author of Esther Stories). An announcemnet will be made in Poets & Writers magazine, and online.

As the first issue comes together, and our second begins to take shape, we are accepting contributions. Submissions can come through the mail or email. We ask that they are of a professional caliber.

What we are looking for:
Poetry, Prose, Essay, Interview, Art (digital renderings only)

A few important websites:
NorthernPros.com
CadillacCicatrix.com

Our eMail:
NorthernPros@gmail.com

Chaz Reetz-Laiolo Story in 'Fourteen Hills'

2005-12-13T17:24:00.000-08:00

Author, Editor Reetz-Laiolo in Fourteen Hills, Vol. 12.1

NorthernPros Creations is proud to announce the publication of Messina, November, a short story by Chaz Reetz-Laiolo, in the most recent issue of Fourteen Hills, the acclaimed San Francisco State University literary review. Reetz-Laiolo is a fiction editor at NorthernPros.com.

The recent recipient of a Writer’s Grant from the Vermont Studio Center, Reetz-Laiolo has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives in California with his daughter, Isa.

Laiolo gave a reading of Messina, November, Monday, Dec. 12 at the Fourteen Hills issue release party, at Cafe La Onda.

Short Story Contest

2005-12-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

NORTHERNPROS.COM ANNOUNCES STORY CONTEST
TO LAUNCH LITERARY REVIEW

NorthernPros.com | eMail | Submit

CARMEL VALLEY, CA - NorthernPros.com is proud to announce a short story contest to launch a journal of writing that champions the work of innovative and accomplished writers from around the world.

The deadline for short story submissions of up to 20 pages is January 20, 2006. The contest judge is Peter Orner*, award-winning author of Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 2001). Entry is $10 per story. The winning story from this contest will receive a $250 award and be published in Cadillac Cicatrix next summer. Announcements will be made online and in journals.

To CONTRIBUTE to Cadillac Cicatrix visit our website – NorthernPros.com …

Our ads can be seen in Poets & Writers and The Writer magazines, The Baltimore Review, and online.

“Peter Orner is the perfect judge for this contest,” said Benjamin Spencer, founding editor of NorthernPros Creations and Cadillac Cicatrix. “Peter’s prose is crafted with these delicate emotional grenades. His stories continue detonating even after you’ve finished reading. That’s what we want from this contest and Cadillac Cicatrix.”

Orner is the 2002-2003 winner of the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He holds both an MFA from the University of Iowa and a degree in law.

Spencer’s theory for the new literary journal is simple – “start a grassroots effort to promote and publish incredible writing.” Spencer, who has been editing and designing news and literary publications since 1995 said, “The writing is most important. It’s not enough to simply publish writers anymore. The writing has to leap like a frog chasing a fly down the street.”

“The unique thing about Cadillac Cicatrix is that it’s giving attention to new and accomplished writers and the Monterey Peninsula,” said Wendy Goldman*, a screenplay analyst with NorthernPros. “Carmel and Monterey and Big Sur have expansive literary histories. We are very proud to contribute to that past and the future of the peninsula’s literary reputation with this journal.”

Chaz Reetz-Laiolo* is a prose and screenplay editor with NorthernPros. “It is so important that authors are encouraged to develop the craft of story. The best stories are retold for generations,” he said. Reetz-Laiolo was a Merit Scholar at the acclaimed School at the Art Institute in Chicago.

With a publishing date set for summer 2006, NorthernPros Creations hopes to announce the winner and three finalists next spring. Cadillac Cicatrix will be published online and distributed nationally in print.

# #

* Peter Orner is the 2002-2003 winner of the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His story collection, Esther Stories, was a New York Times Notable Book, a Finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award, and winner of the Samuel Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction. Orner holds both an MFA from the University of Iowa and a degree in law. His work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize Anthology and has appeared in a number of national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review. Orner currently lives in San Francisco and teaches at San Francisco State University.

* Cadillac Cicatrix was founded by former students of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Boulder; the School at the Art Institute, Chicago; and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, Iowa City.

* Wendy A. Goldman has held executive positions at Magnusfilms; The Polone Company; The Knight Company, and the Monterey County Film Commission.

* Chaz Reetz-Laiolo was a Writer’s Grant recipient from the Vermont Studio Center. He has a story forthcoming in Fourteen Hills Review.

* Benjamin North Spencer has been a member of the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa; the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics; the Unpublished Underground Gallery, New York; and the Monterey County Film Commission, California.