We've Added INFORMATIONAL PAGES

Hello all,
If you will look to the right, just under the heading bar, you will see a new section on the blog..."INFORMATIONAL PAGES". In this area you can find the Writing Conference Registration Form and the Writing Contests and Guidelines. There is a comment at the bottom of the registration form with instructions for printing. I will do my best to get these documents put on the LRACW website and the Facebook page so they will be easy to find.

I hope you have decided to submit some of your writing to one or more of the contests. 

Keep reading. Keep writing.

A Garden of a Magazine

By Linda L. Scisson

If there is a phrase that is the opposite of “a man’s cave,” it would be “a woman’s garden.” The image of a beautiful garden came to me as graphic designer and photographer Lorinda Gray spoke to our  Little Rock chapter of American Christian Writers on Tuesday, April 8. 

When I want to read a magazine, I usually pick up a print version. On April 8, I found an exception: a quarterly e-zine (digital magazine) called MattieGrace, which may be accessed on the website of Lorinda Gray’s freelance company, Ragamuffin Creative, at:

www.ragamuffincreative.com/

Without question, Lorinda appreciates the creative process. With a keen artist’s eye, she sees something significant and preserves it. Graciously, she takes us to literal and metaphorical gardens through her photos and graphic designs in MattieGrace: Sharing Our Stories. As they say, “A picture is worth a 1,000 words.”

The freshness of Lorinda’s digital magazine is enhanced by relevant articles and poems, such as contributing author Julie Vickers’ article “The Flipside of Fear” in the Spring 2014, Volume 10 issue, as well as scriptures that speak of elegance and eternity, such as this on page 2 in the current issue of MattieGrace:

“This is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord (Psalm 27:4 NIV).

Something significant, something simple, something superb:  prose, poetry, and photography. And there are recipes in MattieGrace, which may be downloaded, free of charge, in a PDF-version.

Whether you want to see things in modern-day settings or on Victorian postcards, folk art, or contemporary art, check out MattieGrace. You’ll find the usual and the unusual, such as Lorinda’s photos from the 21c Hotel and Museum in Bentonville, including green plastic penguins and the “Tree of 40 Fruit” (Spring 2014, Volume 10).

And be encouraged with the life-experience articles that connect us to one another as members of the human race. I've even heard a number of men are reading MattieGrace from their individual “man’s cave,” as who doesn't appreciate the beauty of a garden any season of the year?

APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

I love poetry.  The title deserves all caps. Who is your favorite poet? Do you have a favorite poem?  LRACW also has a poetry contest you can enter at our Writers Conference. The deadline for entries is April 22.   Come on, get writing.  

It is my goal to read and write poetry every day during April.  Since Haiku is one of my favorite forms, I like to sit on the patio and write about what I observe in my own back yard.  Here's one I really like... it just makes me smile:

The bird ate the worm

Stretched it right out of the ground

Early bird, late worm

There now, didn't that make you smile.  Poetry should be enjoyable. And another:

Icicles hang steep

Water trapped in frozen form

Winter's jagged teeth

You can find all kinds of poetry online. You don't even have to buy the books.  Joyce Kilmer's poem, Trees is so lovely I carry it around with me. 

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree. 

I was in Michigan one summer and some of us decided to go on a tour of several Victorian homes. They were wonderful.  Well maintained. Beautifully furnished.  Made you want to just sit and read awhile.  But at the last house I stepped out onto the back porch, and there, in the back yard, was the most magnificent, majestic tree I've ever seen.  They told us it was a  live oak tree, about 200 years old, and it was coming to the end of its lifespan.  I'm not sure, but I imagine Joyce Kilmer saw a tree that affected her the same way as this live oak affected me.  My thought at that time was that anyone can build a house, but only God can make a tree.  

And lets not forget about the poetry in the Bible:  in Psalms.  Find it. Read it.  Let it speak to your heart as living poetry does.  

Find and read a poem a day.  Then find someone to share it with.  

Keep reading.  Keep writing

Lorinda Gray April 8th Meeting Speaker

So excited to share with you that Lorinda Gray will be our featured speaker this month.  You will be getting an emailed flyer with some pertinent  information.  I don't want to steal the thunder from the flyer but I'm EAGER to hear what she has to share about e-zines (electronic magazines).  She publishes one that is extremely well done.  And what a writer she is!  If you want a preview you can go to www.ragamuffincreative.com

Also, if you have an iPad, or some such thing, Lorinda has requested that you bring it. I have no idea what she has in store for us, and that anticipation makes it even better.

Hope you will all come and welcome her and learn all about e-zines.  And who knows... there could be cookies!

Keep reading.  Keep writing.

Contest Opportunities Fiction & Non-Fiction

We have FIVE contest opportunities at our Writers Conference this year.

The SUBMISSION DEADLINE is April 22, either emailed or postmarked.

The Arnold Family Foundation has graciously funded both our fiction and non-fiction categories again this year.
We want to encourage you to write and submit in these categories.
The Fiction category is 1500-2000 words.
The Non-Fiction is 750-1200 words.

As long as it hasn’t been published you can use something you are already working on. Go through your recent writings and find something that you like well enough to polish and revise — and submit it to dotlatjohn@gmail.com   or to Dorothy Johnson, 11260 Rivercrest Dr., Little Rock, AR 72213.  Be sure to follow the submission guidelines.  

Keep reading. Keep writing

Book Signing and Talk with Shellie Rushing Tomlinson

This is the first book signing and talk by an author that I have attended. It will not be the last.  Linda Scisson and I are reading Hearts Wide Open. Linda has a hard copy and I have an e-copy in my iPad.  So, Linda got her autograph but I decided Shellie probably shouldn't sign the screen of my iPad.  So I had no choice.  It was completely out of my hands. I had to buy two of Shellie's books just so she could write something to me.

Shellie shared with us her path to getting a publisher and it was so interesting and encouraging. She chose to self-publish her first three books. When Penguin Publisher noted how well her books were selling, they approached her and invited her to write for them. Amazing.

Shellie remembers her L O V E of reading as a child. Her family lived in a rural area and the Bookmobile from the Library came only once a month. They were allowed by the staff to check out six books for the month. She, being a desperate reader, agreed to do her two sisters' chores if they would let her check out their quota of books. Oh yes, they agreed. (Huckleberry Finn had nothing on these girls.)  And Shellie would lug 18 books to her house and devour them during the course of the month before the Bookmobile lumbered back down the road.

Shellie is a committed believer in Jesus Christ. She lives what she shares in her writing. She began by writing humorous books (I've got two of them) and Hearts Wide Open is her first Bible Study book.  It has a workbook (print or download)  and the teaching DVD is coming out soon.

We thoroughly enjoyed meeting Shellie Rushing Tomlinson and we are so grateful that she took the time to come and to talk with us. 

Now, about the Purple Cow.  Great burgers. Great shakes. Great rootbeer and Great de-caf coffee.  Fun company. 

Keep Reading. Keep Writing

Party ‘Til the Cows Come Home

By Linda L. Scisson

A Book Review of Heart Wide Open

by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson

Dorothy Hill and I did not exactly party ‘til the cows come home at The Purple Cow on Wednesday, March 26. But we had good food and fellowship, before making the 100-yard dash across the street to Barnes & Noble for Shellie Rushing Tomlinson’s 7 PM talk and book-signing of her latest book, Heart Wide Open: Trading Mundane Faith for an Exuberant Life with Jesus (WaterBrook Press, 2014).

“Exuberant” is an appropriate adjective not only for the book’s sub-title, but also for the author. Shellie Tomlinson is an enthusiastic speaker and enthusiastic participant of life. In Heart Wide Open, Shellie writes that we can find exuberant life here on earth, as we continue to live “in anticipation of seeing Him in the next” (page 21).

 And that stretches our margins of gratitude for the Great Exchange: Jesus traded His death on the cross for our eternal life.

To trade mundane faith for an exuberant life with Jesus: The first step is to admit one’s faith is mundane. This takes humility, which attribute is seen in the first few pages of Heart Wide Open.

Shellie admits to a season of feeling as if her faith were “compartmentalized.” She felt a “disconnect” between her Sunday morning faith and her everyday experience, although she retained “a healthy respect for the teachings of the church” (page 4). But she was looking for something more than “biblical head knowledge” (page 6). She was looking for something more than “the church-lady gig” (page 5). Why? — Because she had an “aching faking heart” (page 7).

So Shellie embarks on “some serious soul searching” (page 7), as she ponders the words of Jesus in Mark 12:30: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (NIV). 

To our advantage, Shellie hoists us on the highway of a holy enterprise — to trade the mundane for the exuberant — in the first of the book’s eight chapters, titled “When All You Can Bring Him Is A Broken Want-To.” 

How does she do that? She discovers a way to conquer the mountain of the mundane. She embraces “the blessed challenge” (page 11). She asks herself:  “What am I collecting?” And she finds a “clear directive” in Matthew 6:20: “. . . collect for yourselves treasures in heaven” (page 11).

 

One simple prayer to regain a “heart wide open” to God is: “Help me to value and love You more.” And one practical step that we can take toward this goal is to remember, which means “to recollect.” We remember by collecting again (p. 15).

 

In other words, as we treasure God’s love for us, we will experience “the biggest adventure of all time” (page 9) — such as the “freeing [of] me from me” (page 125), as well as “the sweetest of addiction” to God’s friendship (page 21) — because “joy and contentment are found in Him” (page 19). 

 

Yet, to actually know God will probably not result in a 24-7 party ‘til the cows come home this side of heaven; but there will be indication of something favorable, something significant, something exuberant, as the Holy Spirit supernaturally ignites the lukewarm heart, as He woos us back to the Father.