Places to Publish

Deadline: 05/15/10. Submit to: Knocking at the Door: Approaching the Other. Send via attachment (RTF or DOC) to: poetryeditors@buddhapussink.com. Theme: Reconciling and/or coming to an understanding with the Other as it appears in all aspects of life: personal, political and societal. Type: Poetry (5 poems, 10 pages MAX). URL: http://lisasisler.com/journal/2010/02/15/submission-guidelines-for-knocking-at-the-door-a-poetry-anthology

Deadline: 08/01/10. Submit to: Rattle. E-mail (via pasted-in text) to: submissions@rattle.com. Theme: Masters of Mental Health. Type: Poetry and essays (5,000 words MAX). URL: http://www.rattle.com/callsforsubs.html

Deadline: 09/10/10 or until issue is full. Check Web site below. Submit to: Workers Write! E-mail to: courtroom@workerswritejournal.com, or send a hard copy to: Blue Cubicle Press, PO Box 250382, Plano, TX 75025-0382. Theme: Tales from the Courtroom. Type: Short stories (5,000 words MAX). URL:

http://www.workerswritejournal.com http://backwaterpress.com Deadline: N/A. Submit to: Hunger Mountain, Vermont College of Fine Arts, 36 College Street, Montpelier, VT 05602. Theme: Responses to stage and screen. Type: Manuscripts (10,000 words MAX) or a video submission. URL: http://www.hungermtn.org/submit

Deadline: N/A. Submit to: editor@dreamofthings.com Theme: Various topics based on one of 15 themes. See http://dreamofthings.com/workshop-2 for more details. Type: Personal essays (500-5,000 words MAX). URL: http://dreamofthings.com/guidelines

I've got an idea

I went to see Ghost Writer, suspense thriller that has wonderful character development, complexiy of plot, subtle clues, and unfolds slowly even though your attention never wavers. A real salute to audience intelligence. However, several of the people in the theater didn't get what was going on, so they asked, loudly of course, "What does this mean? That mean?" I've got an idea. How about a device like a listening device, excpet instead of enhancing the hearing, it will have a narrator telling, a la Cliff Notes, step-by-step, everything that is happening? Yeah!

CITY ISLAND and how to create your own island.

I saw CITY iSLAND and really recommend it. The woman behind me kept crinking her bag of whatever she'd brought in to eat so that she didn't have to pay for it at the movies and commenting on each line to her husband. Shush did no good. So I piled my coat and my husband's on my seat and sat on them, making myself at least 6'4. She shut up. I recommend this too

A stranger's naked breast

So, I was at the MOMA today at the sixth floor exhibit: The Artist in his Art: lots of videos of naked artists running against restraints, grimacing, and in the doorway, two naked statues, a man and woman gazing at each other, as real as Dwayne Hanson's fiberglass sculptures. I went through the door. My bare arm (I was wearing short sleeves) brushed against the female statue's breast. Her breast was warm as embarrassment against my arm. Yoiks, the couple weren't statues after all!

When I recovered, I went into another gallery where an artist: male, young, blond wavy hair, lay naked on, what looked like a funerary bier, a skeleton draped over him. It was lthe opposite of a near-death experience. Instead of the soul rising from the body, the bones did. It was also like a momento morre, the skull in still lives to remind the viewer that death will come soon, so be good!

What Louise Clifton, the late American poet, said about writing

These are highlights from a 1990 interview with her in the literary magazine, Passager.

How do I write? Something catches my attention and I accept it gratefully.

I put it down and l try to help it become what it wishes to become. I might have an idea, but it has another. I follow the poem.