8/23/2015
Daily Prompt
Last night I dreamt of so so many shining spoons, too many spoons to choose from 🙂 Someone I love stood at my side and laughed indulgently at my excitement about all of those spoons LOL
Make art about spoons. 🙂
The beauty of the universe dances in your eyes. I hear her singing every time you laugh. You are Beautiful. You are Creation.
My mama kept a garden to feed us kids when I was growing up. We were poor, but nowhere near as poor as my mother had been as a child, growing up as she did back in those beautiful North Carolina mountains in the Depression era.
One of the reasons I can is to remind myself to be grateful. I think about how this was the only way my grandmother–we called her Miz Pearl–had to feed my mama and her brothers and sisters, and how she’d work all summer so they would have anything to eat at all in the winter. One hard winter the only thing they had at all were the green beans Miz Pearl had canned the summer before. So as I’m working, I’m thinking how lucky most of us are, to have access to food in ways that the generations before us did not. I’m not rich by any stretch, and I do love my home food, but I have never been hungry, not truly, because of women who put up food this way, who had that wisdom.
So i’m grateful. and really really aware of how I don’t need this food to live, how I don’t have to haul water up from the creek, how I don’t have to build a fire to cook, how hard, how so so so hard, those women before us worked to care for –just to feed–their families.
I’m even more grateful, and excited, because for the first time, my sons, my oldest J, who is 26, and his younger brother Dean–the one I call Manchild 🙂 just months away from his 21st birthday– have asked to learn how to preserve food by the old canning methods. Even Manchild’s best friend Colin wants to learn! So I’m one Happy Hippie Mama right now 🙂
The web of cultures in which I was raised teaches us to honor the wisdom of elders, to honor and appreciate the wisdom born of survival and innovation and ingenuity developed over thousands of years walked by the procession before us. It teaches us to honor what sustains us, the planet, and our community. I am excited to share this with my sons, with these young people. I am honored, and humbled, to have the chance to teach this way of Loving as it was taught to me.
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Daily Prompt
“Oh my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways. And deep ways and steep ways, and high ways, and low.”~Henry Lawson
Make art inspired by old wisdom.
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“When we respect our blood ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, we feel rooted. If we find ways to cherish and develop our spiritual heritage, we will avoid the kind of alienation that is destroying society, and we will become whole again. … Learning to touch deeply the jewels of our own tradition will allow us to understand and appreciate the values of other traditions, and this will benefit everyone.
I always encourage them to practice in a way that will help them go back to their own tradition and get re-rooted. If they succeed at at becoming reintegrated, they will be an important instrument in transforming and renewing their tradition.”― Thích Nhất Hạnh
Thanks to Valley for including me at Life in 10 Minutes 🙂
http://www.lifein10minutes.com/your-10/2015/8/11/brother-bill
8/11/2015 Bonus Prompt ❤
My baby brother Bill was my best friend in this life. He would have been 46 today. I miss him every moment. Make art about best friends.
Woke up hearing someone singing this 🙂 So just had to share ❤
Daily Prompt
“We are stardust. We are golden”~Joni Mitchell
Make art about cosmic origins. Or the origin of the cosmos.
Daily Prompt
I keep thinkin this mornin about day to day wonder…
Make art about the mythology of ordinary life.
Why is this one special special?
Because in the company of an amazing group of people, this Call for Submissions is coming directly from me!
😀
Allow me to introduce
HeartWood
an online literary journal in association with West Virginia Wesleyan’s Low-Residency MFA program, publishes twice yearly, in April and October. Our inaugural issue will go live April 2016.
General Submissions
We accept submissions year round through Submittable, and welcome previously unpublished poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, from both established and emerging writers.
What We Want:
We are interested in writing that pushes into, dares to reveal, its own truth, that takes emotional risks, that gets to the heart of the matter.
Simultaneous submissions are fine, provided you notify us if the work is accepted elsewhere.
We also welcome queries from Appalachian artists (writers, visual artists, musicians, performers, folk artists, etc) interested in being included in our Appalachian Arts section.
Submission Details
Prose submissions, fiction or nonfiction, should be 3000 words or less.
Fiction: Fiction submissions may include short stories, flash fiction, or novel excerpts if the excerpt can stand alone. You may submit more than one piece of flash fiction, as long as the total word count does not exceed 3000 words.
Creative Nonfiction: We’re open to a wide range of nonfiction, with the exception of academic articles, or that which would be considered more traditionally journalistic. Personal essay, memoir, lyric, literary journalism, or some blurring in between, are all acceptable.
Poetry: Poets should submit no more than 3-5 single-spaced poems at a time. Include all poems in a single document for upload. Lyric, narrative, experimental, we’re open to all variations of the poetic voice.
Surprise us. Make us think. Make us feel. Make our hearts race.
Appalachian Arts Interviews
We also welcome queries from Appalachian artists (writers, visual artists, musicians, performers, folk artists, etc) interested in being included in our Appalachian Arts section. We define Appalachian artists as an artist who is heavily influenced by the Appalachian region and its traditions, history, and people. At HeartWood, we are looking for artists who take these traditions and speak to them in a new and unexpected way.
To query about possible inclusion in the Appalachian Arts section: Submit the following in one document (doc, docx) through the Appalachian Arts link on our Submittable page:
If we’re interested, based on the query, editors will email requesting additional information and work sample.
What We’ll Do
Submissions will be responded to within three months. If you haven’t heard from us after three months, feel free to inquire by sending us a note through Submittable.
If your work is accepted, HeartWood acquires first North American rights. All rights revert to the author upon publication, but we do ask for first publication attribution in any future publications. We also reserve the right to include accepted pieces in any future anthologies or promotions.
If we have passed on a submission, please wait 6 months before submitting again.
Submit here:
http://www.heartwoodlitmag.com/submit/
Write on! We can’t wait to hear from you!
My house concert tour isn’t over, but has been put on hold while my oldest sister, a tiny fierce woman named Andrea but whom we call Crickett because she’s only 4’9 and quick as all get out 🙂 and who has worked as a nurse for more than forty years, primarily attending to those at the end of their journey, those tender hands midwifing soul after soul after soul into the next life, has been battling cancer herself. Twelve years older than me, she wagged that little finger at me, touting her position as ‘the elder’ in our family now, and told me I ‘better not be neglecting that writin!’ So, while my travel has been limited mostly to running back and forth from Virginia to North Carolina, I have been sending these crazy lil prose pomes out into the world.
“A Chant Against Lonely” at Josephine Quarterly (This poem will be included in my book, A Little Blood, A Little Rain, coming out from FutureCycle Press in 2016)
http://issuu.com/josephinequarterly/docs/summer_2015_issue/5?e=6563413%2F14573219
The Girl Who Read the Land” at Sediments Literary-Arts Journal (This poem is included in my most recent book, The Night I Heard Everything, available now from FutureCycle Press)
http://sedimentslit.com/portfolio/the-girl-who-read-the-land-mary-carroll-hackett/
I’m very grateful to the kind editors who have made homes for some of them. ❤
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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