Hi Everyone, In 2017 I started a blog post called “Promote Your Blog” where fellow bloggers could share and promote their blog with the MIU community. This post resulted in 25,000+ views and 4,000+ bloggers sharing the who, what and why behind their blog. I want to create a new directory to even out the […]
This photo I took in the prairie today: (See also: https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/146854985/posts/606)
Photos by Dr. John Hilty, Illinois Wildflowers, Illinois Wildflowers
And these from the University of Illinois: Illinois Wildflowers from the University of Illinois
Re-blogged with permission of the author, L.J. Bailey.
“Put a pin in it.” Image used by Creative Commons license.
“‘Families Belong Together’ is the wrong slogan,” says Masha Gessen, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. The latest round of immigration protests came about in response to a very specific policy and very specific images: children screaming and crying as they were ripped away from their parents at the border. First-time protestors, conservative protestors, Republican protestors all took up signs with long-time protestors, liberal protestors, Democratic protestors. I saw a greater than expected range of political diversity in the Chicago crowd. All over on the media when people were asked why they were marching, the message was the same: families belong together.
But was this a waste of a good march? While she does not discard the point of the marches and says that they did serve an important function, Gessen also says they obscured the larger…
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Shameless self promotion.(But the rejections have been many recently, so bear with me! Writers, you get it!)
I am pleased to learn that “Stopped,” a poem I recently wrote, will be published by Spillwords Press on July 19, 2018. As this poem was declined elsewhere, I am glad it has found a home. I enjoyed writing the poem, something rather out of my comfort zone! It was written as a response to a painting as a prompt.
Thanks for reading!
Laura Lee
Some of my poems, short stories, and nonfiction articles are included in books and magazines published in the UK, Greece, New Zealand, and the United States.
*Spillwords Press, July 19, 2018, “Stopped,” a poem
Spillwords Press
*Tuck Magazine, June 2018
*Tuck Magazine, May 2018
* Southernmost Point Guest House (UK)
* Journal of Modern Poetry 21 (Volume 21)
JOMP Volume 21 Dear Mr. President
* Journal of Modern Poetry 20 (Volume 20)
JOMP Volume 20 Poetry Writer’s Guide to the Galaxy
* Journal of Modern Poetry 17 (Volume 17)
* Magazine (New Zealand) , Raewyn Alexander, Publisher
* Fiction in: http://staxtes.com/2003/ “Between the Sunlight and the Skipping” in English Wednesdays
* Illinois English Bulletin, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English, nonfiction.
A collaboration between the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, digital colorist Marina Amaral, and a team of academics, journalists and volunteers, “Faces of Auschwitz” honors the lives of Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoners by colorizing their registration photos and sharing their individual stories.
via Faces of Auschwitz — Discover
Read this article written with dignity and courage, love and sadness. I was deeply moved, for the writer and artist have shared the lives of those lost with dignity.
Never forget.
Lucky (I hope) thirteen active submissions of poetry out right now… wait, one is a short nonfiction piece entirely written in dialogue. We shall see! The “declined” or rejections outnumber thirteen–but I am enjoying finding new literary magazines and I am editing, revising, and writing poetry. EXCEPT I cannot write about those poor boys trapped in the caves in Thailand. I usually have no problem writing to a prompt, but these boys, these trapped boys…
I mean those boys are mainly in the dark…and they are BOYS. There is ONE adult with them. I followed the lives and stories of the 33 Chilean miners, big strong men, trained men…and I know how very rough they had after the rescue. The miners were down below much longer… but these are boys…and it could take months. Sigh…
If I were honest, I would say I can barely breathe thinking about those boys.
Here are links to some current articles:
I can barely breathe when I think of all those who are trapped, scared, in the dark–literally or emotionally.
I need to open the window now, despite the stifling heat.
There is a poem there about the need to open windows even in the heat. Even in the bitterly cold. (Oh, I’ve had issues doing that.)
Not too long ago, my husband and I were in a resort with huge windows, but they did not open. I wanted to stay somewhere else, somewhere the windows opened.
But that’s another story or other stories.
Thanks for reading!
**Update: I am having a poem, “Stopped,”published here July 19th.
Spillwords.com is a publisher of fiction, poetry, and original artwork, as well as a re-publisher of “literary greats” that are now in the public domain. This publisher’s goal is to create a:
…home for all that live and breathe words, spilled or inspired, through literature of every genre, from writers and poets of every walk of life.
The team of editors will work, they state, to ensure “…work is presented responsibly.”
The writers I saw published there come from all over the globe, and there is a special part of the site dedicated to publishing in Spanish. The other writers, from all over the world, are published in English.
I am pretty sure the publisher is actually in Poland; I checked and the mail address in there, in Poland.
It’s great to find new (to me!) places to submit work, and to read poetry and fiction from all over.
Thanks for reading!
Writers! You can use your writing voice to help kids. Thanks to Laura Jean Bailey for the information. Please consider writing. I am right now.
We can make a difference in the life of children separated from their parents at the border. We are not powerless. Heartland Alliance in Chicago is currently caring for 66 immigrant children.
Demonstrate caring and compassion by sending a brief letter with a positive message to a child at Heartland Alliance, 208 South LaSalle, Chicago, IL 60604. The letters do not need to be in Spanish.
Check out @heartlandhelps’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/heartlandhelps/status/1014157505486868480?s=09
Protest sign at Families Belong Together rally in Chicago on June 30, 2018. Photo by L.J. Bailey.
Laura Lee 