Driving

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012 - Thinking, Tip

It seems to me that I have great ideas (or not so great, who knows!) when I’m driving the car. I remember when I was a teenager, I used to get in my car and drive through London, deliberately trying to get lost. Getting lost in London is pretty easy, I’d just have to take a few wrong turns, then I’d spend time trying to find my way back home. Now, when I’m stuck in a story, trying to figure out motivations or specific trouble spots, I get in the car and drive. Here in Saskatoon, the landscape is very different from the landscape of London. I’m on a grid system here and I’d find it really hard to get lost. Instead, I drive out into the prairies. Those long straight roads that disappear into the horizon, populated by nothing but wheat and grass, give me space for my imagination to get to work. Big, empty skies and empty roads let my mind wander.

Where do you go when you need to think over a story?

Share On Facebook
Share On Twitter
Share On Pinterest
Share On Youtube

Derbyshire

Thursday, January 5th, 2012 - Thinking, Tip

green space and wide skyTomorrow morning, we’re going to Derbyshire for a long weekend with old friends.  There will be lots of opportunity to make notes about a new landscape (see the photo), the interior of a building I’ve never stayed in before (a large place with many bedrooms), and about the ways we spend our time with four small children to hang out with.  The notes I make will only be short, a sentence here or there, a short piece of descrition, fragments.  Think about ways you can make notes on a new, or on an old experience.  Perhaps the notes will be helpful in a later piece of writing.

Share On Facebook
Share On Twitter
Share On Pinterest
Share On Youtube

Short Story Competition

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 - Blog, Contest, Getting Published, Places for writers

 

This was in my inbox today – do you have a story you could enter?

The deadline for the fifteenth annual Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Contest is Monday, October 3. Enter now at www.all-story.com/contests.cgi. 

GUEST JUDGE:
National Book Award-finalist Jim Shepard will award the prizes.

PRIZES:
First prize is $1,000; second prize $500; and third prize $250.

LITERARY AGENCIES:
The three prizewinners and seven honorable mentions will be considered for representation by William Morris Endeavor, ICM, Regal Literary, the Elaine Markson Literary Agency, Inkwell Management, Sterling Lord Literistic, Aitken Alexander Associates, Barer Literary, the Gernert Company, and the Georges Borchardt Literary Agency.

DATES:
All entries must be complete by October 3, 2011. Results will be announced at the website December 15, 2011, and in the Spring 2012 issue of Zoetrope: All-Story; and the winning story will be published as a special online supplement to that Spring 2012 issue.

Complete contest guidelines are available at the website. Please read them before submitting.

Please e-mail us at contests@all-story.com with further questions. We look forward to reading your work.

Best of luck,
The editors at Zoetrope: All-Story

Share On Facebook
Share On Twitter
Share On Pinterest
Share On Youtube
 
CONFESSIONS AND COFFEE
   

 

BUY ALICE'S BOOKS:
Chapters Indigo | Amazon | Buy Local | Kindle | iBookstore | Google Play

©2024 Alice Kuipers. Design by Janine Stoll Media.

Show Buttons
Share On Facebook
Share On Twitter
Share On Pinterest
Share On Youtube
Hide Buttons