Monday Mish Mash

When I saw Rebecca's classy newspaper hat on her website a few days ago, I was reminded of my comic paper broach. A friend bought it for me at a St. Louis crafts fair a few years ago. I still love it! Visit Rebecca at http://thriftystyleatsixty.blogspot.com where you will find a lot of clever ideas!

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When I first started blogging, I was leery of what to say and what to put out in cyberspace. I would not allow anonymous comments. But last week I went into settings and changed some so anyone could post a comment without being a follower or registered with Blogger. I am always glad to see comments from around the country, around the world.

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I've been reading Lynne Hinton's latest novel, Pie Town. I have read her other books like Wedding Cake and Friendship Cake. Her stories are always pleasant and easy reads, ones for carrying in your purse and having handy for any spare minutes. Pie Town drew me because it has a New Mexico setting, a favorite area of mine. The novel starts a little slowly, but it is all a set up for the faster pace that begins to pop about mid-book. Without revealing too much, the story is about brokenness and healing. Hinton, an ordained minister of United Church of Christ, writes beautifully of Catholic faith in New Mexico and reminds us that God can be known by many names.

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DH and I took a little ride to the Mennonite store outside of town yesterday. Coming back we stopped at a garage sale on the spur of the moment. Quite a supply of odd and useless things! I did buy this Haviland bowl for $2.00. I know, it is really a soup tureen and should have a lid, but it is so pretty as is! Yes, a small chip in the rim, but it will work for a nice planter indoors or out, although making it a planter will cover the pretty little flowers that are scattered on the bowl's inside.

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I  wait for news on Storm Country, and meanwhile I get nice emails from folks still wanting to donate books for Joplin. I have a new contact who wants to donate a couple thousand novels; so this week I will see what connections I can make for her.

With weather writing in mind, some of my readers might be interested in the following writing op:

SOU’WESTER, a literary journal founded in 1960 and housed at Southern Illinois

University Edwardsville, will be devoting our next special issue (Spring 2012)
to the weather. Weather is quite a celebrity, after all – grabbing the headlines
when it’s feeling particularly unruly or whimsical. Weather has its own TV
station and its own dot.com. In the Midwest we talk about the weather with
noteworthy frequency and ardor. Yet some days, the weather is diffident, serving
as little more than a decorative (or not) backdrop of banal clouds and sky. But
it is always there.


As editors, we anticipate seeing different sorts of weather portrayed (bucolic
spring days, dark and stormy nights, etc.). But we’re hoping for variety in the
broadest sense. That is, we hope to be surprised by the many ways (subtle to
profound) in which weather has informed, inspired, or rained on your poetry,
prose, and uncategorizable written works.


Our general submission guidelines apply. Please limit your submission to a
maximum of five poems or one prose piece at a time (under 8,000 words
preferably). We will also consider a suite of two or three flash fictions.
We will read for the Weather issue until it is filled. Please check our website
for updates. We are also still accepting general submissions for the Fall 2011
issue; we expect to close this reading period sometime in October. Again, please
check for updates before submitting.
SOU’WESTER only accepts submissions through our online submission manager. When
you submit, please identify whether the submission is for the Fall general issue
or the Spring special issue on weather.

http://www.souwester.org