Teen Writing Contest

STATEWIDE CONTEST FOR 14-19 YEAR-OLD NEW MEXICO WRITERS

The deadline for the Santa Fe Short Story Festival's writing contest for teens is coming up, August 3. I'm excited about the idea of the festival and particularly about this great opportunity for young writers in New Mexico.
I just recently spent time with a wonderfully creative group of teens in Colorado, where I conducted a workshop on creative writing and also a play writing workshops. They came of with surprising ideas and just performed their original play for a group of young children involved in a reading program at their local library. It has been awhile since I worked with teen writers. I had forgotten how inspirational their unbounded energy can be. I'm sure the short stories the Santa Fe Short Story Festival gleans from this contest will also be inspirational.

If you know a young writer be sure they get the following information: Original stories up to 2000 words in length postmarked by August 3, 2007 will be considered for the $500 grand prize, the $250 award for the runner-up, and two honorable mention awards of $125 each. The stories will be judged by an impartial panel of judges with writing credentials. The cash prizes will be awarded at a featured presentation and reading at this year's Santa Fe Short Story Festival, October 4, 5, 6. Professional actors will provide dramatic readings of the four prize-winning stories at the awards ceremony. There is no entry fee for the contest. Please see www.SantaFeShortStory.org to obtain the competition rules, the required story submission form, the complete call for submissions, and answers to frequently asked questions. This is the third year of the festival and the second year of the short story writing contest. The competition is open to ALL 14-19 year-olds in New Mexico, not just those enrolled in high school.

Internet and Writing, Caregiving, Sanity

It’s a strange new world today, that of webs and nets that are not only invisible to the naked eye, but that are morphing and being manipulated continuously by people most of us would never have had any contact with a decade or so ago. Like all the significant developments of man, there is the positive and the negative side to the new cyber world we live in.

The Internet is accessible to all economic and education levels. It only takes a half a dollar in many underdeveloped countries for a person to walk into a cyber café and sign on to the internet for a half an hour. This ability changes the perspective, the awareness, the goals, the possibilities and the self-esteem of a whole generation world-wide. It makes the world a smaller place, our differences, values, morals more obvious, but as we are exposed to them less scary, more manageable.

For the writer, the Internet has opened possibility of making a lonely job less so. Whole communities of like minded people develop with our technology and meeting your writing group doesn't neccesarily mean you go down to the coffee shop anymore. Though I still prefer it.

My last two and half years have had an odd shape of solitude, yet of feeling I was never alone. I was the primary caregiver for my mother, who passed away several weeks ago, (thus the long absence from blogging). I spent most of the time alone in the house with her. A good deal of that time, she was not present. So though I was alone, I wasn't. I guess the Internet saved my sanity. It gave me a connection to the world. Let me feel as though I was still fully present in my own work, yet it also gave me opportunity for escape. I learned a lot. Alot about the way the Internet functions, the vast variety of uses, the scary lack of control and how you can fool yourself into thinking you are accomplishing something...when maybe you aren't.

I know first hand the Internet is not always used for what we Westerners consider the common good. In fact there is a large faction of very clever users around the world, perhaps more motivated in third world countries, whose goals are to damage in some way users in developed countries. I try to remember the positive aspects and possibilities of this new world, when I am inundated with ever evolving and more clever scam emails and with spammers who find new ways around filters and new ways to waste my time.