Ephemera Newsletter Iss June.2

(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, Teriw! (Bombara for “friends”).

We thank you for your presence as June is a month of moving and shaking.

Particularly, we thank June’s Poet @ Ephemera, Ann Huang. (Link takes you to her dedicated page).

Also, check out last week’s letter if you missed it. And here are some reminders:

• Starting this month, if you are a paid subscriber to Ephemera, you can submit to poetry @ Ephemera for free as a membership perk! Free subscribers and anyone else can submit, too, with the reading fee and can submit up to 10 poems.

• Our Staycation Residency Closes this month: Ephemera runs another program called The Write-In which is a modest grant plus 10 books of our choosing from different independent publishers. (Yearly paid subscribers can submit free. Anyone who submits gets 2 months of Ephemera comped).

In Brief…this week’s features:

• Music from Jason Pelsey, an under-the-radar classically trained pianist with an impressive ability to riff on the piano.

• We take another look at Maya Lin the architect and artist, this time looking into her influences and origins.

• June’s poet Ann Huang and her poem “Frogs.”

• Our weekly lists: 3 magazines with open calls, 3 awards/prizes from respected institutions, 3 recent job listings.

• More ephemera: check out an Interesante article on paying attention and filtering what we allow into our so-called “attics” i.e. brain space; Book recs, bonus content, and our mini-essays to start!

---

Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo. Cảm ơn. Xiè xiè.

---

Ephemera

Dear Readers,

Up in the mountains of North Georgia, a get-away-with-family location, the clouds post storm have been milky white, flowing down from the peaks spreading through the valley over which we look into the vales and gulleys and rolling over hills only to cling swarm-like above, presumably, small basins and ponds, as if the entire watershed were on a type of ethereal fire, little curls of upwardness strewn about and squashed by the billowing sheets, hemmed in by fog. Yet the trees breathe. Yet the green grins for all of this moisture, while soaked in greedily, is a sort of game, an occasional passing bit of fun, a kissing game with steam blobs, a game of blowing the frothiest white smoke stacks, of playing ghost in the lowlands.

Anyway, we spent time watching the storm blow over and on, thinking about then and now, how water moves about the landscape ends up being orderly; but it’s ad hoc, not designed that way (or is it…) and in many ways thought does the same thing, is, perhaps even, biologically speaking, doing the same thing—the easier paths are taken, where there’s no path, nothing flows. But the analogy is only partially useful because we can design our trows, riverbeds, floodplains of thought; education seeks to do this as much as it seeks to inform; reading does this; studying does this; conversation; actions. This is why we move in and out of discussing experience as well as technique as well as intention and recording—the things we do reinforce future things. Where water runs, it runs again. Developing habits that aid writing/creativity generally are important, and once the individual has this notion down, they can apply it particularly to them, should something personally enriching be useful, keeping up with bird watching and feather collecting, for instance, or walking about city streets in the pre-dawn denoting which shops receive deliveries, talking to these transition-time workers; cataloging, Rear Window style, the comings & goings, lights-on & off, guests, and deliveries of the hundred window complex across the alley (is this considered creepy anymore in the age of ubiquitous cameras and reality tv?). Yes, a patch of rain and a roll of fog bursts into an updraft of ether…

“Permanent knowledge tends to be principles and frameworks that help you make sense of expiring information.”
—from this week’s Interesante article (see below the fold)

Streams of consciousness, let those serve you at times such that, when you feel a flood building, take your leave, get to your seat, and torrent or downpour, wherever you are in the process, even if tight, honed editing is what you need. The deluge is important. Use it when available. But train yourself during these times, prep yourself antediluvially to catch the best flotsam and eschew the floes of unwanted drift. This takes practices and patience. This takes a type of perspicacity that reading widely, thinking deliberately, accustoming your pencil grip, and accepting low levels of success can prime you for. The past moves through any present to enable a more fruitful future. Yakety-yak, that sounds interesting and is, but it’s also a kind of nonsense. Such is art thinking, art talking. Nothing means a thing until it does to the individual. Somewhere in here is the lesson of don’t worry yourself about writing and creating in any way that prevents you from doing it. Once that habit is built, the others can come along. Of course, some people work backwards and sideways, meet a rock and ricochet or lazer through it. Flow according to your will and your wont but be aware of flowing at all so that you can know how you might. Clouds are as useful as clarity, course changes as currents. Ah, and today, we’re finding dimished views and doused firmaments to be beautiful. Flowy.

Waleɲumandɔn!
(Gratitude)

---

~We’re so happy you’re here!~

---

---

Poetry by Ann Huang

Frogs

When does the moon start and the stars shy away?
You soak in red for which there is one world.
One parachute, frog-figured, stroll along the wide
Apex of forest.

There is this color of trees, sun bliss and me,
And more emotion.
More so the remaining inflictions that run and flow,
Unveiling the same parachute that flies over,
Now blowing once.

A couple, a derailing train,
The swift bushes rejoin peaceful trails.
Somehow a big bell gaily dances,
Loud at the end, quiet earlier,
Its dry, multiplicity.

The living are there. 
You are crowded.

---

---

Final Deadline is June 30: The Write-In

The Write-In Residency will sponsor 1-2 individuals, where selectees are gifted a curated package of 10 new books in multiple literary genres from 10 independent publishers, a Moleskin & pen, and a $300 award to upgrade their writing nook or home office. Click the logo for details or…

---

Writers Submit: Three Magazines