Ephemera Newsletter Iss Sept.3

(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter free edition, Suungaalhkyinn! (Burmese for “friends”)

We invite anyone who has not yet thought about the Good Contrivance Farms Residency to learn more. Our yearly residency we sponsor helps our letter and provides an opportunity for at least 1 intrepid writer to win a free week’s stay at the Good Contrivance Farm!

Submit a writing sample for a chance to stay at the Hen House Cottage for a week where you can focus on creativity surrounded by idyllic pastures and natural beauty. There are folks to interact with at the farm as well. Deadline is Oct 1!

Or else, please join us to support the letter so we can continue to bring weird tidbits, mini essays, artists and music from a writerly lens, opportunities and other literary and creative ephemera. Thanks and onward!

Avren Keating, Ephemera’s poet for September!

You can review all of Avren’s poems altogether once they publish as well as Avren’s artist statement and bio on this dedicated post. We thank you for checking out Avren’s work.

Won’t you please check out last week’s issue if you missed it.

And here are some reminders:

• Monthly Invite to Submit: We are open for November now. September 30 is the deadline. Paying the reading fee will grant you 1-month paid access to Ephemera’s full letter. Learn more or:

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In Brief…this week’s features:

• Thoughts on the artist collaboration of Abramovic and Ulay.

• Listening to Julian Casablancas of The Strokes and thinking about collaboration.

• September’s poet, Avren Keating’s third of four poems, “Container Era.”

• 3 magazines with open calls

• 3 awards/prizes

• 3 recent job listings for editors and writers.

• Interesante: In this issue, we look into young writers responding to questions about jealousy.

• Book Recs, bonus content, and our mini-essays to start!

  • Support us on Bookshop - See our past book recs and others. A highly curated list: Book rec this week is about jealousy.

• Recent Past:

  • Last Month’s Free Issue

• Final Deadline October 1

• or

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

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Ephemera

Helene did her worst. We pray for the folks further west in the Appalachians who saw floods and true deluge, for the folks on the coast directly in the path of the storm, inland, too, where inundation was unavoidable. These stormy days… conflict, after living a while, by the by, is our deeply and perhaps darkly affected twin we’ll never cast off—nor would we want to; no, we’ll want to be anti-fragile, resilient, and be capable of weathering outbursts from sister nature. Which may be why we’re continuing to think on collaboration, but maybe we’ve migrated under that heading to the concept of push and pull, duality, maybe, and how we might think to use forces in conflict to our advantage. Generate presence if faced with absence. Twist with twisters. Drop your notes in the whirl and expect a rearrangement that you’ll need to turn to your advantage.

“Basically you’re like a parent with your own work. You know you’re going to irrationally love it and think it’s smarter and better than anything else, so you have to almost counter that with a weird, irrational hatred/distrust. … Only after you look it with the intense hater goggles and you’re like, ‘Well, I guess that’s okay,’ can you safely say, ‘Oh, I think this is good.’”
—Julian Casablancas, interview in thecreativeindependent.com

You can take this to your stanzas or your characters. Lines and metaphoric dalliances you have stowed away in stacks of notebooks. Tension exists in the space of the negotiation, so why not harness it? Maybe we’ll turn here and push for our readers to find this tension from peers. Let this serve as a reminder to step off your island or to invite people aboard whatever creative raft you’ve strung together. We can’t be so precious, and we can’t afford to have no foreign eyes on our work. Do your worst, has been our motto with regard to any readers. Tear this to shreds. Anti-fragile, we are. But, too, we should caveat, you ought expect to hear about what is working, what is great, what readers or editors connected with and why, maybe as the marshmallow of a criticism smore. If you can’t find another, become that voice for yourself. Twirl and stomp and bray and yelp, storm against your most favorite intrigues, Darlings. If the precious bits survive your maelstrom, the destroyer you, creator you will feel worthy of that affection.

Kyaayyjuutararr!
(Gratitude)

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Poetry by Avren Keating

Container Era

We’re here to hear hell in foal; 
to see a stream marring
itself in different spots, each ripple replicating 
a horse churning into our own shores. 

Instead, you’ve got everything packed
behind the tin can lid moon, and I can
respect that because I do the same. 
Point to the shine, the edge’s sharpness
where it’s cut clean by the dark,
what it can hold without saying a word. 

You think you can make it out
when you’re ready, when you’ve found a knife
to open. But this isn’t just some Blue Period—
none of us makes it 
out of this; not a single one of us 
makes it out of this. 

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Prizes/Awards/Stipends Winter ‘24

Yale Younger Poets Prize awards $1,000 & publication w/ Yale University Press. It’s the oldest annual literary award in the United States. Includes a residency at The James Merrill House. $1k + Pub + Residency. $25 fee.  DEADLINE NOVEMBER 15

Kurt Vonnegut Prize in Speculative Fiction awards $1,000 and publication at the North American Review to an unpublished short story in the genre. Flash and longer accepted. Judged by Allegra Hyde. $1k + Pub. $23 fee.  DEADLINE NOVEMBER 2

EPHEMERA’S RESIDENCY: FINAL CALL — DEADLINE OCT 1

• We’ve teamed up with Good Contrivance Farm for a 3rd time! We’re sponsoring up to two (2) writers each for a 1-week stay and a travel stipend to the Good Contrivance Farm Residency in Maryland.

  • 1 and up to 2 applicants will be chosen after submissions close

  • 1-week on the farm per person (valued at ~$900)

  • $200 stipend

  • Total Value: $1100

  • $30 application fee

or

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Music: Julian Casablancas