Mixed Genres--Part II

It's cold here in the northeast. The days are so short you barely feel sunlight on your skin. I wake and leave for work in the dark and get home in the dark. I only see daylight if I find a brief few seconds to go for a walk at lunch time or sneak next door for a hazelnut coffee from Subway, which I have become quite enamored of. I wouldn't say I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder but the winter certainly is not a warm and happy season. But there is always light.

I mentioned already that I have plotted a novella-in-flash-stories and will write it as a chapbook for the Rose Metal Press chapbook contest in November. I have a second idea for another flash fiction chapbook as well as a flash nonfiction chapbook. So I will be writing quite a bit in 2015.

Although will take a lot of my creative time, there are still other creative projects brewing. Rose Metal Press just announced a mixed-genre contest with a May 30 deadline and I need, badly need, to take advantage of this opportunity to expressive my creative side.

There is a contest for a 48 page, or longer, collection of any genre of text along with art work. And there is a prose poem contest that also requires a 48 page plus book ms to be submitted. I am taking this genre mixing to one more level for this particular contest.

I plan a linked series of prose poems that will include mixed media collage work. It will be 50 poems with 10 pieces of art. It's a huge endeavor given it's deadline of the end of May. But perhaps the joy of poetry writing and the brightness of working with images and paint will brighten up these short days.

By the time I emerge in the spring with a completed prose poetry and art book the days will be stretching into more sunshine and warmer temps and I can stretch myself out while I muse on the completion of the chapbooks which are due in November.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

And head over to Rose Metal Press and see if these contests appeal to you too.

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