Writers Unbound

2) Mastermind and support groups. These groups require an on-going committment. You may need to optimize your highest listening and communication skills. They are an on-going more time intensive investment. Unlike a 12 week class (which is also good for networking) you may not be able to hide as easily.

These groups offer many benefits and take a variety of forms. I will expand on these ideas at a future date. The matermind group ideally will be comprised with at least one person with more experience than yourself, and others focused on similar tasks at you are. Everyone will be somewhat task oriented and homework: project assignments are a must. Thus each week everyone will be accountable for reporting back on progress.

Everyone won’t necessarily succeed every week, but everyone will create habits that move them along clearly, and hopefully tangibly toward their project completion.

Support groups usally function quite differently. THey may include a mix group of people from many fields. They may be more feeling oriented and concerned with your process. Be careful not to underate the power and what you will learn from these groups. The informal nature and personal committment to you may provide the comfort zone you need to approach many projects in your life. SOmeone there too may know the perfect person for you to professionally connect with. They may help you feel more confident so that you are ready to move ahead. They help you relieve stress or writing blocks.

Choos a group that is right for you. You don’t have to met every week, once a month may fit what everyone can do. Find multiple ways you can network and do them often. You will be glad you did.

This collection of 600 recipes can be found on many sites including:

http://www.ravinia.org/AboutUs.aspx

There are several Noteworthy Books following the first and all were collated for fundraising for the festival. It’s a lovely book. Get a copy. Now the learning here is if you wantt o create a smashing success for a fundraiser…browse Noteworthy and see what they did. Also if you write cookbooks then perhaps you can obtain a contract towork with the favorite charity of your choice. Enjoy!
Noteworthy: A Collection of Recipes from the Ravinia Festival more books like this

by Ravinia Festival Womens Board

$16.29

(used hardcover, see detail)*

add to wishlist
This award-winning cookbook was brilliantly orchestrated by the Ravinia Festival Women’s Board as a way to raise money for music scholarships and the venerated music festival. This harmonious collection of more than 600 recipes is the result of three years of collecting, testing, tasting, collating, and indexing. These dishes stand the test of …

Since 1904, Ravinia has been Chicago’s “sound of summer,” a place where you can meet up with your friends, have a wonderful time and hear some of the greatest music in the world. We’ve got stars on the stage and stars in the sky, and it’s all within your reach. But there’s more to Ravinia than merely the world’s greatest music. For as many people who walk through Ravinia’s gate each summer, there are just as many ways to enjoy what we call “The Ravinia Experience.” For some, it all starts with a picnic picked up along the way, followed by a hop on the train and greeting your friends at your favorite spot on the lawn. Gradually, day turns into evening, and from the comfort of your perfect lawn spot, it culminates in a great concert by candlelight as you gaze at the stars above.

Music Venues
Take a tour of the Pavilion, the Martin Theatre, Bennett•Gordon Hall, and the lawn.

History of Ravinia
Read about the fascinating history of Ravinia.

Information / FAQ
Get more information and see the Frequently Asked Questions.

The Ravinia Family
Learn about the people behind Ravinia and job opportunities.

Join Yvonne Perry, Owner of Writers in the Sky Creative Writing Services (WITS) as she hosts the Book Marketing Maven Dana Lynn Smith on WITS Podcast this Friday, July 17.

Dana Lynn Smith specializes in developing book marketing plans for nonfiction books, and she is the author of the Savvy Book Marketer Guides series of e-books for authors and publishers. Dana has a degree in marketing and 15 years of publishing experience. Dana will be discussing her two newest e-books in the series of The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guides, which were edited by Writers in the Sky Creative Writing Services.

Did you know that nearly $2 billion worth of books are purchased by U.S. libraries each year? Learn how to tap into this potentially lucrative market with The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Selling Your Book to Libraries. This valuable resource is packed with practical advice, and the 22-point Action Plan will guide you through the process of marketing your book to libraries, from start to finish. You’ll also get contact information for the top public and academic library systems in the U.S. and major wholesalers, distributors, book review journals, and library associations.

The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing will help you harness the power of viral marketing and online community to sell more books. You’ll learn to use a variety of social marketing tools, including:

• Social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter
• Reader communities, like Goodreads and Shelfari
• Social bookmarking and news sites, such as Digg and StumbleUpon
• Media sharing sites, like YouTube and Flickr
• Online forums and blogs

This 210-page guide includes hundreds of clickable hyperlinks, numerous screen shots, an online marketing glossary, and Action Plans designed to jump start your social marketing activities. The Savvy Book Marketer Guides are available at http://tr.im/k3Qh.

For free book marketing tips, visit Dana’s blog at http://www.bookmarketingmaven.com/ and also sign up for her Savvy Book Marketer newsletter there.

Listen to this interview on http://yvonneperry.blogspot.com

Like a Canvas

The canvas stands bare
waiting to be given life.

Calming pastel colors,
soft clouds floating in
a happy sky of blue.

Silver moon leading
stars though the night,
hope for tomorrow,

or a dark, raging sea,
tossing waves about,
no peace to find.

Life is like a canvas.
You the artist hold the brush.

Gail Livesay’s passion is writing poetry but she also writes plays, fiction and non-fiction short stories and is currently revising her autobiography about growing up with undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Gail has been published by Poetry as Prayer, Appalachian Women Speak, Breath and Shadow, a selection of her work was used as part of a production by New Mummers Group, USAdeepsouth, Oncology Times Applachian Women’s Journal, Women on Earth, Appalachian Connection, Helium, Writers in the Sky E-zine, and LaChance publishing.

Part of the Promise

I was her friend before she was his wife.
They had a little baby; they had a great life.
We used to go line-dancing; we played golf.
We used to go to movies; we hung out.

Part of her promise to him was not running with me.
But sometimes here was where she wanted to be.

Then he got a little problem,
getting stoned and getting high.
We had to get him in re-hab. At least we had to try.
I cashed a pay check; handed the money to him.
Take it, dude. Do you want to owe me or them?

Part of his promise was to understand her and me.
He wanted to be well, he wanted to be clean.

It worked; he’s better. One day at a time.
Some days are good; some, not-so; mostly, he’s fine.
We can start to stop worrying;
we’ll get it back some day.
When I see their baby smile, I know we’re okay.

Part of his promise to me was being back in their life.
He knows I’ll always be her friend;
he knows she’ll always be his wife.

Janice Bossing
Joelton, Tennessee

I Read the Last Page First

I was lost
Couldn’t find my way
Then I opened the Good Book
I read the last page first
and knew I would be found.

No need to fret and worry
The answer was there
for all to see.
I read the last page first
and knew God would help me.

So when you are unsure
which way to turn,
take the short cut back home.
It’s on the last page
and he’ll be there for you, too!

Irene Brodsky from Poetry Unplugged

Like Drunken Cowboys

There’s a place inside my head where hurt never filters in,
A place to heal, where I can know I’m my own best friend,
Sometimes find it easier than facing reality,
Like drunken cowboys living without a dream.

Call me crazy; call me a fool, for shutting out the world.
I just need time to contemplate the way my life’s unfurled.
Wouldn’t want to take it out on everyone around
Like drunken cowboys tearing up the town.

I don’t want to think about forever,
Trying hard to make it through the storm.
Toughening my feelings into leather
Til it just doesn’t matter anymore.

Take a step back to a time when
Life was a free-for-all,
Where disagreements could always be settled
in a barroom brawl
Where consequences and concerns were not a high priority
Like drunken cowboys living wild and free.

Dennis S Martin
Web site: www.iwritesome.com
Blog: www.iwrtiesome.blogspot.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvzlQAjbcT0

Marianne Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American poet and writer.

Contents [hide]
1 Life
2 Poetic career
3 Later years
4 Selected works
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Life
Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of construction engineer and inventor John Milton Moore and his wife, Mary Warner. She grew up in her grandfather’s household; her father having been committed to a mental hospital before her birth. In 1905, Moore entered Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and graduated four years later. She taught at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, until 1915, when Moore began to publish poetry professionally.

[edit] Poetic career
In part because of her extensive European travels before the First World War, Moore came to the attention of poets as diverse as Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, H.D., T. S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound. From 1925 until 1929, Moore served as editor of the literary and cultural journal The Dial. This continued her role, similar to that of Pound, as a patron of poetry, encouraging promising young poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery and James Merrill, and publishing early work, as well as refining poetic technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf85YP4FOpo
Photograph by George Platt Lynes (1935)In 1933, Moore was awarded the Helen Haire Levinson Prize from Poetry. Her Collected Poems of 1951 is perhaps her most rewarded work; it earned the poet the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bollingen Prize. Moore became a minor celebrity, in New York literary circles, serving as unofficial hostess for the Mayor. She attended boxing matches, baseball games and other public events, dressed in what became her signature garb, a tricorn hat and a black cape. She particularly liked athletics and athletes, and was a great admirer of Muhammad Ali, for whose spoken-word album, I Am the Greatest!, she wrote liner notes. Moore continued to publish poems in various journals, including The Nation, The New Republic, and Partisan Review, as well as publishing various books and collections of her poetry and criticism. Moore corresponded for a time with W. H. Auden and Ezra Pound during the latter’s incarceration.

Her most famous poem is perhaps the one entitled, appropriately, “Poetry”, in which she hopes for poets who can produce “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” It also expressed her idea that meter, or anything else that claims the exclusive title, “poetry,” is not as important as delight in language and precise, heartfelt expression in any form. She often composed her own poetry in syllabics. These syllabic lines from “Poetry” illustrate her position: poetry is a matter of skill and honesty in any form whatsoever, while anything written poorly, although in perfect form, cannot be poetry:

nor is it valid
to discriminate against “business documents and
school-books”: all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry

Top Raw Food Recipe Books For Families
Are you finding that your raw recipes aren’t working for your family? If you’re looking for specifically family friendly raw recipes, then look no more.
1. Rawvolution

Matt Amsden has written and illustrated this very inspiring yet simple to use recipe book. It contains highly useful information, such as ‘Stocking Your Kitchen’, which details not only the basic equipment needed, but also basic ingredients for making raw food preparation easy. ‘How To Eat Raw While Traveling’ is fantastic for school and work with recipes for foods the raw foodist can proudly take anywhere. Examples are Veggie Cakes, Felafel and Onion Bread.

2. Eating Without Heating. Favorite Recipes from Teens Who Love Raw Food.

Sergei and Valya Boutenko are the teenage children of the famed raw Boutenko family. Clearly, they love eating raw and have beautifully put together their favourite raw recipes. Examples are Italian Rawsage, Nori Rolls and Sergei’s Amazing Truffles. Both teenagers and parents will find this book a real treat to have.

3. Green For Life.

This ground-breaking book by Victoria Boutenko was an Independent Publisher Award Finalist. She clearly and simply explains why we should be feeding ourselves and families more dark leafy greens in the form of raw green smoothies. Over 17 delicious green smoothie recipes are given, making it easy to consume these otherwise bitter nutrients. Examples are Raspberry Dream and Summer Delight.

4. Eat Smart Eat Raw.

Kate Wood has written this wonderful and practical cookbook, having successfully tested the recipes on her own husband and children. Even the most resistant husband or child will love tasty delights such as Pasta Sauce and Calcium Candies. And each recipe has measurements in both metric and pounds. A must for any family’s raw food chef.

For lots more on natural living for all the family get ‘Secrets Of Natural Living In The Modern World’ FREE at http://www.youfeelgreatnaturally.com

By Eve Zhu
Published: 3/25/2008

She has cookbooks too.

It’s time to submit your book reviews, articles, poems, and announcements about anything related to writing, editing, publishing, and book promotion.

If you wish to contribute anything to Writers in the Sky Newsletter for July 2009, please review the guidelines on our Web site: http://writersinthesky.com/writing-newsletter.html.

Hurry, the deadline is June 24, 2009!

Yvonne Perry
Owner of Writers in the Sky Creative Writing Services