FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
May this final Book Ends for 1997 find you, dear Book Ends reader, just exactly as holly-jolly, as come-all-ye'd and faithfully fa-la-la-la'd as you wanna be. (This season's wish is meant to be interpreted in the light of your own personal beliefs, traditions and practices, of course.)
Okay, now your halls have been well decked and you've wassailed with your near and dear ones. What about the aftermath, the post-holiday stock-taking pause for rue and resolve? It's well known that if you scratch a passionate reader (like yourself, perhaps?) you'll get back-handed with a book - but after that, you may also uncover that reader's long-cherished desire to write. So when you're making your 1998 resolutions, remember William Blake's folksy advice: "It is better to murder an infant in the cradle than to nurse unacted desires." I suppose that Proverb of Hell ought to be read in context, but you get the gist, right? The part about unlocking the tightly puckered lips of your fondest hopes from the sweet teat of the wet nurse Procrastination? Consider, in the year to come, just, as they say, doing it.
Now that you're resolved, you have two months (starting... now!) to send your work off to some worthwhile contests. The Calgary Writers Association Short Fiction contest offers $75 and publication to the winner, with smaller purses and publication for two runners-up. Submit unpublished stories up to 2,500 words. Get details from Joan at 242-3130. Or if you're a young poet languishing in Grades 6-12, write a winning poem and let the League of Canadian Poets buy you and some friends a nice $500 lunch. Fax 416-514-0096, e-mail league@ican.net, or check www.swifty.com/lc/ for details. Both of the preceding contests have March 1 deadlines. There's a National Poetry Contest for us oldies, too - info from the same League of Poets source, but the deadline's January 31 for this one.
And the Book Ends resolution for 1998? A column that's just a tad less event driven, with more about the real live people who write, read, sell, celebrate and sustain Calgary's book world.
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