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This Writing Life: News & Highlights
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September 18, 2004
I teach young writers, ages 14-16 in a special "Gifted and Talented Kids" program funded by the Westchester Arts Council and the city of Greenburgh, NY. Last spring, when half the semester was already gone, a younger student, Charlotte Greene (then 13), came to our attention and was “promoted” into my class, which is for “Advanced Writers.” She read a poem (although we are essentially a prose group) that was outststanding. I urged her to consider sending it out to various journals, believing it was publishable. I’ve made this suggestion often and have had success in placing five stories by kids in my group in a national.journal, but that was because of my own letter-writing -- kids seem to be daunted by the process of submission, probably fear of rejection. To my surprise and delight Charlotte followed my suggestions and had her poem accepted by Creative Kids (circulation 7,000).
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April 15, 2004
Pudding House (which had published several of my poems) invited me to publish a chapbook with them as part of a series they publish to archive poets they choose (about 200+ chapbooks in this series published thus far). These books are never allowed to go out of print and are housed in several collections (the libraries of Ohio State U., SUNY/Buffalo, Brown University, to name a few). Only poets they invite are included in this series. Five pages of biographical material and 12 poems that the poet considers crucial in his/her development. Mine, called Earl Coleman Greatest Hits (1960-2003), appeared in June.
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Nov. 21, 2003:
A 4-page tabloid interview published in River King,
Vol. IX, No. II, Autumn-Winter 2003.
April 4, 2003:
My story "Pearl
Diving" nominated for Best American Short Stories series 2003 by Eureka Literary Journal.
Jan. 19, 2003:
4 poems appeared in the anthology New Century
North American Poets (Freeburg, IL: River King
Poetry Press, 2002) -- "Eleven
in the Sticks," "Busting
Out," "Candy Store Caper," "Merger."
Jan. 15, 2003:
Midnight Mind (an e-zine) declared the week of Jan. 15 to be Earl Coleman Week, and published a different poem each day for five days: "Lightly Packed," "Comfort Food," "Theme
and Variations at the Met," "Candy Store Caper," "Waiting."
Jan. 9, 2003:
(My birthday) Midnight Mind published my prose poem "Weltanschauung" (my first appearance there). This resulted in Earl Coleman Week, the item above.
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Everyone has red-letter days when things come together. Birth is one. Marriage. Graduation. For writers such days can be specifically focused on those days most welcome in the writing life: First Publication. First book. Anthologized. Awards. As an optimist, I'm initiating this section at this moment, in the winter of 2003, approaching my 88th birthday. I'll begin with the current year, 2003 (which has been quite wonderful in my writing life), and add to it as we go with future updates of this site, going backward in time, so that at some point this section will act as a kind of diary or chronology of my writing life's red-letter days.
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© Copyright 2003-2005 by Earl Coleman. All rights reserved.
For reprint permissions contact Earl Coleman, emc@stubbornpine.com.
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