"for the right readers..."

[bronze_ribbons]

From the August 2007 of O: The Oprah Magazine, page 156:

...In countless conversations I have had, someone has said something and I have had several responses at once, sometimes responses that were nonverbal, coming to me in confused masses of feeling, images, and half-formed thoughts that I could not refine into words until, say, sometime the next day. Anything I did say would feel partial to me and often sounded just plain dumb.

Writing is in some way being able to sit down the next day and go through everything you wanted to say, finding the right words, giving shape to the images, and linking them to feelings and thoughts. ... It's being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page. If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapated to its new environment. It is a deeply satisfying feeling.

- Mary Gaitskill

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Several other folks have linked to the call for the Tears of the Phoenix anthology already, but I thought I ought to highlight a few things here (mainly to nudge certain members of the friendslist who've been making noises about producing original work):

The anthology is seeking original poems, drabbles, flashfic, short stories, and art.

The prompts can be combined, and they do not have to be executed in full.

Also, those of you who dig iambic pentameter might should consider entering the Science Fiction Poetry Association sonnet contest.

(I'm not affiliated with either group. I am noodling around some things I'm hoping to finish in time to submit to 'em.)