On Writing – KEVIN CRAIG

International Literary Seminars Fiction and Poetry Contest Now Open!

Why a lion photo for a writing contest? I went to Kenya with the SLS in 2009 on a partial fellowship after entering ‘this’ contest…

The International Literary Seminars Fiction & Poetry Contest is now open for entries!

A little backstory…

Once upon a time there was an organization called Summer Literary Seminars (SLS)(1998-2019). There is now an organization called International Literary Seminars (ILS). They list SLS as their parent. From their ABOUT page:

“Our mission as a not-for-profit organization is to amplify the literary and cultural visibility of Nairobi and Lamu within an international context and with a particular focus on showcasing the vibrant and complex voices of emerging East African writers.”

I entered the SLS fiction contest and went to the Kenya seminar in 2009 after being awarded a partial fellowship to attend.

Me and my two 2009 SLS retreat besties, Jennifer and Manjula. Lamu, Kenya, December, 2009.

You can click the link below to go right to the contest page for entry and prize details:

2023 ILS + FENCE FICTION AND POETRY CONTEST

The prizes are substantial. First place will win full scholarship, which includes tuition, accommodation, and an airfare stipend. You can see the other prizes by clicking the above link.

The program is an excellent experience. The itinerary will be different than the one I had when I went through SLS, but it’s also essentially the same. You will go to both Nairobi and Lamu, which were the settings I experienced through SLS. This was a life-changing retreat for me in more ways than one. They have an excellent writing program, and it is perfectly balanced with the cultural experience of place.

Nairobi, as seen from a hilltop looking into the city.

You should enter this contest!

Lamu was such a wonderful laid back experience after the whirlwind tour I had of Masai Mara and Nairobi. We had writing classes on an open rooftop with views of the Indian Ocean.

For more on my own personal experiences on Lamu Island, visit THIS LINK: THE WHITE RABBIT OF LAMU AND TIME MARCHES ON

Here’s a link to a detailed rundown of this year’s ILS program, which begins in Nairobi. It runs from DECEMBER 5th – 20th, 2023>>> 2023 PROGRAM

It looks like the entry fee is $19.00USD. ILS is a not-for-profit organization.

Other things to know: Submissions are capped at 1,000. They had over 450 entries last year. Fiction can be a short story OR a novel excerpt—unpublished at 6,000 words or less. Poetry is up to 3 poems. Entries are accepted until AUGUST 25th, through Submittable.

Good luck! May you fall in love with Kenya as I did!

With participants of SLS 2009 with some of the Masai on Lamu, Island.

Gearing Up for Muskoka Novel Marathon Number 15! Now Accepting Sponsors!

As July creeps closer to us (or us closer to it?!), this year’s Muskoka Novel Marathon prep is gearing up! That’s right, it’s now time for the writers to begin their fundraising efforts.

Writers at the 2016 Muskoka Novel Marathon’s opening day!

This is always the hard part for me! It’s a big ask, and it’s become an even bigger one in these times. And there is the donor exhaustion thing, as well. People thinking, ‘just how many times is this idiot going to keep doing this thing and asking us for money?!’

The in-person event location for the MNM. This year is ONLINE again…

The answer is, I’ll probably keep doing it for as long as it exists. It’s an extremely beneficial event for me. I’ve probably written more words at the Muskoka Novel Marathon than I’ve written during any other time of the year ever. In fact, I know I have. It’s what gives me the right to continue to call myself a writer.

AND…I’m also passionate about the fundraising side of this event. LITERACY! It’s what writers value most. 100% of the collected funds goes right into literacy programs. 100%!

Literacy is really an umbrella word here. The YMCA literacy programs do SO much!

Academic upgrading (non-credit)
Literacy and basic skills in reading, writing and math
Computer and life skills
GED and ACE preparation
E-learning
English as a Second Language (ESL)
Savvy Seniors

As well as helping students upgrade their basic literacy skills, they help new immigrants to Canada and seniors who are lost in today’s new tech savvy online world. Their programs are far reaching.

Fun Photo time! This is from the 2018 MNM! Every Sunday of the Marathon Sue Kenney takes the writers on a little walk in the woods!

Small donations go a LONG way, because they add up! We can do this together! Since the inception of the MNM, writers have collected roughly $215,000.00! That is no small feat, but I guarantee you that the total was built up one dollar at a time. Nothing you donate is too small.

This year’s marathon is: July 14 – 17, 2023

If you’re a writer, you can still register to participate in the Marathon. LEARN MORE HERE.

If you would like to help by sponsoring me, I would be so thrilled! Here’s a LINK TO MY PERSONAL YMCA FUNDRAISING PAGE.

HERE IS MY MNM PROFILE PAGE, WHICH ALSO HAS A LINK TO MY DONATION PAGE.

Let’s see what our little army of writers can do with your help this year! We are writers helping you to help readers.

From the Ashes of Failure – Hope Springs Eternal

I have never been a hope-springs-eternal kind of person. Never. If anything, I learned early on that failure and despair were so much easier to attain than success that they might as well just be sought out in its place. Why climb a ladder, when you can just as easily scuttle your way sideways to the non-triumphant ending. The journey’s shorter and your hopes don’t get dashed along the way.

And once you begin that journey of expected failure, a rut begins to form in the ground beneath you. It constantly leads you down that same path. Until you figure out a way to crawl up out of it. Until you give yourself permission to succeed, permission to aim for success. Until you give yourself grace. You can only break that pattern–that rut–once you begin to believe in yourself and in failure’s opposite and your right to it.

Anyway. I find myself at the end of a two-year battle with a novel I had to eventually chuck away. I swear, I will never look back on it again. My first missed deadline, my first broken contract.

And because I found a way to crawl out of that rut I dug out for myself early on, I’m going to give it another go. I’m now, once again, at the beginning of something. Starting fresh.

New words. New story. I’m trying to ease my way in… to have a soft landing into this new world I’m creating. In truth, my hopes for it are almost non-existent. I took such a beating with this failed novel, that it’s almost like I can’t imagine myself writing another word ever again.

But, hope really does spring eternal. That’s why I dove in to this new project. I need to break the cycle. I need to believe that just because I failed once, it doesn’t mean I’ll fail again. I don’t want to stop writing. I love writing. It was the story I grew to hate, not the process. I took a story and tried to bend it to the will of the publisher who didn’t want it in the form in which I created it. To be clear, this wasn’t the publisher’s fault. They’re a great publisher. It’s my fault for turning my back on the story in order to get the contract. I tried to reinvent a story that did not want to be reinvented.

There are never any guarantees that state just because you begin a novel that you will see it through to its ending. Many a novels have crashed and burned before completion. Lesson learned. The hard way.

I guess I learn all my lessons the hard way. Not that I’m a fan of that process, it’s just what happens. It’s frustrating, but it’s who I am.

I scrapped the novel. It’s gone. Without a trace. And now I write this blog post to hold myself accountable to what comes next. To remind myself to keep going.

As the song goes…

“Nothing’s impossible I have found,For when my chin is on the ground,I pick myself up,Dust myself off,Start all over again.”

I opened a new MSWord file and I stepped into a new idea. It’s all new and glowing and nice and pretty. My job now is simply to stick with it, to see if it has legs enough to get to the finish line. I owe it to myself to try. I’ve had 2 years of fruitless struggle with the old manuscript. I took something that had legs and I cut them out from under it. This time, I will write what I want to write and no one will see it until (if) I write those two magical words at the bottom of the last page. THE END. Until then, I carry on. What was it that F Scott Fitzgerald said? “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” I don’t know about the past, but I will beat on…and after the struggle I had, my boat is definitely against the current!

Wish me luck!

The books that DID make it to the finish line (proof, for myself, that not all of my projects fail). Click the image below to find out more about them:

Gene’s Jealousy – Why Do You Write?

I often wonder why writers write. What was it that brought you to the place of writing?

When I try to answer this question myself, so many moments in my early reading life come to mind. From Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women to Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids. But I always rush forward in my reading trajectory to a boy on the outstretched limb of a tree, being caught off guard when his friend gives the branch the slightest jostle, sending him crashing to the ground beneath.

Looking back, I now see that moment of I WANT TO BE A WRITER forever entwined–entangled?–with Gene’s jealousy of the almighty perfect-in-every-way Phineas.

Though some of the themes in John Knowles’s of A Separate Peace hold no interest to me whatsoever (I always shy away from any story centered around war and sports are, well impenetrable and uninteresting), it is the relationship between these two main characters that enthralled me so much. From the first pages of this story, I could see what the writer was doing. It was as though I was locked into the story while at the same time capable of bearing witness to the scaffolding behind the story. The scaffolding, in this case, was a simmering jealousy that was effortlessly displayed by the author through the narrator’s gaze. This jealousy boiled throughout the story more powerfully than a screaming tea kettle. I was fascinated by the way the author was manipulating the reader. I wanted to do that. Such duplicity, and such a way of making me, the reader, feel solidarity simultaneously with both characters.

The way Gene, right from the beginning of the story, prayed for his best friend’s failure and comeuppance. And assumed–wrongly, because he was incapable of thinking in any way other than his own–that Finny felt the same way about him.

That relationship and the way it thrilled me as a young reader, that right there was what I wanted to capture as a writer. I savored that moment Gene realized Finny had not a scrap of jealousy for him…that Finny actually wished nothing but the best for him and was, in fact incapable of thinking mean things about him! That was such a sharp slap, such a quick burn to Gene’s psyche. The way Gene tried to fit Finny’s thinking into the way he himself thought was so telling! And that moment it all came crashing down and Gene realized he was just a mean person whereas Finny was incapable of meanness? It was such a fascinating look into friendships and the duplicitous simmerings that sometimes boiled just beneath the surface of them. By making the narrator, Gene, a small, arrogant, mean, and jealous person, John Knowles started me off on my path to wanting to be a writer.

What’s your Writer Origin Story? I know it’s never as simple as one thing. There’s always this leads to this, leads to this, leads to this, leads to this. It’s kind of like in Stephen King’s book The Tommyknockers. Remember? When Bobbi Anderson was walking with her dog, Peter, in the woods and one of her elderly hiking boots fetched up against something…fetched up hard? She thought it was a tree root until she saw a gleam of metal. Roughly three inches…just enough to trip over. Then she thought it might be a tin can. As she began to dig it out, her thoughts went to bigger and bigger possibilities. A piece of logging equipment? A car? If you read The Tommyknockers, then you know what Bobbi found was much much bigger than a car. Like a sliver of the world’s biggest iceberg, that three inches she tripped over was just the beginning of the colossus she would uncover.

What made you trip over writing? It’s hard to pinpoint that magical moment, but if you think about it, you’ll find it. I might answer differently on another day. I may dig a little deeper to unearth more and realize that it was not Gene’s jealousy and smallmindedness that made that final click with me. But today, that’s what I’ve uncovered. My origin story. Jealousy is as good a reason as any, I suppose. All the emotions fascinate writers, don’t they?

Find my books here: MY AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE

Where is My Ending – Where is Ethan Sinclair…

When we were young, it was such an easy fix to go from malaise to happy. “When your get up and go has got up and went…”

One merely had to reach for a hunk of cheese.

When you’re an old writer who just can’t seem to find their way anymore, there’s more to it. I’ve been trying for the past year to restart my writing life. It’s been all but dead, to be honest. I thought that reading all the right books would be the cure, but nope. I thought that reading my own works would help, but nope. I thought that sitting down and forcing myself to write would help, but nope. I thought that editing my work would help, but nope. I long for the days when everything would be fixed by a good ole hunk of cheese. Those were the days.

I have a deadline with my next (ALREADY CONTRACTED) novel. In truth, I’m over a year past my deadline. My publisher is being really supportive in even allowing me to still strive for a submission date sometime in the uncertain future. Charitable doesn’t begin to describe it. I have been struggling to figure out how to finish this book for 2 years. With no end in sight.

I keep going back to the beginning and editing my way through to figure out an escape, an ending. The struggle is REAL.

Where is Ethan Sinclair. That’s the name of the novel. I don’t f*cking know!? That’s the problem. Where is my ending?! I need an ending. This book is literally killing my desire to write. It’s STOPPING me from beginning other projects, thus completely murdering my writing path. I am now a writer who keeps circling back to the beginning of the novel that won’t tell me its ending.

How’s your writing life going? How about this pandemic?! Really not a good thing for creatives, is it?

Where is my ending?

I think I’ll go and eat some cheese…

If you want, you can pick up my latest book…I wrote it myself, back when I was a writer!

BOOK OF DREAMS (Duet Books/Chicago Review Press) NOW AVAILABLE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD!

Gaige’s curiosity gets the better of him when he discovers a bookstore on an abandoned street where no bookstore should be. He steps inside and is immediately enthralled by its antiquarian sights and smells. But one book in particular calls to him. It isn’t long before he gets a bad feeling about it, but it’s already too late. The store’s aged bookseller gives him no alternative: once he touches the book, it’s his—whether he wants it or not. It’s bought and paid for and there are no returns. The book leads Gaige on a horrific descent into the unknown. As he falls into the depths of its pages, he loses blocks of time, and his friends become trapped inside ancient cellars with seemingly no means of escape. Gaige soon learns that the ancient bookseller is a notorious serial killer from a previous century, and fears that he has fallen into a predicament from which he may not escape. When all seems lost, he finds the one person he can turn to for help—Mael, a sweet teen also trapped inside the book who didn’t fall for the bookseller’s tricks. Together, they race against time to protect Gaige from joining a long string of boys who vanished without a trace inside the book of dreams.

And, hey, stay tuned…WHERE IS ETHAN SINCLAIR just might find a way to end itself. Watch for it (hopefully) in 2023…if there is a god.

One More Time! The Muskoka Novel Marathon Part XIII

Lucky Number 13! Here we go!

It’s that time of year to start gearing up for the annual MUSKOKA NOVEL MARATHON again! And this year will be my 13th kick at the 72-hour novel writing marathon can. I have well and truly found what works best for me. It’s the bum-in-chair once a year chaos of a marathon writing frenzy.

The Active Living Centre in Huntsville, Ontario, where the marathon usually takes place (when there’s not a pandemic).

This event is a fundraiser for area literacy programs. Since its inception, the MNM writers have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars through this marathon. And, as an added bonus, we get to spend an uproarious long weekend together in beautiful Huntsville, Ontario, in the heart of Muskoka.

40 Writers – 1 Room – 72 Hours – 40 Novels

Unfortunately, the past 2 years have been online…and this year will ALSO be online. Damn pandemic! I will tell you right now, it’s not the same as when you have 40 writers living together for 72 hours, sharing one big room, while each attempts to write the Great Canadian Novel. But the magic is still there. We meet through Zoom, we brainstorm, we chat, we laugh. We read our work. There is still a special dynamic that cannot be ignored. It’s still worth it.

Taking a break in the closet at the 2018 Muskoka Novel Marathon. My nap-cubby.

This year’s marathon is JULY 15th to JULY 18th. From Friday at 8pm to Monday at 8pm. If you register and write your novel (or part of your novel) during that 72 hour period, you can submit it at the end of the weekend. It goes to an industry panel of judges and a BEST NOVEL AWARD is chosen for MG/YA and ADULT manuscripts. Winners get prizes and the opportunity to submit their manuscript to a publisher, once they have time to complete it and edit it.

Meet and Greet at the beginning of the 2016 Muskoka Novel Marathon.

The online marathon’s registration fee is only $25. Here’s the INFO PAGE FOR FIRST TIME PARTICIPANTS. Keep in mind that the link covers in person details, but it also has the breakdown of prizes and awards, etc.

The facility where the Muskoka Novel Marathon usually takes place. The writers have one huge room to write in together, with a second room where we all dine together.

The in-person facility for this annual marathon is quite amazing. Once it’s back in-person, you should really consider vying for a coveted seat at the marathon table.

This dock is only a few feet from the building where the marathon takes place when it’s in-person.

Here is what I have done in past years at the Muskoka Novel Marathon:

What I have written at Muskoka Novel Marathon

I’m not sure what my plan is for this year’s marathon. To use a juggling metaphor, a few balls are in the air.

Every time a writer reaches another 10-page milestone, they add a strip of paper with their name on it to the clothesline. It gets pretty full by the end of the weekend!

We will meet online this year. Hopefully this is the last year. The good thing is… we get to introduce NEW people to the Marathon this year. Because it’s online, people from all over the world can join…and there’s no cap on attendance. In person, the cap is 40 writers. So, if you want to focus on your writing for 72 hours in July this year, consider registering. You will get writing time, support, new friendships…win, win! REGISTER HERE.

There is LOTS of silly time to be had at the in-person marathon! Here I am with the zany Karen Elliott. Can’t wait to be back to the in-person event. I can’t believe I get so much writing done at the event, because we have the time of our lives!

I’ve met lifelong friends at the marathon, and also dragged many local writing friends to the event. And I’ve been lucky to get visits most years from my favourite person as well. 🙂

Here’s hoping 2023 is in person. As for 2022…it’s time to register! Cyber-See-You there!

To Create Inside of Chaos

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my position as a creative. When you juxtapose creativity with what is going on with the world today, it’s hard to comprehend that one could simply sit down, zone out, and create…amidst all the chaos.

I mean, honestly, between doomscrolling, masking, and just scraping by emotionally after two solid years of a pandemic…when does one have the time and mental capacity to create? That’s a real question, because I have been suffering terribly trying to come to terms with the answer. There is nothing worse for a creative than WANTING to create but not being able to motivate yourself to do so.

Today alone, we are waking up to Russia attacking Ukraine on the heels of Texas attacking trans kids and teens and their supportive parents days after ignorant moronic anti-masking Nazi racist anti-vaxxers tried to overthrow democracy in Ottawa. The world is so filled with hatred, madness, and rage right now. Where do we find the time to silence that chaos while sitting quietly and creating? It just feels like it would be turning one’s back on something important the very moment one shouldn’t look away. The world is HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

I write this today after seeing a tweet cross my path on Twitter. Initially, I thought, ‘YES, YES, YES!’ It’s great advice. But it’s also somehow debilitating to ponder…especially if that’s exactly what you want to do, but you JUST CAN’T. For context, here is the tweet (click the tweet to go to Cavan’s Twitter):

No shade to Cavan Scott. I actually love the tweet. They’re incredibly right with this advice. Just don’t beat yourself up if you can’t pick up the torch of this tweet and run with your creativity.

It is also in times of trouble that creativity sometimes abandons our hearts. We need to give ourselves permission to NOT act on this tweet if we are unable to. Creativity will never die. YOUR CREATIVITY WILL NEVER DIE. Sometimes we need a break.

When the world is falling to pieces in front of your eyes and you can’t help but feel a deep lasting despair, please don’t complicate things by hating yourself for not being able to take refuge in your creative passions. Sometimes we are simply too overwhelmed to do so. Be kind… to yourself and to others. Times are dire. Be safe. Be the light the world needs in whatever little way you can be without burning yourself out.

Create if you can. Sit this one out if you can’t. Read poetry. Look at the beauty of art. Send hope into the universe for a better humanity. Do what you can to get by. Give yourself GRACE.

Nominated for the Queer Indie’s 2022 Awards!

Hello Readers!

It’s that time of year again. The Queer Indie’s 2022 Awards are upon us! And guess who’s been NOMINATED in the Queer Lit: Youth category?!

ME! It’s me. 🙂

QUEER INDIES is a great resource for independent queer books. Visit their main site page HERE.

This is my second nomination. If you would like to vote for my category (and/or any other category) you can do so by visiting the VOTE PAGE HERE.

Voting in each category is done by drop down box for that category. Just click on the category for which you would like to vote and the nominees will be revealed.

Voting is open until February 7th, 2022.

I Am From…a Poetry Exercise…

I just came across a little chapbook from Sue Reynolds’ Fearless Writers Spring 2004 Session. Some great poetry in it from my fellow participants. An archaeological look at some fine writers who have gone on to do great things since attending Sue’s workshop. If you EVER get an opportunity to be mentored by Sue Reynolds…just do it. No questions asked…just jump in–parachute free–and do it! She’s an exceptional teacher, and a passionate writer!

I thought I’d share the poem I have in the chapbook, mostly because I forgot it ever existed until just now. (-;

I AM FROM…

I am from the rusty Miramichi,

which swells and contracts to the heartbeat of the distant moon.

I am from the smiling lips of Shakespeare,

who tells the young lovers to look up into the night and shout out:

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”

I am from that ancient of minds.

“It is the East,” I say, and I am from the sun.

“Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon,” which I am also from.

I am from the liquid reason of Neruda’s lines.

I am from the forest creatures

who beat a path to my door,

calling out my name through the darkness

of night’s great blanket.

I am from the place where dreams die.

I am from a woman who is strong and dark and proud…

a woman of this soil who tells me that what doesn’t kill us

makes us weaker, but more determined.

I am from that smell that escapes

off the tattered spines of books

in the ancient library.

I am from the sadness that breathes in loneliness

and the happiness that comes with remembering the dead.

I am from anger,

mounted foolishly out of false pride.

I am from the crumbling mountains

that yearn to be flat.

I am from Icarus,

the melted wax of his fallen dreams.

I am from the bridge we left behind

as the last Autumn leaves finished falling.

Thanks to Sue Reynolds for inspiring a whole group of writers to explore their worlds through words! Check out her Inkslingers Writing Workshops, Retreats, and Mentoring (which she does with James Dewar, another great writing mentor) here.

Hemingway’s Paris – Immersive Writing Retreat on the Left Bank!

The Left Bank Writers Retreat – Writing At Hemingway’s Favorite Spots in Paris!

The 2014 Left Bank Writers Retreat faculty and students, of which I was a student. From their website header, this photo was taken by Sarah Suzor. We’re posing in front of Les Deux Magots.

(Full Disclosure: I have no affiliation with Left Bank Writers Retreat. I am merely a past participant who thoroughly enjoyed and cherished the experience given to me by the retreat.)

It appears that the 2022 Left Bank Writers Retreat is a go!

If you or someone in your family would love nothing more than to tour Hemingway’s Paris while going deeper with your writing craft in the midst of the city of love and light, look no further than the Left Bank Writers Retreat!

The knowledgeable faculty are not only experts in the craft of writing, but they’ll immerse you fully into the Paris that Hemingway knew as an expat writer back in the day when he lived and wrote in Paris. And they’re all lovely people you will immediately feel comfortable with as they guide you through your Paris experience.

For me, being a first time visitor to Paris, I was immediately at ease in the presence of the LBWR faculty! You really get a sense that they’re taking care of all the details. Even those evenings when the students are left to their own devices, the faculty is at the ready to answer any questions you may have prior to your individual adventuring.

Visit Hemingway’s haunts, lunch together, explore museums, be guided through neighborhoods that come to life with your LBWR guides! I really can’t say enough about how wonderful my experiences were with this retreat. I think of it fondly and often…these seven years on since participating.

Visit their site for all the details:

LEFT BANK WRITERS RETREAT

Next retreat is June 11-17, 2022!

There is still time to register, either for yourself or for a family member (should you be looking for the perfect Christmas Gift!).

From the front page of the website, a little rundown:

Eight writers will spend a week immersed in new experiences in the magical setting of Paris’s Left Bank. Part writers workshop, part tour of Paris, The Left Bank Writers Retreat is for anyone who would like to break out of a writing rut and build momentum in their work. Will you be one of the 2022 Left Bank Writers?

Cost: $1,999 includes morning workshops, breakfast, lunch each day at a fabulous restaurant, snacks,
museum passes, literary tours, Seine boat ride, Metro tickets and a farewell dinner celebration.

This retreat will enrich your writing life and give you a lifetime of memories. I cannot recommend it enough!

LBWR on FACEBOOK

Retreat Schedule

About Page – Introducing the Faculty

Head on over to the Left Bank Writers Retreat website now, so you can head on over to the Left Bank come June 2022!