Nowadays, poets mostly write free verse. Some exceptions might be birthday cards, kid lit and rap, but awards are rarely meted out to metric verse. Historically, the 20th century was the moment when free verse was finally freed from the formal rules of style, thought to be stodgy and confining (by esteemed poets such as William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore). So, no more counting metre and listing rhymes.

            No beat, no couplets? You might wonder, how then is free verse rhythmic? What are its rhythms? Is it rhythmic? Is it only saying that makes it so? Is there really any difference between poetry and creative non-fiction—don’t both interrupt conventional syntax while engaging figures of speech? Is poetry just a chopping of line?

Compare this:

O brother, put me in your pouch as you would a fresh, sweet locust-pod. For I am frail as a flask of glass, as a fine grey egg, or a slender rod, O brother; and I am the golden ring you wear on your finger so gladly. For God takes everything from you tomorrow, and gives me everything.

with this:

O BROTHER, put me in your pouch    
As you would a fresh, sweet locust-pod.       
For I am frail as a flask of glass,          
As a fine grey egg, or a slender rod,   
O brother; and I am the golden ring          
You wear on your finger so gladly. For God   
Takes everything from you tomorrow, and gives me everything. 
​
                                                            (D. H. Lawrence, “The Child and the Soldier”)           
            Gerard Manley Hopkins, T.S. Elliot and William Carlos Williams all claimed that free verse seeks the inherently poetic rhythm of speech. If that’s so, is this a rhythm that may be heard, felt, shared, learned, known? 
            Let’s think about this some more.

Can you pack a whole story into just a few paragraphs? Of course you can!

The NOWW Flash Fiction Contest is now accepting short-short story entries of 500 words max. Quick and to the point.

The top three stories will earn cash prizes ($75/$50/$25) and publication in our blog this fall.


Contest Rules

• Free entry (you have to be a NOWW member—sign up here, if you’re not a member: http://www.nowwwriters.ca/join-noww.html)

 

• One submission per person

 

• Your story must be 500 words maximum, not including title. Stories that go over the word count max will be disqualified.

 

• Word document preferred (any text document is fine, though if submitting a PDF, please ensure we can cut and paste from it. Please, no links to Google Docs.)

 

• Times New Roman, 12pt., double spaced

 

• At the top of your entry, please include your name, email, phone number, title of your story, and word count (not including title). Then, include your title again and the story.

 

• You can view a sample entry here: https://www.nowwwriters.ca/noww-blog/the-noww-flash-fiction-writing-contest-is-back] ​
• Please do not include anything within the text of the story itself like your name that would make you identifiable. Change character names, if necessary, to ensure the judges will not recognize who the writer is.

​​

• Email to admin@nowwwriters.ca with “Flash Fiction Contest” in the subject line (mailed submissions will not be accepted)

 

• NEW STORIES ONLY, please. Your submission must be:
  • Your own work
  • Unpublished

 

• Deadline Extended to Friday September 25, 2020 at midnight. 

​

Two members of the NOWW board will judge the contest.

            When I submitted my legal mystery to potential publishers, I made two naïve assumptions. First, I presumed plot trumped everything in my chosen genre. Editors would be attracted by the unique, elegant murders I’d fashioned interwoven with authentic legal issues. Second, their job was to refine my grammatically correct, but otherwise utilitarian, prose. Provide the flair to keep readers engaged. A webinar with agent Elizabeth Kracht, writer of “The Author’s Checklist: An Agent’s Guide to Developing and Editing Your Manuscript” changed my perspective.

            Those of you with editors and/or publishers know what’s coming next, so you can stop reading at this point. As an unpublished, aspiring author and former economics teacher, I found her insights invaluable. The supply of manuscripts far outstrips the demand. Agents and publishers are overwhelmed with submissions. According to Kracht, most are three or four extensive edits away from being ready. As such, regardless of how compelling the story, they require too much time and labour to be economically viable. Authors that prepare strategically can avoid this pitfall and refine their work, therefore increasing the chances of success. Thus the purpose of her book.

            Drawing on another economic analogy, I found her work useful on both the macro and micro levels. While chapters are arranged alphabetically around specific focal points from Acknowledgments to World Building, I preferred to divide them into these two broad categories. I zoomed out to examine my overall novel when considering aspects like characterization, plot, point of view, setting, and themes. Checklist questions at the end of each of these chapters helped focus the critical analysis of my outline, the people who inhabit my fictional world, the conflicts they endure, and the context within which they exist. Her pointers on chapter arc were particularly insightful.

            On the micro level, she provides practical information to avoid common pitfalls. She delves into specifics on everything from proofreading to formatting. Each chapter has specific examples that help focus the editing process. In my own experience, this allowed me to layer my revisions, kind of like painting a room in various steps from primer to final coat. At the end of each chapter, she includes checklists to assure the goals have been accomplished.

            On the downside, I found some aspects a little too rigid. For example, she rejects manuscripts that fail to conform to her optimal chapter length parameters. I had heart palpitations after reading her advice. My first reaction was to scan numerous best sellers to see whether they conformed, and much to my relief, they didn’t. She also has rules about the requisite mix of action, description, and dialogue in a chapter. This too was perplexing for me, as some of my chapters have nothing but action as I describe a murder, while others are virtually all conversation as a suspect is interrogated. Again, my limited research suggests that the expectations are not so hard and fast.
​
            Prior to submitting my manuscript, I sought feedback from Beta readers and engaged a freelance editor with experience at a publishing house specializing in mysteries. Since reading Kracht’s book, I’ve spent a month re-editing and feel my story has improved markedly. Her guide provided clear direction to enhance my final product. It’s also far cheaper than hiring someone, although it is more labour intensive on my part. While there are no guarantees my work will be accepted, her advice opened my eyes to the difficult task ahead and brought a framework to meet the challenges of becoming a published author.

Dirty hands, bare feet, rosy cheeks, I was a child of the mud and sky. Fences, rock walls, boarders, and boundaries didn’t exist; they were just one more object to climb, like the swaying crab-apple tree, the rusted tin roof of the back shed, or the wooded composted heap. My parents would release me into the yard after breakfast, an inexorable hurricane. I roamed.


Of all my adventures, my favourite exploration was that of a strange old tub stuck in the middle of the yard, slowly sinking, consumed by earth and time. At night, I would lie awake thinking of the multitudinous crawly creatures that would stray unwittingly over the smooth porcelain sides, falling off the edge of the world as they knew it. And in the mornings, my sister and I would tumble out the back door, a flurry of small padding feet across the deck, in a race to throw ourselves upon the grass and peer over the ledge, to stare down in wonder upon the microcosm below. I was the goddess of them all, those centipedes, grasshoppers, ants, and aphids – and they were my subjects. The beetles were best, with a hidden rainbow to be discovered along the contours of their shiny shells when you held them up to the light. “Eat that one, I dare you” I would say to my wide-eyed little sister, her mouth already smeared with dirt. Our grubby hands were Titans released from the blue abyss above. They scurried. 


But one day, as we continued to chronicle our assortment of creatures, a matted brown nose shot up from the grassy plug hole and shockingly sharp teeth gnashed at the ants migrating up the tub’s slanted walls. We leapt from the tub with a shriek and the creature retreated into darkness. When it did not reappear, I told my sister to take a stick and jam it into the hole, to draw the trespasser out, but the hole was too deep to reach and it stuck. We filled the breach to the roots. It was a shrew, mom told us that night at the dinner table, and we should leave it alone. We waited weeks for it to return, our fingers curled tentatively around the overgrown edges along the tub. We darned not enter. But it never came back. Slowly, the long grass staked its claim, pushing its way through the ever-growing web of ceramic cracks, moisture pooled along the rutted foundation, and the acrid waters became a sea of decomposing insect carcasses. Meanwhile, overhead, we watched the stagnant little world be swallowed whole. We mourned.

 
     When I learn my body escaped, I can’t react. At least, not like I would have before. I have no nails to chew, no shoulders to tense, no cortisol to signal fight, flight to my brain. That’s Disembodiment’s whole selling point, after all. Lack of physicality increases productivity! Without a bladder, there’s no need for bathroom breaks. Without a stomach, no need for lunchtime nourishment. Coffee even becomes irrelevant. Coffee! It’s surprising how alert your mind functions when not captive to a demanding body crying, “Feed me! Walk me! Let’s play! Squirrel!” Kidding on that last one, but really, without the benefit of higher consciousness, humans are more or less like dogs. I’m not saying kill your dog. Just sometimes, when you need to get stuff done, the dog’s best left with a sitter. That’s all.

     Luckily, Disembodiment Tech set up shop (in my neighbourhood of all places!) in a clinic on Fourth above a weed dispensary. Like weed, I thought I’d give it a try once, just once, see what all the buzz was about—though I sorta, kinda got hooked. You can’t blame me. Disembodiment was a game changer! At first, it was just about distraction-free productivity. You know how your brain creates dopamine whenever you get a Like, essentially addicting itself to social media? Not a problem when you don’t have organs! I finished a week’s worth of work in eight hours. Then, two weeks’ worth in a half day. Soon, it evolved into something else entirely. It’s not just that I’d meet up with other Disembodied in the Cloud, it’s that We’d become One.  

     Click. A chord painlessly plugs into my cervical spine. OK, it hurts a little, but not more than a bee sting. My consciousness releases into the Cloud, while my body—set to Zombie Mode—dumbly walks the day away on a treadmill like a hamster in a wheel. Good for the heart they say. Not to mention the calves.  

     Except today, when my session expires, I’m not returned to my body.
​
    “The bodies escaped.” A clinician appears on a billboard beside the Information Super Highway. Her pores look like tar pits, nose too close to her webcam. I zoom out. Better. She’s panicked, sweat beads dripping from her forehead. “Details are scant, though we’re told it was a large-scale event. All over the globe, bodies walked out. Just like that.”

    Enslaved to my body, I would have angered. Asked to speak to a manager. Demanded a refund! WROTE A SCATHING ONLINE REVIEW! Not my fault. Damn adrenal glands. I was under the influence of cortisol and adrenaline, mmmkay? 

     In the Cloud, it’s different. Not beholden to bodies, We Free. 

    We fly into the universe. On our way, We see headlines providing clues to Our bodies’ fates. Mass Migration to Coast! Bodies Taking Over Beaches Worldwide! And, Our personal favourite, Should Bodies Be Granted Human Rights?  
​
    With no pulse to keep rhythm, we chant: We Free, We Free, We Free.  
    

Congratulations to the winners of the NOWW Flash Fiction Contest. 
​
Please enjoy the 3rd place winner, Laura-Lee Pernsky, and her story Mama Bear We will have the second, and first place winner posted very soon.  

“You should take the baby and go for a walk,” he said on his way out the door.
 
I had never wanted to hit someone so badly in my life.
 
I know he meant well, but he thinks that he gets it. He held my hand through it all, sure. Counted the breaths. Brought me the ice chips. Woke me up when I fell asleep through pushes because I was just so exhausted from being torn apart, and then sat beside me as they sliced my belly open and removed our son from the warm cavity of my abdomen.
 
But he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t have flashbacks of blood stained sheets, of excruciating pain, of failing as our baby tried, no, demandedto be brought into this world.
 
And he doesn’t understand the new fears… of everything. Climate change. Measles outbreaks. People who drive too fast on our road. I have to protect this tiny boy from everything and it terrifies me.
 
It had been a brutally cold winter, and no one wants to take a newborn out in that. But now spring was tiptoeing in. The incessant drip, drip of melting icicles on the overhang of our deck. A sun that shone not only light but warmth through our picture window where I would gaze out both hungrily and fearfully as the baby and I would sit in the recliner to nurse and nap. I decided to brave it.
 
I bundled him up in a buffalo plaid bunting suit and tucked him carefully into the carseat, wrapping him in blankets and pulling a little knitted hat down almost over his eyes. I nearly forgot my own hat, but that’s what seems to happen when you become a mom. Off we went.
 
My first steps were tentative, as they are likely to be when you’ve recently recovered from major surgery. My thoughts remained dark despite the bright cerulean sky.
 
We went about a kilometre, then the exhaustion took over and I turned toward home. A sudden rustling caught my attention, and I froze in terror as a bear emerged from the underbrush in the ditch. She was so black she was the absence of colour. I couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Two tiny, scraggly cubs crept out behind her, and our eyes locked over our babies. She stopped and raised her muzzle, tasting my scent of milk and hormones on the April breeze.
 
“It’s okay, Mama,” I whispered as she stared me down, daring me to interfere as the cubs trotted across the road. Then she followed them and disappeared into the leaves.
 
I found a strength I didn’t know I had as I pushed the stroller home at a trot, and exhaled in relief as the door closed behind us. I picked up my son and hugged him tightly. The world was scary for every mother, but I could do this. He was my cub, and I was his mama bear, and we were in this together.

By the time Idmon had been pushed away from twenty three houses, he suffered a broken leg, four eye pokes, a burnt scalp and more scrapes and scratches than he cared to count.  His back ached."Get out!" they would shout at him, when they had words at all, but most often they simply screamed and struck out, trying to rid him from their spaces, even the planet. He knew their hospitality so he was usually prepared, but sometimes he wasn't quite quick enough. A warm space, that's all he wanted. Somewhere in from the wind, somewhere that wouldn't make him too tired to move and freeze his skeleton to the sidewalk. A little food, too. That would be nice.
 
He knew he was intimidating. For his size, he was stronger than anyone ought to be, and they didn't much like his cunning, either. They didn't see that he could be of great help, a vigilant night watchman, and keep order in the depths of their households. His very survival depended on watching, but here he was again, broken. 
 
His entire body throbbed and he had to drag himself onward after an old woman in hair rollers went after him with an umbrella all the way until the end of her driveway, where a man then tried to run him over with his car.  Still, he never fought back. What was the point? So here he was, on the doorstep of house number twenty four. Idmon looked up, hopeful. Please have mercy on my soul. Take me in and let me be of service. I promise I will make you happy until I die. 
 
Firelight glowed through the windowpanes and Idmon yearned to be within. He took a few painful steps, winced, and drug his broken body toward the front door when a small boy leapt out of the house, scarf and hat falling away as he chased a restless dog onto the lawn. "Help me. Please. Angel of heaven!" Idmon begged the child. The boy bent over to retrieve his hat and regarded Idmon for the first time, slumped there, spasming in pain. Like the others, the boy was wary, too, but little boys were good at seeing past ugly exteriors. They knew ugly could be useful. 
The dog sniffed Idmon's face, but the boy held the dog away, patting its rump back up the stairs. "Go. Go in!" Then the boy reached out to Idmon, leading him with gentle hands into the safety of the house and away from the crippling cold.  "Merciful God! Thank you for this boy!" Idmon cried with happiness as the boy smiled down upon him, carried him upstairs, and deposited him into a glass box. Then Idmon was quickly swallowed by a lizard.  Spiders were useful after all. 

​I’m writing to introduce you to my newest novel, Greenwood, which is a saga that follows four generations of one Canadian family over 130 years. The narrative sprawls across Canada from its east to the west coast (with an important interlude in the Lakehead!), and ventures to 1930s Japan as well as contemporary Brooklyn. It was by far the most demanding book I’ve ever attempted, and required an enormous amount of research to complete.
 
Why did I choose this subject? The short answer is my love of trees. I live with my family on a little forested island just off the coast of Vancouver. It’s where my wife grew up (her name is Cedar, naturally) and I draw great inspiration and comfort from the tall Douglas fir and red cedar that surround and envelop our house.
 
And the common thread that unites all the members of the Greenwood family is their interdependence with trees: whether through environmental activism, carpentry, biological research, or building a massive timber empire, the Greenwoods are truly people of the forest. Growing up in Thunder Bay, I was acutely aware from an early age of not only the great wonder of forests, but also the importance of resource extraction (or resource development, depending on how you look at it) to the local economy. So in a broader sense, I suppose I wanted to write a nuanced and complicated exploration of the human being’s reliance upon (and dominance of) the tree. Many have described it as an environmental novel, and I wouldn’t disagree.
 
But most of all Greenwood is about time and greed and generosity and mistakes and sacrifices that resonate through generations. It’s about family, which has been a subject that I find myself returning to in my work again and again.

I’m very much looking forward to the conversation that I’ll be having with my friend Professor Scott Pound at Chapters in Thunder Bay on September 29th, and I hope to see you there. Strangely enough, this very Chapters is where I first filled out my application to the Creative Writing Department at UBC, many years ago. So it’s going to feel like coming home.
 
Michael Christie

Write-In Wednesdays
Start Next Week!
​
Looking for inspiration, camaraderie, or just a really good excuse to write?



​Next week, NOWW is launching a new program designed to help new and experienced writers get in the writing groove. Write-In Wednesdays is an informal group of NOWW writers who gather at a local coffee shop to write together. Bring along any piece of work you like: your novel, screenplay, short story, play, creative nonfiction – whatever you’re working on. You can also bring along a friend. And, of course, bring your notepad, laptop, or whatever you write with!

Our first Write-In Wednesday is on Wednesday, September 18th from 7pm to 9pm at Seattle Coffeehouse (on Arthur St. – click here for a map: 

https://goo.gl/maps/Qikz3mVkCrno6QbUA).

We’ll give a few minutes for everyone to grab a coffee and make short introductions, and then we’ll get right to it. Writing prompts will be available for those who want them. We don’t read our work out loud, so no worries about having to speak in front of the others! The time is social, but your writing is all your own.

Other Scheduled Write-In Wednesdays:   
​
​October 23
November 13
December 11
January 8
February 12
March 11
April 8
May 13
 
Feel free to contact us with any questions (admin@nowwwriters.ca). Hope to see you there!

​Challenge yourself with a little writing exercise, and you could win cash! The NOWW Flash Fiction Challenge is now accepting short short story entries of 500 words max. Quick and to the point! The top three stories will earn cash prizes and publication in our blog this fall.

Contest Rules
​

• Free entry (you have to be a NOWW member—sign up here, if you’re not a member: http://www.nowwwriters.ca/join-noww.html)

 

• One submission per person

 

• Your story must be 500 words maximum, not including title. Stories that go over the word count max will be disqualified.

​

• Stories can be submitted in Word format using 12-point font or Text format (such as with Microsoft Notepad). Please do not submit in PDF format.

 

• At the top of your entry, please include your name, email, phone number, title of your story, and word count (not including title). Then, include your title again and the story

​. You can view a sample entry below:


​

​​​

• Please do not include anything within your story like your name that would make you identifiable. 

​​

• Email to admin@nowwwriters.ca with “Flash Fiction Contest” in the subject line (mailed submissions will not be accepted)

 

• NEW STORIES ONLY, please. Your submission must be:
  • Your own work
  • Unpublished

 

• Deadline is Sunday, September 22 at 11:59pm (Eastern Time)

Two members of the NOWW board will judge the contest.

What’s Flash Fiction? 

Flash fiction stories are, well, short. Sometimes called ‘micro-stories’, ‘postcard stories’ (if a postcard is part of the contest) or ‘short short stories’, flash fiction challenges the writer to fit a complete story into very few words. While there isn’t a paint-by-numbers formula for flash fiction, there is a certain art to it. It’s not about trying to squish a 3,000-word story into 500 words.

Here are a few links to help you get a better idea of the craft—and to get the creative juices flowing:

How To: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/14/how-to-write-flash-fiction(Another how-to written by David Gaffney)

More Tips:https://www.hysteriauk.co.uk/2017/04/07/starting-flash-alex-reece-abbott/ (A UK contest with tips from the judges about how to write flash fiction)

Some Examples:http://flashfictiononline.com/main/(Example pieces)
​
NOWW’s Flash Fiction Challenge is a great way to challenge yourself and get the creative juices flowing. 

By the way, this blog post is 379 words, so you have a little more room than this to write your beginning, middle, and end. Think you can do it? Let’s find out! Start writing today!