I will be accepting poems until June 20th at midnight. After that, any poems sent in will be read but not considered eligible for the contest.
Winners will be announced the week after July 4th. You’ve got to give me time to read them all! There are so many!
Also: PLEASE do not send me your stuff (novels, short stories, etc) to read. I can’t read them for legal reasons, so please don’t send them to me. Maybe one day I will teach a writing class and will invite you all to join, but that day is not today. I’m so glad so many of you want to be writers, and I ENCOURAGE you to follow your dreams and write your way to success. But I cannot provide feedback on your writing.
I will however, post all 35 winners on the blog and provide reasons on why I chose those poems!
It’s SCORCHING out here. It was 100 degrees outside. I was sweating in my own house! And we had the A/C turned up all the way to eleven. Hopefully the installation of our faaahbulous Knoll curtains on all the windows will ameliorate the situation. We practically live in a glass house there are windows everywhere. Which is kind of funny. When we lived in New York we had TWO windows for the entire apartment. And all New Yorkers craved LIGHT, LIGHT, LIGHT. And now in LA we have TOO MUCH light.
Speaking of ‘ameliorate’ I got a snotty email from a disgruntled dude who’d stumbled on my books in the library, read them, and wanted to let me know he thought I was showing off my vocabulary by putting words like “ameliorate” in my books. Showing off my vocabulary??? Is all I do!!! I distinctly remember when I LEARNED the word “ameliorate” which means to IMPROVE OR RESOLVE things. I just liked that word a lot. And I put it in all my books. I also like the phrase “well-appointed home”. I think I also put THAT in all my books. All the rooms in my books are well-appointed. LOL.
It’s kind of funny to be dinged on my vocab, since in person, I’m just like, you know, talking like this all the time and incredibly casual. I never use big words. EVER. Mostly because I didn’t grow up here, so I don’t know how most words are SUPPOSED to sound. And I ALWAYS say them wrong. For instance, I say “woooned” for “wound” and pronounce the “L” in “almond” and “salmon”. And kind of end up looking like an idiot like that Nomi in Showgirls who says “Ver-says.” I never seem simply FOREIGN, like quirky cute French people because I have an American accent so people assume I should know better. There are tons more words I mispronounce. To the amusement of first, my college friends, and now, my husband. I also say stuff like “Open the TV!” and “Close the light!” which really bugs him. He thinks our daughter will grow up talking like a fracking foreigner but really, she will grow up correcting her mother like my siblings and I did for our parents and laughing in their (my) face.
Anyway. A reader in Shaghai just emailed me my favorite new word; Fahhwwwsome – a combination of Fabulous and Awesome. Which are two of my favorite words! Hey, that is simply, fawsome!
xoxo
Mel