A day in the sun at the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival and some takers to the Grind Writers DEAW ("drop everything and write") 15-min free-write challenge. Some prompts were text, others photographs:
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Warren Dean Fulton ©Aug2011
Prompt was a photograph of Russian nesting dolls
MATRYOSKA
Nesting within
in decreasing size
smaller and smaller and smaller, yet
a layering chart of past mes,
down to the tiny bean
of a baby
I once was.
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Ingrid Steenhuisen ©Aug2011
prompt - her own
prompt - her own
STANLEY PARK’S RICHES TO A CHILD’S WEALTHY/HEALTHY IMAGINATION
For a child, a park is a wonderful place for a wide variety of reasons. Regardless of whether it is a small open neighbourhood park or a large majestic and varied one like Stanley Park.
As a child born and raised in Vancouver by immigrant parents, being alert, aware, cautious and inventive, parks were a place for us to be adventurous. Being the eldest also meant sharing that curiousness with the others and teaching them things that were done in a fun way and encouraging varying types of independence -- first steps, first dip, first swing, first teeter-totter, first swim stroke(s).
For a child, a park is a wonderful place for a wide variety of reasons. Regardless of whether it is a small open neighbourhood park or a large majestic and varied one like Stanley Park.
As a child born and raised in Vancouver by immigrant parents, being alert, aware, cautious and inventive, parks were a place for us to be adventurous. Being the eldest also meant sharing that curiousness with the others and teaching them things that were done in a fun way and encouraging varying types of independence -- first steps, first dip, first swing, first teeter-totter, first swim stroke(s).
We--my twin sister and I--found it amazing how each (next) child seemed to mature/learn faster than the one(s) before them. But, now we realize that it was because each one had more teachers than the sibling before them.
Stanley Park s fun, Fun, FUN! To arrive early in the morning to commandeer two picnic tables to have enough seating for all of us. Oatmeal cooked on a Coleman® camp stove (and Dad having to pump it, so it would work for Mom) -- then potato and other salads prepared for dinner, while lunch was always sandwiches. Playground and zoo in the morning - then swimming after lunch - then reading and playground again (for the little ones) until dinner.
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Timothy Shay ©Aug2011
prompt was “Describe a typical day for you”
A typical day begins………
I feed pepperoni the cat at seven a.m.
and assure him that he is indeed a
and assure him that he is indeed a
wild forest cat and we have killed
the grilled chicken chunks late the previous night
and as pepper the cat has short term memory
he accepts this with the dawn gusto
of a hungry hunter. After eating the bathtub curtains
must be adjusted to afford pepper the cat
a long secret tunnel to the waterfall (faucet) which
runs incessantly like an ancient river
then it is time for pepper the cat’s dose of nip
and his cantankerous day begins, bugs beware;
and as pepper the cat has short term memory
he accepts this with the dawn gusto
of a hungry hunter. After eating the bathtub curtains
must be adjusted to afford pepper the cat
a long secret tunnel to the waterfall (faucet) which
runs incessantly like an ancient river
then it is time for pepper the cat’s dose of nip
and his cantankerous day begins, bugs beware;
and like his tired cyclic god
I return to bed and dream other worlds.
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I return to bed and dream other worlds.
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Shan Kelly ©Aug 2011
prompt: write a 500 word biography of yourself in the third person
BIOGRAPHY
Shan was born in Dublin in 1965 to a young, working class couple from Ballyfermot, Dublin, Francis and Eileen named their first child Patricia after Eileen’s dad and Sarah after Frank’s mother. But Grandma Sarah was unhappy--that hers was no the first name given to her first grandchild, so nobody used either name.
Shan was born in Dublin in 1965 to a young, working class couple from Ballyfermot, Dublin, Francis and Eileen named their first child Patricia after Eileen’s dad and Sarah after Frank’s mother. But Grandma Sarah was unhappy--that hers was no the first name given to her first grandchild, so nobody used either name.
Eileen’s delivery was like being in a car rash and the young Mum was too ill to attend her baby’s Christening when the baby was gien a new name, Sharon.
For Sharon’s first four years, Francis, Eileen and baby Sharon lived with Eileen’s Mum, Josie, who had lost her husband to a brain hemorrhage the year before. In 1969, Eileen was expecting again and the Kellys moved to a new house in Milltown which was where Sharon spent her childhood.
Shan was a good student and won a place at the College of Commerce. She graduated in 1984 and moved to London on her twentieth birthday, not returning to live again in Dublin until 2007 when she moved back to the house in Milltown with her daughter, Grace, age two.
For Sharon’s first four years, Francis, Eileen and baby Sharon lived with Eileen’s Mum, Josie, who had lost her husband to a brain hemorrhage the year before. In 1969, Eileen was expecting again and the Kellys moved to a new house in Milltown which was where Sharon spent her childhood.
Shan was a good student and won a place at the College of Commerce. She graduated in 1984 and moved to London on her twentieth birthday, not returning to live again in Dublin until 2007 when she moved back to the house in Milltown with her daughter, Grace, age two.
Frank was dead by then and Eileen had been widowed for more than two decades. Sharon had shortened her name to Shan after getting a degree at the London School of Economics where she studied under Dard Sterkey.
Shan/Sharon Patricia Jean Kelly--she had also collected a Confirmation name by now--managed to survive a brain hemorrhage in 2001 and to make a full recovery with “no deficits,” as the English National Health Service put it. But she found it hard to return to her job as a journalist and instead got involved with her community from 2002 until after the birth of her daughter in 2005 when she was 39.
Shan went back to work in 2006 and edited two business magazines in London and Dublin before beginning taking classes in creative writing. She is still hoping to write stories for publication as novels, plays or as screenplays, but life keeps getting in the way.
Maybe this year she will do it.
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Aine Rathwell ©Aug2011
prompt: unknown
Once upon a time in a flash of light far, far, further away there was flashes of lighting. Split a civilization disappeared on the wind like gone with the wind. A civilization blew away. Gone Civilization, gone with and like the wind. He saw it all in a cloud and all his fellow ancestors all mixed up like spoon that turned into soup. The soup of his ancestors are all marked like an ancient myths….a history of a totem.
Once upon a time in a flash of light far, far, further away there was flashes of lighting. Split a civilization disappeared on the wind like gone with the wind. A civilization blew away. Gone Civilization, gone with and like the wind. He saw it all in a cloud and all his fellow ancestors all mixed up like spoon that turned into soup. The soup of his ancestors are all marked like an ancient myths….a history of a totem.
