June 2022 NorthWords

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June NorthWords includes:

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2022 Writing Contest Winners

“Full Circle”

Our Writing Contest is complete for this year, and we would like to thank everyone who submitted their work. We had many wonderful entries and would like to congratulate our winners.

This year’s winners circle includes:

Poetry

  • WINNER: Parker Sterling, “Résumé”
  • Runner-Up: Ronnie Hess, “Sailing with Rick Barot’s ‘The Galleons’”
  • Honorable Mention: Tim Moder, “Skin Is Borders”

Short Fiction

  • WINNER: Tim Strom, “Plywood Mansion”
  • Runner-Up: Greg Opstad, “Wintering”
  • Honorable Mention: Kim Waltman, “To Walk on Water”

Short Short Fiction

  • WINNER: Lynn Watson, “Walk with Me”
  • Runner-Up: Lynn Watson, “Paddle Boarding”
  • Honorable Mention: Marlys Guimaraes, “The Call”

Creative Nonfiction

  • WINNER: Paula Zwicke, “Migration”
  • Runner-Up: Joan Farnam, “My Mother and Her Red-Leather Hat”
  • Honorable Mention: Cary Griffith, “Bad Luck Fishing”

Visit https://lakesuperiorwriters.org/2022-writing-contest-winners/ to read the winning selections.

LSW Administrator Job Opening

Lake Superior Writers is searching for a new paid Administrator.  The position includes putting out the monthly newsletter, assisting with the website, working with the bookkeeper for financial reporting, tracking membership and other administrative duties.   The position requires about 20 hours/month.

This is a job that can be done primarily from home, but does require proximity to Duluth for collecting mail, banking and other local tasks.

Desired qualifications: Passionate member of the writing community, proficient in email, Excel and WordPress.  

See this link for more details.

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Literary events

John Teschner’s debut novel Project Namahana, is “an enthralling tale of disappearances, deaths, dark secrets, and corporate evil.” (Douglas Preston, bestselling co-author of the Agent Pendergast series). More at zenithbookstore.com/events
In-store author event with Staci Lola Drouillard who will present her new book Seven Aunts. Drouillard, a descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Anishinaabe, is the author of Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe, which won the Northeast Minnesota Book Award for nonfiction. Proof of COVID vaccination, and masking, are required to attend. More at zenithbookstore.com/events.
Zenith Bookstore turns 5 on July 1st, and we’re having a party to celebrate. Lots of fun planned, including: – Zenith Wheel of Fortune (everyone’s a winner!) – Live Music – Chalk Art and Selfie Station (with Rufus!) – Rambler Food Truck – Raffles and Giveaways Raffle proceeds and 10% of all sales on July 1st will go to support PAVSA (Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault).
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Opportunities

June 9, 16, 23 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm $90

This 3-session storytelling workshop explores the difficult physical and emotional presentation of romance, sexuality and physical intimacy in stories. What is cliche? What is too much? What is enough to make how we tell about that which we often avoid telling not offend or run roughshod of the rest of the story? Bring the story you are interested in, troubled by, want to tell and we’ll work on it together. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/339163526237

Check out our calendar for upcoming events, classes, and appearances at americanschoolofstorytelling.com Or follow us on social media: facebook.com/AmericanSchoolofStorytelling twitter.com/SchoolofStories instagram.com/americanschoolstorytelling


The 2022 North Beach Writers Retreat is more retreat, less workshop. We hope to offer rest, relaxation, time to write, and fellowship with other poets in a beautiful northern Minnesota setting. Please join us and other poets in a beautiful lakeside lodge August 13-17, 2022.  For details, visit https://northbeachwritersretreat.com/retreats2022/

Writers/Creatives: Self-Directed Retreats on a magical Lake Superior 5-acre woodsy property. Month-by-month, some openings left for this Summer/Fall; two different units for 1 – 2. Special amenities/furnishings for your work; recommended by Sarah Stonich and Danielle Sosin. Single/shared occupancy (can share the month or split it). Please view all the details and photos on the FB Page, Writers/Creatives Self-Directed Retreats Contact Ramona: naturespace@boreal.org

Great River Writers’ Retreat Contest: The Great River Writers Retreat winner is selected from an applicant pool of writers from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin across multiple genres, and allows the winner to spend a week working on a specific writing project they have underway. The retreat this year will be held at The Benet House Retreat Center in Rock Island, IL from August 29th through September 4th, COVID-19 restrictions permitting. For more information visit http://www.mwcqc.org/contests/writers-retreat/

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KUDOS – News about our members

Tim Moder’s poems “Helicopter String Quartet,” “One Man Clown Car” and “Thought Evoking Rebel Flag” were published in ShabdAaweg in the middle of May. https://shabd.aaweg.com/poems/three-poems-by-tim-moder/

Christine Mount’s poem “Let Us Consider” is a winner of the Environmental (In)justice Storytelling Contest sponsored by Saint Paul Almanac (SPA) and University of Saint Thomas Sustainable Communities. Her poem “1st grade report card note: ‘Too much daydreaming'” published on lyricality.org ‘Sunday Morning Lyicality’ on April 10th. Poems “Half-Naked in the Depths of Winter” and “Lace” accepted to the 2022 edition of ‘Spring Thaw Magazine,’ Itasca Community College in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She is attending the Kimberly Blaeser workshop at the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference.

Naomi Musch’s newest book, Season of My Enemy (Heroines of WWII) releases from Barbour Publishing on June 1st: Travel back in time to WWII in the next installment in the Heroines of WWII series featuring the brave women of this daunting era. Perfect for the summer season, Season of My Enemy by Naomi Musch tells the heroic story of Fannie O’Brien as she steps up to the plate for the good of her family and her country. https://www.barbourbooks.com/season-of-my-enemy/ Available in all formats.

HOLY COW! PRESS, an independent literary publisher based in Duluth, Minnesota, is pleased to announce the publication of “Spirit Matters: White Clay, Red Exits, Distant Others,” poems by Gordon Henry. A major new collection of dazzling, surrealistic, entirely original poems by an award-winning Ojibwe author, whose work appears in two new Joy Harjo-edited anthologie, “Spirit Matters is haunted by people whose voices are so indelible they speak from a world beyond this one–a powerful country where stories are spells that inhabit the living. Gordon Henry has created a compelling, uncanny book.”–Louise Erdrich, Pulitzer Prize winner for “The Night Watchman.” In parcels and particles, letters, images, repetitive themes, rhythms and sounds, “Spirit Matters” invites views into shadow spheres of creative memory, reinvention of storied characters and place, as reminders of how poetry might turn longing back to the very sound memory makes as we honor the imaginative lives of people and place. A collection of poetry, informed by irretrievable letters of loss, love, trauma, forged by musing on imagined relatives, living, dead, yet to be, shaped by spirit of places of we can never return to without understanding the living power of memory, story and song.

Gordon Henry is an enrolled member/citizen of the White Earth Anishinaabe Nation in Minnesota. He is also a Professor in the English Department at Michigan State University, where he teaches American Indian Literature and Creative Writing. He serves as Senior Editor of the American Indian Studies Series at Michigan State University Press. In 1995 Henry received an American Book Award for his novel the Light People, and his poetry, fiction and essays have been published extensively in the U.S. and Europe. In 2007, Henry published a mixed-genre collection, titled “The Failure of Certain Charms” with Salt Publishing. More recently, Henry’s writing has appeared in “New Poets of Native Nations”; the June 2018 issue of “Poetry”; Wassafiri; “When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through” (2020) and “Living Nations, Living Words” (2021)–two poetry anthologies edited by Joy Harjo. He lives in Empire, Michigan.

174 pages, $19.95. Cover art by Jim Denomie. Available at local bookstores, The Indigenous Gift Shop (AICHO), amazon.com, and through http://www.holycowpress.org

Victoria Lynn Smith’s short story “Fishing Around in the Dog Days of August” was published by Jenny (Spring 2022), a production of the Youngstown State University Student Literary Arts Association. https://www.jennymag.org

Marlene Wisuri was editor and designer of Special Issue #3 of Báiki: the International Sami Journal. The issue features the story of the Alaska Reindeer Project of 1894 and 1898 when Sami reindeer herders were hired by the U.S. government to teach reindeer husbandry to Alaska Natives. The issue is available from the Sami Cultural Center of North America. samicenterna@gmail.com

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Lake Superior Writers Blog

Lake Superior Writers invites members to submit guest posts for possible inclusion on our blog. Please visit our blog information page for more details: https://lakesuperiorwriters.org/blog/blog-submission-guidelines/

Our blog currently features “Nurturing Creativity” by Doug Lewandowski https://lakesuperiorwriters.org/blog/