College kids: read Atlas Shrugged, win $10,000

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My youngest sister is starting college in a few weeks, and my parents put me in charge of helping her look for scholarship money. I’m no scholarship wizard, so if you’re here looking for scholarship advise, go somewhere else.

Maggie – my sister – found a website with lots of scholarships listed. (Hey, there’s a tiny bit of advice.) Many of them are from random companies and are mainly for several hundred dollars or a thousand dollars each.

But then we stumbled on one that was for a little more money. Ten thousand bucks, to be exact. $10,000! And, can you believe it’s an Ayn Rand essay contest for Atlas Shrugged? (The deadline is September 17, 2012.) The $10K is just for first place; three second place winners will receive $2,000, and five third place winners will get $1,000 each.

Let me digress from the essay contest to say that I am an Ayn Rand fan. People either love her or hate her. I gave my Dad a copy of Atlas two Christmases ago, and he still tells me how much he hates it, couldn’t get into it, was so bored. Sure, it’s weird and confusing at first, and it seems that damn Eddie Willers is just wandering about. Well he is! It’s a crazy time! He needs help, answers!

But seriously, Rand has some over-the-top views, and not everything she stands for is best for society. What she brings to the
intellectual table and the front of my mind is pride – pride of ownership, pride of excelling in your work. Recently a Facebook friend – you know, not a real one – posted about a sermon she’d just heard. She wrote something like: “Get rid of pride. Pride comes before the fall!” This language bothers me, as I think we should do our best work, and I also believe we should be able to take pride in the results of our work.

Okay, back to the contest. The topics, as listed on the scholarship guidelines, are:

What do you think Eddie Willers’ role is in the story? How does he help convey the novel’s theme? Why do you think his fate is left open in the last chapter?

Why does John Galt go on strike when the Starnes heirs take over the Twentieth Century Motor Company? Do you think he is right or wrong to start a strike? Explain.

Choose the scene in Atlas Shrugged that is most meaningful to you. Analyze that scene in terms of the wider themes in the book.

I’m sort of bummed that this scholarship is only open to high school seniors, undergrads, and grad students. I think Ayn would have wanted the contest open to all readers. (Side note: I found it ironic that the Ayn Rand Institute chose to tell participants that essays would be checked with plagiarism software. Would anyone entering an Atlas essay contest actually have the gall to cheat?)

Atlas readers, which topic would you pick?

hot off the press

Hi, Internet. I just had a short story published at Retort Magazine. They publish great art, poems, and short fiction. I got word this morning that my story Breasts Like Death-Sacks was chosen for publication. And BAM! The Internet is so amazing that I got to see my story live directly after reading the acceptance email.



Here's a screenshot, because why not?

I just bit the bullet and sent off my story in full profanity. One rejection I got said: "It would have to be more thoroughly believable to make all the vulgarity tolerable." Luckily not everyone thinks so; Retort Magazine liked the story in its full F-bomb fashion.



Thanks, Retort! 

instant love

I've been reading Pacing the Panic Room for a while. My sister and I swoon over Ryan's gorgeous maternity series he shot and compiled for his wife. And now Ryan has announced a contest that I'd like to a) win, and b) share with you.

The embedded video is for a cool book about instant photography. Instant Love is about making memories with Polaroids.



Just last night my husband was chasing our dog around the yard, and it was getting darker and darker. The sky was an amazing midnight blue, navy, almost the color I had just painted my nails (excuse the rough cuticles; I'm not a nail-biter, but I am a cuticle-chewer).

I tried to capture the sky's brilliant color with my iPhone, which normally takes solid photos. But the darkness, the largeness of the sky — the iPhone can't handle that. I grabbed my point-and-shoot camera and tried again. Bleh. I suddenly, bare feet on the wooden deck, longed for film.



I remembered the Intro to Photojournalism summer class I took in college. We were the last class to use film; after that it was all digital. I yearned for the magic of patience, of taking the time to set up a shot, ponder the light, the composition. It is so easy to click, click, click — taking shots that aren't quite right. It's so easy to delete what I don't want, that I spend less time worrying about the integrity of the shot and more time taking pictures. I wanted to see that ticker count down the number of chances I had left. The moment of excitement when you've finished the roll, when you can finally see what you've captured.



My husband's late grandfather was into photography. I never got to meet him. His old cameras and filters are floating around in the family. I suddenly longed for those cameras, cameras that I've never seen that belonged to a man I never met. A man that, should I have a child in the future, will be a part of that child. Selfishly, maybe, I wanted something tangible of his. Selfishly, I wanted those gritty, beautiful, old school cameras.



So, back to the point. I embedded this video to share it with you and to increase my own chances of winning the oh-so-lovely camera giveaway from Pacing the Panic Room. I'm all about full disclosure here. You can give it a shot, too. Enter here.



And to anyone reading this who might be shooting photos with real film: Where do you buy it? What's the best camera to get reacquainted with?

and we're home owners

In late January, we closed on a house. I walked on the deck. It was a little cold that day.

I walked by the nandina lining our new house.

I hugged the tree in our side-yard. I wonder what it will look like in bloom.

We saw the sunset from our front porch.

With the help of amazing people in our life, we started renovating. Thanks Chelsea, Mom, Dad, Kristin, Melanie, Michael, and Jeremy. Seriously, thanks!



Sissy, thanks in advance for the curtains. :)

We changed fixtures and hung shower curtains. We painted walls and caulked cracks.

We adopted an old dog, Angel, aka Hell's Angel, from my mom. Angel is loving her spoiled, indoor life.

We started composting!

We adopted a young dog, Baron. He killed a rabbit in our yard at midnight on a Wednesday.

It's Saturday, and Mr. B hasn't killed anything else since.





























Other things that have happened not documented with photos:

• I got two new writing gigs, hurrah!


• Baron chewed up a human bed


• Baron chewed up a dog bed


• Baron chewed up the hose handle + a doggie shampoo bottle after getting a bath


• Angel stormed the doggie gate because her new brother was crying in his crate


• We got a dog sitter who fell asleep, defeating her only purpose


• We got snuggies


• We're both working in the same room (even though we have two extra, completely empty rooms) because I was lonely and we're used to such tiny spaces

lit quote: Murakami's KAFKA ON THE SHORE

But no matter how long he stared at the phone, it just sat there, a silent, unnecessarily introspective object. Nobody knocked on the door, not a single letter arrived. And nothing out of the ordinary happened. The weather stayed the same, and no flashes of inspiration struck him. One expressionless moment after another ticked by. Noon came and went, the afternoon quietly reeling into twilight. The hands of the electric clock on the wall skimmed smoothly over the surface of time like a whirligig beetle, and on the bed Mr. Nakata was still dead.

Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

Geek Love + Etsy

Siamese twins, like Iphy and Elly, from dubrovskaya.

The Grapes of Wrath + Etsy

The Grapes of Wrath



Be the envy of your friends when you sit this John Steinbeck mini doll by UneekDollDesigns on your mantel: 

Original book cover print by maryt525:

John Steinbeck original oil painting by Charity Paintings:

Let The Grapes of Wrath sink into your soil with these garden spoons made by CassiopeiaDesigns1, featuring real snippets of the book:

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