We made a book! It collects some of the stories, poems, songs and other pieces we wrote this summer.

Last Saturday we held a book launch and our friends and family came to help us celebrate. We had a full house at the Writers’ Federation.

There were ten readers, who all sauntered up to the podium, cool as heck, and confidently read their work in front of the crowd.

We laughed, we cried (Jaime & I were fighting back a lot of tears - SO PROUD!) and we all decided that we need to keep Write Now! going and meet again soon.

-Tiina

-It can be something you wrote in the program/this summer, or not!

-You can submit poetry, a story, a character sketch, a song, nonfiction (a piece of memoir, true story, or reflection), or even a comic. Anything goes!

-If you’re a little stuck, try going back over the exercises we did in the program and see if there’s anything in your notebook you especially like. Any of these would make great submissions! For example, you might include a piece that came out of our If../Then… sentences; overheard conversation; your toothbrush scene; the “bad” poems we wrote with Sue; etc.

-If your piece is especially long, talk to us and we’ll see if we can fit the whole thing in, or if we should take an excerpt (a smaller part) from it.

-If the writing is true/personal, how personal is OK? We’d recommend whatever you feel comfortable with, while keeping in mind that the book will be out there in public for anyone to read. Your piece should be something you’d feel OK about putting on the internet, for example.

-We are here to answer questions or help in any way we can, so feel free to email us or send us a message on FB if you’re unsure about anything at all!

-We will proofread the book for major spelling errors, but won’t edit or change anything else about your writing (unless you ask us to).

Last week in Write Now! we played the Exquisite Corpse collaborative poetry game. To write the poems, one person writes a line and passes it to the next person, who writes a line. They pass it on, but they fold the paper so only the last line written is visible, and the next person does the same. So each person is writing a line, only knowing what the last line was. The result is a sometimes surreal and silly, sometimes surprisingly beautiful poem.

These were our awesome results:

Poem 1

I never knew it was coming.
The distant rumble alerted my dog.
My dog started to run until I couldn’t see him anymore.
“Damn dog,” I muttered to myself. Sometimes I couldn’t remember why I put up with this.
I proceeded to pick up the soap and finish washing my dog
At which point I dropped the bar, fell in the tub, and was overwhelmed by the smell of wet fur.
Startled, the dog jumped out and started clawing at the closed door.
The person ignored him
And he dutifully posted an embarrassing movie of them

Poem 2

My balls are blue because
I don’t think in shades.
But my sunglasses keep getting lost in the grass
And the trees are so tall and angry.
While the wolves ran from them
The wild beast knew only of the hunt.
And as he ran, he wondered,
“Why am I here?”
I screamed louder than I ever have before. Why can’t I just leave already?
I hate this place.
As the voices in my head yelled louder, I picked the knife back up.
“Stab it” “Slash it!” “Cut it into pieces!” they shouted.
“Guys, calm down. It’s just a spider!” I stepped forward onto it.
“There, it’s dead” “No!” they said. “You only THINK it’s dead! It’s really immortal!”

Poem 3

She sat in the chair at the tattoo parlour, deliberating.
People passed in and out of rooms, covered in different tattoos
Swirls on their skin, bright and vivid, dark and sombre
The stars light up the sky with their beauty, reflecting Van Gogh.
But my heart hurts like I stubbed it too hard
Like stubbing your toe on the hidden leg of that annoying counter.
Well baby you light up my world like no one else, the war you flip your hair makes me
Want to cut my bangs short for you.
My hair is the colour you said you didn’t like.

Poem 4

I am a 10 foot tall purple monkey bear in a pink tutu with silver wings
And I am more nervous than I have ever been
Especially right before I get up on stage and do my thing.
I found out Bieber got married
But I wasn’t the bride
I was the fearful groom in grey
With the best haircut and the sweaty palms.
I ran into the classroom for the prom
And saw I was the only one there.
The silence loomed over me.
But I heard her singing
She was a beautiful singer with an outstanding voice.