It’s that time of year again–when your New Year’s Resolutions predict 2012 will be the year you get published.
Outskirts Press can help! Many of our published authors already know how satisfying it can be to publish with Outskirts Press, but many of our Facebook friends don’t–yet! If you’re new to Outskirts Press, you can discover just how easy & fun it can be to publish by getting published for free in our next Facebook anthology.
Because our first Facebook anthology, Fandemonium, was so successful, we’ve decided to publish another! That’s right — Fandemonium Volume 2 is coming and you are invited to be a part of it!
Have you written a poem or short story that you would like to enter for a chance to be published for free in this new anthology featuring our talented Facebook friends?
Here’s how you can submit your work for consideration:
- Become an Outskirts Press Facebook friend by “liking” us on Facebook.
- Tell your writing friends to “like” us, too — so they can vote on your submission and enter their own.
- Beginning right now thru January 15, post your submission on your wall and share it so it posts on our wall, or comment directly to this posting or to our wall with your own submission and then share it.
- Read other submissions and “Like” and “Share” the ones you are fond of.
Submissions with the highest number of votes will be considered for inclusion in our upcoming Fandemonimum Volume 2 anthology. Submissions can be fiction, non-fiction, or poetry. Facebook limits wall postings and comments to a limited number of words/characters, so if your submission is longer, use multiple sequential comments, or provide a link to the entire submission elsewhere, like on your Facebook profile/wall, or elsewhere on the Internet. The maximum word count allowed is 5000, but shorter entries are better.
You must be the sole copyright holder to the material you are submitting and you will retain 100% of the copyrights to it. You grant us a non-exclusive right to use the materials you submit through our social media channels and within the Facebook Anthology when it is published and distributed and you understand that royalties from the sale of Fandemonimum are not split among the contributors but rather go to the American Red Cross.
Yes, this is your chance to get published for free and help a good cause at the same time. Royalties from the sale of Fandemonium Volume 2 benefit the American Red Cross. And you will be kept up-to-date on Facebook regarding the book’s production process and its availability when copies are for sale.
Watch the book video trailer for Fandemonium Volume 1 here:
In the meantime, you can benefit the American Red Cross right now with your 10% discounted purchase of the first anthology, Fandemonium Volume 1, by clicking here. Then submit your work for the second volume now.
Interested in publishing a book of your own? Start publishing now.
Larrabee’s Bad Luck
By Patricia A. Hawkenson
The post said:
“HOUSEKEEPING STUFF BEFORE YOU START… Coordinates are for parking area. Once you get there, turn lights off to gain your night vision. While looking at the picnic pavilion from the parking lot, go to your right. As you adjust, shine your light around to find the first marker at the trail head to lead you to the cache. Markers are white-ish dots that will reflect light. When you get to the area near the cache (past the bridge), the markers will be two dots together. Three marker reflectors in a line, means you have gone too far. Cache is glow in the dark, and will need charging. However, cache is also partially under cover. Proceed accordingly. Mark way point for your return to your vehicle when over. Special equipment needed includes flashlight (brighter is not necessarily better…) and 2 way radios if you have them.”
I knew the story:
“At the early part of the 20th century, UW – Eau Claire was a college that prepared teachers. A student named Jacob Larrabee went south of town to collect plant and insect samples from this area for his biology course. Larrabee, while climbing up a hill to collect a sample, lost his balance and fell, breaking his hip in the process. He died of exposure never being able to say goodbye to his family. His restless spirit has been roaming the woods trying to find his way back for the last eighty years. Night visitors have heard the faint groans and seen a glowing mist, the ghost of poor Mr. Larrabee trying to get home. Perhaps you will find him, too.”
Compassman43, I decided to try my first night cache on Halloween night. My friend, Kyle, newly named: Captured 44 – reluctantly helped me seek out the hidden cache. The first fire tack was easy, too easy. We saw it glow before I turned off the headlights of my car. We got out and headed down the slope. The air was cold enough to see our breath and humidity threatened to split the sky open. A gibbous moon hung in the only open space in the darkly clouded sky, and the dusty, crunching leaves beneath our feet sent crackles up to scare the dead. All we needed were howling wolves. The big tree was easy to spot, but then I found myself frustrated with the lack of expected markings on the trail. Where was that two fire tack tree? Our lights swiped from side to side, side to side, and side to side.
In no time we lost our confidence. Then Captured44 let out a short inhaled gasp. A deer’s glowing eyes were as bright as the reflectors we were supposed to be following. It bounded away. Gaps in between the tacks seemed very far apart. We came to many intersections, but they didn’t mark which way to go. We had to go down each path a ways and back track. We went down three different paths and didn’t find any more tacks. Captured44’s fingers were frozen, and it was almost 11:30 p.m. Bummer. No cache yet. Captured44 continued to complain about the cold, the darkness, the creepy feeling crawling down his neck. I laughed. Wuss.
The flashlights we were using were LED’s, the light very clean and white, so a lot of the flowers and leaves were reflecting back as white to us, and we often confused them for the tacks. We looked around the clearing as well, but we didn’t find anything. We continued anyway, hoping to see some kind of flash. Occasional fireflies provided a temporary euphoria. With increased confidence, we crossed the small bridge. Sadly, it was too dark to play Pooh Sticks. Still, the water gurgled on, its voice urging us forward. The moon was still shining overhead creating eerie shadows on the vegetation. An owl hooted softly in the distance. We moved more slowly.
Then I saw the stump with three dots. Three dots? We never saw two! We headed back to a beaten down area. Finally, we went back to the bridge, trying to find the two reflector spot. No luck. Frustration set in. We wandered in that brush in our confusion, and I was almost ready to call it a night, when literally, he stumbled on the cache! He hollered, “I’ve got it!”
We took the coupons for two free games of Bowlwinkle’s bowling replacing it with a glittering Hello Kitty key chain that said, “I’d Rather Be Shopping.” We signed the log, replaced the cache, and started to take what we thought was a shortcut back to my car. Heavy rain began and lightning signaled the end of our adventure, so we ran as a flash cracked across the sky and struck with thundering brightness. We were soaked, but we stood still – truly frozen in our tennis – when we saw my car ablaze.
Larrabee didn’t want us going home just yet.
Stick To the Facts
By Patricia A. Hawkenson
Mamma says I am an expert in remembering the little details that don’t amount to a hill of beans. Keep in mind the fact that I have never cared much for beans. Especially re-fried beans. Nasty stuff. It looks like someone ate it already, if you know what I mean.
And I do mean – mean! Mean as Katie Winslow. Yeah, you know the type. She has that slippery smile, tight and pretentious, that can determine her pecking order for the day. I might suggest that you don’t wear stripes with a plaid. It just ISN’T DONE. That can get you sitting on the fringes of the lunch table – forced to be the runner who must get the needed, desperately needed, ketchup packages. One package had a tear in it. That was an unfortunate oversight on my part, I can tell you. Katie pointed that fact out in a quick demonstration of how fast she can make a fist. “Oh, I’m SO SORRY!” she cried when it squirted up into my face and hair. Yes, she did seem genuinely concerned that I knew where the nearest sink was where I could wash up the stick of me. I am afraid I reeked of ketchup and desperation, and everyone knows how that can spoil the taste of an otherwise great ‘fluffernutter’ sandwich.
Then one day I saw that a Massachusetts state senator had his picture in the paper when he proposed legislation restricting the serving of fluffernutter sandwiches in public schools. Our school, thankfully, didn’t apparently read important articles of national safety – so much for Mrs. Klinkstein’s efforts in forcing us to keep up with current events. We continued the daily attempt to sweetly glue the roofs of our mouths together, although it had no effect of Katie Winslow. SHE always had plenty to say.
Say, did I ever tell you about the time that Lyle Barton threw a fish down Mrs. Klinkstein’s blouse? Innocent Mrs. Klinkstein was outside with our class dropping eggs from the top of the playground equipment trying to determine how to protect precious new life from a smashing death on the blacktop with various configurations of cardboard and bubble wrap. You would have thought that throwing a fish down her blouse would have gotten that boy expelled, or at least pushed up against the lockers with a loud satisfying bang. But NO! Boys can be slippery, too, because technically, he didn’t throw it. Technically, when you are dissecting a carp that has been living its first few weeks of its unfortunate death in a jar of stinking formaldehyde, you can’t be held responsible if it’s slimy and just happens to fly out the second story window and just happens to fall into the voluptuous heaving breasts of Mrs. Klinkstein.
Yes. Those are some hills. But there are rolling hills, too. Like the kind that sends voices bouncing deeper and softer until it takes your very breath away. There are hills that make your stomach surge with that up and down, about to ‘hurl chunks’ kind of feeling. My dad’s laughter would ring out with a John Wayne type of laugh when he would drive our woody station wagon up and down the dusty desert trails of the Wisconsin barrens where the wild blueberries grew. That’s down Highway C, just out of Washburn. Never mind the fact that Dad sort of looked a bit like The Duke, who Dad said once worked for Fox Film Corporation for a measly seventy five dollars a week. Just try paying my Dad only seventy five dollars a week and think you’d still be sitting tall in the saddle! Dad had a way of lassoing his belt into a loop that he could hold in two hands, and let me tell you, if you were so foolish as to stick your finger into that hole, he could snap it shut before you could pull your finger back out. Now that was some mighty fast rope’n.
Rope, of course, is thicker and stronger than similarly constructed line, cord, string, or twine. I have lots of fun tying knots into this or that. Did you know that the earliest forms of rope dates back to prehistoric times when natural fibers were roughly twisted together? Then Egyptians, too, dating as far back as 3,500 B.C., even developed tools to help them make rope out of water reeds.
There were probably a few seaweed ropes made by Polynesians along the reefs. So you see, a reefer wasn’t really a modern idea, but when my Dad’s boy Wayne lost his battle with lung cancer, it was still not enough to convince Dad to stop smoking. Go figure. Grandma says they’re both broken men, and I think she’s right. You’d think they had more sense.
Sense and Sensibility, that’s what my Mother always says I have. Miss Jane Austin published that in 1881, but it still fits me today. Not just because I once took a scissor to my sister’s eyebrows like Willoughby when he cut a lock of Marianne’s hair, but more because Mom says I am the epitome of subtle irony. Yes, I have ironed a few shirts in my time. Of course now, most younger kids don’t have a clue what I’m talking about because all their fabrics are wash and wear.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Beans. Did I ever tell you about the time my Grandpa fed beans to our Springer Spaniel? That was a good one.
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Path Back
By Patricia A. Hawkenson
The eyes of all assembled Writers met Oolian’s eyes, registering her confusion, before reconnecting with their screens. Who had written her path here? Who among them betrayed them by giving a puppet the knowledge to enter their circle? Fingers tapped frantically to retrace the source of this subplot, the course of events that allowed such an egregious violation of the secrecy of this Writer’s Guild.
Hesteen, eldest of the Writers, didn’t waste an ounce of his tapping energy on searching. He merely observed the circle of bent heads before him. Only Resteel’s head was still up, his eyes on Oolian, transfixed with a glaze that anyone would acknowledge as love. Red bars flashed their warnings above each Writer’s screen. “Dear Gods!” Hesteen stood in anger. “Resteel, speak of this. You have written yourself into your story by bringing your reader here. You know the outcome. Your story must end. You and this puppet must stand dead to us.”
“Yes, without Oolian, life is death. I understand what I have written.” He stood and the tessellating tiles below him morphed silently until he stood before her. “In this moment, I live.”
Oolian’s eyes dilated further as she pulled the details of Resteel’s image into her mind. She continued to gather information about her Writer as she looked at him. Touching him on his shoulder she said, “You are the path of my search.”
“No!” Hesteen pounded so hard on his screen that the entire surface changed from white to red. “Death is now the only path for you.” Jer, the newest writer, catching Hesteen’s nod in his direction, understood the directive and tapped the change from Writer to puppet for Resteel. Resteel felt his new role come over his entire being with a wash of acceptance. In robotic rigidity, he pushed Oolian’s hand off his shoulder before tearing off the silver emblem that marked him as a Writer. Neurons broke their connection. Puppet, he did not remember what had brought him to stand before this beautiful woman whose eyes of compassion were so compelling.
Dinenea took over the tapping that controlled Oolian. Oolian’s eyes fell away from the Writer that she had been written to love. Her hands reached to cover her face as terror mixed with blood flowing from her eyes. Her throat gasped only one more breath before she slumped to the tiles that instantly shifted her along until a doorway opened, and her body slid from view.
Resteel felt nothing as he watched her. He stood waiting while Jer decided what to do with him.
“Think not of his past alliance with us. He is but a puppet. Write his death,” ordered Hesteen as he spread his fingers wide then touched his fingertips together, the sign of the Five Connecting Bars between Writers and their puppets.
Jer tapped and Resteel’s body doubled over as his heart stopped. The cold tile was misted by the steam of his breath before it swept his body away. A slight odor of burning flesh made a few Writers pinch their noses, trying not to lose their dinners as they went back to the paths their puppets should walk. Their stories must be told. The Cycle of Five must be honored. Jer, not feeling as composed as he tried to appear, looked to the top of his screen for reassurance. Five Connecting Bars, each a different color, endlessly scrolled their laws above his screen:
(blue) BAR ONE: Writers give life or death to worlds
(green) BAR TWO: worlds give life to or death to characters
(yellow) BAR THREE: characters give life or death to stories
(orange) BAR FOUR: stories give life or death to readers
(red) BAR FIVE: readers give life or death to Writers
Yes, all Five Bars glowed strong again around the circle of Writers. Jer sighed and bent his head. Where had he left his latest puppet character? His fingers reached out to his screen, tapping me back onto the path I have been on all day.
I looked back at my husband who was trying to move our heavy dresser. “What were you saying? Sorry. I guess I zoned out for a minute.”
He was speechless for a moment before he replied while tapping his fingers on the wood, “You are bar none the most exasperating woman. That’s where the dresser was before you made me move it!”
Dinenea left him standing there for a moment to send a playful smile to Jer across the circle, but he was too focused on his work to notice. His fingers tapped, and so I asked again, “What were you saying?”