Merry Christmas!

I have no idea if anyone will take the time to check out Writing in Shadows as late in the season as Christmas Eve, but all the same... Merry Christmas, everyone.

I decided to post this holiday greeting this morning, while sitting in the living room watching tv at my wife's parent's house. I was looking at the tree and all the presents underneath, and realized it seemed like there were more than there were last year. I pondered this, and realized that the reason was that the family was growing. This would be my second Christmas as an (official) member of the family, my second as a married man. This past summer, my brother in law also got married, adding yet another member to the -in-law's club (his wife and I have actually had the pleasure of sharing a number of family firsts together - including washing dishes at our first Christmas spent with the family a few years ago!).

In a rather holiday-esque moment (I have few of them... Christmas has more than its fair share of bad memories for me, truth be told, ranging from bad Christmas' fighting with my own family or others spent alone with that dreaded sining fireplace channel playing all day). I realized that as each new person became a member of this family (myself included), the gifts under the tree grew in number exponentially as everyone gets at least one gift from each of us. So, in an uncharacteristically emotional Hallmark kind of moment, those presents took on a different meaning for me - each one was, in a way, a measure of the love that was growing as the family grew larger. A physical represenation, if you want, of the fact that as each of us was made a part of this family, there was more love and more support to go around.

So as exciting as it is to open up that neat new gift (or that new pair of underwear or socks!) on Christmas morning, let's all resolve to keep in mind (even if it's the back of our minds, because the rest of our mind is overwhelmed by that spanky new toy or - if we are truly blessed by the commercial side of Christmas - that shiny new PS3 or console of choice, or the kids get the extreme tickle me Elmo - who to me sounds like he should be doing frog splashes off a steel cage onto a helpless Cookie Monster laying on a table outside a wrestling ring) that the reason there is a present under the tree is because someone cares about you.

On a very special note, a couple of close friends of ours went out and did something extra special this year and paid a visit to a local hospital, delivering presents to all the children who would be spending this Christmas there. Remembering spending a Christmas there himself and seeing many of the kids who had no presents and no one there to be with them on Christmas, he and his girlfriend wanted to try and fix that for some lucky kids this year. So an extra special Merry Christmas to both of them (you know who you are, so I won't embarass you by naming you on an online blog written by on oft-times bitter writer), and let's hope you can be an inspiration to others who read this. What you two did is probably the best reminder of what Christmas is all about that I've ever been given... not to mention a sometimes needed reminder that for all the other stuff we hear about each day in the news, there are some really good hearted people out there doing great things to make the world better... and you deserve some recognition for it. I hope you see many blessings in the future in return for bringing smiles to some deserving children over the holidays.

I know you brought one to mine.

Happy holidays, everybody!

Mike
a.k.a. the Shadow Writer... but for today, writing as just myself

Truth or fiction redux

Well, I've done research... I've made inquiries... and the results are...

Ambiguous. Uncertain. Questionable.

The National Library of Canada has holdings put forth by the Poetry Institute of Canada in its archives, as per the national publication submission policy for Canadian publications.
The Better Business Bureau lists the Poetry Institute of Canada as a member in good standing.

Yet at the same time the pattern seems to match the descriptions of these "vanity scams". So as far as the Shadow-writer, yours truly, is concerned, all I can say on the matter is I have some reservations, but in all honesty I don't know... and in this day and age, some would say truth is what you believe it to be. Are these contests legitimate? Maybe. Certainly it does look like you will get your work published in them, even if it does cost you a little money. Does anything get in provided it gets paid for? I suppose one could test that in a future contest by deliberately submitting rubbish and see what gets said.

I'll be honest, too, I got mad when I thought I'd been scammed. And when I get mad, I fly off the handle... I suppose unstable emotional states are often associated with artistic minds, and I am no exception. Perhaps I over-reacted... perhaps I just-enough-reacted.

As far as Nightmares and Nameless Fears goes, and its appearance in the Departing Day next month, I'll let you know what comes of it in terms of the book itself... beyond that, all I know is that I thought it was a good piece of writing, and ultimately still do. Whether it got accepted for print because it has merit or because I paid them a typesetting fee and bought the book, the fact is that I wrote it and I'm proud of it... just as I'm proud of the other pieces I've written (except maybe In the Darkness, which bears revision at some point... but I've already expressed my perspective on that here and won't beat it futher to death here).

Nobody else can do anything to take away the fact that I wrote that poem and that I'm proud of doing so. Nothing would ever make me ashamed to slap my name on the page where it appears, so what does it matter if it may or may not be seeing publication in a "gray area".

Horror lives for gray areas after all... and in them... and those Nameless Fears are more than up to the task of suviving in such a place indefinitely, until such time as they are ready to rise up and seek a new place to dwell.

Trust your own judgement, in this and all things... ask yourself just who's in charge of your life and your decisions. A wise person once said the reason we fall down is so that we can get up again.

Oh, wait a minute... that was Bruce Wayne's dad in Batman Begins who said that...

Well, wise words nonetheless.

Happy holidays, everyone!

The Poetry Institute of Canada - Truth or Fiction?

This post comes with a rather bitter taste to it, but in good conscience it needs to be said. I'm a firm believer that information should be shared, and that each of us needs to take that information and make of it what they will. That being said, when you read this I encourage you to do your own research and conduct your own conclusions. I'm a cynic at heart, so it's easier for me to believe the worst of people, so where I stand is rather predictable. At any rate, when this information came to my attention, I was deeply hurt... and upset, both with myself and those involved. After a poor night's sleep, it struck me that the obvious thing for a writer to do in this situation is simply... to write about it.

So here it is.

The Poetry Institute of Canada and similar contests follow the pattern of what is referred to as a "vanity scam" - one which appeals to our sense of vanity in an attempt to part us with our money. They take submissions from prospective authors eager to receive recognition for their literary efforts, send a flowery acceptance letter, and then charge you typesetting fees to be included in an anthology of poems (or whatever) and sell you as many copies of the anthology for youself and your family as they can manage.

Yours truly fell prey to vanity and bought into it lock, stock, and chequebook, I'm ashamed to say. Not for nothing does Al Pacino, in his role of the Devil in "Devil's Advocate", state that vanity is his favorite sin.

I've since read up on other identical scams and spoken with various individuals via Yahoo answers, and every source says the same thing - anyone can get accepted into these "poetry anthologies" if they pay the money to these scams. What I haven't found is evidence of any of these anthologies making their way into bookstores, libraries, or even the National Library of Canada's catalog.

In one article I read, a professor in the U.S.A. tested his suspicion of a similar scam (they appear as sites like www.poetry.ca, under names such as International Library of Poetry, etc.). He had three students send in submissions: one was an Emily Dickinson poem, one a garbage original work made intentionally bad on the subject of female breasts, and the third a series of fortune cookie fortunes strung together.

They were all accepted, with an offer of publication in exchange for typesetting costs and the chance to buy copies of the anthology, according to the article.

Now January may tell the tale, but my suspicions are that I fell for one of these "vanity scams". So I fought back with my most proficient weapon of choice... I traded my poison pen in for a keyboard (the pen being to the sword what the keyboard is to an automatic weapon, for you metaphor fans out there), and I wrote. Whether this truly is a scam as I have come to believe it is I leave to you to each decide for yourselves - and I offer my best words of wisdom, ones I failed in this instance to listen to myself.

Information is power... and like power must be used with both wisdom and compassion. So don't believe everything you hear (including what you hear from me on this blog!) - judge everything for yourself, and live by your own conclusions.

"Vanity... definitely my favorite sin." -- Al Pacino as "The Devil", Devil's Advocate