Go to GRANDMA'S WORLD
- Add a comment
- Go to Another Wild National Geographic type story of a street kid named DOG BOY
dknowles, I am so thankful that you came to read and review my work, tho' I begged, I admit.
Weak hooks are always a problem with me. I suppose that it's from not knowing my audience, knowing who has me on their Favorites list and how to call to strangers, I only know those who comment.
You have given me the small beginning courage to submit this. I will write a little more about it as I kept it small for BN attention spans.
posted by
benzinha
on October 30, 2003 at 5:50 PM
| link to this | reply
My Review
If you think I'm going to tell you that anything should be changed....you've got to be kidding. Your descriptions were forceful and vivid. The Dogboy lives.
Ok. So let's talk about the hook. "Another Wild National Geographic type story of a street kid named DOG BOY?" Oh, benz! Everyone that reads you knows how good you are (you may be the only one that has doubts) and so its no surprise that you had boatloads of comments. But what about those that don't know you? How will you get them to read your stuff? How will you get an editor to take a closer look at your submission? With a good "Hook" that's how. Some talk about the "hook" that really gets the reader in the first paragraph or so, but I have always looked to the title to get the reader's attention. "The Dogboy of Ziggi Zaggi Road" or "The Death Squads of Leblon" (I would have used this one. Yes, a little misleading, but not entirely and forgiveable)
This was a great story with a good ending that completed the circle. Each paragraph was a small picture. Remember the titles though. They are an important and vital piece of the puzzle. Without them, the work is incomplete.
Change the title and try
| NEW LETTERS |  | |
| University of Missouri-Kansas City
University House
5101 Rockhill Rd.
Kansas City MO 64110-2499
| Phone: (816)235-1168
Fax: (816)235-2611
E-Mail: newletters@umkc.edu
Website: umkc.edu/newletters
| This market entry
has recently changed.
Date of change: 7/10/2003
Nature of change: Information updated and verified.
| |
| Editor: Robert Stewart. |
| About NEW LETTERS: |
| Magazine
Frequency: Quarterly "New Letters is intended for the general literate reader. We publish literary fiction, nonfiction, essays, poetry. We also publish art." Editor's Note: Submissions are not read between May 15 and October 15. |
| Freelance Facts: |
| 100% freelance written
Established: 1934
Circulation: 2,500
Pays on publication
Publishes manuscript 5 months after acceptance.
Byline given.
Rights purchased:
First North American serial rights Editorial lead time 6 months.
Submit seasonal material 6 months in advance.
| Accepts queries by:
Mail Does not accept simultaneous submissions
Responds in 1 month to queries.
Responds in 3 months to manuscripts.
Sample copy for $7 or sample articles on website.
Click here for manuscript guidelines
| |
| |
| Nonfiction: |
| Needs:
Essays
Does Not Want: No self-help, how-to, or nonliterary work. Buys 8-10 manuscripts/year.
Submission method: Send complete manuscript
Length: 5,000 words maximum.
Pays $40-100. |
| Photos: |
| Send photos with submission.
Reviews:
Contact sheets
2x4 transparencies, prints
Buys one-time rights
Pays $10-40/photo |
| Fiction: |
| Contact: Robert Stewart, editor Needs:
Ethnic
Experimental
Humorous
Mainstream
Contemporary Does Not Want: No genre fiction. Buys 15-20 manuscripts/year.
Submission method: Send complete manuscript
Length: 5,000 words maximum.
Pays $30-75 for fiction and $15 for single poem.
|
| Poetry: |
| Needs:
Avant-garde
Free Verse
Haiku
Traditional
Does Not Want: No light verse. Buys 40-50 poems/year.
Submit maximum 6 poems.
Length: Open
Pays: $10–25.
|
| Tips: |
| "We aren't interested in essays that are footnoted, essays usually described as scholarly or critical. Our preference is for creative nonfiction or personal essays. We prefer shorter stories and essays to longer ones (an average length is 3,500-4,000 words). We have no rigid preferences as to subject, style, or genre, although commercial efforts tend to put us off. Even so, our only fixed requirement is on good writing." |
posted by
dknowles
on October 29, 2003 at 10:15 PM
| link to this | reply
HECK, I JUST WANT TO GROW UP...
you're welcome benz.... that story really touched me.. it was an honor to link to you.
posted by
homegirl
on September 23, 2003 at 5:39 AM
| link to this | reply
Benzi...
Crabby wants to be you when she grows up!!!
posted by
Crabby
on September 23, 2003 at 5:07 AM
| link to this | reply
Benzinah
I appologize. Sometimes I just can't help myself.
I shall refrain in the future.
About the issue of our post, it was poigniant. I'm
a bit obsessed right now about people's inability
to see the connectedness of things in the world. Cause and
effect. People do not connect their life decisions
to how the world is around them. Like thinking you don't
have to pay any taxes at all and somehow the schools will
be great, the roads will be paved and we can all live in happy
lala land.
posted by
Cynthia
on September 23, 2003 at 4:39 AM
| link to this | reply
spanky, thanks for reading my story and even sharing it with someone else. Gracias mil.
We shall continue to read each other.
posted by
benzinha
on September 22, 2003 at 10:41 PM
| link to this | reply
maj, dreah, firahz and cynthia, I thank you all for stoppping and commenting, especially for taking the time
to comment. Cynthia, I thank you for your long comment and understanding and was hurt to have you bop at crabby's head. It hurts me to read anyone saying anything negative about another blogger.
I realize that you two have been taking pot shots at each other for awhile, but would ask that you not shoot in my quiet old neighborhood, I'm too old and shall have a heart attack......thanks to everyone for visiting and commenting.
firahz, I read you, too. maj, you know I do you. And dreah, I thank you again here forlinking your readers to my blogs. Most gracious of you.
posted by
benzinha
on September 22, 2003 at 10:37 PM
| link to this | reply
I've been talking to my life partner about your writing.
I talk to Arron alot about my writing, and the writing of those I respect and admire. He's a slow reader, but an avid one, so I sometimes will read him short things that have moved me. I also love reading out loud. It gives new life to writing. I recommend it to anyone. Find someone you care about, and read a book out loud to them.
I read Arron Dog Boy's story. I had to stop many times to regain my composure. I found I couldn't read him the last paragraph out loud. I had to point to it and have him read it. I was too choked up. When writing moves me like this, I feel I have to comment on it.
You are my favorite writer here. I look forward to finding others that write as well, but I will always stop by to see if you've written anything new.
Thank you.
-Craig SpankyCraig
posted by
SpankyCraig
on September 22, 2003 at 10:32 PM
| link to this | reply
Benzinha thanks for giving this first hand account
but things are not much different today in Brazil and even worse, as you point out, in many other countries. See the documentary BUS 174
by Jose Padhila the Brazilian filmaker.
But to cry and say "oh the horror" is simply not enough. You have to look at the big global economic/environmental picture in which we Americans play such a huge part. You have to see why there are millions of people who can no longer live off the land in Brazil because of the utter destruction of their environment and the rainforest. They move to the cities where there is no work. There are few social services because the rich don't want to pay for them. The police are criminal because they are poorly paid, inadequately trained and are living on the edge themselves. There are no good guys in this picture. Everyone is complicit.
Benzinha, I've read you before and I'm sure you know these things. It's the complacent, naive, untraveled, inexperienced, Hallmark card platitude spouting other Americans who are clueless.
Like Crabby who always seems to miss the point.
posted by
Cynthia
on September 22, 2003 at 9:24 PM
| link to this | reply
you made me cry,benzhina
that has to be one of the most touching stories I have ever read. It was like I was there with you.
posted by
firahz
on September 22, 2003 at 6:12 PM
| link to this | reply
wow,
to all you readers stumbling upon this blog for the first time today.. please see http://www.bloggingnetwork.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/opinpoet/42539
read everything this lady writes.... it's good!
posted by
homegirl
on September 22, 2003 at 9:09 AM
| link to this | reply
oh.
posted by
majroj
on September 21, 2003 at 8:19 PM
| link to this | reply
willow and I thank you for reading about Dog Boy, too. Americans are mostly protected from
the sights seen overseas. We are a more charitable and fostering society, but we have the money, don't we? The answer to why is all goes on is world economics and abject, grinding, stullifying, dehumanizing poverty.
posted by
benzinha
on September 21, 2003 at 7:45 PM
| link to this | reply
crabby, thanks for reading about Dog Boy. He was not a horror, just a little boy.
He was not the worst thing that I ever saw and felt sad about. Iracema dead on the beach really hurt my brothers and I though. These things that you see as daily regularities overseas are not horrors, they are neighborhood and life staples and struggling humanity.
The world is too full to contemplate solutions, so I help where I can. Would that I could go back and make Dog Boy's life as human and boringly regular as possible. There are other dogboys running some streets somewhere, even as we write.
As you walked Little Crabby to buy groceries in Rio, in my time there, the sidewalks were lined, non-stop except for store openings, with bleeding, ulcerous, maimed and mutilated humanity. And, I, a teen, was supposed to just walk like everyone else and have a silly teen life, buy the groceries and return home. They died all over those streets and were surrounded by candles placed by passersby, covered with newspapers and discussed and prayed over until picked up by some city vehicle, hours and hours later.
So very different from my childhood in a little American town, so very eye opening and maturing and soul savaged life changing. And yet, you had to go about living and everyone there did. I suppose that Bombay was very similar and am grateful not to have gone to highschool there, as the numbers would have been even higher.
Thanks for reading another one of my writings.
posted by
benzinha
on September 21, 2003 at 7:39 PM
| link to this | reply
Such saddness, such horror. . .It makes me wonder why?
Willow 
posted by
Gentle-Willow
on September 21, 2003 at 7:38 PM
| link to this | reply
Oh... Benzi....
Crabby is crying for those children..... and for you having witnessed such a horror!
posted by
Crabby
on September 21, 2003 at 7:25 PM
| link to this | reply
vonney, thanks for the email saying that I inspired you to really write real things. My stories
are my response to the insult that there are no real writers on the BN. There are many and I read them and let them know using the comment section of their blogs, so that they don't feel like lonely writers, unread.
There is a lot of competetive game playing about Blogging positions, but it's not why I'm here, though like any other writer, I like to be read. I read the silly blogging for fame posts but truly follow my favorite real writers and encourage them to keep writing and entertaining me.
I hope that you do write soon and then come and tell me where to find you and I shall read you, too. Without your name to click on here, I can't find your work, dunno how. Or are you just a reader for now? Best wishes and thanks for the email.
posted by
benzinha
on September 21, 2003 at 6:12 PM
| link to this | reply