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T h e B a h a m a s W r i t e r - I s s u e # 5
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Release date: Thursday, March 28, 2002
Welcome to another issue of The Bahamas Writer. Please
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================== CONTENTS ===========================
1. Article: "Winter Blues & Recollections" by Joanne Hoople
2. Writing Tip: Art & Joanne Montague - the "Chicken Soup" book
process
3. Hazel McLoughlin - Poetry Success
4. Article: "Communicating Through The Language Barrier" by
Hazel McLoughlin
5. The Punch - "Woman In Action" articles published
6. Work in progress section updated
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1. Article: "Winter Blues & Recollections" by Joanne Hoople
We are delighted to welcome Joanne Hoople, who's member Art
Montague's wife. Joanne says she prefers to write under her
former name - "If I ever have an opportunity to develop my
writing, I want to be a separate identity. This is not on the
horizon right now though - I'm too busy marketing Art's work!"
Art and Joanne live in Ottawa, Canada.
One of their recent projects has been serializing a book of Art's
for a UK e-book site. Check out Art's web site at
http://amontague.homestead.com. You can email Joanne or Art at
arts-place@rogers.com
WINTER BLUES & RECOLLECTIONS by Joanne Hoople
Although my visits to Nassau, The Bahamas, are among my
happiest memories, I've lately been day dreaming of a place
aptly called "Heaven's Valley" in the Kingdom of Swaziland in
southeastern Africa. Also known as "Ezulwini" in the SiSwati
language, this incredibly fertile stretch of land resides
comfortably among mountains which tower dramatically over the
lush landscape.
Twenty years ago last Christmas I visited Swaziland, the
smallest country in the southern hemisphere, for ten days,
travelling almost directly from a week-long conference in tiny
Pond Inlet, Northwest Territories, now Nunavut, in the Canadian
Arctic.
Amid temperatures so frigid a person could freeze to death in
minutes if out of doors without protective clothing, the region
was undergoing its annual three months of no sunlight. Its stark
snowy mountains, glaciers, and icebergs were barely visible
across Eclipse Sound; and the Arctic Ocean appeared to me as a
pitch black, almost foreboding mass. Catapulted as I was, in
relatively quick time, from Arctic weather conditions to the
warming shards of the low-lying crimson sun of Heaven's Valley,
I'm sure I felt something akin to the shock of time machine
travel.
I had returned from the North to my home in Ottawa on Christmas
Eve and opened gifts with my family. The next morning, with two
family members in tow, we drove to the airport. Following an
eighteen-hour flight to New York City and to Johannesburg, South
Africa for an overnight and early morning flight, our small plane
touched down within a few hours in Mbabane, capital city of
Swaziland.
We then began the descent by car from Mbabane into the Valley by
paved but twisty highway, both breathtaking and scary, though
once we reached level ground, there was smooth motoring between
tall eucalyptus trees and past a pair of Holiday Inns, one at
each side of the road. (I never did find out why there were two!)
Once in the countryside we travelled at snail's pace, stopping
the car frequently for crossing cattle; wildlife such as
wildebeest, giraffes, zebras, and assorted enormous turtles,
all of whom enjoyed protection under the laws of the reigning
King, at that time the venerable King Sobhuza II, whose kindly
but imposing presence could be felt everywhere.
I visited Ezulwini as a guest of my eldest daughter, who was
teaching prospective native educators at the Kwalusini campus
of the State University of Swaziland. Most of the classrooms were
in out-of-door settings; the dwelling allotted to my daughter and
her family contained an open-air courtyard placed smack in the
mid-section of the house -- a permanent home to several exotic
birds, tortoises, and small wildlife.
Quite a change indeed from Pond Inlet -- where I had stayed a
week with a traditional Inuit family, not venturing outside
without many layers of clothing. The interior rafters of their
home were strung up with dried and drying hides of numerous
animals freshly hunted and killed - caribou, polar bears, Arctic
foxes, wolves and the like.
Residing in Canada, as I have for four decades, can be an
exercise of dogged endurance in the long winter months of
chilling cold, relentless snow, and, too often, freezing rain.
It is no wonder that my recollections of contrasting warmer
climes like Heaven's Valley -- and the Bahamas -- become more
and more frequent as winter draws to a close and spring is
nearly a reality.
©2002 Joanne Hoople
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Note: You may distribute this Newsletter. Feel free to post it
to your website or BBS if you like. However no part of this
Newsletter may be reproduced in whole, or in part, without
keeping the links within this newsletter active.
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2.Writing Tip: Art & Joanne Montague - the "Chicken Soup" book
process:
We are grateful for this informative and inspirational
contribution from writer Art Montague and his wife Joanne
Hoople.
Art's "K.C." essay "Rainy Day Rainbows" was one of only 100
chosen from 6,000 for "Chicken Soup for the Grandparent's Soul"
(now in book stores).
K.C. is Art's little granddaughter and you can read one of his
"K.C." stories, "Let's Read a Story, Grandpa!", in the November
2001 issue of The Bahamas Writer newsletter
(http://www.bahamaswriter.com/back_issues.htm)
Art's web site: http://amontague.homestead.com
Email: arts-place@rogers.com
Here's the "scoop" on "Chicken Soup" from Art and Joanne! -
"The Chicken Soup for the Soul series was started in 1993, and
has since sold more than 80 million books in 51 languages
around the world. There are 50 titles in the series and more
planned.
"The selection process for Grandparent's Soul was long and
drawn out. Two years ago, Art submitted two K.C. stories from
his collection, Travels With K.C., and both were selected.
"Four tentative contracts, several letters, and one phone call
later, we found that one of the stories, "Rainy Day Rainbows",
was in the final running. Then we received word that the
publisher, Jack Canfield, would be making the final cut from
150 to 100. Suspense up until the last minute!
"The process: Out of over 6,000 stories submitted from around
the world, following a massive publicity campaign, the
co-editors for this issue graded them on a scale of 1-10.
"Stories over a 9 then went to teams of 2-5 readers and those
graded over 9.5 were assembled into a manuscript of 180 stories
which was sent to over 400 people all over the U.S. for further
grading. Any story which dropped below 9.25 was eliminated,
leaving about 150 stories for the publisher's final cut to 100.
"How did Art feel? Pretty good, considering the odds. The
subject of his essay, his then-toddler grand-daughter, Kennedy
Ciara (K.C.), is now nearly five years old. The essays were
written originally as a legacy for her when she is grown up.
"This directly from Art: 'The intention was not to leave a
legacy of wisdom for later in life but to provide a reminder
that life can be a lot of fun. Interestingly enough, writing
these essays has given me that same reminder."
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3. Hazel McLoughlin - Poetry Success
I was thrilled to hear from member Hazel McLoughlin that after
submitting her poem "Blue" to a poetry competition on
http://www.poetry.com, she received a letter saying the poem
had made it to the semi-finals, along with an offer to publish
it in a new poetry anthology they are preparing!
Hazel, who lives in Nassau, Bahamas, said: "I'm thrilled and
have said yes. While they're not offering to pay me for it,
I'm delighted to have the chance to see myself in print. Thank
you so much for putting me on to that. I've also submitted my
Sept 11 poem, but haven't heard back about that yet." (Read
Hazel's poem "11 September, 2001" in The Bahamas Writer
forums - Article, Story, Poem or Book Critique Area)
It was actually my son Gavin (http://www.audiofilter.net), who
designed and maintains http://www.bahamaswriter.com among many
other web sites, who told me about Poetry.com. He and I have
both submitted poems to one of their competitions and are
keeping fingers (and toes!) crossed!
http://www.poetry.com is sponsored by the International
Library of Poetry. Poetry.com say they are "by far the largest
and most comprehensive poetry site on the Internet" and that
"over 3.1 million poets have submitted poetry" to their site
(so, well done, Hazel!). They have some great cash prizes!
Hearty congratulations to Hazel. We wish her much success with
her poem "Blue" and the many others we know she will pen!
Hazel has also contributed an article to The Bahamas Writer
this month - "Communicating Through The Language Barrier"
(see below).
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4. Article: "Communicating Through The Language Barrier"
by Hazel McLoughlin
I am pleased to welcome Hazel McLoughlin to The Bahamas Writer
newsletter.
Hazel first contacted the Bahamas Writer in January, when she
said:
"Thrilled to find your website (via the Corona Chronicle).
I have long been an aspiring writer, without doing very much
to fulfil my aim! I too started writing as a child but never
followed it up until I started doing newsletters for various
organisations I was involved with.
"During the 80s and early 90s when we lived in Singapore, I
joined the British Association there and offered to help with
their monthly magazine, eventually becoming its editor. I
wrote a variety of articles for this one magazine but have
never had my work 'published' elsewhere.
"When I came to the Bahamas (a little over a year ago) I
promised myself I would take up writing again. I've penned
a couple of poems inspired by the beauty of the island, but
have done little else so far, though I have agreed to take on
the compilation of the Corona Chronicle for a while.
"Finding your website could be the inspiration I've been
waiting for."
Since then, Hazel has become an active participant in the
Bahamas Writer forums; she's written some inspiring poems
("Blue" which has reached the semi-finals of a poetry
competition on http://www.bahamaswriter.com and is also going
to be published in a new poetry anthology); and she's getting
back to writing articles.
"Am I getting through to you?"
COMMUNICATING ACROSS THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
by Hazel McLoughlin
"She's got it in for him and he doesn't have it in him to
stand up to her!"
In another language, the closest interpretation of that
would probably translate into something like: she has a grudge
against him and he doesn't have the courage to withstand her.
Boring? Perhaps, but it goes some way to explain why foreigners
have such problems with our 'phrasal verbs' and often come
across(!) as somewhat affected and prim when they use perfectly
proper, but academic, words, especially if they've been taught
to speak the Queen's English in an accent which can seem
superior and off-putting to native English speakers. It's not
surprising that misunderstandings arise when people try to
communicate across the language barrier.
A foreigner starting to learn English might at first find it
surprisingly easy: verbs don't really conjugate and nouns
definitely don't decline! But then the lack of grammatical
structure can become a deep pit for the unwary. It's like
learning to walk a tightrope without a safety-net. With other
languages, once you understand their grammatical structure, you
can work things out for yourself.
The purity of the French language, for example, has been
jealously guarded by its watchdog, the Académie Française, to
the extent that it is generally recognisable, wherever it is
spoken in the world, as the language you learnt at school.
(Though the French themselves laughed at the Académie's
attempts, some years ago, to ban all foreign words from their
language - they were not going to give up 'le sandwich at 'le
weekend'!)
The orderly nature of native German speakers has preserved
their language intact - a faithful grammatical replica of the
classical Latin it was modelled on. (Though in Switzerland,
the 19 German-speaking Cantons each have their own individual
and distinctive German dialect, which can be quite baffling to
speakers of standard German.)
English on the other hand, is a hybrid language, owing
something to all the nations that conquered Britain in its dim
and distant past - from the Norse and Germanic tribes to the
Romans and the French. In the hey-day of its empire, when much
of the world-map was coloured pink, Britain in turn brought
its language and culture to those it had colonised. In
far-flung corners of the globe, peoples of many different
ethnic roots adopted the English tongue and used it in a way
that reflected their own character, spawning an array of pidgin
English dialects, each with its own regional flavour. Any
residual niceties of grammar were cheerfully dispensed with,
as the language took on a life of its own.
The purists among English scholars may frown on that, but I
would argue that it brings a welcome colour and diversity to
the language. And it is an on-going process. When my children
say something is 'cool,' they're not talking in terms of
temperature! The English tongue is a living thing, which its
users will continue to adapt and transform to meet the changing
needs and fashions of their time.
"Wazzup, mon, why you so like dat?"
©2002 Hazel McLoughlin
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5. The Punch - "Woman In Action" articles published (http://www.bahamaswriter.com/publishedarticles.htm)
I'm having a lot of fun writing articles for The Punch
"Woman In Action" column. These women are all so interesting
and it's difficult to condense into 700 words the wonderful
stories that they tell! More WIA articles are in the works.
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6. Work in progress section updated
(http://www.bahamaswriter.com/workinprogress.htm)
If you go to my "Work in progress" section from time to time,
you'll see I share some of the ways I try to market my work.
Of course, I'm not actively working on everything listed there
all of the time - some of it is written, but on the "back
burner"; some is still in note form; other work is still in
the planning process.
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I hope you've enjoyed this issue of The Bahamas Writer.
If you have any questions or comments relating to this
Newsletter or BahamasWriter.com please feel free to Email
them to me at:
Copyright © 2002 The Bahamas Writer. All rights reserved.
You may distribute this Newsletter. Feel free to post it to
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keeping the links within this newsletter active.
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