Real Simple Magazine Creative Nonfiction Memoir Essay Contest

From Real Simple Magazine:

Deadline: 9/24/2010
realsimple.com/lifelessons
Creative Nonfiction / Memoir / Essay
Enter the Third Annual Real Simple Life Lessons Contest And You Could Win $3000

Finish this sentence: “I NEVER THOUGHT I’D...”
THEN TELL US WHY! Whether the experience was difficult, funny, easy, or bittersweet, share your lesson and you could win.

ONE WINNER WILL RECEIVE:
• $3,000
• Round-trip tickets for two to New York City, hotel accommodations for two nights, tickets to a Broadway play, and a lunch with Real Simple editors
• Publication in Real Simple Magazine

Contest entries should be typed, double-spaced, and a maximum of 1,500 words. No purchase necessary. Contest begins at 12:01 A.M. on June 1, 2010, and ends at 11:59 P.M. on September 24, 2010. Open to legal residents of the United States 19 or older at the time of entry. Void where prohibited by law. (All entries will not be returned.)

TO ENTER Send your typed, double-spaced submission (1,500 words maximum, preferably in a Microsoft Word attachment) by e-mail to lifelessons[at]realsimple.com.
For contest rules, visit realsimple.com/lifelessonscontest

Screamfest LA 2010 Call for Entries - Films and Screenplays

This just in from our friends at ScreamfestLA:

Screamfest LA 2010 call for entries
Deadline: August 15,2010
www.screamfestla.com
Horror

"A launching pad for burgeoning directors and screenwriters, Screamfest is dedicated to celebrating the often neglected and underappreciated horror genre. Formed in 2001, Screamfest is one of the leading festivals of its kind and many of the movies and moviemakers showcased here have found distribution...." -MOVIEMAKER MAGAZINE

Screamfest 2010 Call For Entries are now open for new feature length and short films and unproduced screenplays. Winning films receive the coveted golden skull designed by legendary Stan Winston. Winning screenplay receives $2,000 cash and Movie Magic Screenwriter. For more information or to download a submission form, go to www.screamfestla.com

Screamfest discovered the box office hit PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Are you the next big thing?

"When all other festivals were rejecting PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, Screamfest was the first and only festival at the time that accepted us. We had a great premiere screening and got positive reviews as a result. Shortly after, we got the attention of CAA and many distributors. The rest, as they say, is history! But it all started at Srceamfest!" -Oren Peli

LA Literati - Ray Bradbury

"Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years."
-Ray Bradbury

Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was 13 years old. He is somewhat distantly related to the American Spalding family, owners of the famous Spalding sports equipment company. His central character Douglas Spaulding, from the novel Dandelion Wine was reportedly drawn from this heritage.

Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth, spending much time in the Carnegie library in Waukegan, Illinois. He used this library as a setting for much of his novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, and depicted Waukegan as "Green Town" in some of his other semi-autobiographical novels — Dandelion Wine, Farewell Summer — as well as in many of his short stories.

He attributes his lifelong habit of writing every day to an incident in 1932 when a carnival entertainer, Mr. Electrico, touched him on the nose with an electrified sword, made his hair stand on end, and shouted, "Live forever!" It was from then that Bradbury wanted to live forever and decided his career as an author in order to do what he was told: live forever. It was at that age that Bradbury first started to do magic. Magic was his first great love. If he had not discovered writing, he would have become a magician. We're happy he decided to chuck the rabbit and make words appear out of a hat instead.

His website, www.Raybradbury.com contains a complete list of Bradbury's titles and some excellent video interview footage of Bradbury taken in 2001.

LA Literati - Charles Bukowski

"You live in a town all your life, and you get to know every bitch on the street corner and half of them you have already messed around with. You've got the layout of the whole land. You have a picture of where you are.... Since I was raised in L.A., I've always had the geographical and spiritual feeling of being here. I've had time to learn this city. I can't see any other place than L.A."

Charles Bukowski was born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Germany.  His parents immigrated to America and eventually settled in South Los Angeles, CA in 1930.  He attended Los Angeles High School and then Los Angeles City College for two years taking courses in art, journalism & literature.

At 24, Bukowski's short story Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip was published in Story magazine. Two years later, another short story, 20 Tanks From Kasseldown, was published in Portfolio III's broadside collection. Failing to break into the literary world, Bukowski grew disillusioned with the publication process and quit writing for almost a decade, a time that he has referred to as a "ten-year-drunk." These "lost years" formed the basis for his later autobiographical chronicles, although the veracity of his accounts has been frequently called into question. During part of this period he continued living in Los Angeles, working at a pickle factory for a short time, but also spent some time roaming about the United States, working sporadically and staying in cheap rooming houses. In the early 1950s Bukowski took a job as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service in Los Angeles, but resigned just before three years service.

By 1960 he had returned to the post office in Los Angeles, where he continued to work as a letter filing clerk for over a decade. In 1962 Bukowski was traumatised by the death of Jane Cooney Baker. She had been his first real romantic attachment. Bukowski turned his grief and devastation into a series of poems and stories lamenting her passing. Jane is considered to be the greatest love of his life and was the most important in a long series of 'Muses' who inspired his writing, according to biographers Jory Sherman, Souness, Brewer, and Harrison. In 1964, a daughter, Marina Louise Bukowski, was born to Bukowski and his then live-in girlfriend Frances Smith, whom he fondly referred to as a "white-haired hippy", "shack-job" and "old snaggle-tooth".

In 1969, he accepted an offer from Black Sparrow Press publisher John Martin and quit his post office job to dedicate himself to full-time writing. He was then 49 years old. As he explained in a letter at the time, "I have one of two choices — stay in the post office and go crazy ... or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve." Less than one month after leaving the postal service, he finished his first novel, Post Office (novel). As a measure of respect for Martin's financial support and faith in a then relatively unknown writer, Bukowski published almost all of his subsequent major work with Black Sparrow Press, although, an avid supporter of the small independent presses, he continued to submit poems and short stories to thousands of small presses until the time of his death.

His gravestone reads: "Don't Try", a phrase which Bukowski uses in one of his poems, advising aspiring writers and poets about inspiration and creativity. Bukowski explains the phrase in a 1963 letter to John William Corrington as follows:

Somebody at one of these places [...] asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it."

Part 5 of 10: Ten Favorite Places to Write (in no particular order)

Nicole turned me on to a groovy place in Redondo Beach.  Catalina Coffee

Nicole said:

"It's a big coffee shop, plenty of parking -  cozy, eclectic furniture: couches, comfy chairs, tables, etc.  A fireplace, and even an area set off to the back that looks like a private home library that they use for private events sometimes."

Here's a list of the amenities.  I love that the library is an ALL mystery used book store (they have over 2,000 titles for sale).  Now, we just have to catch them up to the modern world of offering free WiFi (there is a PC there for internet access but they charge for it...)

Check it out:

Catalina Coffee

126 North Catalina Avenue

Redondo Beach, CA 90277

Map Here.

Part 6 of 10: Ten Favorite Places to Write (in no particular order)

I can't help it. I know it's cheesy - but I love Du-par's on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City.  I love the comfy red vinyl booths, I love the formica table tops.  I love the pie.

No WiFi, but great coffee, breakfast all day, open 24 hours.  Seriously, how can you go wrong?  The last time I was in Du-par's I saw Percy Daggs III at the next table over.  Always something cool going on at Du-par's.

Du-par's Studio City

12036 Ventura Blvd.

Studio City, CA 

Map Here.

(Oh, and if you're looking for someplace to write near Tom's Miracle Mile group, there's one at the Farmer's Market too! 6333 W. 3rd Street @ Fairfax Map Here.)

Part 4 of 10: Ten Favorite Places to Write (in no particular order)

One of my all time favorite places is Eats (actual name is Los Feliz Coffee Shop) - it's located on Los Feliz Boulevard in what is considered to be Atwater Village.  Eats is tucked in next to a small nine-hole golf course.  There is a practice putting green just behind the parking lot for the restaurant so if you need to clear your head take along your putter and a few balls to practice your green game in between paragraphs.

No WiFi but lovely seating outside and plenty of indoor seating including the classic coffee shop counter.

3207 Los Feliz Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90039

Map Here.