Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression

Editor's Blog

Written by Coach Culbertson

Tuesday, 26 August 2008

First Print Run of Issue 2.3 to Arrive Tomorrow!

Yep, on it's way right now as I type, Issue 2.3 will be arriving sometime tomorrow, and we'll be mailing them this week! So, we're, ummm, mostly on time. Kind of. Pretty close, anyway.

Big Sale Still Going!

Hey, don't forget to get some cheap Relief as we celebrate the opening of our new integrated SSL-encrypted Relief Store! Issue 2.2 is only $10 (save $4.95!), Coach's Midnight Diner: The Jesus Vs. Cthulhu Edition is only $10 , and subscriptions are only $44 ! Plus, don't forget to get in on the Pre-Sales price of Issue 2.3 for only $11.95! Pre-Sales will end this Friday, so order up now to get yours now!

Coach's Midight Diner Second Edition: Yowza!

I'll be posting up the authors for the Second Edition of Coach's Midnight Diner pretty soon. I've gotta tell ya, I've been going over the edited works, and all I can say is wow. We really have some groundbreaking stuff in here. I know, like we didn't in the last one, but this one keeps the trendline moving forward on an upward vector! (Translation for Corporatese: The first Diner was great, the second Diner will be even more intense! )

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Take a step back, folks

Written by Kimberly Culbertson

Monday, 25 August 2008

Helicopter Parenting

In a facinating article, O Magazine recently examined the roles of parents in their children's high school, college, and even adult lives. In "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... Supermom!" (July 2008) Amanda Robb reported that the trendline is on the rise for "helicopter parenting," a term coined in 1977 by Jim Fay and Foster Cline, cofounders of the Love and Logic Institute. The term labels parents who "hover" over their children so much as to be involved in the minute details of their lives.

Robb notes that "In a study of 60 public universities and colleges... 40 to 60 percent of parents engage in some type of helicopter parenting, such as helping with academic assignments, and as many as 10 percent actually write their children's papers for them." I find this amazing, as my parents were thrilled to have me away at college and certainly never offered to do my homework for me. And yet, the parents discussed in the article drove hours to do their college students' laundry, grocery shopping, and cleaning. They contacted teachers and possible employers to discuss assignments and benefits. They emailed and phoned daily to advise, and found ways to be assured that their student was taking their advice. One parent even had the password to her son's email account so that she could read any emails from professors and ask her son about why he missed appointments or failed assignments. On another strange note, the students studied in Robb's article did not mind, and even appreciated their parent's uberinvolvement.

George Kuh, PhD, who conducts the annual National Survey of student Engagement to measure what conditions make for the most eneficial college experience, admits that students with involved parents tend to succeed more, but states that there is "a tipping point between beneficial contact and the kind that stunts personal growth." Not to mention how the people around these spoiled students must just want to pound them...

I share this story for two reason: First, I really am just facinated. My parents were involved and accessible while I was in college, but certainly did not hover. In fact, I'm pretty sure I helped with laundry in grade school. It's hard for me to imagine wanting to stunt your child's development by doing everything for him or her. (But then, I do have background as a teacher.) But second, as I pondered the article, I began to make the easy connections between writing and parenting. And I began to wonder if this phenomena doesn't exist in publishing, and especially in Christian publishing.

Helicopter Authoring

I have lost count of the number of authors who correlate submitting their work to Relief with "sending their baby out into the world." Before I sound too pretentious, I'll admit, I've had similar feelings. You work so hard to shape a story (or a poem or essay or picture or...) but eventually it has to make it in the big world and you just have to hope you've done enough. But there does come a point when you just have to let go, and trust the story to survive without you.

And after that point, some of us just keep on writing.

We explain to the reader exactly how to read the story. In doing so we smother any subtlety in the piece and insult the reader. We're so afraid that he or she will miss the point or that the story isn't good enough to make the point on it's own that we throw in the "here's the moral" section toward the end.

Here at Relief, this "helicopter authoring" is probably the fastest way to get a rejection note. Former fiction editor J. Mark Bertrand once mused to me that every once in a while a story can pull off the moral-at-the-end trick, but it better earn the right to do it. So, like a parent who's not quite ready to trust her child in the big world, when we feel the urge to hover, we might ask ourselves if we're really helping the story, or just trying to reassure ourselves that we've done a good job.

Oops, that might have been a moral... oh well ;-}

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2008-08-25 17:07:54 Ha!

2008-08-25 15:56:11 Did the article list the names and contact info for said parents? I have a build...

Relief Recommends: Praying In Color

Written by Michelle Pendergrass

Wednesday, 20 August 2008

Recently, Coach's Midnight Diner Editor Michelle Pendergrass has been blogging about Praying In Color, which is way freakin' cool. Read on to see some examples of this totally kickin' technique!

This time it's a little different. An actual picture came out instead of doodles. Which is okay, except I don't draw all that well. Phil has been talking about a canoe trip so yesterday morning when Zane and I laid on my bed together to pray in color, this little picture flowed from my less than talented hand.

There's a couple other things I'm excited about. First. Zane's prayers.

He said, "I think I'll call this one 'Garden of God'"

Listen, I didn't start this praying in color for anyone but myself. Lord, how can one person be so selfish? When Zane saw me doing it, he was on that train and excited about the ride. Since then, we've been sharing some praying in color time. I had a little pack of these Staedtler markers (which, by the way ROCK!) and I found a 20 pack at Office Depot the other day for only $14.99 and I snatched those puppies up.

I gave Zane my small pack and now he's carrying them all over the house and spontaneously busting into praying in color mode whenever he feels the urge.

And now all of a sudden, it's something. My friend Toni shared with me a homeschool father speaking at a conference about creating memories with his family.

What I took from his seminar: my desire to give Zane a family that lives out their worship.

I want to be a doer.

I want him to learn that from me.

I don't just want to tell my friends, I'll pray for you, I want them to either hear me pray with them, read a prayer I've written for them, or see a prayer I've colored for them.

It means something bigger than me and my selfish heart.

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2008-08-22 13:16:19 I\'ve done that too

2008-08-21 19:47:35 what I\'ve done

Relief News Tuesday

Written by Coach Culbertson

Tuesday, 19 August 2008

New Relief Store is NOW LIVE! Big Sale Going on Right Now!

Yep, that's right friends, the new Relief Store is now live , and you can benefit by getting some cheap Relief now! Issue 2.2 is only $10 (save $4.95!), the Jesus Vs. Cthulhu Edition of Coach's Midnight Diner is only $10 (what a deal--it's a $20 book!) AND you can subscribe to 4 issues of Relief for only $44 (save 4 bucks and get free shipping!) This big sale is only until September 15th, 2008, so get some Relief now!

Issue 2.4 Decisions being made NOW!

That's right, we're finishing up the decisions on Issue 2.4 for a blockbuster of a year-end issue! Stay tuned!

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Path to Publication, Closing: Nuts N’ Bolts Part Two

Written by Kevin Lucia

Friday, 15 August 2008

Kevin Lucia concludes his blog series The Path to Publication with Part Two of "Closing."

1. Find potential markets. Duotrope’s Digest is a great online resource listing thousands of markets, with reports, stats, and other data. It also has a submission tracker and a monthly email update. Best part, it’s free. Predators & Editors, (a must booklink for the serious writer), has a magazine list that keeps track of bad reports, broken links, and other reports on potential magazine markets. Forums such as Absolute Write have an extensive market list as well. Ralan.com also lists magazines in the speculative market.

Not a web surfing person? Then the following titles are must haves, and are easily found on Amazon.com: Literary Marketplace , Writer’s Market, Christian Writer’s Market, Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, and the Poet’s Market.

2. Know your own rung on the ladder. Most markets don’t require a synopsis or query letter first, but for first time writers, you may want to avoid those that do. They cater to experienced folks who are often selling on “name”, which more than likely, if you’re like me and lots of other folks, you haven’t got yet. Focus on the markets who want a cover letter and the full story.

3. Find two or three magazines that fit your story’s genre. Note whether or not they accept “simultaneous submissions”. If they do, it means they don’t care if you send your work to them and someone else at the same time, as long as you inform them if your work gets accepted elsewhere. If they say they DON’T accept simultaneous subs, you may be tempted to think, “C’mon…how will they ever know?”

My advice? Don’t mess around with it. The risks are high if you get caught out, because when you’re trying to stand out amongst thousands of other writers, you don’t want ANY smears on your name. The same holds for publications who do or do not accept reprints, and even if publications do accept them, show discretion. Recently, Coach Culbertson, editor of Coach’s Midnight Diner, advised me concerning this issue. As a writer, you don’t want to be known as someone who palms off the same story to lots of different people.

4. Follow all the format guidelines. Many publications link to or reference William Shunn’s Manuscript Format. Some publications request very specific guidelines, so follow them. Not doing so is a recipe for failure. If they say send submissions by snail mail (regular mail) only, then do so. If they say paste the story into the body of an email, do so.

5. Write a cover letter. Here’s a basic yet solid guide to follow:

First paragraph, surmise the story concisely, giving just enough for the readers to understand the direction the story is taking.

Second paragraph, any REAL relevant biographical data that you understand won’t get your story published if it stinks, as well as any relevant non-fiction credits.

Third paragraph, your fiction credits, and any writing contests won.

* as a side note: make cover letters as simplistic and straightforward as possible. Imagine this: the person reading your story has slogged through ten stories bad enough to burn their eyes out, and they really don’t care if you love their magazine, won the fourth grade writing contest, or have dreamed of publication since you were ten years old. With as little embellishment as possible, they want to know who you are, what your story is, and what you’ve done already. This was probably the best thing I learned while reading for The Harper Palate, because I was one of those tired readers. An annoying, self-important cover letter made it harder to read the attached story objectively. This is easy to do inadvertently, especially because we are – rightly so – proud of our early achievements. For more on the benefits of reading for a literary journal, see Deanna Hershiser’s recent blog on reading for Relief.

6. Keep a list of where your stories are, where they’ve been, and where you’d like to send them. I’m old fashioned, so I do this in a notebook. However, there are plenty of electronic sources. Here’s a great blog by Relief’s Heather von Doehren on maintaining a database for your submissions and writing.

Despite all this talk about the nuts and bolts, the last and best advice I can give is something I’ve already said: sit down, make some goals and plans, and then just write. I’ve seen too many talented individuals sputter into nothing, simply because they couldn’t make that step, which, in my opinion, is the most important one of all.

Happy writing.

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Kevin Lucia is currently seeking an MA in Creative Writing from Binghamton University, is a born-again Christian who teaches 9-10th grade English and acts as a freelance columnist for The Press & Sun Bulletin. If you can’t get enough of Kevin here at Relief, you can find him at kevinlucia.net, as well as on MySpace and ShoutLife.

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