Been meaning to join this year’s project but thought you didn’t have time? Check out our new timeline! You now have until May 15, 2013, to get on board. The 2013 theme is “Wild Things.” Questions? edg@longridgeeditors.com.
http://essaysonchildhood.com/writing-guidelines-and-current-schedule/
Over the past year, I’ve become fascinated with stories about childhood encounters with animals. It started with Julian Martin’s description of his grandmother clubbing, skinning, and cooking a groundhog; since then, it seems everywhere I turn I hear great stories about courage, life and death, love and affection, loyalty and hearbreak connected to children and animals.
What’s your story?
via Essays on Childhood: Wild Things | Esse Diem.
Often, I was the one who stayed an hour or so with Grandma so that Dad could bathe, eat dinner, or pay bills. I had one job: Make sure Grandma did not leave the house. How ironic it was that going home to her meant leaving the house that she and my grandfather built forty years before. Her mind was trapped in a much earlier time.The road that she traveled to get home was a rutted dirt road populated by horses and buggies and the occasional car that moved aside whenever the driver saw someone walking along the road. She did not recognize that it was seventy years later; by now the road was a major U.S. highway, well-traveled by cars and tractor-trailers that would not see her walking in the middle of the road until it was too late.
Once I strolled down the beach with my mom when I was a little girl. We were looking for shells after a long day of salty air and strong sun and my eyes were tired. To be honest, I did not really want to be there except my mom and I always looked for shells together and there was no where else to go. I kept staring at the grains of sand and could only find thin, cracked shells that had been tossed one too many times in the powerful arms of the ocean.
Although my mom did not want to pick those shells up, I thought they were the most beautiful ones. Their colors were the most vibrant and I imagined that if they could talk, the broken ones would have the most interesting story.
“Despite Mom’s expense management, spring 1979 was very tough. I can remember short periods where money was tight and Mom was frantic with worry over how she would pay a bill. There came stretches where we were without food for several days between paychecks from Mom’s various employers. Now a parent myself, I can only imagine the worry Mom felt then over how she was going to feed me, keep me decently clothed for school, keep utilities on, and several other worries and fears a parent endures.”
via In a Man’s Voice: Three Silver Dollars by Terry Gillispie | Esse Diem.
My father was an amateur magician. With a sleight of hand, he used to pull coins from the ears of grandchildren, use his nimble fingers to shuffle a deck of cards into a magic trick. He could separate inseparable rings.
He was a busy man when I was growing up. One of only three doctors in my hometown, he was up and out early, and though he most always was home for supper, often in the middle of it, the phone would ring, or people would show up at the back door, and he was gone again. My mother, brother, sister and I shared him all those years, waiting at home as he delivered babies (12 in 24 hours once), treated hearts — both broken and diseased — mended bones and emotions, nurtured families as they took root, grew old, died.
via Essays on Childhood: Pick a Little Talk a Little by Susan Byrum Rountree | Esse Diem.
John from thebeautifuldue
I loved reading this poem the first time and have re-read it several times since. It is a combination by the poet of “several male sources.” While it could be the experience of just one man’s childhood influence, it pulls together pieces of various lives to tell the story that may very well speak many men.
This year I am trying something slightly different for www.essaysonchildhood.com.
While men are present in this project, their numbers are small and I’ve had some good conversations with some generous souls about why that may be.
(Ex. http://essediemblog.com/2011/06/05/essays-on-childhood-in-a-mans-voice/)
In 2012, the focus for this project will be men exploring in an essay anything they want to about their childhood experiences. It may be funny, sad, uplifting, discouraging, about courage or fear, about love or hate. In short, it may be about anything you deem worthy of exploring with your writing and sharing with others.
If you know of men who may be interested, please share this post with them. There are no geographic, gender, or generational limitations on qualifying as an essayist this year. All inquiries should be directed to edg@longridgeeditors.com.
Thank you for your consideration. The calendar for the project is here: http://essaysonchildhood.com/writing-guidelines-and-current-schedule/
April 3 is the deadline for submitting your bio and photograph.
