We are so excited as the next volume of A Safe and Brave Space is coming out by year’s end. In fact, poetry and art submissions are still open until September 30.
Here is some newer news! We have decided to open up a cover art contest. The main focus is that the art reflects the theme of A Safe and Brave Space. This is a book by women and we want to celebrate another year of poetry and art! And, of course, being in a safe and brave space to discuss matters of this world.
Are you an artist? Would you like to submit for this contest? There will be a $25 prize awarded to the winner.
After we have confirmed the winning art, we will be opening up another contest for the book cover design, so stay tuned. It is coming soon!
Questions? Reply to the comments on this post and I will do my best to get the answers for you. OR send an email to dropsandbuckets@gmail.com
It is that time of year again for Call for Submissions for A Safe and Brave Space Volume 2 – Submissions are open September 1-30 2022 – Go to GardenofNeuro for more details.
Years ago, before computers, we wrote letters. My mother’s letters were like little novellas. They sometimes were several pages long. She wrote her family members and friends and they loved to get her “books.” How I wish I had saved my letters from mom. As a witness to her letter writing, I would watch as her pen moved passionately across the pages, sometimes witnessing her eyes well up. Letters were her release. They were her way of expressing herself in ways she could not voice. Sometimes she would write letters to people out of anger and then tear them up. To my knowledge, she never sent one of those angry letters. It could have been politicians, relatives, and those are the ones I knew about. She would express her heart’s desire, open up her soul, and pour out her thoughts.
As a letter writer, I did not have the beautiful penmanship of my mother, but I learned that the pen was my power. I also wrote letters and tore them up. I even wrote one about the need for a doctor in our little town and it was published in the newspaper. I wrote letters to family, friends, old friends found from a long time lost, family who I wanted to see but knew my letters would reach them long before I ever would.
Now, I am a writer and a poet. I write as if my words are letters to the world, at times. Other times, I write to express my desires of the heart. And other times I write to write.
I firmly believe that when we do express our desires within our heart that this has a way of stirring up thoughts and even action plans to make things happen. Sometimes those things that happen are acceptances of things that can’t be changed, but sometimes they are steps to taking up the courage to make something happen in our lives.
What is the desire in your heart? This is my challenge to you. I would like to read about the desires in your heart in the “Dear Heart” anthology of letters, poetry, art, photography, and whatever ways helps you express your passion.
There’s a caveat to this. These are all to be sent to me via good old fashioned snail mail. I will sort through these and select which submissions to publish.