Hi Friends,
Because writer’s block is akin to a rainy day on the devil’s playground, this issue includes:
A sip…
Sometimes the muse has attitude.
Perhaps a Dark and Stormy will improve its mood…
A shout out…
Although born into a family of educators, Chester Himes, began his literary career while serving a lengthy prison sentence. Best known for his colorful characters, and ability to provide emotional glimpses into the persistent insecurity of the Black middle class, he was a committed artist who wrote a series of titles, across genres.
Many of his first stories were written to earn respect and avoid prison violence; some were nationally published before his parole and literary mentorship with Langston Hughes, and the critically acclaimed release of If He Hollers Let Him Go.
Despite being described as an unruly alcoholic, his access to towering political and creative figures was a credit to his ability to describe the various levels, prevalence, and absurdity of American racial struggles using a bohemian lens.
He served as a member of the WPA Ohio Writers’ Project, honed his craft at Yaddo, had a brief career as a screenwriter, penned seventeen books, sixty short stories, and two autobiographies, and was the named 1958 winner of France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.
His candid exploration of racism encompassed Hollywood and is often cited as lending to four of his works being developed into successful blacksploitation films, and continued after he became an expatriate writer. He is buried in Moraira, Spain.
A sentence…
Prompts gleaned from If He Hollers Let Him Go:
“All that tight, crazy feeling of race as thick in the street as gas fumes. Every time I stepped outside, I saw a challenge I had to accept or ignore.”
“If he had been on the job for more than nine months, he’d probably have been the leader man instead of me; he probably knew more than I did, anyway.”
“I was even scared to tell anybody. If I’d gone to a psychiatrist, he’d have me put away. Living every day scared, walled in, locked up. I didn’t feel like fighting anymore”
“He was a light-brown-skinned guy in his early thirties, good-looking with slightly Caucasian features and straight brown hair. He was a graduate of U.C.L.A. and didn’t take anything from the white folks and didn’t give them anything.”
“I wanted him to feel as scared and powerless and unprotected as I felt every goddamned morning I woke up. I wanted him to know how it felt to die without a chance; how it felt to look death in the face and know it was coming and know there wasn’t anything he could do but sit there and take it like I had to.”
A few submission opportunities…
Anime Herald is seeking submissions on anime and anime fandom.
Herstry is seeking submissions of haunting stories.
Home & Texture is seeking pitches related to transforming houses into homes.
Scalawag is seeking pitches about personal experiences on death row and abolitionist analyses on capital punishment.
Spruce is seeking freelance writers.
Tasting Table is seeking freelance food and dining news writers.
A few useful tips…
Maintain creative motivation by1:
Treating short snippets of time as opportunities to write.
Writing incompatible ideas as separate oddments to gain fresh perspectives and renewed confidence.
Completing mundane tasks or watching witless television -both free the mind and generate space for the natural writing voice to form new ideas.
Editing using the appreciation notes technique -outline what you like and LOVE about each scene before reviewing and tackling revision suggestions.
A few sessions & workshops…
August 7th
August 8th
Captivate Readers from the Start - Crafting Irresistible Introductions
August 9th
August 10th
Crafting Your Story for the Media
Residencies, Grants, and Fellowships: Nailing the Application
August 11th
August 13th
Starting August 15th
Self-Paced Idea Files Workshop hosted by
And a final thought…
This installment is collaborative2, and contains an affiliate link; if you purchase books using that link, I will earn a commission.
Thanks for reading,
This edition’s A few useful tips section results from collaboration with Marisa; neither Marisa nor Doing the Write Thing are, in any way, affiliated with the remaining content of this edition, in general, or A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence substack, specifically.
See footnote 1.
Nice to find so many opportunities to share your work. Appreciate the essay on Chester Himes. He was a gifted writer but severely troubled. His life was a train wreck.
Adding more appreciation for the essay on Chester Himes. Looking forward to reading his stories.