Spotlighted Literary Events

Nov. 2nd, 10 am: Speed-dating pitch session with literary agents at Boston's Hotel 140. Sponsored by Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

Nov. 2nd, 7 pm: rick j, Mindy Dillard, and Mikey Golightly join musical and authorial forces at Portland's Three Friends Coffee House.

Nov. 4th, 7 pm: John Irving (Last Night in Twisted River) at Portland's Bagdad Theatre. Tickets: $28.

Halloween To-Do List

Zinesters Talking at MCL

When you think of the library, a few things may come to mind: librarians in cardigans and glasses that shush you if you're too loud, fines you don't want to pay, long lines for the computer....but what about zines?

That's right, zines! Did you know that Multnomah County Library is actually one of the greatest resources in Portland for zines and zine events? Zines, short for magazines, are self-published little gems of creativity that can range in topics from building a backyard chicken coop to autobiographical comics. Not only does MCL have a great zine collection available for checkout, but they also host a speaker series called Zinesters Talking where zinesters from both near and far talk about their work and zine culture. The series is currently in its fifth year, and there is only one session left, so be sure to check it out!

Tuesday, November 3, 6:30–7:45 p.m. Central Library, U.S. Bank Room

Historic Zinesters Talking:

Discuss the recent history of chapbooks, poetry and zines in Portland with Kevin Sampsell (co-author of Haiku Inferno; publisher, Future Tense Books; and small press champion, Powell's City of Books) and Leanne Grabel, poet (Lonesome and Very Quarrelsome Heroes, Short Poems by a Short Person), performer and teacher. Both events in the Historic Zinesters Talking series will be recorded and cataloged in the library's podcast collection.

Photo Story Prompt: Skyscraper

Write whatever comes to you--short or long, fiction or truth.


We'd love to see what you come up with! Post your story in a comment below, or e-mail it to photostory@indigoediting.com.

Feel free to comment on each other's stories and just generally enjoy the process of playing with the written word and the world it creates.

Happy writing!

Photo: "Skyscraper in Puddle" by Tim Schnurpfeil

Editorial Tip of the Week: Know Nouns Now (Halloween Edition)

Ah, the noun. One of the most essential parts of the English language. So important, in fact, that the Orange Word Wonder dedicates nearly seven pages to an exploration of its definition and use. Because, of course, Chicago reminds us that it is the noun that allows us to name things. It is because of nouns that we can differentiate between the guy dressed up as a superhero and the one in the corner dressed as Scooby Doo.

More importantly, how else could I develop so many pet names for my peachy punctuation guide? It's true. Without nouns, we'd be lost. So let's use 'em properly and learn those properties, eh?

The Tangerine Taskmaster tells us "nouns have four properties: case, gender, number, and person."

Case includes nominative, objective, and possessive: the ghost is over there (nominative), see the black cat (objective), the witch's brew is ready (possessive). The noun only changes when using the possessive.

Gender "classifies nouns into masculine, feminine, and neuter." In English, the entire noun often changes to denote "male or female humans or animals."

Jenny and Freddy went as a witch and a warlock, but Elizabeth and Don won the costume contest with their duo the mare and the stallion.

However, compound nouns also "contain specifically masculine or feminine nouns or pronouns."

"The headless horseman is after my girlfriend!" he exclaimed.

Other common usages are nouns used "in personification" or with "feminine suffix such as ess or ix." (Buyer beware: Chicago notes that these suffixes are quickly becoming "archaic.")

Finally, number indicates whether the noun is singular or plural (It takes less time to carve a pumpkin, but a lot of pumpkins are much more festive!).

Person "shows whether an object is speaking (we the ghosts will haunt forever), spoken to (ghosts, begone!), or spoken about (the ghosts were hauled out of the haunted house and revealed as fakes).

Boo!

Just kidding, the ghost weren't real. Pay attention!