Writing stuff down and reading it aloud

Lucky me grew up in Dallas at a time when poet Tim Seibles (nominated for the National Book Award last year) lived there and did a lot of free readings at a long-dead bar called the 500 Cafe.  The bar owner loved my underaged best friend and wooed her by putting his liquor license at risk and letting us in. One night while staring at my shoes, I told Mr. Seibles how I thought his poetry was really really good and he wrote something on a scrap of paper and handed it to me.  

“Read this,” he said.  “It’s a poem in the form of a novel.”  The paper said, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez.  I read the book and I’ve kept that small dirty piece of paper for twenty-five years and every time someone says, “I’ll text/email/sendyouthelink,” the paper seems lonelier, more poetic and more valuable.  Write something on a scrap of paper today and give it to someone.  It’ll be the yeah write secret handshake for this week.

Birthday hangover at yeah write

We’re still sweeping up confetti and downing leftover cake from Flood’s birthday but that doesn’t mean we’re not ready for your best stuff.  Is your best stuff fiction?  Head over to  the speakeasy, where yeah write editors Courtenay and Stacie will take good care of you.   If you’ve written an excellent short personal essay or nonfiction anecdote, give Flood a late birthday present by going over it one more time. Make sure it has a so what.  And please spread the word about yeah write; if the grid gets to 30 entries or more, the yeah write editors will move the best posts to an invitational grid and award a jury prize.  

Virgins, welcome!  And lurkers?  Maybe yeah write #100 (next week) would be the perfect time to graduate from lurker to virgin.  Think about it.  We know you want some cake.

Odds, ends, reminders

• Your post can be dated no earlier than March 3rd, the day the yeah write #99 badges were officially posted
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• Our new weekend moonshine grid will open Friday at 6 p.m. and close Monday by 12:01 a.m. 
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The focus at yeah write should be (and is) its close-knit community and its learning environment. We don’t load advertisements on our pages or distract from our visitors’ experience with sponsored posts. Participating in yeah write has always been free and, for certain subscribers, it always will be.

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