Sending you all some happy rays of Southern California sunshine. ☀️
A photo share:
Photos ©️2024 Tanya Cliff
Category: fun
The Sixth Annual BookTube Prize
For the second year in a row, I’m a judge for the BookTube Prize in Fiction. Pictured is my current group of books, which I can’t comment on until the judging is completed. This year, I am striving to read all forty-eight fiction entries. It’s a great list and contains some authors and titles I might have otherwise overlooked.
Coolest of all, I’m joined in judging this prize by several hundred book-obsessed people from more than thirty countries. It’s exciting!
You can learn more at BookTube Prize’s Instagram here (link in bio to the YouTube channel)
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A Soon Springing Haiku
Inceptive thaw sensed
Embryos shed old seed coats
then, naked, ascend
words and photography ©️2024 Tanya Cliff
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Magical Murakami: KILLING COMMENDATORE
#WhatchaReadingWednesday
A newly divorced portrait painter retreats to the abandoned and secluded mountain home of a famous artist in hopes of healing and rediscovering his passion for art. Seeking the source of a strange noise in the attic, he discovers a masterpiece wrapped in paper and inexplicably tucked away from the world’s view.
As he unwraps the painting, he reveals a mystery and sets in motion a series of strange happenings. His journey to discover the truth will lead him on a dangerous journey to the underworld.
In this brilliant novel translation, released as two books in Japan, Murakami transcends narrative expectation (if there is such a thing) to envelop the reader in a world that is literal in its loneliness, palpable in its characterizations of person and place, and yet deeply haunting and surreal. The novel weaves subtle threads of suspense, gradually pulling them until the tension, taut as the strings of a highly pitched guitar, bind this reader; I can’t look away. I don’t dare. Following the first-person protagonist, I must travel deep into the netherworld. I must know how it ends.
In Killing Comendatore, Murakami lures his readers to a spellbinding place. It’s easy to convince a reader that the sky is blue. Murakami convinces me that the sky is a gateway to an alternate reality, one as expansive as the universe, as dark as death, as bright and tiny as the tinkling of a small bell.
This is what I am reading this Wednesday.
What’s on your read pile? I’m always looking for a good, next book suggestion. All genres welcome.
Best, Tanya
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A Blushing Haiku
late spring freeze shocks bloom
snow falls on tender petals
patient blush persists
~
©2020 Tanya Cliff
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A Grateful Haiku
larval-shaped Monarch
shows Milkweed deep gratitude
with devouring bites
~
©2020 Tanya Cliff
~
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The Sun Melts
The sun melts
Crimson pools spill across the horizon
staining clouds
oranges, pinks, purples
A beacon?
Welcome, Night
The moon
waxing, waning,
in a perpetual dance with an ever-jumping cow
A harbinger?
So long, Day
Sands
through the hourglass
falling, passing
“hush-a-bye baby on the treetop” time
A promise
Living art
rendered in warmest hues
broad strokes across the cool sky
Time
passes by
~
©2020 Tanya Cliff
~
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Writer’s Workshop
Exciting News!
I am going to be hosting a weekly Writer’s Workshop over at the Go Dog Go Café on Saturdays, beginning March 7th. Please join me there for a fun, challenging opportunity to stretch your writing skills in the Café’s warm, friendly environment. I love the group at GDG! I’m thrilled to be joining them, especially in a format that explores the power of language in storytelling.
The Writer’s Workshop will stick with a single prompt response each month, limited to 150-300 words, and involve several editing challenges to the same response designed to sharpen prose. The schedule is as follows:
Week 1: The Fastball
This week, I will introduce some element of good prose and/or share encouraging words from favorite authors. Then, I will pitch the Fastball prompt. Participants can link their responses in the comments section, and I will share them the following week.
Week 2: Batting Practice
This week, I will continue the discussion and share the responses from Week 1’s Fastball.
The challenge to participants this week will be to cut at least 10% of words from their response in week 1, tighten their prose. The 10% cut comes from Stephen King’s On Writing, one of several writing books that you will hear me refer to on occasion. The cut might seem arbitrary, but it forces concision and encourages the use of powerful language.
Week 3: Curveball Challenge
And just when you think you mastered it…
This week, I will throw a curveball, a specific challenge designed to improve prose, some element to be added to the response from the Batting Practice in Week 2. We will use this challenge to explore some of the grammatical tools that can be used to create tension and drama on the sentence level in our writing.
I will also show how I handled the 10% cut from Week 2 (including my word counts) and provide links to the Week 2 responses of participants.
Week 4: Players at the Plate
I will sum up the month’s activities, show how I handled Week 3’s Curveball Challenge, and link to all the other participants’ rewrites. Writing is hard work. You can expect a lot of encouragement and praise from me along the way.
I hope you will pull up a chair in the Go Dog Go Café and join me for the Writer’s Workshop. Visit the Go Dog Go Café to learn more.
Tanya
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A Warm Haiku
his strong, ursine hug
gives her dangerous thoughts, dreams
pulse quickens, cheeks blush
~
©2020 Tanya Cliff
~
My response to Stephen’s weekly Level UP Challenge at GoDogGo. Please visit the following creative souls for the promts:
Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge–February 18, 2020
Eugi's Weekly Prompt – Blush – February 17, 2020
https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/category/what-do-you-see/
The complete challenge is available here:
Wednesday’s Level UP Challenge, 2/19/20 and Tuesday’ Writing Prompt Challenge Round UP
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Cardinals
The sun travels along the arch of a low horizon—the short path
of a winter day
when cold air aches
pressing into our bones
Later, ice-glazed tree limbs crackle
in the midnight winds
heard outside our shut-tight glass
Snow falls, covering
paths, dead leaves, and seeds
In the frigid morning, the birds seek
a meal to sustain them
They gather on our deck
where the filled feeder hangs like a beacon
juncos, chickadees, nuthatches, titmice
jostle with their larger brethren
the hairy woodpeckers with their zebra-striped backs
and the hungry cardinals,
their flaming feathers, a florescent highlighter against the snow,
marking the places where the seed falls
They write their stories in footprints as we watch them:
the male cardinals wait while their partners eat their fill,
then battle with each other for the choicest remains
Chivalrous? or cavalier?
Crimson heroes to their girls
Red villains to each other
Can a man be both things?
Do the history books tell?
For the cardinals, the chronicle of this winter journey
will melt, the empty seed shells scattered
will dissolve
into fresh earth and green grass
But we will remember both hero and villain,
their footprints transcribed in letters
of our poems and prose
~
©2020 Tanya Cliff
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