Prose. And more prose.
May 14, 2015
I just had a blog post put up at Overland. It was originally called Literary Competitions: Better than the pokies? and is now called An accountant of dreams, which is a phrase from the essay. A few most carefully crafted jokes have disappeared, but it’s still worth a read! Here’s the link:
https://overland.org.au/2015/05/an-accountant-of-dreams/
The essay relates to this blog in that I’m always giving links to competitions, and it occurred to me that if you entered them all, you’d be spending quite a lot.
At the same time (even on the same day; my cunning plan to invade all corners of the web and print universes at once is coming to fruition like a Napoleonic pineapple mounted on a white pony crossing the Brindabellas*) I have an essay about how I manage to write poetry published in ACTWrite, the magazine of the ACT Writers Centre. I can’t link to that one, but there are 22 points in the article. Twenty-two! That’s quite a few.
Here is my exhausted pen, sweating ink. God knows why as I wrote both pieces on this computer, but a photo is Always Nice.
*Canberra’s hills (or mountains, as some call them). Also, I should shoot that sentence, as it is going off like Cujo after the bat.
PS Cottier 
I enjoyed your article – written with a welcome touch of humour but an issue which needs talking about. And it led me to your blog.
Thank you Nathan. I had just posted a similar comment on your blog!
Usually there are poems here, not all this weighty prose…Not that there’s anything wrong with prose, if it fizzles and cracks. (That is, is trying to transform itself into a poem.)
Great article, Penelope. And I like your original title best!
Thanks Michele. I think it is important to address the barriers that are set in the way of everyone participating in social activities, including in the arts.
I hate the phrase ‘the arts’, by the way! Makes me think of a finished set of Things rather than a process. For some reason I am seeing a collection of spoons, but there is nothing wrong with collecting spoons! Or even forks, if you are a radical cutlerist.
Ha! Well, $20 for a set of spoons (or even radicalised forks) is about my limit too. Tastes in poetry are so varied and subjective, bagging a prize really does seem to be as much a game of chance as it is skill!
Sign of the tines?