Saturday, June 23, 2012

Spring Things

It is officially summer so a new post is way past due. Spring was a busy time. The 2nd Annual PoPP (Power of Poetry Project) Awards Assembly was held April 20th at Taft Middle School in Crown Point. The elementary schools that participated included: Douglas MacArthur in Cedar Lake, Lake Street and Solon Robinson in Crown Point, and Oak Hill in Lowell. Winners at each grade level received a certificate and medal whereas place winners were given an Amazon gift card as well. All winning poems and honorable mentions from the four schools (120 poems) were published. This year we included student artwork in the publication as well. ~~~ Some of the winners: ~~~ I am happy to announce I received a first honorable mention in the Oregon Spring Poetry contest. I was very excited to see the certificate in my mailbox. This is the first time I have placed in a state poetry contest. I was about to give up but it looks like I will continue to participate in state contests (for a while longer at least). ~~~ The rejections keep coming in and it is hard to not be discouraged. I have not submitted anything to children's magazines or publishers in the past two months. Instead I have been busy snapping photos. Several will be in the 2013 local Town Planner Calendars and the Lake County Fair is accepting entries as I write. I am deciding what to enter in the different categories this week. Next week I have to send in my revisions to Prairie Writer's Guild for their 2012 publication. This year's edition will include three of the poems and hopefully some photos as well. ~~~ The only painting I have done lately is face painting. I donated my time at a friend's benefit in May and it was a lot of fun. I had hope to revise some earlier drawings and painting this spring but couldn't find the time. AND the only writer's group I've been involved in with lately is Indiana Writers' Consortium. I am on the banquet committee and just developed a flyer for the annual picnic. Sill need to catch up on the quarterly report and minutes!...Not sure how this summer will be. It's been one thing after another so far with my four boys.