High Dive on New Hampshire Public Radio

High Dive was mentioned on New Hampshire public radio last week. A nice blog (and radio) shout-out for High Dive for its portrayal of the Iraq War, below:

http://www.nhpr.org/node/32400

In other news, I've been plagued by technical difficulties the past month. Intermittent internet service, a busted power drive, and just in general twitchy-ness among my mechanical devices. It might be heat (regularly in the 90's), perhaps the humidity? Plus we have this creepy new type of mosquito, as thick as a fly, black with a red bump on it's back, kind of where it's shoulders would be, if a mosquito had shoulders. That thing looks like it would make you anemic if it bit you. Oh, and someone's been feeding the alligator that lives in our pond, so now it comes when it sees us on the dock. This is cute when a duck or a squirrel does it. It's bad news when an alligator does it since it means they've come associate people with food. Which means they come to believe that people=food. Which means we have to call the county and they'll send someone to deal with it. And deal with it means killing it. All because some stupid neighbor thought it would be fun to feed the local 'gator.

So please, if you live in Florida or Louisiana, please DON'T feed the alligators. They're really not that dangerous as long as it isn't mating season and as long as people haven't fed them. It's not fair to them. Or to those of us who want to stay as respectful neighbors.

More later,
Tammar

Stories

I recently judged a short-story competition for the National Society of Arts and Letters. The NSAL, by the way, is this amazing organization whose sole mission is to support young artists as they begin their careers. To that end, they hold several competition throughout the year with very generous cash prizes to help support young talent. I was really proud and happy to be part of this literary contest. And the winners, whom I met at the award luncheon on Saturday, were wonderful and very deserving of their prize.

I have been a contestant of literary competitions many times but this was my first stint as judge and it was really an eye opening experience. Some of the stories were wonderful, really unique and well written and beautiful. And some...hmm. Some were not.

It got me thinking about what is important in a literary piece. So here are some tips that I've compiled to all future contestants:

Grammar: I'm not a stickler for grammatical rules. I think that as a writer you use whatever you need to make your story and if that means tinkering around with sounds, with tenses, with dangling participles, fine. But don't be sloppy and don't be lazy. So that if your story is in present tense, make sure you don't forget half way through the paragraph and switch to past tense. You would be amazed how often that can happen.

Story: as in, please tell one. Even short stories are still stories. So make sure you're actually writing one, not a scene or a journal entry.

Unlikeable protagonists: Not everything needs to be sugar, spice and everything nice. Not every story needs a happy ending. But be careful that you're not writing a story about a total jerk. There needs to be growth, or change, or insight about what created such a creature and not just that they're mean and rude for the sake of it. You really need to think about your readers when you write.

And last but not least: Keep writing. We all need to keep writing, to keep practicing, to try new things, and yes, to fail sometimes. So if you didn't win this competition or any other, pick yourself up and try again. Write another story, try to make it better, and find another contest, a magazine, a school paper. Every one of us fails about a hundred times before we succeed. Success is the difference between those who gave up and those to stuck with it.

More later,
Tammar

Superwomen

After a seven months deployment in the Middle East and Far East, my badass sister-in-law of eight-months is in American waters and steaming to her home port of San Diego. On her way home, however, she stopped in Seattle to pick up a couple of guests. That's right. The famous Nimitz aircraft carrier is now carrying a few extra passengers, my mom being one of them (the one on the left). Molly's mom is the other intrepid guest on the right. I should mention here that they are not the ONLY guests on board. They are Tigers, guests of service members, who join them on the last few days of their cruise at the end of deployment.

I mean, really, is that not the coolest thing ever??

I'm so excited for my mom and even more for Molly and Dan's reunion. A million thank yous are not enough for all the sacrifices and dedication of our supermen and superwomen of the military.

You guys rock.

Mom, I hope you're having a great time.

And Molly, me next. Okay?



More later,
Tammar

Predictable

There was a study done recently about just how predictable people's days are. Participants agreed to have their location tracked at all times through their cellphones and within a few weeks, researchers could predict their location 93% of the time. The most unpredictable subjects, those who labeled themselves without a regular routine, were predictable 83% of the time.

I found this study amazing, and yet unsurprising at the same time. I guess I always knew that I was boring and predictable, I just didn't realize everyone else was too.

More later,

Tammar

Mental Relief

I've hardly slept the past two weeks, so I'm stumbling around with a low grade headache, scratchy eyes, and a very low tolerance for bad drivers and sad books. I don't want to know about the pesticides in my lettuce or just what the "broth" that my chicken comes pre-soaked in contains. I don't want a tragic love story or a gritty tale set in the slums.

In a mood like this, there's only one kind of book to read: a romance. And of all romance writers, the best of them all is Lisa Kleypas. After years and years of writing Regency romances, she recently started writing some contemporary fiction set in Houston, Texas. Now I lived in Texas for three years. It has a very fond place in my heart and I have to admit that it makes a fine setting for a romance novel. There's just this feeling that hangs in the air there that anything, anything at all is possible. And in the hands of a talented writer like Kleypas, this setting just enhances every interaction her charming, funny, and sexy as hell characters have.

The book I just read is Smooth Talking Stranger. I'm not even going to tell you what it's about because that's besides the point. The dialogue just zings, the descriptions of high society are vibrate and original, and reading the book helped me forget the cranky tiredness and kept the headache at bay. That's a lot of powerful good from one little novel.

More later,
Tammar

More Food

I tried reading Thomas Pycheron's Inherent Vice but it didn't work out. Pynchon's one of those quality writers and so I felt obligated to give his book a try. And Colette Bancroft, the book editor at the St. Pete Times said this was his most accessible book and one of her favorite books of 2009. But sadly, I just couldn't get into it. It's kind of a cross between a classic detective mystery and a stony-beach culture, 1960's sort of scene. Cool enough concept but it didn't work for me.

So I moved on to Novella Carpenter's City Farm-The Education of an Urban Farmer thereby continuing my trend of reading food-based non-fiction, which is a very strange trend for me. And oh man, what a book, what a woman. Carpenter lives in the ghetto of Oakland. Drive by shootings, prostitutes on the corner, homeless men as "neighbors". She has to deal with a 13 year-old who pulls a gun on her to steal her bike, with police raids across the street, the highway visible and audible just a few yards away. In the middle of all this, she takes the vacant, weed-chocked lot next to her apartment and turns it first into a huge vegetable garden. Then she adds a small flock of chickens. Then a bee hive. And then finally in a burst of madness, she raises two pigs to slaughter and turn into bacon, salami, prosciutto, and ham.

She also raises and slaughters a turkey for Thanksgiving and sweet little bunny rabbits for stew. I have some major respect for this woman.

More later,
Tammar

Not pretty

I'm really struggling in the aftermaths of reading Jonathan Safran Foer's book about the meat industry. Eating Animals, you can tell from the title, has a slate to the information presented, but even so, the conditions he describes in chicken, turkey, pig, and cow farms are horrifying. Even fishing isn't off the hook.(Come on, how could I resist that pun?)

The sad thing, and Foer writes this, is that we all know that something's not right with our meat industry, but none of us really want to know the specifics. And it's true. I want my shredded beef burrito, my sushi, my chicken soup, and I don't want to think about tiny chick getting pitched in a grinder, or live cows hung by one leg, conscious seven minutes into their "processing". It's horrifying (see there's that word again.) He describes much worse in his book (don't get me started on the things they're fed) and then attempts to grapple with the moral turpitude that we must all suffer from--how else can you account for the massive cruelty and disgusting evolution of factory farming?

I don't know that this book turned me into a vegetarian. But I know I'll never look at a $4.99 rotisserie chicken from Costco the same ever again.

More later,

Tammar