Month: January 2011

BLOOD LOTUS: Discovering New Voices in Literature and Art

Written by diana on January 31, 2011. Posted in Art, Literary and Art Journals, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on BLOOD LOTUS: Discovering New Voices in Literature and Art

I discovered the online journal, Blood Lotus, while doing a Google search for submitting my short stories to small boutique journals. While spending hours looking for an appropriate fit for my edgy short stories about growing up with wounds, both healed and unhealed, I discovered this literary and quarterly gem. Blood Lotus, established in 2006, with the belief everything has not already been written, has a mission to promote not only distinctive writing but also unusual art. Two poets, Stacia Fleegal and Teneice Durrang Delgado, are its co-founders. Stacia M. Fleegal (co-founder, managing...

“Restrepo” – Dangerously Close to the Action

Written by diana on January 24, 2011. Posted in movie reviews. 3 Comments on “Restrepo” – Dangerously Close to the Action

This haunting documentary, winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary, chronicles very young soldiers (some younger than twenty years old) during their fourteen-month deployment in Afghanistan’s Korengal valley. A visceral view of modern battle, you cannot watch this riveting, real-life “Hurt Locker” without having your heart pulsate, tears catch, and compassion lodge in your throat for these boys and for the Afghan villagers they do not understand. Sebastian Junger (author of A Perfect Storm) and Tim Hetherington (cinematographer) focus on a...

“The King’s Speech”—A Personal Idiom for All of Us

Written by diana on January 17, 2011. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on “The King’s Speech”—A Personal Idiom for All of Us

This is the third of my movie reviews so far. The first movie review, “127 Hours”, and the second, “Black Swan”, are two portraits of protagonists who have a daunting obstacle to overcome. In “127 Hours” the main character has to wound himself in the most barbarous of ways to survive. In “Black Swan”, the ballerina has to face her demons in order to truly be an artist. And in “The King’s Speech”, King George VI has to overcome a debilitating stutter of humiliating proportions with a determination, dignity, and courage that can only be called heroic. After the Golden Globes awards I was...

Eleven Tips for Women’s Memoirs on 1/11/11

Written by diana on January 11, 2011. Posted in Blogging, Writing and Blogging Tips. 1 Comment on Eleven Tips for Women’s Memoirs on 1/11/11

Thousands of us love reading of all kinds: fiction, history, memoir. Sometimes all three are combined into one glorious book. We all know someone who is writing: a novel, a blog, a series of poems, a mystery, children’s book, cookbook, screenplay and more. And everyone knows someone in a readers’ or writers’ group. Now there is one website which can fulfill the function of writers’ group, readers’ group, and how to get published in one URL. The website womensmemoirs.com is for everyone who is a writer and/or a reader! Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler, the authors of the award-winning...

“Black Swan”—Dancing in the In-Between

Written by diana on January 1, 2011. Posted in movie reviews. 4 Comments on “Black Swan”—Dancing in the In-Between

This spellbinding movie, routinely described as a psychological thriller, is not to everyone’s taste but I absolutely loved it: dancing around the thin membrane between a fantasy/dream world and reality. Starring Natalie Portman as Nina, the beautiful but fragile ballerina who wishes to be the prima ballerina of Swan Lake, the movie opens with a dream sequence from this famous ballet. Evil Rothbart envelops the White Swan in his arms, but Nina wakes up in her room, a child’s bedroom of stuffed animals with a classic music jewelry box of a spinning mechanical ballerina twirling around. In...