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Jun 22

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6/22 Weekly Creativity Challenge and New Prompt

Just my own (Kelly Warren) entry this week for our “summer vacation” prompt. Everyone else must be off enjoying their own summer vacation!  Here’s a quick little ditty I wrote to accompany a photo I took on our vacation last week to St. George Island. 

Sand dollar hunts and golf cart rides,
Lighthouse climbs and chasing tides,
Living in the moment to savor the feeling,
Of oyster shucking and boiled shrimp peeling,
Forgetting the hassles, the chores and the bills
To cherish a vacation and the cheap little thrills 
Only found in the summer with sand between your toes
And ice cream on your nose and salt air in your clothes.
Who knows the joys you’ll find when you just let go and soar?   

 bubbly toes

This week’s prompt: “Steaming”
Use the prompt however you like – literally, or a tangential theme. All media are welcome. Please e-mail your entries to creativereality@live.com by midnight eastern time on Sunday, June 28, 2009. Writers should include their submission directly in the body text of their e-mail. Visual artists and photographers should attach an image of their work as a jpeg. Enter as often as you like; multiple submissions for a single prompt are welcome. There is no limit to how many times you can win the weekly challenge, either. (You do not have to be a contributor to this blog in order to enter. All are invited to participate.) All submissions are acknowledged when received; if you do not receive e-mail confirmation of receipt within 48 hours, please post a comment here. Remember, the point is to stimulate your output, not to create a masterpiece. Keep the bar low and see what happens. Dusting off work you created previously is OK too. For more info, read the original contest blog post.

Jun 22

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Dee Thompson’s new book!

Dee Thompson, who posted at this blog last year, published her nonfiction book this month. What follows is Dee’s press release. You can read more at Dee’s blog, or order her book on amazon. Congratulations, Dee!

Adopting Alesia:
My Crusade for My Russian Daughter
Release Date: June 1, 2009
Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing
$15.00

I never dreamed I would find my child on the other side of the world.

A few years ago, I was single and childless, and 40 years old. I had spent 20 years searching for Mr. Right and he was nowhere to be found.

Longing for a change of pace and some adventure, I went to Russia to sing Handel’s Messiah, in a remote town on the edge of Siberia. There I met a little girl in an orphanage and I knew she was my daughter. I had seen her in a dream the night before. I had never even considered adopting an older Russian child, but from the moment I first saw her, I knew in my heart that Alesia was my daughter, and no matter what it took, I was going to bring her home.

When I returned to the US, my adoption dream hit brick wall after brick wall. My company laid me off. I had to break up with a boyfriend who didn’t want children. I found out the orphanage director didn’t like Americans and wouldn’t even talk to the adoption agency. Alesia wasn’t even available to adopt. The agency told me over and over to choose a different child. I didn’t have the money I needed to complete the adoption. I started another romance that failed. At times I thought I was going crazy.

Many people told me I was crazy to adopt. The child I had thought was about 8, because she was so emaciated, turned out to be 11. I persevered. When I finally got her home, she was 13 years old.

Through it all, I read everything I could about adoption, learned to speak Russian, cried a lot, and wrote in my journal. I later spent many late nights turning that journal into a book.

Adopting Alesia is a book about a dream, a miracle, and two people who were meant to be a family, despite everything. Adopting Alesia is not merely an adoption story. It’s a story for anyone who has ever had to learn to be brave, fought to follow a dream, or found faith in the darkest of times. It’s a story of a little girl who didn’t even know the word “adoption.” It’s a story about love.

Dee Thompson is an Atlanta writer. Her first book was Jack’s New Family, a children’s book. She holds an MA in creative writing from the University of Tennesee, and writes articles, screenplays, and a popular blog, The Crab Chronicles. She can be contacted at thompsondee@bellsouth.net.