#WEP #WINNER's #GUESTPOST - Kalpana Misra's Alphabet Circles

Hello everyone! Laura here!

As you all know, the winner of the WEP challenge gets the opportunity to write a guest post. Kalpana Misra's piece Landai moved readers with its portrayal of women in Afghanistan and the power of their poetry. Our judge Nick Wilford said, "This really brought home the terrible reality of what is happening in Afghanistan and how women's voices, which are already clandestine, might be snuffed out completely once again. This shows poetry as a mighty act of resistance."

Today Kalpana talks a bit about a Kashmiri poet named Zareefa. Take it away, Kalpana!

Alphabet Circles

The JCB Prize longlist came out last week. It brought with it feelings of despair. It’s a prize awarded to an Indian author writing in English as well as translations from Indian languages to English. You can read some extracts here. My daughter’s astonishingly good first novel, The Heart Asks Pleasure First couldn’t be considered because she doesn’t have an Indian passport although she lives in India. I don’t know if books should be judged on your nationality.  I know there are excellent reasons for these rules but it is disappointing. Being published as an Indian writer in English isn’t that simple.

So it was all doom and gloom for me in the past week and I didn’t want to read any of the JCB books apart from the translations from Malayalam.

I thought about the Landai the Afghan women write and recite in the face of so much opposition and danger, and my spirits lifted slightly. Here were women who believed in literature enough to defy the patriarchy that blanketed their country. Patriarchy that isn’t only in our part of the world. I went back to Tara Westover and Educated and thought about what it must have taken out of her to write that memoir that made her family cut her off even more effectively than before. Into this frame of mind,  came an article about a 63-year-old Kashmiri woman poet, Zareefa,   who never learnt to write. Her only language is Kashmiri, that’s all she speaks and the government, trying to make that language obsolete, as well as the men who kept her home from school because she was a girl combined their forces to ensure she never learnt to read and write. She didn’t need to. Poems and ghazals just came to her.  But she kept forgetting her poems and wasn’t happy with her children’s methods of recording them - either writing them down for her or making audio recordings. So she invented her own alphabet of circles, which only she can interpret, and through this sign language she reads out her poems.

I was so moved by this story and Zareefa’s tremendous love for her writing that my bad mood and petulance were completely washed away like a cool mountain breeze washing away the city’s pollution.

It is, of course, nice to be recognised, to win prizes, to have people talk about your books and buy them in huge numbers and I’m not ashamed of saying I want that for my daughter. And for me, when I do get published.  But it is easier to make oneself happy thinking of women like Zareefa.

Kalpana is a poet, writer and journalist who got waylaid by teaching. She has recently broken out of this hostage situation and begun to write seriously again. She is half German, half Indian and lives in New Delhi India with her three indoor cats. She is co-owned by four other feral cats. Her three children are far away now but used to be her entire life. She’s still getting used to cooking for one person. Kalpana is nibbling away at her novel, which is always ‘almost ready’. She might be a perfectionist.

She has been widely published in Indian magazines and newspapers.

Blog: https://www.kalpanawrites.com

Some of her work is visible on https://kalpanamisra.contently.com/

Newsletter: https://kalpanamisra.substack.com/

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Thank you for your guest post, Kalpana. Isn't the power of Zareefa's love for her craft inspiring?

We'd love for you to tweet this post or share it to Facebook or your favorite social media site.

@Kalpanapster #WEPFREEDOMOFSPEECH #WEPwinner #guestpost Alphabet Circles https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2021/09/wep-winners-guestpost-kalpana-misras.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner, @OlgaGodim #amwriting #writingchallenge

@Kalpanapster #WEPFREEDOMOFSPEECH #WEPwinner Landai #guestpost Alphabet Circles https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2021/09/wep-winners-guestpost-kalpana-misras.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner, @OlgaGodim #amwriting #writingchallenge

Learn about an inspiring poet with @Kalpanapster #WEPFREEDOMOFSPEECH #WEPwinner #guestpost Alphabet Circles https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2021/09/wep-winners-guestpost-kalpana-misras.html @DeniseCCovey, @YolandaRenee, @LGKeltner, @OlgaGodim #amwriting #writingchallenge

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Our next challenge is just around the corner! We hope you will all consider joining us for our October challenge, The Scream! We'll post about it on October 1st!

See you all there!

Winners of the #WEP #FREEDOMOFSPEECH Challenge August 2021

Hello everyone! Laura here! We would like to thank those of you who took part in the August Challenge FREEDOM OF SPEECH. This was certainly an intimidating topic for many, and we appreciate your effort!

We've decided to bring back the blurbs for this month! We know a lot of you have missed them! 

In order to keep blurbs going in the future, we at WEP talked about having individual participants write blurbs/taglines for their own entries and include them in their post. This would give everyone valuable practice for those all-important submissions to agents and editors and save the WEP hosts the work of writing them for each challenge.

An example of a #tagline from my Paris Dreams novel: "Sometimes a new life comes at a cost." Short and sweet. A tagline doesn't have to tell the story. It's mainly about theme.

HERE is a great article by Anne Allen and Ruth Harris Jemi shared on Twitter this morning. All about writing BLURBS.

https://annerallen.com/2021/08/how-to-write-blurb/

BLURBS:

Yolanda Renée - Words - Words can be weapons. Does freedom of speech mean cruelty is allowed? What is the cost of these words?

Hilary Melton-Butcher - Freedom of Speech. An intriguing look at the history of human speech from how we learned to speak to using that ability freely

Susan B Rouchard - The Fresco. A look at the power of artistic expression, an artist who has external rules to follow and the inner drive to explore his truths and his hopes 

NR Williams - Freedom Of Speech. A reminder from our past that people haven’t always had the freedom to speak their opinions.

Olga Godim - Space Fleet Academy Neville is a busy man but the curious behaviour of a passenger has caught his attention and blocked his drone. Will Neville crack the case?

Nilanjana Bose - A Fine Yarn - the Emperor's New Clothes has a new twist. Can you see it? (pun intended) . ‘The truth never did set him free.’ 

Christopher Scott - ‘Break free, remove yourselves from their digital world before civilization forfeits any chance at freedom.’ A future revolutionary makes a passionate plea for freedom. Truth wears many faces. Literal and metaphorical chains hold the future. Who will survive?

Denise Covey - The Silent Apocalypse - The politicians tell of one reality while the people experience another. Is it another Chernobyl?

Sally - 'Because I want to, he said…I want to wait, she said.’ Sally explores freedom of speech and consent in a powerful piece combining both prose and poetry. in The Beginning - it’s all about perspective in this one. Light and bars and love and sorrow and what happens when words aren’t heeded.

Kalpana Misra - LANDAI #WEP – "To be a woman anywhere is to struggle" In Afghanistan they support one another through poetry. 

Carole Stoltz - Freedom of Speech - "Freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved” Carole pays homage to some of our greatest heroes. 

Roland Clarke – Crime Never Sleeps - "A nation without language is a nation without heart". Sparkle and Kama unmask a dishonest politician. 

Jamie - Bullets or Blood Cells – "TIRED of fighting misinformed people," Jamie shares her angst via an amazing poem. 

Sanhita Mukherjee – Granny’s Philosophy -  ‘Only the media remains free while they enslave thoughts of individuals.’ Granny and grandkids have a wide-ranging talk on everything from Simone de Beauvoir to Donald Trump.

Sonia Dogra - Of Silver and Gold. A contemplative poem inspired by the proverb “Speech is silver, silence is golden.”

Charlotte (MotherOwl) - a chapter of the author's ongoing fantasy story Unicorn Farm. Susan and Heidi offer a home to a family of goblins, and the goblins discuss the move. Everyone has a say in the goblin society.

J. Lenni Dorner - Seven. A conquered nation never really surrenders. They might back down to survive, but the resentment is always smoldering. Be aware, conquerors.

Jemi Fraser - Their Voices. Canadian history has some dark moments. We need to ensure their voices are always heard.

Pat Garcia - Freedom's Calling. An inspiring true story of a woman born a slave who won her way to freedom.

LG Keltner - Unapproved. Graduate. Camina has a speech to give and a powerful choice to make. The approved version or the one filled with truths not everyone wants to hear?

SHORTLIST

Our wonderful judge Nick Wilford has been a real trooper over the years. We've sent him some long short lists in the past because we had so much trouble narrowing down our choices. And who can blame us? We see so many stellar entries that choosing winners can be a difficult task. Still, this month we did our best to make things easier on Nick by sending him a short list of three. This is not a reflection on the quality of the entries this challenge. There were passionate email exchanges involved as we whittled things down. There were pieces we all loved that did not make the list, so do not despair if you don't see your entry listed here.

Pat Garcia

Kalpana

Carole Stolz

COMMENTING

Thank you once again to all of you who continue to comment! Commenting is a major part of WEP's success. The feedback you give your fellow writers helps them improve their craft, and the words of encouragement help to motivate and inspire.

CRITIQUE PRIZE

The winner of each challenge gets the opportunity to receive a critique prize. They also get the opportunity to write a guest post for WEP. Our sidebar proudly displays everyone who is offering critique prizes for 2021. You are welcome to contact any of the editors with a request for work. 

This month's critique prize is brought to us by our own Jemi Fraser. She is offering a first chapter critique or a query/synopsis critique. Thank you, Jemi!

NOW LET'S CONGRATULATE OUR WINNERS!

THE WINNER OF AUGUST 2021'S CHALLENGE

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS:

Congratulations, Kalpana, for your entry, Landai.

Nick wrote: "This really brought home the terrible reality of what is happening in Afghanistan and how women's voices, which are already clandestine, might be snuffed out completely once again. This shows poetry as a mighty act of resistance."

Kalpana, please post your badge on your blog and link the badge to your winning entry. Enjoy the critique prize or pass it on if you have no body of work ready. We eagerly await your Guest Post on a topic of your choice!

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THE RUNNER-UP OF AUGUST 2021'S CHALLENGE

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS:

Congratulations, Pat Garcia, for your entry, Freedom's Calling.

Nick wrote: "This was a heartrending and educational post - particularly so as the entries around it highlight that such treatment of women is not consigned to history."

Pat, please link the badge to your entry and post it on your blog. Congratulations!

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THE ENCOURAGEMENT AWARD WINNER FOR AUGUST 2021'S CHALLENGE

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS:

Congratulations, Carole, for your stunning entry, Freedom of Speech.

Nick wrote: "Very inspiring stuff, and sobering as well - pushing us all to take action however we can."

Carole, please link the badge to your entry and post it on your blog.

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Stay safe and keep writing, everyone!

Please join us for the OCTOBER challenge, which is just around the corner. That challenge brings us...THE SCREAM. Hope to see you there! Baffled about what to write? Check the CHALLENGES 2021 page.

This prompt has rich possibilities. Spooky Halloween stories would be perfect, but don't feel pressured to write horror if that doesn't speak to you.

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We'd love for you to tweet this post or share it to Facebook or your favorite social media site.

Read amazing entries from our WEP AUGUST 2021 FREEDOM OF SPEECH winners @DeniseCCovey @yolandarenee @LGKeltner @OlgaGodim #BrilliantDebuts https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2021/08/wepwinners-post.html #amwriting #flashfiction #wepwinners

#WEPFF FREEDOM OF SPEECH winners announced @DeniseCCovey @yolandarenee @LGKeltner @OlgaGodim https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2021/08/wepwinners-post.html #amwriting #flashfiction #wepwinners

Come congratulate our AUGUST winners!. #WEPFF FREEDOM OF SPEECH Challenge @DeniseCCovey @yolandarenee @OlgaGodim @LGKeltner #amwriting #flashfiction #wepwinners https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2021/08/wepwinners-post.html

The #WEPFF writers had some fantastic entries for FREEDOM OF SPEECH! WEP winners announced! @DeniseCCovey @yolandarenee @OlgaGodim @LGKeltner #amwriting #flashfiction #wepwinners https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2021/08/wepwinners-post.html

Thank you for the writing excellence, WEP Winners FREEDOM OF SPEECH! @LGKeltner @DeniseCCovey @yolandarenee @OlgaGodim #amwriting #flashfiction #wepwinners https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2021/08/wepwinners-post.html