Archive for the ‘Michael B. Caffrey’ Category
Amazon.com has some ‘splainin’ to do.
I wanted to update my publication history in my brief profile at Amazon.com (I have one because I’m an Amazon Vine reviewer), and it wouldn’t let me — it said my update contained “profanity.”
Well, here’s what I was trying to do — you tell me if there’s any hidden profanity here, OK?
Current publication history:
November 2010 — “No Rest” (poem), to Midwest Literary Magazine. Also forthcoming in the DUE NORTH anthology.
October 2010 — “The Fair at South Farallon” to e-Quill Publishing, a small yet reputable publishing house in Australia.
September 2010 — “Trouble with Elfs: A Story from the Elfyverse,” with Michael B. Caffrey, to e-Quill Publishing (reprint sale — originally published at the Written Word online magazine in February 2007).
“A Dark and Stormy Night: A Joey Maverick Adventure,” Michael B. Caffrey with Barb Caffrey, to e-Quill Publishing (reprint; originally appeared in the Written Word online magazine in May 2005).
Editor for “Columba and the Cat,” “Columba and the Committee” and “Columba and the Crossing”, three of my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s original stories, to e-Quill Publishing, September 2010.
December 2009 — “Break the Dark Lens” (poem), to Joyful! Online magazine.
“Trouble with Elfs,” to the Written Word online magazine, February 2007.
“A Love Eternal” (poem), September 2006, to the Written Word online magazine.
“A Dark and Stormy Night,” to the Written Word online magazine, May 2005.
The BEDLAM’S EDGE anthology (Baen, 2005), “Bright as Diamonds,” with Michael B. Caffrey.
“On Collaboration” (nonfiction), to Vision Online magazine, July 2004.
Editor, ComicsBulletin.com (an occasional, yet real, gig), mid-2010 to the present.
Editor, Masterpiece Comics, 2005-2008.
Editor, the Written Word online magazine, November 2007 to January 2009 (when the WW went on hiatus).
******
It was at this point I also tried to add that I am reviewing books for ShinyBookReview here at WordPress, and it kicked out. (I know Amazon.com also is holding my review for Connie Willis’s book ALL CLEAR because I’d said my Amazon.com review was a shortened version of the same review I’d done for SBR.)
I would really like to know what, if anything, was profane in my update, because I would like to know why Amazon.com refused to update my profile, or at least have some justification for why they were so very stupid this evening.
WinningWriters.com Mentions My Blog in their end-of-the-year Newsletter
Folks, I was very pleased to see that WinningWriters.com had mentioned my blog in their recent end-of-the-year newsletter — though I knew in advance that they were at least thinking about it as I’d heard from WinningWriters.com editor Jendi Reiter (herself an excellent poet) that they appreciated what I’d written in my second blog about their War Poetry Contest.
I once again do not know how to properly give links to WinningWriters.com as this isn’t a page I found a way to see without actually logging in, but I can cut and paste what they said, first about my blog:
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BARB CAFFREY’S BLOG: “More on the War Poetry Contest at WinningWriters.com”
We appreciate Barb Caffrey’s recent comments about our War Poetry Contest on her blog. Here is an excerpt:“Those fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq deserve our support, and our understanding. And the first part of giving our support and our understanding is to listen, to read, and to understand—not to shut out the soldiers who’ve given everything of themselves in order to derail the al-Qaedas and Talibans of this world so perhaps fewer innocents will die than would’ve died had our soldiers not given everything they have in the attempt.
“The War Poetry contest is a good way to keep the conversation going, and to understand exactly what is going on with our returning soldiers and how hard it is to deal with what most of us see as ‘normality’ after dealing with things that no man, or woman, or child should ever have to see. It also is a way to affirm the sacrifices of our men and women in a positive, life-affirming way.”
****** End cut-and-paste from Newsletter.
The kind folks at WinningWriters.com also listed my publication credits — more of ’em than I’d expected, actually, though I was very pleased with the “shout-out” — in this bit from the newsletter, once again cut and pasted:
Barb Caffrey has placed four short stories with e-Quill Publishing, a new e-book publisher in Australia: her original tale “The Fair at South Farallon”, a science fiction satire about aliens, friendship, and unemployment; “Iron Falls”, a near-future military suspense tale co-authored with Piotr Mierzejewski; and two stories co-authored with her late husband Michael B. Caffrey, “Trouble with Elfs” and “A Dark and Stormy Night: A Joey Maverick Adventure”. Three of Mr. Caffrey’s stories about Princess Columba and her shapeshifting cat/husband have also been released by e-Quill as a special anthology. Her poem “A Love Eternal” will appear in e-Quill’s anthology of poems about mortality. Visit their author pages (at e-Quill Publishing — www.equillpublishing.com). Ms. Caffrey blogs at https://elfyverse.wordpress.com. In other news, her poem “No Rest” was accepted by Midwest Literary Magazine for inclusion in their November issue and their anthology Bearing North.
********* end cut-and-paste.
I really appreciate them mentioning Michael’s work — his “Columba” stories — and that they mentioned my blog, not once, but twice.
I’ve known about this for a few days, but wanted to wait to post until Sunday — as Sunday is, for many, a day of private reflection where we might, occasionally, remember to give thanks for the good things which happen to us (along with condemning the bad ones, which tends to go on every single day).
Anyway, I’m very pleased about this; I just wish I knew how to give some decent links. But since I don’t, please go look at WinningWriters.com for yourself and sign up for the basic newsletter as it’s free — and as I’ve said before, I’ve found it very helpful and interesting.
BTW, the links that the kind folks at Winning Writers put in didn’t work when I cut and pasted them into this e-mail — I had to take them out (as they all referred back to WordPress’s “types of blogs” thing, which wasn’t what they should’ve done) — including the link to the War Poetry Contest itself. My apologies in advance for that error . . . I’m not great with links, but this is the first time a simple cut-and-paste did not work.
My uncle Wayne died today at 74.
With great sadness I pass along this news . . . my uncle Wayne, who was a brilliant man who’d been a husband, a father, a psychologist, a military veteran, and much more, died today at the age of 74.
Two-plus months ago, my uncle went into the hospital for a heart operation. It was thought that if he had the operation, and it was successful, it would buy him a few more years of comfortable living. At the time, my uncle was suffering from congestive heart failure and a number of other ailments, and he wasn’t enjoying being slowed down by illness (as he’d always been active, before), so he felt he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. So he had the operation.
At any rate, he was on the operating table for twelve to fourteen hours, I believe (I may be misremembering), and it took him nearly two weeks to come out of the coma he was in after surviving that operation. I know my aunt was told he might not come out of the coma and if he didn’t, they needed to talk with her about “pulling the plug” — that is, ending his life — but fortunately he did come out of the coma.
When he did, though, he didn’t always know his wife, and he was paralyzed on one side of his body. Physical and occupational therapy was started, which made my uncle very tired — I heard all of this from my Mom, his sister, who heard it directly from my aunt himself — and he had some good days and some bad (the worst being when he was diagnosed with MRSA in his lungs, which caused pneumonia and worse).
They tried a lung procedure a few days ago to see if that would give him some ease of breathing, because he wasn’t able to breathe without the respirator and even with it, his breath came short and fast. (Once again, I was not there — this is all third-hand, but seems accurate. I truly wish I were not among the vast numbers of America’s unemployed or I’d have found a way to take my mother to see her brother, as he lived in another state that was over 600 miles away.) The procedure did not work.
My Mom got the call from my aunt yesterday that the doctors had told my aunt that my uncle Wayne could endure no more, and that his death was imminent. Then we waited, while I did my best not to disrupt my father’s 74th birthday celebration (my parents are long-divorced) because while he knew and liked my uncle, he wouldn’t have appreciated hearing anything bad on his birthday. (Trust me. This was for the best.)
And today, the news came a bit past 12:00 noon that my uncle Wayne had died.
I feel numb, maybe because I was hoping for a miracle. Wayne had rallied at least twice before and I knew he wanted to live, very strongly. But in this case, he just wasn’t able to do any more . . . he had to leave his wife, and his children, and his grandchildren, and his sister (my Mom), and his nieces and nephews, etc., behind.
My uncle was not religious, though he went to the Unitarian Universalist church for the fellowship it offered. He was agnostic, and as such I’d not want to wish him to be in a positive afterlife if that’s truly not what he wanted. (Some people just want to end after this life, and not have an afterlife of any sort, and I believe that my uncle was most likely in this category.) So my usual well-wishes, hollow though they tend to be, are not adequate to this occasion in any case . . . all I can do is wish my aunt well, which I have done, and pray that somehow, some way, all the distress she endured over the past ten-plus weeks will be worth it to her. Somehow.
I am a widow and I would never, ever wish this state on anyone else. It is incredibly difficult to wake up every day, alone, wishing like fire that my beloved husband, Michael, will somehow be beside me, alive again, and that everything I’ve endured is a horrible dream. I’ve even wished, at times, that I were in a coma and that I was dreaming all of this — that he’s alive, somehow and in some way, and that I will rejoin him and everything will be as it was.
But because I do believe in a positive afterlife, I at least have that to hope for, while my aunt, it seems to me, may not be able to hope for that (though I hope in her case that I’ve misread my uncle and that she can — she knows him far, far better than I ever could). And I do wish for that positive afterlife, for more long walks with my husband, for more conversation, for more thoughts on books and baseball and “life, the universe and everything,” what I was blessed to have for the three years I knew Michael and the two years, two months and twenty-eight days we had of marriage on this plane of existence.
Life is short, folks. It truly is. And that’s why I wish those of you who still have your spouses or significant others to enjoy them to the fullest and appreciate them as much as you possibly can even on the bad days. Even though the economy is bad, and you may be suffering financially like never before, try to be grateful for the love you have all around you, and store up those memories.
I’ve found that you can live a long time on them, if need be . . . .
More on the War Poetry Contest at WinningWriters.com
Folks, I wrote to the kind folks at WinningWriters.com and asked for a link that would work so I could talk more about the War Poetry contest than I had, and Adam Cohen wrote back to me this morning with a link that will work:
http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/war/2010/wa10_pastwinners.php
Now, let’s talk about the top three poems since I have a good link to the contest that y’all can use. (By the way, if you are a poet or a writer or want to know more about what is available out there to read and to try for as far as contests go, the WinningWriters.com Web site is an outstanding place to start your research. I’ve been getting their free newsletter for at least a year and a half and I’ve found it very helpful.)
The Grand Prize winner was Gerardo “Tony” Mena with his poem, “So I was a Coffin.” (He won $2000.) He is a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his poem was written for his friend Corporal Kyle Powell.
This poem is searing in its imagery, and goes through a series of steps — we first see a spear, and when that doesn’t work, we see a flag. When that isn’t quite right, we see a bandage — and this is where the poem really starts to hit between the eyes — and when the bandage doesn’t work, then the poem talks about coffins. And about how finally, at long last, he’s a “good coffin,” when he’d been inadequate as a spear, a flag, and a bandage.
This poem stands one step away from heartbreak from the beginning, and its imagery is stark in its simplicity. Knowing it was written for Mr. Mena’s friend just adds another layer to what makes this personally moving, but even had I not known that (had Mr. Mena not said anything about it) I believe this poem would’ve had similar emotional intensity.
The second place winner, Bruce Lack, sent in three poems entitled “FNG,” “Get Some” and “Hadji.” Mr. Lack is a former member of the United States Marine Corps, and it’s obvious he’s used his military service as a springboard for his poetry. All three of these poems are searing, and there’s bad language in two of ’em — understandable bad language, to be sure. (I mention this in case anyone wants to read these with their children; adults, please check these out by yourselves just in case.) He won $1200 for his poems, but as with Mr. Mena, it appears far more important to Mr. Lack that his poetry be read and understood than that it earned money. (I’m sure neither of them are adverse to the money; it’s just that these poems do need to be read and understood by as many as possible.)
Specifically, “FNG” is about a soldier’s duty and how you’re supposed to keep yourself “shipshape and Bristol fashion” at all times. (That’s not how Mr. Lack puts it, mind you.) “Get Some” is all about a soldier who saw one of his friends die, and how he can’t put that image out of his mind no matter how hard he tries to resume his life. And “Hadji” is about war, and about what he thought he’d see but didn’t — yet what he saw was far more than he could deal with.
All three of these poems work as a set, but they’d work by themselves, too. But as a set, they show that even the most mundane tasks a soldier deals with daily can be difficult to deal with because all of them — all — lead to the soldier’s ultimate duty, that of war and how he (or she) must learn to deal with what they’ve seen and done, not to mention wanted to do.
The third place winner is Anna Scotti, and is the only non-veteran in the top three winners. Her poem is called “This is how I’ll tell it when I tell it to our children,” and it’s about “prettifying” the war so what the soldiers did to the protagonist doesn’t seem as terrifying as it actually was. Ms. Scotti won $600 for this poem, and it is a nice counterpart to the four other poems written by Mr. Lack and Mr. Mena in that it’s quieter, but no less intense. This is the one poem of the five that takes some effort to read, but once you figure out she’s talking around the subject rather than about it, it becomes just as heart-rending as the others.
I believe that this War Poetry contest is extremely important to highlight, which is why I’ve written this second (and far more comprehensive) blog about it. The two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have fallen out of the public consciousness to a degree because for whatever reason the media isn’t covering it as much as it used to — maybe they’re bored with it. Or maybe they just don’t think it’s “sexy” to talk about people dying in a far-away place for an undetermined objective. (Or, rather, an objective that the media would rather not discuss; trying to undermine al-Qaeda or the Taliban is very important, but it’s something that can’t be conveyed in a quick “sound-bite.”)
I’ve known many veterans in my life; my husband Michael was a proud Navy veteran, my father is a proud Navy veteran, my uncles served in the Army and Marines, my cousins have served in the Marines and the Army, and my friends have served in all branches (Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, and Air Force). I believe that serving our country is extremely important — my own health would never allow me to serve (I tried, in my youth) — but we can’t forget what our fine men and women see when they’re dealing with war and death. We can’t “prettify” it — that’s why Anna Scotti’s poem is so moving — or “gussy it up” so it’ll be more acceptable in a conversation. And we certainly cannot ignore it, because that also ignores the huge sacrifices our military men and women have made for us over the years and is damned cruel, besides.
Those fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq deserve our support, and our understanding. And the first part of giving our support and our understanding is to listen, to read, and to understand — not to shut out the soldiers who’ve given everything of themselves in order to derail the al-Qaedas and Talibans of this world so perhaps fewer innocents will die than would’ve died had our soldiers not given everything they have in the attempt.
The War Poetry contest is a good way to keep the conversation going, and to understand exactly what is going on with our returning soldiers and how hard it is to deal with what most of us see as “normality” after dealing with things that no man, or woman, or child should ever have to see. It also is a way to affirm the sacrifices of our men and women in a positive, life-affirming way.
But the War Poetry contest really needs more people to go and read these fine poems (including the honorable mentions and the published finalists — I didn’t see a bad poem in the lot) and reflect upon what our veterans have done for us, as shown by the many veterans (and non-vets) who’ve written outstanding poetry about war for this contest.
So please, go to the WinningWriters.com Web site — go to the link that was provided — and read these poems. Then think about them, and talk about them, and pass them on to your friends and neighbors. Because maybe we can get the conversation going that seems to have been woefully absent in Washington, DC, and in all of our state legislatures besides — and a “maybe” in this case is far better than the “Hell, no!” our servicepeople have been getting to date in their personal re-writing of history in order to make it more palatable to their children, to their spouses, and to their friends.
Writers of the Future bounces 3rd quarter story.
Folks, some nights are beyond frustrating, and this is one of them.
The story I sent to WotF in the 3rd quarter is a Joey Maverick tale set in my late husband’s universe, with mostly his characters — this is the second tale, and for this one I’d added a great deal of things (more plot layers, a few new characters, deepening of the characters already there, some internal monologue). And were Michael alive, it would’ve been Michael who’d sent this in (providing he wrote all this in, of course), and I’d have been the one checking the MSS — meaning I’d have caught stuff that apparently got by me this time.
All I was told was that my story (based on Michael’s “Maverick” universe) “didn’t go in double-spaced” (I thought it had; I know they want traditional MSS format, which is what I use constantly) and I noticed on the page they sent back (which indeed wasn’t double-spaced, though I haven’t a clue why at this remove) that it had the wrong header — which I know I fixed. I was on my Mom’s computer at that point, not mine (Mom has air conditioning, and I don’t), and I know Mom’s computer can do some odd things to formatting. That’s probably what happened to the headers (I checked, but probably saw what I wanted to see; this is a failing). But as for the double-spacing, I haven’t a clue. Because I do know better.
At any rate, this is probably the best story I have ever sent them, and because of these two things, the story itself wasn’t considered. I don’t blame them for this, because they get so many stories, they’re going to have to kick stuff out however they can — they once bounced “Trouble with Elfs” because they said the “protagonists’ ages (were) too young,” because they were teens, even though I’ve seen stories about teens in the WotF anthology before and probably will again. That one frustrated me even more than this one, because it was perfectly formatted; fortunately, the story eventually sold in 2007. (I sent it to WotF in 2004, long before Michael passed away.)
I sent them something for the September 30th ending quarter, but I have no hopes for that story (which means it’ll probably be the one that finally breaks through, right?) — this was the one I had the hopes for, not that one.
It frustrates me beyond belief to be thought of as someone who didn’t do her homework; I always double-space my manuscripts, from the start, and when I got the print-out off the printer, I looked at it — I’d checked. It printed out double-spaced fine, for me. I still have the copy I printed out, for comparison; it is double-spaced throughout.
Mind, I believe I will place “Joey Maverick: On Westmount Station” quickly, so all is not lost.
But for a writer who’s doing her damndest to be professional in all her dealings, stupid crap like this bugs me. It truly does. And the only good thing stuff like this does is to remind me to check the formatting four or five times in short stories, and perhaps wait on the story a day if I have that time; you can call this a hard-won insight if you’d like, though I’m still mad as Hell at myself for not seeing this when I sent it in.
New book review — LMB’s “Cryoburn” — plus remembering my husband, Michael
I reviewed Lois McMaster Bujold’s new novel about Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, Cryoburn, at the “sister” site Shiny Book Review this evening. Please go to this link:
All I’ll say here is, Cryoburn is worthy, interesting, and weighty — but not a pleasure-read by any stretch of the imagination. Make sure you are prepared for this, as Cryoburn, simply put, is all about death — and potential revival, for those who elect it — and that is not an easy or lightweight subject to contemplate.
And as for the writing of the review, it was far more difficult than I’d anticipated. I really, really like Lois McMaster Bujold’s writing — I like it a whole lot. But a novel about death, and about the survivors of those who’ve died but may yet be revived — well, it’s not an easy novel to enjoy, let’s put it that way. (At least not for me as a widow.)
******** SPOILER AND REMEMBRANCE ALERT ********
Reading Cryoburn stirred up all sorts of issues I thought I’d dealt with in my grief cycle, because I completely understood why Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan made the choice she did at the very end (in her “drabble,” a short bit of story in 100 words). I would’ve done exactly as Cordelia, and for the same reasons, were our medical technology more advanced at the time of my beloved husband Michael’s passing; if a man has brain damage, and it is extensive — whether it’s from lack of oxygen or whatever else — and medical science cannot bring him back to the level he was before the brain damage, what kind of life would that be?
Fortunately I did not have to make that determination. Michael fought hard for life and I knew he wanted to stay with me. I desperately wanted him to stay with me, too, and prayed hard for that miracle to occur. But it wasn’t to be; his life on this plane of existence ended, but who he was and what he was all about lives on. That’s what Cordelia understood that her grieving son, Miles, did not get — maybe could not get. Simply put: the most important thing about her husband’s life, or mine, is this — he lived it his way.
If you’ve followed my blog to this point, or know anything about me at all, you know full well that I will do whatever I possibly can, ethically and morally, to keep Michael’s writing alive. I will finish it since I must, even though I wish with all my heart and soul and spirit that Michael were still with us in the totality of his intelligence, bright spirit and strong will. I’d rather he were alive to do this, because I loved watching him create, and I loved reading his stories.
Still. I am the only one left who understands what he was getting at, and I can write his style (with great effort, but I can do it). That’s why I will do whatever I can to complete his work, because in that way and only in that way do I feel like I’ve remembered Michael properly, as the man he always was — creative, alert, intelligent, witty, and beloved beyond words.
It’s important to remember a person as he lived, not as he died. That’s why the process of creation is so important to me. It was important to Michael, too, because writing something, creating something, meant we’d done something no one else on the planet was able to do in the same way. Creating is one way of exerting your own sense of individuality, of how you see the world, and it’s the best way to remember a creative person, in my opinion.
At any rate — while life is for the living, it’s also for remembering, positively and with great care, the honored dead. Maybe that’s why it was so hard for me to like Cryoburn, as it hits way too close to home for comfort.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 