MANA'S SHORT STORY SERIES LIST ON SIDE COLUMN

MANA's Award-Winning Author Elesia K. Powell Has A Passion For Poetry

Elesia K. Powell

Elesia K. Powell will tell you that she's passionate about poetry and it becomes apparent after reading her works. She incorporates her life 
experiences into her poetry. For instance, her travels throughout the United States, Europe, and the West Indies are reflected throughout her writings.

Ms. Powell, an educator, and public speaker, has won the prestigious University of Michigan Hopwood Award, an annual contest that awards prizes to U-M students for creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. 

In addition, Ms. Powell was also MarketingNewAuthors.com's (MANA's) 2014 Passion For Poetry Poet Contest winner. For winning the contest, MANA published her work titled, Sweet Ache: Poetry of the Soul, a collection of poems that reflects a combination of Jamaican and American heritage. 

There is an undercurrent rhythm and beat in her work that engages a reader. Although the subject matter of the poems varies, the spirit of the works consistently emanates throughout every poem. 

An example of this is the following poem, "Sweet Ache," the title of the book: 

Surrounded by the beauty of lush valleys,
The tropical breezes blow large green leaves,
Exposing the fruit hidden beneath.
I choose the just ripe Mango, papaya, and star fruit;
I slice them into jars,The mango and papaya in the center,
The star fruit toward the outer edges of the jars.
I fill each one with coconut water and sugar.
I want it so sweet
That their teeth will ache,
Like my insides do from wanting you.
I seal the jars and tie them with a bright ribbon
Before I take them to market to sell.
I call it Sweet Ache,
Homemade love in a bottle
with all I have for you
Locked in these jars.
Only the tourists buy my treats.
The natives hear my solitary songs in the night and
Make wide steps around me.
My own voice returns as an echo in darkness,
Sweet Ache I call out,
Homemade love in a bottle.
With each jar sold,
I pray my aching will end.
I return to the valley with Sweet Ache lingering,
Along with the sugar that creases my fingers.
The rain falls on my zinc roof,
Each drop ringing a thousand small bells,
Just a little more sugar.
Sweet Ache.
I slice them into jars,
The mango and papaya in the center,
The star fruit toward the outer edges of the jars.
I fill each one with coconut water and sugar.
I want it so sweetThat their teeth will ache,
Like my insides do from wanting you.
I seal the jars and tie them with a bright ribbon
Before I take them to market to sell.
I call it Sweet Ache,
Homemade love in a bottle
with all I have for you
Locked in these jars.
Only the tourists buy my treats.
The natives hear my solitary songs in the night and
Make wide steps around me.
My own voice returns as an echo in darkness,
Sweet Ache I call out,
Homemade love in a bottle.
With each jar sold,
I pray my aching will end.
I return to the valley with Sweet Ache lingering,
Along with the sugar that creases my fingers.
The rain falls on my zinc roof,
Each drop ringing a thousand small bells,
Just a little more sugar.
Sweet Ache.

"Help! I'm Stuck In The Middle of My Story! Now What?!”

By The MANA Staff


dfinnecy via Compfight cc 
There’s nothing as frustrating as getting stuck in the middle of your fiction novel and not know in what direction to turn.

Ideally, developing a story outline helps. However, not all writers will do this because they want to work out the plot as they go along. 

On the other hand, sometimes authors can develop an outline but then take the story into another direction. 

If you have written yourself into this predicament, don’t panic. 

Just breathe. 

Step back for a moment and see whether the following advice will help you get out of your hard place.  

Bring your story to a boil 

In the beginning, you introduced the characters and set up the conflict.  So, bring the tension and suspense that you’ve been building from the beginning to a boiling point in the middle of your story.

Expose Secrets

This is the perfect time to surprise your readers by revealing secrets about your main characters or have your characters experience tragic moments. For instance, you can reveal that your character:

• Is having an affair
• found out at 53 years old that she was adopted
• Is falsely accused of stealing classified documents from his company and now “shadowy figures” are after him. 

Readers love finding out something about the characters that they didn’t already know. The revelations you create may even confirm what readers suspected about the characters all along. If readers did not suspect anything, the exposed secrets will prompt them to either flip a few pages back to see why they “didn’t see it coming” or continue reading to find out what happens next.

Revelations in the middle of your story also give you more material to work with as you move to the end of your story.  

Doris A. Zarzycki's Shares Her Experiences In "God's Gift To Me, I Share With You–Book One and Book Two"

Author Doris A. Zarzycki has a unique way of weaving her life experience into her inspirational works that focus on faith, love, difficulties, and family.

In her book, God's Gift To Me, I Share With You-Book One, Doris has written more than 150 inspirational essays and poems about every facet of life. Doris takes her readers along a literary journey that she has traveled herself. Her essays and poems deal with love, laughter, happiness, sadness, birthdays, graduations, and more. 

As an example, Doris dispenses advice in the chapter, "Keys to Locked Doors":


Do you have direction in your life? If you don't have an inclination of where you are going, you are bound to get lost. Set a destination of where you want to be. For example, think about where you would like to be a year from now. If you are not content with your situation at this time and are looking for a way to change yourself and your way of life at present, then take time to look in the mirror.
 
Really look at yourself. Tell yourself you can do whatever you have to do to like this person in the mirror a lot more than you do right now. Maybe, you think you like yourself. Would someone who likes himself or herself be doing what you are doing to you? You know you are shortchanging your growth when you keep yourself locked up inside. Open the door to new experiences to bring out the best in you. It is there if you only give it a chance…
 
You have the key to your destiny. The key to unlocking the doors that so far you have kept closed. There are challenges to meet. Gambles to win, by your own hard-earned efforts. These things are waiting for you to open up your life to new stability. that is something we all need in our lives to succeed.


In her sequel, God's Gift To Me, I Share With You—Book Two, Doris shares her wisdom through a collection of over 200 prose and poems for anyone who needs to make sense of this world and chooses to thrive nonetheless. It is evident that Doris has done a lot of soul-searching and is confident in herself and writes to inspire others. 

"This has been a journey of inspiration I wasn't aware I was taking," said Doris, a wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother who has seen and traveled many roads of life. “When I realized all the thoughts I had put on paper had accumulated into something that I wanted to share, I sat down and put two books together. Now, this is the completion of several years of meeting so many people along my journey of inspiration.”

In the introduction of her sequel, Doris explains that she was 50 years old when she started to like herself. She tells her readers that they do not have to wait until that age to learn to like themselves. She hopes that her book will help lead readers to their own self-discovery:

“A lesson to learn is that you need to communicate how you feel and don’t hold things inside. The more you let out what is inside, the better you feel.” She touches on this in the poem, “Mirror Mirror”:


Mirror Mirror, help me to see
The real image of who I am and who I can be.
Mirror Mirror, you can tell it all
If I look beneath the surface deep within my eyes,
Capture the heart and soul breathing within.
This is the person I want to know.
The somebody I need to love.
The individual who can help me to grow.
Mirror Mirror, help me to see,
It isn't that hard to believe I do like me. 
God made me. He made me with all
the tools I need to be everything
or anything I want to be.
What is stopping me?
All it takes is believing in me,
Mirror Mirror, tell me why it is true,
With my funny face looking back at me
Why is it so hard to say, "I love you"
I will tell myself I am beautiful because
I want to learn to believe it is true.
Mirror Mirror, help me to see
The love inside I need to feel for me.
Mirror Mirror, on the wall,
Why am I so blind to loving me least of all?
Mirror Mirror, help me to see the real image
Of who I am and who I can be. 


God's Gift To Me, I Share With You—Book One and God's Gift To Me, I Share With You—Book Two are for those who are willing to take inspirational journeys. 

Go HERE to preview, God's Gift To Me, I Share With You—Book One. Go HERE to preview God's Gift To Me, I Share With You—Book Two .