Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

Winners of the 55 Word Fiction Writing Contest!

Monday, February 21st, 2011

2010 – Final Results – Congratulations!

55 Word Fiction Writing Contest

1st place: $100 and a one year subscription to Fine Lines

Edie Goodwin (Council Bluffs, IA) is a pediatric physical therapist at Loess Hills Area Education Agency in Council Bluffs, IA. She is a lover of people, has 2 children, 11 step-children, and 30+ grandkids. She believes in giving children the foundation they need to help them become successful adults. She dabbles in writing, piano-playing for musicals, and dreams of being a New York City Rockette. Of course, she’s not 5′ 7″ and can’t dance, but one can always dream! One of her greatest joys is teaching Creighton University PT students, who she hopes to steer into a pediatric PT career, so she can one day retire and just dance!. She has a wonderful husband, Bob, who lives with her long work hours and supports her outlandish dreams. She considers herself one very fortunate woman!

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Fine Lines Wants to Help!

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

To All Fine Lines Members and Friends:

Wendy Lundeen is one of our Fine Lines Special Editors. She is a career educator, and her daughter has two boys, Dillon and Tyler, who have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Last year, we helped the family purchase a wheelchair accessible van for transportation. Please see the file attachment, which details their current needs. Fine Lines wants to help them again, and we are asking you to assist us. The boys, 7 ½ and 5 years old, are now both in wheelchairs. The family hopes to make a down payment on a handicap-accessible home, across the street from where the boys go to school.

Be gracious in 2011. Thank you.

David Martin
Fine Lines Editor

PETERS HOME FUND PDF

Summer Camp Pictures

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

Take a look at a sampling of what happened at Fine Lines Summer Camp 2010 at Beveridge Middle School. Click on a photo to enlarge!

Winners of the 55-Word Fiction Contest!

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

These are the Winners for 2009 as announced by David Martin:

First Place

The Truth

By Marc Magisana,    Omaha, NE

The cards said murder. The old woman’s tarot readings were never wrong. To win the contest, I would need to kill. Who? She pretended not to know. Enraged, I beat the truth out of her. Her murder made me a famous writer. Now I’m framed: “Winner: First Prize Fiction Contest” hangs on my cell wall. (55)

Second Place

In Montana

By Marge Barrett,    Minneapolis, MN

By campfire light near Many Glacier, she snaps, crackles, pops. He strives to snuff out the flames, steaming water, sifting sand. Like paint pots in Yellowstone, they bubble, sizzle, while cedars crash and swans soar. Yet as fields seared in the fall, they spring up renewed, sip Beaujolais, curled together in Rising Sun’s fireplace lobby. (55)

Third Place

Toddler Turnabout

By Alberta Lee Orcutt,   St. Paul, MN

Chubby fingers clutch the peach to her mouth. Juice trickles down her chin and wrist on its way to her elbow, sugary orange passing through yesterday’s scratch and today’s dirt, finally sticking to the squirming kitten trapped between her knees. Then – the bolt! And Huntress drops the hallowed peach to devotedly stalk her panicked prey. (55)

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55 Word Fiction Finalists

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

1

“Sweet Memories”

Edie Goodwin

word count: 55

He was a delightful, young man and so full of life. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed, he was the boy every girl dreamed about. They had great times together, full of laughter and love and hopefulness.

On one, bright, October day, he said, “Will you marry me?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I can’t,” she replied, sadly. “I’m your Grandma.”

2

“The Legacy”

Peggy Adair

word count: 55

He watched unnoticed from the shed as uniformed men with guns dragged his father away. He knew what to do. He found a shovel, trod silently to the meadow and dug a hole as deep as a 9-year-old can. He dropped the plastic-wrapped package in and filled the hole. The last banned book was safe.

3

“Coping”

Deborah Ramirez

word count: 55

I make wishes at 12:34 a.m. I tape fortune cookie slips to the refrigerator, read horoscopes, and cross my fingers at ATMs.

Laid off again at 50, there’s little work for island women. I avoid my overstuffed mailbox, because foreclosure notices haunt me.

Hopefully wine at Sack-n-Save is reduced-for-quick-sale, and my home is not.

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Messages from Summer Camp 2009

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Messages from 2009 Fine Lines
Creative Writing Summer Campers

“Writing to some people is a joke. To me, it is my life. I have never
been in a place where I have felt so welcome, because of my talent.”
Ellen Garfoot

“I plan to keep on writing, because now, the words just flow in my
head. Before this camp, that did not happen. I think this experience
made me a better writer.” Mandie Livermore

“I enjoyed all the speakers, but I enjoyed most the two boys who played
a guitar and the piano. Their songs sounded like good poems put to
music.” Catie Doran

“This camp was the best experience I have had in a long time, because
not only did I enjoy it, but I could share my writing gift with others.”
Andrea Dai

“I was surprised how many jobs are connected to good writing techniques.”
Taylor Sutherland

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All Good Things

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

All Good Things

17.2 Summer 2008

(David Martin is the Fine Lines Creative Writing Summer Camp Director.)

“All good things which exist are fruits of originality.” John Stuart Hill

Fine Lines creates summer writing camps for those young students of all ages who find peace in words. Our camps are places where writers of all abilitites share stories, essays, poems, and songs. These writing communities become a universe of combined wisdom in metaphor.

As “Woody” Gruber, one of our best camp story tellers, likes to say, “Each writer brings a candle of light and insight to the written page, and when those many sources of energy are united, they create a lighthouse that shines into the darkness and helps ‘those alone on ships at sea.’ Years ago, Arch Bishop Fulton Sheen used to have a television show called The Christophers, and his motto for each program was, ‘It is better to light just one candle than to curse the darkness.’ The most important thing writers can do is to light their candles by writing.” (more…)

2009 Summer Camp

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

You can see the photos here.

Just one of the many writing groups!

Just one of the many writing groups!