“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right . . . . Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.”
-Kofi Annan – a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize “for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.”
Fine Lines is dedicated to the development of writers and artists of all ages.
What started out as a classroom newsletter in 1991 has now turned into a 50 state writing network and a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, educational organization. The first issue was 4 pages long and allowed students many opportunities to show others clear thinking and proper written expression. Each quarterly issue is about 300 pages filled with fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art by “authors and artists in process” who wish to improve their composition craft.
Fine Lines wants to hear from everyone you know who likes to read and write and has a good story to tell. Contact the schools in your community (all levels), tell students (of all abilities), and writers on your email lists (the good ones and the “wannabees”) that we are looking for traditional and non-traditional creative writers wherever we can find them.
Twenty Three Years and Growing
We are now in our twenty-third year of publication, have traversed many publication hurdles, and transformed ourselves frequently to keep our 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization going, because we are involved with a labor of love. We have some rowdy editors who enthusiastically fill four books per year with writing from the heart. Human interest stories, essays, poems, and artwork make us want to fly, and well-crafted declarative sentences make the world a better place in which to live, no matter the academic status of the writer.
Last year, we published a third grader who wrote a wonderful three line observation about winter and several poems from a ninety-four year old great-grandmother. Our motto is “Write on,” and we do.
We will be pleased to have you involved with our mission to change the world one page at a time and one writer at a time. Check out our Summer 2014 edition FREE here.
Thank you for helping us celebrate the beauty of language.
This combination made many students want to lie down on the green, campus grass after lunch and take naps. I made myself comfortable on a shaded bench under the largest oak tree and relaxed. With twenty minutes to spare before starting my next English class, I felt the warm, August sun trying to find me. I looked up at the white, floating clouds, and my mind began to wander.
Imagining what Huck Finn and Jim felt on their crude raft while floating down the mighty Mississippi River, leaving their troubles behind, ignoring their families, forgetting the problems of growing up, averting their minds from mature challenges, overlooking racial prejudice, and communicating the way two males, a young white boy and a black man, would have in that place – in that century, I smiled. As each day began for those runaways, the warm sun twinkled between the fluttering leaves of cottonwood trees along the river banks, gently rousing this friendly duo to new adventures.
Huck and Jim were thankful for the many opportunities that came their way. With child-like understanding, they did their best to comprehend that little corner of the world and their places in it. If life is a stochastic process, they enjoyed and accepted their days as they found them. They did not hate life away, and they would not waste time ignoring it or being ungrateful. In their simplicity, consciously or not, they found excitement in learning, even though their vision was short and blocked by the bends in the river.
Good writing is a collection of ideas and symbols that make a difference in our world. Authors and poets must find what they are good at communicating and share it in words, so readers know what they believe.
In the hopes I could prove statistically that our non-profit organization is worth his donation to our mission. To put a value on increasing literacy, one writer at a time. I wonder, is it possible to quantify something as unique as Fine Lines?
Fine Lines Is Powered by Volunteers
Last month 22 trained, volunteer editors devoted 3 hours each of their time, while reading submissions (essays, historical writings, poetry, short stories, fiction, non-fiction, and human interest articles). They collaborated during these 66 hours of reading to find the best writing for our readers. In our 23 years of publication, the number of submissions has increased substantially in recent years. In 2014, Fine Lines has reached all 50 states in the USA and 33 foreign countries
Our editorial group is an eclectic group that includes various ages, jobs, and backgrounds: high school and college students, math teachers, Spanish teachers, English and journalism teachers, novelists, memoirists, journal writers, an insurance executive, a grant writer, a nurse, university English professors, computer IT managers, medical biologists, one retired CIA agent, and lawyers. This diversity of editors gives a widespread perspective when reading the submissions and adds flavor and value to our team.
Write On Summer Camp
Fine Lines provides a summer writing camp each year in June. Last summer was our 15th year of combining all the arts with composition. The 150 campers turned in so much good writing that it will take a year to publish it all. The positive comments from the campers have grown every year, and we are already planning our next one in 2015. Stay tuned.
What Matters
To “quantify” means to count “how much” and is often used with statistical analysis. This term originated in Medieval Latin, and some people, today, dismiss educational creative concepts if they cannot show numerical growth to the end results of applied theories. Yet, the following statement from an Omaha metropolitan educator tells what really matters:
“Fine Lines offers an outlet for young students who suffer academically. A fourth grade student of special education from a recent summer school creative writing class, struggled with written expression. However, he was so excited to tell the story about his wood-carving experience that made writing his short poem a little more bearable. I submitted his poem, and it was published. When he came to my home to pick up his copy of FineLines, I saw the look of pride on his face that was wider than a steamboat. In elation, he cried, ‘I’ve never had anything published before!’”
Please tell all people you know who like to read and write and have good stories to tell that Fine Lines wants to hear from them. Contact the elementary schools in Oregon. Invite the community college students in Florida. Notify the writers on your email list that we are looking for traditional and non-traditional writers and creative ideas wherever we can find them.
We are now in our twenty-third year of publication, have traversed many publishing hurdles, and transformed ourselves often to keep this 501 (c) 3 non-profit, educational, literary organization available for all, because we are involved with a wonderful labor of love. Our enthusiastic and rowdy editors enjoy opening the mail to find submissions that ask readers to share the authors’ messages.
We fill four issues per year with writing from the heart, human interest stories, essays, and poems that make us want to fly. Well-crafted declarative sentences make the world a better place in which to live, no matter the academic status of the writers. A third grader who wrote a wonderful three line observation about winter and several poems from a ninety-four year old great-grandmother both earned our equal respect.
Our motto is “Write on,” and we do.
We are pleased to have you involved with our mission to change the world one page at a time. If you want to become more involved in our efforts to increase world literacy, let us know, and we will be happy to send you some “stuff” that you can share with writers in your community. Give us your mailing address, and Fine Lines will get it to you.
When I hear people complaining about what is going on in their lives and the world, I ask them what we should do about those issues. Usually, they say, “Oh, nothing,” because their vote doesn’t really count, no one will listen to their ideas, and they do not matter in the big picture of world events, anyway. Across time, people have used this reasoning for not voting, not getting involved, and letting less qualified people run our world; however, history demonstrates that one vote has made the difference on several important occasions, and when “little people” unite, their impact may become a most powerful force.
Consider This
In 1645, one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England.
In 1776, a few votes in the Continental Congress gave the United States the English language instead of German.
In 1820, President James Monroe ran for a second term. He was so popular that he won all but a single vote in the Electoral College. John Quincy Adams cast the one vote against Monroe. Adams stated that the reason he did this was “to make certain that only George Washington would ever have the honor of being elected President by a unanimous vote.”
In 1845, one vote in the U. S. Congress brought Texas into the Union. That same vote also resulted in the U. S. acquisition of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, California and part of Colorado.
In 1868, Andrew Johnson, who became President after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, was impeached by the U. S. House of Representatives for abusing his executive powers and was tried in the U. S. Senate but was found not guilty by one vote.
In 1875, one vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic.
In 1920, one Tennessee vote ratified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote.
In 1923, one vote gave Adolf Hitler leadership of the Nazi Party.
In 1941, one vote saved the Selective Service, just weeks before Pearl Harbor was attacked.
In 1960, Richard Nixon lost the presidential election, and John F. Kennedy won it by a margin of less than one voter per precinct in Illinois.
In 1976, one vote derailed HR-11193 and prevented the U. S. from adopting the handgun ban.
In the 1996 U. S. presidential election, fewer than half of the nation’s voters voted!
Even as recently as in the year 2000, only a few more votes from only a couple of counties in Florida would have resulted in Al Gore being elected the President of the United States.
Martin Luther King said, “Voting is more than a badge of citizenship and dignity. It’s a tool for change.”
Cast your vote and make a difference in the next election. One vote can make the difference. If the person who cast the deciding vote in the examples above had not voted, what would have happened to our country and the world?
Words and Action
When we write and share our positive ideas with readers, we are “voting” for humanity. When we choose to increase our literacy and help others do the same, we are “voting” for the betterment of all. When we take even one step to improve the way we move through the world, we are “voting” to bring a little more light to those areas filled with shadows.
What we want to do is make the clear thinking of our authors visible in print and on our website. Since 1991, Fine Lines has provided a place where creative writers share their written ideas. Our quarterly publications are dedicated to the writing development of all its members. What started out as a single classroom project is now a fifty-state network of authors who love the written word, and it has developed into a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit educational organization.
New Publishing Frontiers
When we found out that WriteLife, our publisher for the last six years, closed its doors at the end of July, we knew Fine Lines would have to evolve once more. As we pursue the many options available writers, we have chosen to start by sharing the summer 2014 issue via our website, www.finelines.org. It will be there, by September 15, 2014. In the future, we may try to publish in both mediums. Time will tell.
What started out as a classroom newsletter in 1991 has now turned into a 50 state writing network and a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, educational organization. The first issue was 4 pages long and allowed students many opportunities to show others clear thinking and proper written expression. Each quarterly issue is about 300 pages filled with fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art by “authors and artists in process” who wish to improve their composition craft.