'Pleiades' Seeks Flash & Fiction for Veterans-Only Issue

Editors at Pleiades, a twice-annual print magazine based at the University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, Mo., have issued a special call for flash-fiction and fiction written by military veterans. A veterans-only issue will be published June 2016. Deadline for submissions is Oct. 15, 2015.

Poetry and non-fiction are not solicited for this issue.

Attached as either .DOC or .PDF formats, send up to 5,000 words of original and previously unpublished work to project editor Seth Brady Tucker, along with cover letter and biography: sbradytucker AT gmail.com

Tucker is himself a Desert Storm-era veteran of the U.S. Army.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Notices of acceptance or rejection will be sent by late November. If accepted, editors will ask for brief essay (under 500 words) describing how being a veteran affects your aesthetic and writing.

A Facebook page for the magazine is here.

Veterans Writing Project Relaunches Mentor Network

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Tyler Smith evaluates the shooting score of a German soldier
at Kunduz province in Afghanistan, July 12, 2013, while conducting operations
in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Photo by Army 1st Lt. Charles Morgan

The Washington, D.C.-based non-profit Veterans Writing Project has recently relaunched a mentorship program aimed at helping military service members, veterans, and family members take their larger writing projects to the next level.

Organizers say the program has previously assisted writers of novels, memoirs, plays, and poetry chapbooks—concrete projects with discrete timelines—using an informal network of fellow writers.

According to the VWP mentorship program webpage:

It works like this: Someone who needs help with a project approaches us with a proposal (simply an explanation of the project and the issues the writer wants to work through). We go through our list of volunteer mentors looking for someone with the correct skill and experience set to take the project on. We connect the two people. Between themselves, they create an informal contract (one full set of edits, two back-and-forths of a manuscript, whatever the two agree on). Once this is complete the two can walk away or continue as they wish.

Coordinator for the VWP mentorship program is Peter Molin, a retired Army officer and former instructor of English at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.. He regularly writes about military-themed literature and culture at his blog, Time Now.

In addition to the mentor program, Veterans Writing Project supports military veterans' and family members' creative expressions through writing through writing seminars, curriculum, and the literary journal "O-Dark-Thirty." The organization also actively participates in and advocates for research into writing practice as a therapeutic intervention.

'Summer Camp' vs. 'Summer Camping,' Revisited

The writer of the Red Bull Rising blog is currently on family vacation maneuvers at an undisclosed training area, somewhere in the Middle West. (Ironically, commo was the first thing that was lost on the trip.) This re-post from June 2012 may or not be applicable:

National Guard soldiers often say "Summer Camp" when they mean "Annual Training."

When I recently posted pictures of my kids' first backyard camping experience, a number of Facebook friends and Red Bull Rising blog-readers compared the new Sherpa-family "King-Dome" to a U.S. Army brigade's Tactical Operations Center ("TOC").

Can't tell the difference between camping for pleasure, and Summer Camp for Uncle Sam? Here are some rules of thumb to help you find your way:

• If you're carrying a weapon with no bullets, but wearing a bullet-proof vest, you're at Annual Training.

• If you're locked, loaded, and practically bear-proof, you're camping.

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• If you're wearing a reflective safety belt over camouflage clothing, you're at Annual Training.

• If you're wearing a mix of bright colors and camouflage clothing, you're hunting.

• If you're wearing bright colors and mismatched clothing, you're camping.

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• If you're "humping a pack," you're at Annual Training.

• If you're "backpacking," you're camping.

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• If you're walking with others in a single file, you're camping.

• If you're walking with others in "Ranger File," you're at Annual Training.

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• If a guy wearing a reflective safety belt is talking to you about safety, you're at Annual Training.

• If a guy in a Smokey-the-Bear hat is talking to you about safety, you're camping.

• If a guy in a Smokey-the-Bear hat is yelling at you and calling you names, you're at Basic Training.

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• If you're sleeping in a building but working in a tent, you're at Annual Training.

• If you're showering in a building but sleeping in a tent, you're camping.

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• If your tent is air-conditioned but your vehicle is not, you're at Annual Training.

• If your vehicle is air-conditioned but your tent is not, you're camping.

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• If your camp stove burns "mogas," you're at Annual Training.

• If your camp stove burns white gas, kerosene, diesel, automotive gas, aviation gas, Stoddard solvent and/or Naphtha, you're camping.

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• If the camp store is "back on cantonment," you're at Annual Training.

• If you're allowed to purchase beer at the camp store, you're camping.

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• If you're chewing coffee grounds to stay awake, you're at Annual Training.

• If you have access to Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, or other coffee provider, you're camping.

• If you're all clustered together around a coffee pot, in an air-conditioned tent, and watching pretty pictures on a big flat-screen, you're at a brigade staff meeting.