Welcome to the first-ever issue of The Lit List, a monthly news article that aims to round up all of the lit news you need to know in one quick reading.
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Community and Group News
Writers With a Promise 14 by wyldhoney is out! It Takes A Village contest over at LITplease. A two-part contest for those who participated in NaPoWriMo and Script Frenzy. In May, participants must submit a scene or poem for critique and must also critique something else in the contest folder. In June, participants will make revisions to the submissions. Winners for best critiques and best improvements. LITplease's 15th Poetry Prompt is up until May 15. Writing Marathon contest over at FocusOnLit. Members are asked to submit a portion of their novel every week for 8 weeks starting May 7th. Prizes for winners as well as prizes at random. Any member who submits for 4+ weeks is eligible for a prize. Transgressions: Vices and Virtues prompts contest over at lacoterie. Poetry and prose, separate winners for each, all before May 31st, 2012. Love dA Lit Issue 76 by HugQueen is out! The Ladies of Lit Volume XX by LadyLincoln is out! Head on over to ZealZone for a Critique-a-thon on May 5th at 2:00 PM US Central Time! Chatroom: chat.deviantart.com/chat/ZealZ…. Ghost Story Contest (Campfire Chills) by Cassildra and TheHollowHorseman is until May 31. Prizes included premium membership, so write your best original ghost story and scare the judges in 2500 words or less! akarra's Short Poem Contest focuses on short poems about music in 30 words or less. Deadline is on May 8. The Winners of the Rose-Shadow Fan Art Contest have been announced by LadyofGaerdon. Check it out and see if you won! Daily Literature Deviations for May 4, 2012, are out now. Read the Word Wars Chat Tour Expose-Lit Wrap Up by thorns 3wyl and ProjectComment interviews Ouijaplayer. Make a Difference #155 is out! HaveTales-WillTell is arranging a devMEET for May 5 in New York (Manhattan proper). You need to read the latest issue of Lit Fortnightly. The Fan Fiction Contest: Freaky Friday! ends on May 25. Write a short fan fic about you swapping bodies with a character of a fandom of your choosing. The swap lasts 24 hours, maximum of 500-1000 words, entries must be created after April 25. In case you haven't heard yet: Odyssey into 2012: Engage Wonderment. The Favorites Project Features #135, #136, and #137 from LITplease. devMythologue: is being restructured. Watch out for a new management under linaket. theWrittenRevolution is holding a lit-game marathon on May 9 or 10, depending on where you are in the world. The session will last for five hours here. WritersAreArtistsToo announces their Prompt Contest Winners. SixWordStories Showcase: April 9th - April 23rd. Word Wars Chat Tour Schedule WritersInk's Weekly Round-Up Literature Community Fundraiser, an annual event that aims to collect points for redistribution to the Literature Community here on deviantART, is being hosted by ATrue this year. 30 Writers You Should Discover: Volume IX by LadyLincoln is out!Features
Be sure to check the following literature out. These are some of the best we have on the community. Show them love, mates!
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Holy Ghost, a Foreign HostHitler reigns over this town.
He savagely peels each body open like an apple
and each defragmented shell lies
in curled shapes
circumventing their own cores like unfinished fetuses.
Each one is left intact.
The shells are stinking
and soggy fumes waft heavily over Earth like a disease.
Now this is truly evil.
He looks
down upon Desolate Planet Earth
and registers a series of bodies. Something he does not feel is solitude.
One is a feminist.
One is the next Caesar.
And one is the boy king,
Tutankhamen.
(I)
Of the three bodies,
The first is a girl with cherry red lips,
she lives as memories collect. Figures move quickly
picking pieces of thought from inside ears
their faces bruised badly
purples swelling and engorging rapidly.
In each life
she wore a white dress.
Beneath the fabric is nestled a flower
whose red color imitates
the exact hue of her lips.
Each summer
before blossoming
the flower is violently wrenched open
until the nectar runs out in pools,
the sour liquid webbed bet
Crash. the girls clip-clop in their glitter heels and:thumb279938656:
the neon burns away the night.
every lost child smudged shadow torn
tights bleary and dazed staggering at
Dear MomDear Mom,
[I know this really isn't a letter like I promised, but you should be used to me giving less then I say I will]
I'm going to feel bad, throwing you into the ocean.
I'm going to have to clench my teeth, close my eyes, and grip my hip [because you're there, forever; in jagged scar tissue with upside down mountain capped M's and a blocky O, you're there, forever.] to keep myself from diving in after you and gathering you back together with the finest cheesecloth, molding you back together and filling you with all the beautiful things you've been drained of. I'll jam sea glass in your eye sockets and replace your weak bird bones with coral, I'll fill your lungs with saltwater [because oxygen obviously never worked; I almost miss that respirator keeping me awake at night] and wrap you with seaweed to hold you together again.
And I'll let you speak by jamming the truths to all my lies I've told you down your throat. I will whispersobconfess all my dirty deeds. I will tell yo
Enduring LoveRemember summer - daffodils unbind,:thumb276895922: :thumb289190215:
reflecting salt-and-pepper thunder-skies.
Forget-me-nots intriguingly unwind,
angelic lovebirds offer lullabies.
Maria's autumn freckles scattering
across curvaceous stomach - regular.
Refracted sunlight whispers, faltering
within gold-amber irises – stellar.
Decaying memories evoke disgust.
concern: suspicion, feared unfaithfulness,
imprisoning irrational distrust,
until confession, pleading righteousness.
Together, lovers' promises unveiled,
aware affection's constancy prevails.
1000 Paper CranesI.
We whispered prayers into the corridors
while I spoke into your ribcage,
telling lies to our skeletons
to help you understand.
you said they loved
watching me wax poetic
while I dripped candlelight into your hands.
we watched the dust motes
cover our skin
while I taught you how to fly.
(you were always too afraid to fall
and too afraid to land).
II.
It wasn't lovesongs we sang;
it was half-forgotten hymns.
we never wanted to believe
but you said ghosts exist
without compassion,
and without sins.
I told the doctor
his medication clipped your wings.
III.
I fed you sweet words
tucked in between
candy-canes
and licorice
While I cried in secret every mo(u)rning
pressing tears beneath
the fragile scales
of angelfish
The doctors said
we needed to prepare.
I told them I was kissing
dandelion flowers;
hoping for a wish.
IV.
we counted every soft bruised bone
with lover's temperaments
as your temperature rose and fell.
The doctors crushed them in their hands
when they spoke of vital signs
and
Me and My Shadowi.
My shadow slips to silence among the aquatic acacias. Even here, leaves abound, draped over the fuzz-curves of his figure as he soaks up the moonlight. Papa's soft voice turns my gaze to the moon. Remember, Carlos, our shadows are but imprints of the moon. Remember the Eclipse. I shiver and hold onto an acacia branch. I'm careful not to let my shadow near the shoreline where sea meets sand. That's why acacias are aquatic; they drowned their fate with the sea, Papa says. We cannot, we must not let it be our shadow's fate. We are nothing without our shadows. And yet the tide sweeps towards my toes as the moon charioteers across the silver nightscape. I leap back onto the thorns, onto the blue leaves and pray my shadow seeks dry ground. Sometimes he doesn't pay attention.
ii.
My shadow ripples to the privacy of the umbrellas. Some aquatic acacias were born like that, shaped like the human plastic as though it would dispel their liquefied sin. I think about joining him, bu
Drowning in the RainThey're standing out there, on the street, two girls frozen in place, frozen in their bodies, and the people walking by find it kind of hard not to stare.:thumb258194320:
The one girl's called Eleanor, and her makeup's smeared so badly it looks like she's been crying, and she probably was. Her hair looks like an oil spill clinging to her neck and her eyes like rusty sunk-in nickels and she looks tired, really fucking tired. The cover up's running, too, and it almost looks pretty, like a tattoo; the scar tissue stretched across her skin.
She's a mess, a beautiful disaster, a train wreck that everyone seems to have no trouble ignoring.
The other girl's a lot smaller, younger, and her name's Ellie. Her skin's pale like the rain soaking down her clothes, and it's heavy; the weight might just crush her. She has this thing about her, when she looks at you, you really can't keep looking, and they say you can't do that with the prettiest of things.
She's been called a lot of t
Featured deviants: The-Queen-of-Cups JenniferIsD3Fective handswouldweave AlloenDreams justlittlemusings KtheCard AGMeade Rosary0fSighs julietcaesar zebrazebrazebra LiliWrites angeljunkie blooperman12 Viking63
The Lit List needs your help! Submit your suggestions for the features section of this article for the next issue (some time before the first week of June should be appropriate) and help your fellow deviants get discovered!
A Directory of our Literature Gods
If you're interested in what's hot and what's new in the literature community, the following are the deviants you need to watch. Based on LadyLincoln's article for Expose-Lit.
Literature Community Volunteer Directors
Community Leaders and Former CVs
Critique and General Feedback
Prompt and Group Organizers
Community News and Resources
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