bittergrapes:

Riot Act is my second poetry compilation and the first produced under my chosen name. As the summary might clue you into, this work is ‘mature’: it covers sex, drugs, violence,  illness, and death through a range of different poetic works. 

The money I earn from book sales will go to paying for my expenses while abroad in Scotland: you know, food, pain medication, that sort of thing. While I know my study abroad trip is not in any way as important as keeping people fed or paying for life-saving surgeries (such as Gender Confirmation Surgeries), I’d really appreciate it because money is going to be tight. Really tight.

Anyway, full disclosure:

Sales of the paperback earn me $3.89 per unit in revenue.

Sales of the e-reader version earn me $2.48 per unit in revenue.

In order to be even let in to the country, I need to prove that I have $4,743.30 available for my living expenses while there. I currently have about $1,100 toward that goal (minus the $200+ I’m going to be spending on surgery for my rat in a week or so). 

My plane tickets to and from Scotland, on a conservative estimate, are looking to be about $1,500 round trip. 

So, that means, in proof of living expenses + plane tickets, the two up-front costs are going to be about $6,243. Again, as I said, I have about $1,100 toward that as of right now, so that means I need to rally up $5,143 in about three months.

Obviously I don’t expect book sales to cover all of that, nor do I expect you (and I strongly ask you NOT TO) to donate toward my trip. Because that’s both selfish and silly. What I’m trying to explain is that every tiny little bit - $3 here or there in book sales - will help tremendously in making this trip actually meaningful and enjoyable. 

If you don’t want my book (and hell, who wouldn’t want my book?), I also provide lots of other things for $$: I knit [scarves, iPod cozies, hats, leg warmers, arm warmers, and other small projects], copy edit, write, sew, petsit, and provide mentoring/tutoring, either in person or online. I live in the Chicagoland area and am happy to travel anywhere along the CTA to do whatever you need. I have a PayPal account and accept cash (in person) or checks. 

Thanks much for reading this. If you can’t or don’t want to buy my book or services, please signal boost.

signal boosting again because cam’s poetry is all kinds of awesome

teastainedcpt:

If you’d stop screaming for half a minute you would have heard me telling you.”

Chase frowned. “Can’t you put a glamour on? You look like you’ve been mauled by a bear. People will look, and ask … questions.”

Angel blinked his one working eye at him. “Because some pale bloke in a violet coat who looks like a very pale scarecrow running around the estate chasing after some girl screaming her head off won’t attract attention?”

“It’s grape, actually.”

The screams abruptly stopped.

“Shit,” said Chase, succinctly summing up the situation. He dashed out and ran around the estate for a bit, looking indeed like said scarecrow. A terrier dashed along with him as far as it could on it’s lead. He stopped, puffed out, next to the alley that led to the bus station. 

teastainedcpt:

The Red Shoes

There was a terrible screaming. There always was around here. Sometimes it was interesting. Chase looked up from the washing-up as whatever it was passed the kitchen window at high speed.

“Angel!” he bawled up the stairs. “You see that?”

“That girl running and screaming?”

“Aye!” Chase chucked the dishes back into the washing-up bowl. He grabbed his coat from the back of the chair and dived into it, suds streaming from his hands.

“Angel! Angel, come on, it’s a little lass in trouble. We have to go help!”

Angel appeared at the top of the stairs. He obviously wasn’t going to be much help, as his face had fallen off. “Well, you can’t go outside like that.”

aspieart:

Around about the beginning of August, a new (free!) ebook will be published. It will be about autism and autistic arts, by autistics and for autistics, and will hopefully by publish three to four times a year.

Now, there’s two problems:

Problem 1: We don’t have a name for it yet. Answers in on a postcard to teastainedcpt’s ask, please.

Problem 2: We need some material for it!

We can’t pay anyone (this time around) I’m afraid, but it’ll get your work out to a wider audience, which can only be good.

We’re looking for:

Autism Stuff

-short, succint factual pieces on autism (about 750 - 1000 words)

-  Autism-related news pieces (250-500 words)

- If you’ve got any other ideas, feel free to ask! (Just make sure they’re under 1,750 words, or can be split into smaller parts)

Arts Stuff

(can be on any subject, but must be by autistic authors/artists)

-Short stories (1000 - 1,500 words)

- Poetry (up to forty lines, rhymed or free verse)

- Art (any sort, but must be a clear, high-quality JPEG, please)

If you submit work, please submit it to teastainedcaptain@hotmail.co.uk, and please submit along with it a full name or pseudonym, a photograph of you (if you want your identity hidden, feel free to do a black and white artsy hat covering most of face authory picture) and a short bio, below 100 words. Feel free to include any links to your blogs or websites, and mention any other work.  

The closing date for submissions is the 29th of July.

Thanks!

(and see you in August!)

Around about the beginning of August, a new (free!) ebook will be published. It will be about autism and autistic arts, by autistics and for autistics, and will hopefully by publish three to four times a year.

Now, there’s two problems:

Problem 1: We don’t have a name for it yet. Answers in on a postcard to teastainedcpt’s ask, please.

Problem 2: We need some material for it!

We can’t pay anyone (this time around) I’m afraid, but it’ll get your work out to a wider audience, which can only be good.

We’re looking for:

Autism Stuff

-short, succint factual pieces on autism (about 750 - 1000 words)

-  Autism-related news pieces (250-500 words)

- If you’ve got any other ideas, feel free to ask! (Just make sure they’re under 1,750 words, or can be split into smaller parts)

Arts Stuff

(can be on any subject, but must be by autistic authors/artists)

-Short stories (1000 - 1,500 words)

- Poetry (up to forty lines, rhymed or free verse)

- Art (any sort, but must be a clear, high-quality JPEG, please)

If you submit work, please submit it to teastainedcaptain@hotmail.co.uk, and please submit along with it a full name or pseudonym, a photograph of you (if you want your identity hidden, feel free to do a black and white artsy hat covering most of face authory picture) and a short bio, below 100 words. Feel free to include any links to your blogs or websites, and mention any other work. 

The deadline for submissions is the 29th July.

Thanks!

(and see you in August!)

teastainedcpt:

First day of autumn yesterday

The sky: dull, our hair: soaked ‘till it split

Dove into Tesco’s, dim lights, dark skies

Warm talk, hot drink. Hope rise.

teastainedcpt:

No-one wants the common man when they are alive.

No-one wants the common man when they lie bleeding.

But when they are long gone, and their words cannot condemn you for neglect, they become ‘exotic’, they become a hero, they become.

You rush to adore them, and crush your own common man into the dust, leaving them for the veneration and hand-wringing of the hipsters of ages to come.

You rush to turn their tragedies into stories, flickering like firelight, pulling their strings, turning their small victories against people like you into inspiration pornography, built to fuel your empty hearts and turn the villains into something you are not, you could never be.

Because you would have helped them. 

Of course you would. How could anyone not? 

Do you ever realise how silly you look with cotton wool shoved into your ears, telling us how we should look after each other, you, with one hand carelessly pushing your own common man away from what you could spare them? Of course not. But you’ll write about what you would have turn if only you could have lived in those times, if only you could have spared them from their early grave/life of suffering/insert tragedy here. Why don’t you help your own common man, instead of belittling those that didn’t way back when. They can’t hear you. Neither could that common man you dress like, ‘out of respect’.

No-one ever wants the common man when they are alive.

Tongues, the Search For

(Inspired by Search for My Tongue  by Sujata Bhatt)

I wish I had another tongue

Even if I had no choice but to let it rot

I wish there was something tangible to spit out

Something we could name.

Something we could teach.

Something ours.

Because English hasn’t words to describe all I want to say

And has too many meaningless phrases

And words that mean the same

But it’s something that is named.

Something that is taught.

Something not really ours.

I don’t think there’s a spoken language that’s says all

All about people like me, anyway

Not something that wouldn’t isolate me.

Something that was named.

Something that could be taught.

Something ours.

Not even signing is perfect

Because ‘green’ feels really odd

And what happens when ‘green’ is meant to be joyous?

It’s something that is named.

Something that is taught.

Something not really ours.

I have my own tongue, now that I think about it

Sometimes silent, fractured and spindly

Succinct and yet rambling, like us.

It’s not something that is named.

Not something that is taught

But something that is ours.

And maybe that’s enough.

Holly E Johnson (2012)

teastainedcpt:

He hands it over. It’s battered and worn. I run my fingers over it, feeling the softness of the paper that makes up its cover, stained brown, maybe on purpose, it’s quite uniform. There’s a title, hand … drawn, I suppose, it’s curly and I can’t quite make out what it says. It isn’t warm, the doctor has cold hands. He sits and watches me. I cradle the book like a baby, unsure what to do with it as I can’t read, but unwilling to give it up and inexplicably drawn to it. This is mine. He reaches out a hand for it, smiling an awful smile that says ‘Come now, you’ve no use for that!’. I hate it, so I hiss, and cuddle it. I rock for a moment, unnerved. I stop, and hold the book by its spine like I’ve seen the other patients do, and flick through it to see if there’s any pictures. I’m not sure I’ve got the hang of it as I’ve never been allowed a book, not even to look at any pictures, because I’ve ‘got no use for them’.

They are a few pictures of bottles. I lift the book closer to my face to inspect and - oh fuck I can read -

I drop the book on the floor.

x

219 words of Angel being autistic and the tiniest bit of plot that won’t become relevant until later. 

In about 1k words we might be into the story proper, where I can lift the parts I liked from the second draft.

Fuck.

On an unrelated note, we need submissions!

teastainedcpt:

Of course, I dislike them all because they keep insisting I’m mad when I’m not, but there’s a fucking line, as someone said in a dream last night.

A Certain Someone, as the doctor and I have taken to calling him. The doctor has shaken off the nurse. She doesn’t look happy. She’s hated me ever since I sneezed all over her uniform. I have a cold. I’ve never had a cold before. I’ve never been ill. I don’t know how humans cope - I’m leaking out of so many places I shouldn’t leak from!

Angel (the ‘I’ in this), is autistic. However, I’m having trouble with seperating his voice from mine, yet still remaining that Aspie… twang?

teastainedcptofficial:

The doctor has shut the door behind him gently. He is hiding something behind his back. He looks conflicted. His hair is grey, and some of it is missing. His face looked like someone stretched his skin like the bit of elastic on my waistband, and it never sprang back properly. This is what happens to humans.
They fall apart.

I think it’s my fault that the doctor is falling apart. He wasn’t until I got here.

(Holly E Johnson)

dopegirlfresh:

numol:

text in image:

FREE
CECE
MCDONALD

“And so, I ask that you all will not leave your canvases undone.  Use every color imaginable to show who you are inside and out, for every tint and every hue counts.  And as you create your picture remember you are the illustrator, so no one can create your picture but you.  So make it the most precious and most beautiful picture that you can, with love, truth, and joy in every color”
~ CeCe McDonald

http://supportcece.wordpress.com

freececemcdonald:

CeCe’s trial starts Monday, April 30th at 9am.

OUT OF TOWNERS WE NEED YR HELP SUPPORTING CECE!!
Can’t be in court, you can still help support CeCe McDonald through out her trial.

*Re-post & forward EVERYTHING we put out on FB, Tumblr & Twitter. SHIT NEEDS TO GO VIRAL for the main stream media to pay any attention.

*Blog & write yr asses off! Contact yr local media & get them to write or publish articles about CeCe.

*Write letters to the editor of your local papers, let them know about her case!

*Support the Supporters by bringing us lunch. Here’s all the info: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=262345560527681

*Write to CeCe, let her know she is not alone in this. Send her books, send her letters. Info here: http://supportcece.wordpress.com/get-involved/

*Hold a fundraiser for CeCe. We’re still short on our budgeted cost for her & her family’s support.

*Start a CeCe Support Committee in yr area! Info here: http://supportcece.wordpress.com/get-involved/start-a-support-committee/

*Wear PURPLE all through the trial and tell people why yr wearing it. Post pics on our wall of yr community wearing purple, spread the word.

*Change yr profile pic on all yr social media sites to one of CeCe or CeCe inspired Art. We have tons of pics on the FB page.

FB page direct link: http://www.facebook.com/people/FreeCece-Mcdonald/100002567181562

and @freececemcdonald: sorry to bother you, but the link to the post about bringing lunches seems to be broken.  is this the same post here?: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=270907619668322&set=p.270907619668322&type=1

let’s motherfucking GO, y’all!

by Lonnie P.