Literary Idol Challenge: Princess Tales

When I was a little girl my favorite book in the whole wide worlds was A LITTLE PRINCESS by Francess Hodgson Burnett.If you don't already know the story Sarah Crewe is a wealthy, popular school girl who is kind and imaginative until her father dies and leaves her penniless. The Headmistress of her boarding school, Miss Mention, lets her live in the attic as a maid. Even with hardly enough to eat, no more silks and dolls, and strenuous exhausting work she remains kind and hopeful, whispering stories to the other servant girl to make the cold and hunger more bearable. Sarah is eventually restored to her former wealth much to the chagrin of Miss Mention but that is not the point. Sarah was always a princess whether her circumstances expressed it or not.

Due to the recent nuptials of a certain royal couples there has been a lot of talk this last week about princesses. Does royalty only belong to a long forgotten age? Should we allow our daughters to romanticize the unrealistic concept of being a princess?

If their concept of "princess" is limited to pretty dresses and hansom princes then I agree with the feminists. Absolutely not. But when I think of princesses I always think of Sarah Crewe's stunning imagination and knowledge of her own worth despite what anybody eles tells her. I was eight years old when I first read A LITTLE PRINCESS but I can still remember a long night time ride in the back of a van with a window that wouldn't close. I thought of Sarah's imagination and pretended that I was in a carriage full of soft fur blankets and warm chocolate to drink while I waited to get home to rest. I can still remember the dark tunnel at the natural history museum that I was afraid to enter until I decided to think of it as the diamond mines Sarah's father finds. Sarah Crewe's story taught me to imagine. It taught me to believe. I don't know if I could have survived childhood without it.

So this month's Liteary Idol Challenge (no I didn't forget. Just waxing nostalgic for a minute there) is to write a princess story or fairy tale 50-1,000 words. What is your take on royalty and princesses? The symbolism? The reality? send your interpretation of it all to me at:

featherzines@yahoo.com

by Sunday, May 22nd and I will post it to be voted on Monday May 23rd.

R: Reminder

I just wanted to remind anyone who is interested in the Fertility Challenge that the deadline is the 24th.

F: Fertility (Literary Idol Challenge)

Spring is in the air. (well actually, at the moment fog is in their air but fog leads to rain and plants need rain to grow so . . . yeah. Spring. Just the colder part) The pollen. The growth. The richness of the land. Animal births. The festivals of fertility. Spring is so much more exciting than summer. Everything is shifting and anything could happen -- is about to happen.

For this this month's Literary Idol Challenge:

Write 50-1,000 word story that in some way ties into the ideas of birh, change, and the celebration of life.

Send your submission to:

featherzines@yahoo.com

before Monday the 24th, on which day I will post the submissions to be voted on. I know a lot of you will be pretty busy with the A-Z challenge so I tried to keep the theme pretty loose. You can always dig up something you've worked on in the past. If it doesn't obviously feature fertility you can include a sentence of two explaining how you feel it connects to the general idea. Thank you all so much! I hope to see some of your masterful storytelling soon!

Literary Idol Challenge: The Magical Stranger

You may have begun to see things like this around the grocery store


in order to remind you to drink a lot of Guinness on the 17th in celebration of some people (which may or may not include you) being Irish

or . . .

You might sit around the fire and re-tell the story of how St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland.



Political and religios implications of the event aside, the story capsulizes a common theme in literature. The "magical" stranger who comes and brings harmony and wisdom to a select region. Pollyanna, Chocolate, Mary Poppins. Sometimes the Stranger stays and sometimes they leave once everyone's troubles are fixed but they always teach a community in a state of distress how to create richness and magic in their lives. Thus we come to March's Literary Idol Challenge:

Write a 50-1,000 word story that incorporates a Magical Stranger

As always feel free to play with the theme however you like. Use an object instead of a person or maybe the "fix it" is much darker than it first appears. Whatever you come up with, send it to:

featherzines@yahoo.com

by the Sunday, March the 2oth and I will post it Monday, March the 21st to be voted on.

(also, I've added something to the list of Literary Idol Finalist prizes)

Literary Idol Challenge: The Ode

People like love stories. Happy ones. Sad ones. It doesn't matter. We like the passion that overcomes reason and the feeling of conection between two people (or maybe that's just me). Romeo and Juliet. Tristan and Isolde. Ron and Hermione. Samuel Vimes and Lady Sybil (my personal favorite.) Literature is infested with couples. And here we are, two weeks away from the fated day celebrating that higher level of being called 'Love'. But what other relationships can be charactorized with that kind of passion and dedication? A father for his son? A painter for his art? A farmer for his land?

For this month's challenge I ask you to write a story that focuses on the love and passion for something or someone. An ode.

The word range is 50-1,000 words. (Altered this month because I will allow poetry for this challenge.)

Traditional couple love stories are, of course, just fine, but remember that there are other kinds of love that make people just as crazy. I'd like to see at least one or two of those.

Send your entry to:

featherzines@yahoo.com

and come back February 14th to vote on your favorite entry.

(For complete rules to Literary Idol go HERE)

Happy writing. May your words be laced with love and inspiration.

Literary Idol Challenge: Topsy Turvy

Twelfth Night is three days away. If we lived a few hundred years ago (and myabe on a different continent) we would raid the lord's house and take over his household for the night or march through the streets of London with a procession honoring a choir boy chosen to be bishop untill sunrise. Alas, such rituals are no more. I shall have to make due with a Twelfth Day Cake and bowl of Bishop's Cup. However, in honor of the more extreme mode of celebrating this already too seldom celebrated holiday, my first challenge for you this year is to write a story in which everything is turned on its head.

Construct 250-1,000 words around a premise that hinges on a status quo being obliterated.

Reversal of roles is certainly a fun way to do this but it could be anything. An object that is typically reguared as unimportant is suddenly in major demand and worth millions. Your protagonist wakes up one day to find the sky beneath his feet and the earth hovering over his head. Create a society in which criminals make the laws. Have fun with it, use any genre and be as outlandish as you want.

Send your entry to:

featherzines@yahoo.com

and come back January 17th to vote on your favorit entry.

(for complete rules to Literary Idol go HERE) or scroll down.

Happy twelfth Night! I can't wait to see what you come up with.