Archive for August 2013


O-Dark-Thirty

August 12th, 2013 — 1:42am

This mask was created by a U.S. Marine as part of an art therapy program at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

Hello there. I was recently interviewed by writer Jim Mathews, the fiction editor of the literary magazine O-Dark-Thirty (and author of the fantastic story collection LAST KNOW POSITION).
O-Dark-Thirty is part of the Veterans Writing Project

The magazine contains poetry, fiction, and non-fiction written by veterans, service members, and military family members. Fantastic, right? So I thought I’d help spread the word to those of you in the military community who are looking for an outlet for your work, as well of those of you in the civilian community who want to support Veteran/Mil Family Members writing.

Here’s an overview from their website:

“O-Dark-Thirty is the journal for the Veterans Writing Project. In our seminars we give participants the skills and confidence they need to tell their own stories; O-Dark-Thirty is the platform to put those stories and others in front of readers. This is not a peer-reviewed professional journal, nor is it a judged literary contest. Our editorial style is more curatorial than other journals. Our editors curate the works submitted to this site. We have two sections. The Report is our hub. It’s where the vast majority of our work will be based.We chose the title The Report because of this quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes:

The generation that carried on the war has been set apart by its experience. In our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn that life is a profound and passionate thing. While we are permitted to scorn nothing but indifference, we have seen with our own eyes, and it is for us to bear the report to those who come after us.

The Review is our quarterly journal. It will be a little tighter, more closely edited. It might have themes. It is our plan to present the finest literary writing we can find.

One of the tenets upon which we built the Veterans Writing Project is the idea that every veteran has a story. This site is where those stories get told. Sure, there are other places to hear or read the stories: around the bar, on a road trip, in some other journal. But like the man says, “This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.” This is our journal. It was conceived by and designed for, is run by, features work written by, and provides voice to members of the military community.”

To learn more or to read issues online, please go to: http://o-dark-thirty.org/the-review-2/
To read my interview with Jim, go to: http://odarkthirtydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/odt_vol_1_4-for-web.pdf

P.S. There is an especially excellent short story by fellow mil spouse and writer Beth Garland in Vol 1, No 1, Fall 2012 Issue O-Dark-Thirty (Reintegration, page 65)… http://o-dark-thirty.org/the-review-2/ Take a look!

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