Slate and Style: The Magazine of the National Federation of the Blind Writers’ Division
Fall 2019
Shelley Alongi: Editor
Barbara Hammel: Poetry Editor
Send submissions to S-and-s@nfbnet.org or Email: Queenofbells@outlook.com Website: writers.nfb.org Find the NFB Writers’ Division on Twitter @nfbwd
Table of Contents
Editor’s Musings, Shelley Alongi
Presidential Bell Notes, Shelley Alongi
This is Your Division, Shelley Alongi
A Heart Felt Revenge ,Bonnie Blose
A Circuitous Route to a Novel, Shelley Alongi
Elegy for my Hands, Wes Sims
Reading Room, Shelley Alongi
An A to Z Vacation, Marilyn Smith
Writers’ Resource, Shelley Alongi
Slate and Style Submission Guidelines
Join the NFB Writers’ Division
Editor’s Musings: Shelley Alongi
Hot, humid, hot and humid, sometimes raining, sometimes not. The weather is a fickle thing this time of year as we in north Texas transition between a hot summer and a welcome fall with warm days and cool nights and sometimes cool days. Let us all enjoy the pleasures of apple pie, apple cider, pumpkins and the beautiful spreads of changing leaves. As we enter into the promise of fall and the lead-in to a new year, let’s take some time to celebrate our National Federation of the Blind Writers’ Division contest winners, our goals for the 2019/20 year, and some great reading. Prince, the tabby cat, (who is sitting on the keys insisting on helping me write this column) demands it.
Presidential Bell Notes: Shelley Alongi
Welcome to a new year in the NFB Writers’ Division. We are gearing up for an expanding social media presence, our 2020 writing contests, beginning conversations about self-publishing accessibility, and the 2020 national convention in Houston. Let me introduce you to our board and officers for the year. Look for articles from your board and officers by way of introductions in the following issues. We have for you in this issue a story about revenge, poetry about a vacation, an article on a journey to a novel, and so much more. Enjoy this issue of Slate and Style over your morning coffee and your busy fall.
This is Your Division
Officers and board members beginning July 2019 to 2021:
Officers
	•	Shelley Alongi, President
	•	April Enderton, First Vice President
	•	Chelsea Cook, Second Vice President
	•	Shawn D. Jacobson, Treasurer
Board Members
	•	Myrna D. Badgerow, Immediate Past President
	•	Barbara Hammel
	•	Marilyn Smith
A Heart Felt Revenge: Bonnie Blose
Editor’s Note: This story took first place in the 2019 Writers’ Division fiction contest.
Exhausted after a long grueling day, I decided to forego my usual bedtime snack of a brownie and milk and go straight to bed. I couldn’t wait to nestle under the warmth of flannel sheets on this very cold January night.
For years, I have enjoyed living alone in this house I share with two cats that come to snuggle close during their nocturnal wanderings.
I decided to listen to a chapter or two of a book before going to sleep. True to my expectation, I slept soundly until something I could not quite name or remember put an abrupt end to that.
One minute I was sound asleep, and then as wide awake as if it were morning and the day just beginning. My heart was pounding. I felt incredible fear. Like many who sleep fitfully, I barely remember dreams, so came up with nothing as I tried to discover what had frightened me.
In the country, there is a quiet rarely interrupted by anything other than the rustle of a tree limb against a window or the cry of an animal involved in some territorial dispute. As I sat listening, hoping to hear nothing, I knew something wasn’t right. On many nights, I forget or never take the time to lock my door. If someone wants to break in, this old house, with its flimsy locks, won’t stop them. Had I made an exception and locked the door last night? Should I leave the warmth of my bed and see if I had? I decided to listen a little longer, hoping to put to rest my fear and the accompanying feeling that something was terribly wrong. Maybe it was simply those pickles I had as part of my supper last night?
Many people become more fearful as they grow older, especially if they live alone, I assured myself. Maybe it’s time to give up some of those true crime shows and news podcasts with all their stories of horror. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow, but what about tonight!
Suddenly, I heard it. Terrified, I was afraid to make a sound that would bring attention to me. Was it a knife someone had dropped? What were they planning to cut?
If someone was entering the house, they would find little to justify their night’s work. Why was someone in my house? All the money I had was safe in a local bank. If they found me, they might hurt me just because I have nothing to give them. Criminals don’t decide to kill on the basis of what you have or don’t have. If I want to see tomorrow, it might be better to stay where I was and not make a sound.
What had interrupted the quiet of this winter night? Had a storm blown a limb down upon the roof? Was it the cry of an animal fighting for its life or the brushing of a limb against a windowpane? Maybe it was just the rattling of the old windows themselves. Was it someone coming to hurt me? With the furnace running almost nonstop to warm the old farmhouse, it was hard to tell.
Amazingly, I remembered the phone on the stand beside my bed. Ever since I was a teenager, the phone had been my lifeline. Maybe it would be one now. Before reaching for it, I thought how revealing this simple act might be. What if someone had cut the wires turning my lifeline in to a nightmare?
Reaching for the receiver, I had to know. I had to do something. A coward in a bed in a house that is being broken into is the worst of cowards. I would never be able to face my friends or family with that as part of my story. It’s the kind of tale that would be told and retold for the rest of my days. It was not the way I wanted to be remembered. I picked up the phone. It was dead!
“You shouldn’t be allowed to live by yourself,” I grumbled. I knew I needed to take care of myself at a time like this, but why, oh why, had I left my iPhone downstairs? It was lying on the couch in plain sight and of no use to me now.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of water running. I heard the refrigerator close and the sound of footsteps in the kitchen. A few minutes later, I smelled sausage and eggs frying. Maybe it’s just a sleepwalker who got hungry, I thought, before telling myself how ridiculous that was. It’s a cold night and maybe someone just got hungry and found the door unlocked so decided to have a little breakfast before calling it a night. Why cut the wires though? Apart from calling the police, no one wants a delicious meal interrupted, especially one that includes farm fresh eggs.
I remembered breakfasts with boyfriends after long leisurely nights of love but doubted this was anything like that.
Without warning, my cat almost jumped on my chest. Startled, I quickly held back the scream of terror I was about to utter.
I hugged her close hoping I could reassure us both.
Then I heard them. The footsteps were coming closer. Soon the mystery would be revealed and the intruder a reality in my very own bedroom. Sanctuary and safety would no longer be mine and were in truth gone already.
A gentle knock upon my door required action. Would someone who knocked so softly really hurt me? “Evil comes in many forms,” I reminded myself. “Maybe this is truly one of those times when it is best to go along to get along. I just hope this is not the last decision I will make.”
Shaking with trepidation, I said, “Come in.”
The smell of breakfast filled the air. This is too unreal to be believed. Who eats breakfast at three in the morning?
“I don’t know whether you remember me,” a voice said. I knew that voice. I remembered Paul. I had gone out with him once about ten years before. It hadn’t worked. We didn’t like the same things. I found him critical and judgmental and decided this was not a guy I wanted to date. I chose to no longer take his phone calls.
“It’s taken me a long time to find you,” Paul said. “I had great hope for our relationship. I wined you and dined you and just stopped short of buying those speakers I knew you longed for. It’s been ten years and I have decided it’s time to forgive you. I want you to remember me. The best way for me to make sure you do that is with one night of terror. True, it is not the night of love I would prefer, but lovers must make sacrifices. I will never forget the humiliation of your refusing to go out with me again, but eat up. This is the last meal we will ever have together. There is nothing like farm fresh eggs. Oh, I didn’t make coffee. You won’t need the energy I know caffeine gives you. After we eat, I suggest we take a nice long nap. I won’t touch you, but we will be close, so very close.”
A Circuitous Route to a Novel: Shelley Alongi
Editor’s Note: Shelley has written three novels and one short story in three parts and one collection of poems and a story. Her latest book, Forgiving Sky, is available here Visit her FaceBook page or at @Tegirl44 on Twitter.]
Since I was a child, one of the things I’ve always known I would do was write novels. Would they be good novels? They would be novels. In the last four years, I have written three full-length novels and one story and one book of poetry. How does one get from the idea in the head to the e-book or paperback or hard cover you can hold in your hand and say “I did this?”
It takes a team: in my case it takes my Star Team. First comes the idea, then it gets written and rewritten, looked at by two editors, uploaded, formatted, and distributed. It is up to me to let you know that it exists.
So what does it take to get the ideas on paper? It takes cold weather, hot weather, air conditioning, cats, diet Pepsi, ice tea, a laptop, an iPhone, a Braille writer, a lot of patience, time, dead time, live time, sort of writers’ block. In a microwave world it takes time. At least, for me, it takes time. Have I made any money? A little. Do I want to make more money? What I would like is something I can offer you when I’m sitting on a train out in the middle of nowhere and someone asks me what I do for a living. I write novels. OK, so how did I get there?
The three novels I’ve written along with the book of poetry and the short story in three parts, all got started in my head twenty or thirty years ago. If I had checked off the planet in the time before 2015 I would have left this world without that part of my life completed. But I would not have left the world without stories. I’m sure tucked away somewhere in a box is all of my childhood writing. I read everything I could get my hands on and then I wrote about it. I didn’t design my own characters. Maybe when I was jump roping during recess I would make up stories about animals who lived in houses underground and I probably read about those animals in those houses. My favorite time in school was after lunch when our fourth, fifth or sixth grade teachers read to us. We put our heads on our desks and listened while they read from the Little House books, Follow my Leader, Polyana, Dove, a trip around the world in a sailboat in 1966, the year I was born, and the story of Saint. Nick and Christmas. I remember one of my teachers reading the last chapter of that book after we all came back from Christmas vacation and I remember thinking, “Wow, it’s a long way to Christmas.”
What does that have to do with writing? Everything and nothing. I always need an excuse to read. I probably have more books on my list to read than I’ll ever complete in one lifetime. Reading has helped me to write. Over the past four years, while I’ve taken my ideas and developed them into chapters, scenes, beginnings and endings, my reading processes have changed. When I read a novel and find a particular stylistic approach to telling a story, I catalog it for use in one of my own. A very notable stylistic approach these days is the telling of the same story from the point of view of two characters while they’re both engaged in one conversation or activity. Two characters experience one event and construct two different thought processes around it. They have a conversation which feeds off itself as conversation does. However, both characters are responding to each other using two different sets of conclusions. The technique is intriguing. I never picked up on this till I started writing my own novels. I havent tried it yet, but I’m thinking of it.
From my vast reading, I’ve learned how to write dialogue. Use conversation to tell the story so the author doesn’t need to go back and create scenes. Use dialogue to help create flashbacks. Use “tell” to let us know how the characters got to a particular spot. There is nothing, ladies and gentlemen, wrong with telling and not showing. The trick is to use both to a perfect art. That is the hard part.
I’ve been told I have a good grasp of descriptive writing. In my own eyes that part of my writing is always up for improvement. I can describe a platform at a train station, people walking along it with the varied sizes of suitcases and their colors. If I want to describe a mechanic working on an engine, I can do that. And this is where the fun comes in. I get to ask lots of questions of people who do things I don’t do so I can be a better writer. I know I can improve on this, especially when I read authors such as Taylor Caldwell, who include detailed descriptions of lands or the rooms of houses in any of her novels. Reading Ernest Hemingway’s descriptions of an injured bleeding foot inside a boot, or the Italian countryside as seen from a railroad car in war time has always struck me as particularly poignant. In my quest to improve descriptions, when I read these authors and their fortes I wonder, why can’t I write like that? And then I say, well, I can write like I write and take inspiration from the things that I see in others that make me want to emulate their techniques.
My novels are slow affairs. Sometimes I get stuck and I say where should my character or where should the story go from here? Then, in the middle of the night, or at 3:00 in the morning when I feed the cats, at some crucial time or maybe in the middle of a baseball game on a long hot summer day I’ll suddenly get a briliant idea (or at least for me it’s brilliant) and then I can carry on. But sometimes I stay stuck at the red light for a really long time. When I’m stuck and I can’t get past a place I’ll go back and look at what I’ve written and say, OK, what happened before this? Should I add an event? A scene? A conversation? Novel writing for me is a creative exercise. Sometimes exercises are good things. Sometimes they leave me exhausted.
Reaching the end of one of my novels is a slow journey carved out by hand, by random thoughts, by sudden strokes of inspiration taken from a long-ago forgotten conversation, people I’ve met, or life experiences which suddenly transform themselves into someone else’s story.
How did I get to the place where I could devote time to writing? I moved across country, weaned myself from daily frantic activity, got familiar with air conditioners and hot, lazy days, or cold, lazy days and lived on a street where you might see one car in an hour that’s not your neighbor pulling out of the driveway, and so here I am. I count my reading hours toward my eventual novel producing time. Sights, sounds, smells, thoughts, personalities, end up in someone else’s story. I pick up someone else’s novel and say this is educational. I’m lying here on my bed with my purring kitty and we’re reading about someone else’s fictionalized broken relationship or perceived ill and we’re learning how to write our own characters.
What more will come? I looked through files about a week ago and discovered that I have four extant novel ideas, one that stretches back to twenty years ago, two which were conceived three years ago and one that is still in the oven, as it were. All four novels have titles. One is possessing me at the moment. After lots of thinking and questions and even more reading, a plot will emerge. In the middle of all this hatching and creating and revelatory activity, life will happen. I’ll play piano, have conversations, pet and feed melodramatic kitties, eat hamburgers and French fries and fruits and vegetables. I’ll lie on my bed biting my nails while some pitcher works himself out of a jam and the ideas will come to me. I’ll sit down and write tentative scenes, outline them, and then one day they’ll be in my hand, online, forgotten, remembered, passed down and perhaps lost to posterity. In seventy years someone I could never imagine will pick one up and fall in love. Someone else will hate it. But I’ll have taken my own journey to creating a believable and sometimes unbelievable story, and love every minute of it.
Elegy for my Hands: Wes Sims
Editor’s Note: This poem took first place in the 2019 Writers’ Division poetry contest.
You’re my language assistant,
who sometimes speaks for me,
who can call directions, give orders,
expound with flourish, give emphasis
without shouting, name the guilty
with point of an index finger.
My secretary who dutifully takes
rapid dictation and transcribes
to paper and computer.
My administrative aide who
deftly executes lengthy to-do lists.
My carpenter who builds, remodels
and rearranges my house.
My valet who braves my closet,
lays out my clothes, who grooms
and shaves and feeds my aging body.
My nurse who dresses my wounds,
salves my ever-increasing maladies.
My helper of last resort who
assists me to sit or stand
or lie down to hopeful dreams.
For you I give thanks
and pay my sincere respect.
I also mourn your loss of facility,
loss of normal form, your gnarled,
neanderthalic grippers not grasping
so well anymore. And I mourn
your slow burning sacrifice
on the altar of arthritis.
Reading Room: Shelley Alongi
Here is a new column where people send in the books they enjoy for no other reason than they are just good books. Use your own criteria to define “a good book.” What will you send us?
In the inaugural column I’d like to introduce you to an amazing resource for books. Many blind readers are familiar with the Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) service which is currently in use as a library resource in the United States. I got my start with the National Library Service long before computers became important in providing reading material. I remember lying in my bed at night with a Braille book slung across my middle and then in later years listening to audiobooks on hot summer days and my mom saying, “Go outside and do something”. Well, that was all well and good because I still download and read books both in Braille and now by iPhone. I say that to reinforce the fact that BARD is integral as a resource for locating and reading books.
In a world where book lists abound, here is an exceptional collection of them. Enter Book Riot. I discovered Book Riot a year ago as I was browsing the world of the podcast. Their podcasts cover books extensively almost to the point of distraction for me. The podcasts can get long. If you like long podcasts, you will love Book Riot. In addition to their podcast they also have a Twitter feed that boasts 213,712 followers. You can find them @Bookriot on Twitter. Several months ago I went looking for books about or surrounding the subject of baseball. I was excited to find they had an extensive list. In further research I found that our National Library Service had recorded several of the books that they recommended. Book Riot responded with a thank you to my comment thanking them for such an extensive list and commenting on one of their recommendations. Book Riot puts out reading lists on subjects ranging from what they call apocalyptic fiction, to fall movie-inspired books, and books an English teacher read in preparation for back to school. This was just a sampling of the many subjects they cover in their tweets. They always have links to their reading lists and articles.
What book did they recommend that I liked so much? There are two so far. The Brothers K by David James Duncan is about a fammily growing up in the Depression. The work encompasses their family tensions, politics, religion, and baseball memories. Sprinkled in the memories of a pitcher sidelined by an unrelated accident is humor taking on all subjects relevant to their time and today. The second is called The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. When a routine throw by a highly sought-after college first baseman goes awry, five lives are affected. Henry Schrimshander doubts what he has wanted his entire life. The story surrounds the twists and turns his baseball career makes along with all the other things that can happen in the college years. Both books deal with their subjects with humor and emotion, and both have some great descriptions of baseball and the like. The Harbach book comes up not only with some great play descriptions, but also includes the sometimes aberrant relationships of teammates and professors mingled with some imaginative names for teams and schools and towns. It’s all done in the name of fiction, I’m sure.
Books Mentioned
	•	The Art of Fielding: A Novel by Chad Harbach. ISBN13: 9780316126694. Published 2011 by Little, Brown and Company. BARD Number: DB35581
	•	The Brothers K by David James Duncan. ISBN 9780553378498. Published 1996 by Dial Press, paperback. BARD Number: DB73391
An A to Z Vacation: Marilyn Smith
Editor’s Note: This poem took second place in the 2019 Writers’ Division poetry contest.
A long vacation I shall take with quite a broad agenda;
Best stay close, first, Arizona’s canyons and Kaibab.
Cross to Utah’s landscapes, some mountainous, some bucolic;
Don’t need a raft for the great salt lake since water level’s receded.
Eastern Idaho calls me toward the wilds of Yellowstone.
From Denver I fly to Dallas to see a cousin in Oak Cliff;
Grab barbecue and tacos, ice cream in a root beer mug.
Hustle to university interviews in Kansas City and St. Joseph;
I may miss the poet in residence spot, but as long as I’m in Missouri…
Joplin’s tornado—I wrote a report—it’s hidden somewhere on drive J:
Kansas City has beef good as Texas, and with a little bit of “Show me” luck
Lots of nearby riverboat slots are bound to help me fill
My pockets with gold before I embark on a sonnet safari in Durham.
North Carolina and Duke scream basketball, but here and now it’s all concentration;
Oral presentation of my fourteen lines? How could I say no?
Port St. Lucy from Florida beckons with a global poetry workshop;
Quirky middle-Eastern women in wraps teach form patterns from Iraq.
Reverence for nature abounds in the keys at the sunset hour;
So much I miss about visuals; my quest is to awake a strong focus.
Time for Lady Panama’s locks shopping at every port;
Unique weaves of raffia and cane, fruits from pomelo and yuzu.
Very soon we sail to a private isle after testing for HIV;
When we’ve heard the lore of pirates and mist we’ll party and toss back a few.
Xochimilco by morning, Mexico City, Cabana rest at the lakeside complex.
Yawns now behind us, work study ahead, equatorial time zones fly by;
Zanzibar’s islands! We gather spices. Will I look native if I wear a fez?
Writers’ Resource: Shelley Alongi
Editor’s Note: Thanks to Ann Chiappetta and David Russell for the sites listed in this column. David Russell is a past contributor. Remember, Slate and Style does not endorse these sites or resources. Our aim is to let you know about them so that you can investigate them for yourself and come to an informed decision.
Pulled from Stylist:
Query Tracker is recommended for agent listings. Shortly after it was sent to Stylist I read about it in Writer magazine. Thanks to Ann Chiappetta for sending the link to Stylist.
If you’re looking for a place that will promote your books for a year or longer go to the Independent Author Network. Their prices are reasonable and they send your work to Twitter. Believe me they tweet a lot. I had to silence their notifications. They host the Avid Readers cafe. If you want to receive their notifications, go to Twitter.com and look for Avid Readers Cafe. If you want them to promote your work fill out the form online, pay the price and sit back and see what happens. I’m planning on trying this. We’ll learn together.
BookBaby claims to help publish, promote and market your book for a fair price. They offer a free newsletter and catalog.
Redsy is another assistant in the book publishing and marketing department. This site emphasizes the editing of your book and the professionalism of those who work for Reedsy.
Submission Guidelines for Slate and Style
Here are the submission guidelines for Slate and Style They include submission deadlines, contact information, requirements for your bio and cover letter, general information and word counts for genres. Enjoy.
Submission Dates
	•	Spring Issue: March 21st—Submissions close February 28th
	•	Summer issue: June 21st—Submissions close May 31st
	•	Fall issue: September 23rd—-Submissions close August 31
	•	Winter issue: December 21st—Submissions close November30th
Please read through all the guidelines carefully. Submissions that do not follow these guidelines may not be considered for Slate & Style. 
Submission guidelines are as follows:
Length requirements are: articles, 1500 words or less, fiction and memoir/personal essay, 4000 words or less, book reviews, 1000 words or less, poetry, 36 lines or less.
Again, send all submissions as email attachments no matter the genre. Include a cover letter along with your submissions with author’s name, title of piece(s) and contact info–phone, email and address included. Also include a bio with your submission(s). Your bio should be no more than 150 words. Do not send an entire history, just include key items you feel are important for readers to know. Send as an attachment as well. More than one submission is allowed per email but do list all submissions in the required cover letter.
Send submissions to s-and-s@nfbnet.org
In the subject line of your email, write: “Slate And Style submission, your name, and number of submissions.” Example: “Slate and Style submission, Shelley Alongi, 3 submissions”.
Use Microsoft Word or create an RTF document for all submissions. No other formats are accepted, and therefore will not be considered.
Proofread and check your grammar and formatting before submitting.
Slate and Style will consider all submissions for publication. However, please be careful with graphic sexual and violent content as well as language and -religious, anti-gender, anti-racial and anti-homosexual orientation content. Characterization and plot often require this type of material, but it must serve a purpose. Gratuitous material with no purpose or meant only for derogatory reasons, will not be considered. Material will be published according to the discretion of the editing staff.
Please direct questions and comments to the email address listed above for submissions, in your subject line, please include your name and simply write: “QUESTION” (the word). Then write your question in the body of the email.
Join the Division
Join a group of creative, active writers involved in all aspects of writing: educational reviews, poetry, short stories and novels. We have writers in all phases of the craft. We have some who enter contests, some who self-publish, and some who have worked with mainstream publishers. We are always looking for writers with new ideas.
It’s only $10 to join. Pay online by going to our division Website and clicking on the button that says “PayPal”. If you’re new to a screen reader, you can search for the word “pay” on the site till you find PayPal and then click on that button. The PayPal information encourages donations, but this link can also be used to pay dues.
The End.