Tag: Conclave

Perks & connections

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I’ve been spending much of my “free time” going through Conclave submissions, and it looks like we’re finally getting close to the end of the pile. So as I pause to take a break, I’m going to get reflective for a moment.

One of my favorite aspects of starting Conclave: A Journal of Character has been the creative people I’ve had the good fortune to meet and work with (even if the meetings have been almost entirely via the internet). From the editors and readers who have devoted so much time to reading through submissions, to the Advisory Board members who help to lend credibility and provide guidance, to the contributors and their remarkable works of poetry, prose, art, and photography–I have learned from, and been inspired, by each of them.

I try to keep up with several journals and blogs. Reading through them is one of my favorite ways to start and close the day. Many folks involved with Conclave have blogs, some are really spectacular. I’d like to call your attention to Timothy Allen, an Advisory Board member and photojournalist who writes a weekly blog for the BBC documenting his work with indigenous societies around the world for the documentary Human Planet.

His work (and blog) are amazing:


(Photo by Timothy Allen)

I just wanted to share the beauty and post a link to his blog:
http://timothyallen.blogs.bbcearth.com/

Back to submissions…

Notes on Character and Conclave on NewPages

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NewPages Blog recently listed an entry about the editorials in Conclave: A Journal of Character and American Short Fiction:

Some Notes on Character

“I ran across a couple of great editorials in the most recent issues of American Short Fiction and Conclave. Both speak the the nature of character in writing as well as, for Conclave, in photography. Below are some excerpted portions which create a kind of conversation between them.

From Editor Stacey Swann of American Short Fiction (44, Summer 2009):

Like most writers, I grew up reading books—loving the characters and their stories. But I also loved learning about the world. While I understood that Narnia was not a real place or Tom Sawyer a real person, I still invested a great deal of authority in authors: the way they viewed the world was correct on a fundamental level. This explains why studying John Keats’s "Ode on a Grecian Urn" in high school remains a vivid memory for me. It was the first time I strongly disagreed with what an author was espousing. No matter what Keats thought, no matter what my English teacher echoed, I was certain that beauty was not truth and truth was not beauty. It wasn’t just that many fundamental truths about the world were ugly; beauty wasn’t important enough to equate with truth.”

Click here to read more.

(To read the complete Foreword and Introduction, as well as other works from our inaugural issue, go to the Conclave: A Journal of Character website.)