literary magazines/ evaluating job offers/ experts

Oct. 1 Literary magazines: I got my short story "TJ's Story" published in a Poetry Institute of Canada anthology of short stories. I then went through my notes in Professional Writing. In 2007, I took a Short Fiction Forms class. One of the assignments is get into groups and research writing magazines to get published in.

Geist: This is a good website. There's a Post Card short story contest where you find a post card, and write a 500 word story or poem about it"

"Make your own postcard using photos, drawings or images in the public domain, write a story inspired by that postcard, then send us the image and the story. The relationship between image and story can be as subtle as you like, as long as the contest judges can see the connection."

http://www.geist.com/articles/8th-annual-literal-literary-postcard-story-contest

Notebook Magazine: I searched through my email inbox, and I got an email from this Edmonton writing magazine called Notebook Magazine. I submitted short stories to them through email, and he rejected them. The last email I got was back in Jan. 2008.

I then went to the website, and it said it was on hiatus. However, there is a piece about an artist named Murray Allen and he made all these crafts in his apartment before he passed away. Check out the pictures. The art is quirky and colorful:

http://notebookmagazine.ca/index.html

Oct. 2 Grain magazine: I bought this for my Creative Writing class. It's a literary magazine from Saskatchewan. The prizes are from are bigger than the usual, from $500-$1000. Others are less than $500.

http://www.grainmagazine.ca/index.html

Oct. 5 Puritan magazine: I had submitted some stories and poems to them. I did back when I was in college. I still get emails from them when new issues come out. I do like their website. Their graphics look frames on a wooden wall.

http://www.puritan-magazine.com/

Oct. 4 Evaluating job offers: I was at the career fair and learned about a info session called "Make me an offer! Tips on negotiating and evaluating job offers" at CAPS. I went there and I was the only one there. It's not as bad as throwing a party and no one showing up. lol. It's a info session.

I did learn some things that I didn't know. It was a power point presentation. One slide:

"Reflecting your budgetary needs and average salaries, your negotiation range starts a little higher than your bottom line and extends to a figure (within reason) that would make you very happy!"

When I apply for office assistant, administrative assistant, and receptionist position, the interviewer often asks: "What wage are you expecting?" I always say $11 or $12/hr. I should really give a range like $11-$14/hr or $23,000-$27,000. You need a range to negotiate with and say you're flexible.

Always do your research on how much the position you're applying for gets paid. I see in job ads and when I go into interviews, they do tell you how much the position pays.

Websites: You can learn about salary here:

www.wowjobs.ca/salary.aspx
www.alis.alberta.ca/wageinfo
www.salaryexpert.com (more USA)

Saying: One slide said:

"Something to think about?
We spend years in school. We spend a large sum of money getting that education. We spend hours writing resumes and cover letters and interviewing. But when we get to the last detail- money, perks, and benefits- we usually negotiate this in less than 5 min."

-Suzanne Green, management speaker

I did realize I am getting a little ahead of myself. I'm not at the negotiating stage yet, I'm in the applying and job interview stage. Negotiating is close because it's often talked about in the interview.

Oct. 5 Writer in Residence: I knew there was a Writer in Residence at MacEwan. I did a little searching last month, but I couldn't find the person. Then today I did some research and I found out it's Lynn Coady who wrote the book The Antagonist. She's nominated for the Scotia Bank Giller prize. I then congratulated her and emailed her part of my Rain script.

I then found out Greg MacArthur, the Writer in Residence at the U of A was nominated for the Siminovitch Prize. I congratulated him and then asked if he read my Rain script yet. I emailed him last month.

The Trouble with Experts: I saw this Doc Zone last week. It was good about how experts aren't really that knowledgeable about their subjects. I'm always cautious about who to listen to like my sister and friends like Angela and Jessica for career advice. They all graduated out of university and have careers, they have experience. They are knowledgeable.

Same goes for judges on reality-TV talent shows. They're all music producers, singers, dancers, and have been in the entertainment industry for years and made millions of dollars. They can judge talent.

Back to the documentary. They talked about wine experts. Some can't even tell white wine and red wine apart. The white wine had red dye in it. Most wine experts can't taste the difference. Regular people without any expectations could taste the difference.

They interviewed an artist that did copies of real paintings like Picasso. He was with another con man, and they sold all these paintings to museums. Part of the Art Experts want to believe they found something special, they lose sight of what's real art.

Financial gurus didn't predict the recession. They discussed the book The Management Myth: Why Experts keep Getting it Wrong about management gurus. There's a book called Wrong about experts getting it wrong.

There are nutritionists who know about health and what to eat. They promote cancer treatments that don't work. "Once you're getting paid, you don't become as objective."

They listed how experts make wrong predictions. One music producer says that "guys with guitars are on the way out" after seeing the Beatles.

Oct. 8 Job interview: The other day I went to a job interview. There were 100 resumes, and I was one of the 15 people being interviewed. So it's good to be considered to be good enough to get an interview. I thought the interview was average. We also talked a bit about my restaurant job and how she did go and eat there before, so that was different.

Flashback: I got this flashback of the actor Ian Ziering. He was in the original 90210 TV show in the 90s. A few years ago, he was being interviewed by Tyra Banks about how he got the role.

IZ: There are so many actors for very few roles. I needed to get an edge. So I went to this room to get the 90210 script. The office was empty and there was this big pile of scripts and a sign that said for every script that's been taken, you have to write down your name. So I wrote "Ben Dover" and then took the pile of scripts and ran away with it. I then managed to find a garbage can and throw them away.

The edge is that less actors got the script, so less competition. lol. Well I'm sure there were still a lot of actors going for that role, and he did audition and got the part because he was talented.

As a kid, I did want to get into acting and I knew there were a lot of actors for a few roles. Actors face a lot of competition. Now that I'm an adult, I learn it's not just actors but for a lot of other jobs.