No Wasted Ink Newsletter & Ramblecast - June 2024
a newsletter and voiceover podcast by Poet Laureate Emerita Wendy Van Camp
Welcome to the monthly No Wasted Ink Newsletter. My name is Wendy Van Camp and I’m Poet Laureate Emerita for the City of Anaheim, California. This newsletter is not affiliated with the city. All views stated here are my own.
RAMBLE
May has been a month filled with appearances and finishing projects from my last month as poet laureate for the City of Anaheim. The last of the Anaheim Poetry Reviews have been delivered to the participating poets, and I hope to start editing the launch party podcast once my writing conference in June is over. I have also been working on Vol. 5 of “Eccentric Orbits” my science fiction poetry anthology.
In April, after I accepted the Proclamation for National Poetry Month during the City Council Meeting, I was asked to “approach the bench” and was joined by the Mayor and the entire city council. It was a full house of hundreds of people and the television cameras. One by one, each of the council shook my hand and thanked me for my service to the City of Anaheim, CA. A few photos were taken with me holding the proclamation with the council and the mayor. It was an amazing experience.
However, I was not able to get a copy of the photos via my usual channels. So in May, I was very happy to get an email from my Liaison at the Library with the images attached. I plan to print and frame one of them along with the Certificate of Appreciation the City Library gave me. It will look great on my home office wall and be a wonderful reminder of my time serving the poetry community.
The last two years have been quite the experience, but as I slowly let the role go and move back to life as a writer and podcaster, I am feeling a sense of relief. I look forward to returning to my hobbies, writing books, and certainly composing new poetry.
yours in poetry,
Wendy
ESSAY
Building Your Cosmos: The Essentials of World-Building in Fiction
Imagine stepping into a world so detailed and immersive that you sense the chill of its winter, hear the hustle of its markets, and understand the intricacies of its politics. This is the power of world-building in fiction. To create a vivid world is essential for pulling readers into your story. In this essay, we take a deeper look into the key elements of building your world and how to balance details.
A well-defined physical landscape is important for making your story feel real to the reader. The climate and terrain don’t just set the scene—they shape how people live, what they value, and even how they behave. In a sense, it is a character unto itself. If your story’s set in an arid region, the characters will need to be resourceful, which can lead to many interesting cultural quirks. On the flip side, a lush, fertile valley could mean your characters are more focused on farming and community life. Natural resources, whether they’re scarce or plentiful, can drive the plot forward. Perhaps your story takes place in a mountainous region, where the challenging terrain leads to isolated communities. These characters could evolve unique cultures and their solitude leading to conflicts.
The foundation of any fictional world lies in its setting details, which provide the sensory experience necessary for immersion. When you write, take a moment to envision the scene in your mind and engage at least three of the senses on the page. If you only write what the character sees, the story will seem cerebral. If you focus more on the dialogue and do not support the details of the setting, the reader will tend to get lost or lose interest. If you stick to this rule of three senses, you should always engage a main sense, but the other two senses will add the depth you need. Common choices are sight, sound, and taste. Or sight, sound, and scent, but don’t limit yourself. Touch is also a powerful sense to bring into the story. The soft brush of fur, the rough texture of a stone wall, or the chill of alien metal all bring awareness of your setting.
Learning how to balance the detail without overwhelming the reader is a fine art, but one that is important to learn. Keep to the rule of three senses, use more details when you wish to slow the pacing of your story, and use them less when the story needs to take wing and fly. You’ll find that due to our interconnected world, you need far less detail to paint a complete picture of the setting than authors did in previous centuries. The reader is more knowledgeable of the world due to media and therefore learning to pull on those shared ideas and images can be of help. As a poet, I often use this technique more than the others to create sensory details in my micropoetry.
Effective world-building is about creating a place where readers can lose themselves, experiencing the story not just through the characters, but through the very essence of the world they inhabit. Take the time to create an intricate and believable world, engaging the senses of your audience via your words, and this will lead you to success as a writer.
SCIFAIKU
new phase of matter time-translation symmetry forever cycles
This scifaiku poem first published as part of a group Renku coordinated by Joshua St. Claire. Thirteen poets were involved and I was one of them. “Quantum Entanglement” was published in “The Lotus Tree Literary Review” in 2022.
The Renku won the Critters Reader Poll for Best Poem of 2022 and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. This scifaiku segment [new phase of matter] was written by Wendy Van Camp.
UPCOMING APPEARANCES
June 6th - 9th SFWA Nebula Conference
I am attending the Nebula Conference in Pasadena, California. This is the sponsored conference for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association where the Nebula Awards are held. It is a hybrid conference, with both in-person and virtual offerings. I will be attending in-person.
I am moderating a panel on Thursday at 3pm called “Welcome to Speculative Poetry!” featuring: Joe Haldeman, Greg Leunig, Eva Elasigue, Angela Liu, and myself, Wendy Van Camp.
I will host a poetry meet up on Saturday at 11:30am which is open to all attendees.
I also have an author autograph session, Saturday at 2:30pm. I will need to leave a little early due to moderating the 3pm panel. If you want a book or to say hi, come in the earlier part of my session.
LINKS TO SOCIAL MEDIA
Portfolio - http://wendyvancamp.com
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/author/wendyvancamp
Medium - https://medium.com/@wvancamp
Indigoskye Press - https://indigoskye.com
X (Twitter) - https://twitter.com/wvancamp
Instagram - https://instagram.com/nowastedink
Mastodon - https://me.dm/@wvancamp
Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/indigoskye.bsky.social
BOOKS
The Planets: a scifaiku poetry collection - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z8HMPF2
The Curate’s Brother: A Jane Austen Variation of Persuasion - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OU1V45A
ANTHOLOGIES
Eccentric Orbits: An Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry
Volumes 1 - 5
Editor
Available for purchase: https://dimensionfold.com
Anaheim Poetry Review 2023
Volumes 1 - 2
Editor
Free to Read: https://anaheimpoetry.com
Eye To The Telescope: Quests #46 - Fall 2022
Guest Editor
https://eyetothetelescope.com/archives/046issue.html
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