Writer Focus

Why You Just Can’t Talk to Your Bandersnatch; You Have to Reset It

New writer spotlight and update on June writing challenges

Still have that printer at home? Then today’s stories are perfect for you. We learn some great new Scandinavian terms, explore the fears of cats, navigate the talk-to-text arena and have a great private tribute to a very special person.

Tomorrow I will do one last feature piece including new writers but will end the challenge and “connection” sections. Thank you everyone for reading these June feature articles and supporting all the fantastic writers that are new to the Illumination Publication!

In July I will spin off the writing challenge into a new format, but I am going to put aside the new writer feature for the time being. I may resurrect it in future months, as I believe it is a great way to get to know writers that I might otherwise not be exposed to.

Thanks again for reading! Now, get out your Swedish and Danish dictionaries and prepare to meet the Frumious Bandersnatch in today’s feature!

Each day in June I hope to feature a few articles from writers that have just recently been added to the publication. I am doing this because I want to make a point of welcoming and getting acquainted with the new writers, and doing a feature allows me to read some of their work and pick items that catch my eye each day.

My hope is to get these authors a few extra eyes on their writing and perhaps gain a few fans that otherwise might not have seen their work. If these new-to-Illumination writers don’t have bios yet, we hope they write one soon so we can add it to our growing list:

But until then, my aim is to choose a handful of writers from the ranks of the newly added to Illumination and highlight one of their articles. Then I will have an ask of them afterward (Hint: I will ask that they pay it forward by doing the same thing for other writers).

Plus, an ongoing list of writer challenges follows the feature articles below! So, without further ado:

New Writer Spotlight

Today we start out with a loving and heartfelt tribute from Rebecca Murauskas. Brought up in a single parent home with an inattentive caregiver, Rebecca could have travelled all sorts of unfortunate paths. However, thanks to one very special person in her life, those undesirable stories never manifested and instead were replaced with the support and recognition needed by any young person.

This story is for anyone that has had that one special person in their lives that completely made all the difference. Your eyes may inexplicably leak a little:

Next we lighten things up a bit and keep up a positive note with, as Manu Chatterjee puts it so well, “A true (lighthearted) story about family, cats, and mysterious force from the dark”.

I can’t outdo that buildup; I can only say you will be glad you read:

Next is a piece I included because I am intrigued by the concept. We all know we can speak faster than we can write. Is it possible we could be more efficient if we used technology to turn our words to text when we “write”?

Doug Sandlin thinks so and offers some possibilities for getting our words on the page much quicker, but it may take a little bit of practice. A definite read for anyone that writes first then repeats their work aloud to make sure it has a good “writing voice”. You might be able to skip a step or two after you read this:

I have hinted at how I tend to avoid listicles for articles to include in this feature; that is true. However, sometimes (even though there is a number in the title) I find something that is so excellent that I just have to include it.

This piece from Sabeena shares some Scandinavian terms that help explain why Scandinavian residents score so highly on the happiness index. I bookmarked this article so I can come back to it for reference; I love the concepts in here so much! Get ready to find some acceptance and get “hygge” with it:

And finally, because he asked so nicely, I want to include a story from Brandon Anderson. Brandon has a pretty large following on Medium, and I generally only include new writers with minimal followings in this feature in order to boost their visibility.

However, Brandon has a great writing style and can make a routine activity into a great read. That is why I picked out his story about changing out the ink cartridge in his printer. It resonated in a few ways in that in our more digital age I think the printer is no longer destined to be a household item, yet certain entities (I am talking government here) still want us to “print this out at home”.

But the home printer isn’t so obsolete that we can’t all relate to experiencing frustration from changing out the ink cartridge. Plus, Brandon, makes a great allegorical comparison about how, sometimes, we don’t need to reset the printer; rather, we need to reset ourselves:

Thanks for reaching out, Brandon!

Let’s Make a Connection

Next I want to broker an introduction of the new writers tagged in this article and one of our editors and/or writers who has been at Illumination for a bit.

For our final connection of slightly more established writers on Illumination and new folks, I would like to introduce Trista Ainsworth. Trista is a positive and upbeat presence on Illumination that constantly supports and adds to the values of the publication.

One of the recent writing prompts Trista participated in, in my opinion, personifies her as a writer and person. It was titled How to Live in Joy, and culminated in this piece. I couldn’t find Trista’s bio (or scrolled by it too quickly more likely), but I did find this piece that Trista wrote about what she would be doing if not writing.

And the recent article I want to feature from her is this cute little story about how her family is planning an all-inclusive getaway to Chippy’s Resort:

If you want to connect with me or any of the editors, please consider joining the Illumination Slack workgroup. You can request an invitation to Slack by contacting Dr Mehmet Yildiz from this link. Please type “Request for Slack” on the heading as Dr. Yildiz has many other requests from this link.

I am always willing to answer questions and provide information for anyone. The other editors and writers are as well. Slack is the best way to interact if you have questions.

If you need some tips to get up and running on Slack, this article is a good starting point:

The Big Ask

As promised, if I featured your story here, or are reading this and feel inspired, I encourage you to pay forward the concept of highlighting the work of others.

Please consider choosing another writer (or writers) and creating a story that emphasizes aspects that you appreciate about their work. It could be their style, topic choices, voice, technical aspects of writing, or maybe you just like their profile picture.

Supporting others is one of the core premises and values of Illumination, and when you engage you will find that you reap dividends. I encourage you to give it a whirl. And, when you do, tag me in your article. I love being exposed to stuff I might not have otherwise seen.

Bonus Gift — The Writing Challenge

There are two types of writers in the world. Those who have experienced writer’s block, and those that will.

One of the great remedies to the question, “What do I write next?” is responding to a prompt or challenge provided by another writer.

List of New Challenges and Prompts

Send me your writing prompts! Here’s what we have so far:

Kevin Buddaeus

Sarah E Sturgis

Sherry McGuinn

Tree Langdon ♾️

B. A. Cumberlidge.

Holly Jahangiri — A challenge, sneakily hidden in a newsletter!

INFJ Elder One person that made a positive impact on us.

If you are participating in or originating a challenge and you want to include it here for people to find, either respond to this article or hit me up on Slack (@timothykey).

Next Group — The Final Group!

Tomorrow I will pull from this new group of recently added writers, and it will be the ending article for this series. In it I won’t do the connection with another writer, or the challenges — as I plan to spin that off as its own July series.

But since I didn’t do a piece on June 1, I wanted to make sure I included 30 days worth of writers, so tomorrow it will be this group:

Tatiana, Dionne Charlet, Craig Brett, Param Hegde, Shivali Joshi, Xaviery, Queen Gigi, Stef Kons, Susannah MacKinnie, Kylie Fuller, Sina izi, Kim Krause Berg, Abu Bakar Pasha, Maximus Brown, Adam Winstanley, Melissa Speed, Chelsea Wong, Agni Kumar, Çınar Kızıltepe, Simona Rahmanova, Lisa Orban, Patricia Joseph, Pusteblume, Varun Joshi

If you want me to highlight one of your stories in particular, or have any questions just respond to this story, or better yet, find me on Slack!

Thanks for reading, I am enjoying getting to know all the new writers on Illumination!

If you liked this article, you may also like:

Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.