a little about... Nicolette Wong

Nicolette Wong contributed "Scream" to the challenge, through Fictionaut. 

What inspired your story?

It's a true story in parts about my aunt who came from China. She acted aggressive toward my family and her own child, which screamed suffering in her heart - she had never dreamed that married life in Hong Kong would mean slaving away in a manual job and raising a child who had learning disorder. My uncle is also a little slow - a fact my aunt didn't seem to fully grasp until they lived together in HK. Out of wounded pride, she pushed everyone away and beat her daughter at any imaginary hint of disloyalty. The episodes about my aunt and my cousin were true events. The children next door were made up.

I was in high school when my cousin was born. The night my aunt went to the hospital, I was staying at their place because of some unfortunate circumstances in my own home. Something to do with debts and threats, and not knowing if I would have money for school after summer holiday. As I watched the couple leave the flat, I thought, "Why bring a tragedy into this world?" because everyone knew their daughter wasn't going to turn out right, her life was going to be hard. And I knew I would never love my cousin.

What makes this cause important to you?

It was an instinctive reaction - I saw the call for submissions and decided to contribute because it's a great cause.

Tell us a bit about yourself and where to find more of your writing.

Writer from Hong Kong. Editor of A-Minor Magazine. Often awake through the night. Aspiring magician at dawn. Like to swim laps, tend to plants and think by the sea. I blog at Meditations in an Emergency.

a little about... Sam Rasnake

Sam Rasnake wrote "Dialogue of Self and Little Boy/Little Girl, or Not" for the challenge at Fictionaut:

What inspired your story?

The Fictionaut challenge for the project was the catalyst. My normal routine for writing involves pen and journal, but this piece was written entirely at the keyboard. That is a rarity for me. Just moments before I read the challenge, I’d been at the Poetry Foundation website and noticed a link to William Butler Yeats. I don’t remember the poem that was listed – just Yeats’ name. I made the connection between the project challenge and the title of a poem by Yeats: “A Dialogue of Self and Soul”. I made the easy segue to my own title of “Dialogue of Self and Little Boy/Little Girl, or Not”. The words in my title – and not Yeats' poem – triggered the form for my own flash. The story just fell into place.


Why the cause is important to you?

Far too many children have become casualties, statistics, blurbs in newspapers. World-wide, thousands die daily from poverty alone. According to ABC, nearly 2,000 children in the U.S. die each year as a result of abuse or neglect. One article I read stated that 1 in every 58 children in the U.S. is a victim of child abuse and neglect. And we’re a world leader? If we consider the numbers globally, the impact becomes even more staggering. A tragedy.



Tell us a little bit about you and where to find your writing.

Sam Rasnake’s works, receiving five nominations for the Pushcart Prize, have appeared in journals such asOCHO, Big Muddy, MiPOesias, > kill author, BLIP: The New Mississippi Review, Literal Latté, Wigleaf, Poets / Artists, Portland Review, Connotation Press, Poem, BluePrint Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Poetry Midwest, and Emprise Review. His work has been included in the Best of the Web 2009 anthology (Dzanc Books), BOXCAR Poetry Review Anthology 2, andDogzplot Flash Fiction 2011. He edits Blue Fifth Review, an online journal of poetry, flash, and art, is chapbook editor for Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and serves as a judge for the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, University of California, Berkeley. Rasnake is the author of one collection: Necessary Motions(Sow’s Ear Press), and three chapbooks: Religions of the Blood (Pudding House Press), Lessons in Morphology (GOSS183), and Inside a Broken Clock (Finishing Line Press).



Web page: http://samofthetenthousandthings.wordpress.com/

a little bit about... James Lloyd Davis

James Lloyd Davis gave us a powerful tale from the Vietnam War, that could be any war, entitled "Butterfly Fingers."

What inspired your story?
Butterfly Fingers is a story about orphans in a war zone, about the soldiers who are probably the cause of their condition, but who become, as "occupiers," a source for both sustenance and survival as well as one of the few witnesses to their existence, their plight. Any veteran will recognize the concept of the 'fingers' ... both greedy and needy, the taps on your arms, the reaching, the touching, the pinching even, the gestures ... all of them are a cry for help even when offered in jest, with laughter ... laughter being a human emotional response to desperation. The reaching? It's a response to hunger. It's even a cry for love in a loveless place. Little fingers. Graceful, delicate fingers.

What makes this cause important to you?
War creates widows and orphans. It creates veterans and cripples and head cases. We don't often hear about the orphans, though, and my story attempts to give you a reminder about the fact that they are children. Little things. Innocent. Christ, they're everywhere, die by the trainload daily, from starvation, disease, neglect, and it feels like nobody really gives a damn! Sorry, it makes me angry as well as sad.

Tell us a bit about yourself and where to find more of your writing.
I'm just getting back to writing after a life-long detour where I was doing an awful lot of other things. You can read about me, my history, even read some of my work at the following web sites:
http://jameslloyddavis.com/ and http://www.fictionaut.com/users/james-lloyd-davis

a little about... MaryAnne Kolton

MaryAnne Kolton's story "We Sustain" goes to the heart of human need and compassion, and she has promoted and supported this effort tirelessly on Fictionaut and elsewhere.

What inspired your story?

First off, I was hugely inspired by the kindness and generosity of the project itself. Tom and Fiona are very special people. As to the story, I remembered reading an article about Salma Hayek touring Sierra Leone. Most celebs jet off to an impoverished country with their retinues, swan around a bit, pose for some photographs and head home. Not Salma Hayek. She involved herself in an extremely personal and loving way.

What makes this cause important to you?

Anything to do with children, the elderly, animals, anyone, anything helpless and in need touches my heart instantly. The thought of children without food, shelter and love - the basics most of us take for granted - makes me angry and determined.

Tell us a bit about yourself and where to find more of your writing.

I wrote and submitted for a short time in the late eighties and early nineties. Life and all its complications caused me to to put my work aside. I've been married to the writer, James Lloyd Davis for the past six years and he kept prodding me to write again. Now I'm writing full time and wondering how I lived without an outlet for all that creative energy for so many years. Best of all, most of my work is getting published. Stories or poems have been published or are about to be in the Fall and Winter editions of The Toucan Magazine and in the Winter editions of Wilderness House Literary Review, Anatomy, Lost In Thought, Larks Fiction Magazine and Connotations among others. The one I'm most proud of is, of course, my contribution to the Lost Children Charity Anthology.

You can find me at my blog, Echos & Visions at http://maryannekolton.blogspot.com/ , Fictionaut at http://www.fictionaut.com/ and on Facebook.