Archive for the ‘Being an ESL Student / Speaker’ Category

• Click here for Short, Short Story Writing Contest sponsored by California Writers Club-Sacramento Branch up to 750 words; entries must be postmarked by March 31, 2014 (no online submissions). $10 fee per entry. Cheers to Branch President Margie Yee Webb, sponsors, judges, and all contestants!

• Click here for Writing Contests  through Literary Arts Division of the San Mateo County Fair – many genres (including novels, memoirs, short stories, fantasy, science fiction, essays, poetry, children’s, immigrant experience) – open worldwide – $10 per entry -  online entries due April 1, 2014   5:00pm Pacific Standard Time. Cheers to Literary Arts Director Bardi Rosman Koodrin, sponsors, judges, all contestants!

• Click here for WriterAdvice Flash Prose Contest entries must be submitted by April 18, 2014  Fiction and creative nonfiction!  $15 fee per entry.  Cheers to to B. Lynn Goodwin, sponsors, judges, and all contestants!

Check out my blog post  “Coach Teresa says: Who or What is the Antagonist in Your Story?“  before you send your manuscripts to agents, acquisition editors, or writing contests.

Remember that a story, even a short one, has a beginning, middle, and end.  A “snapshot” of an event is not a story.  A story must have a main character, even if that character is the only character.

Writing Coach Teresa LeYung-Ryan cheers for Writing Contest Creators, Sponsors, Judges, and Contestants!

Today is International Women’s Day and we celebrate women and girls!

Yet, this kind of atrocity is happening all over the world, even in our backyards.

On a bus this morning, I saw this poster:

“Human Trafficking in Contra Costa is Real!  12 – 14 YEARS OLD.  AVERAGE AGE OF U.S. CHILDREN BEING FORCED INTO PROSTITUTION”

How do we stop these crimes on children? How do we spread awareness?

For the full story, click on Martinez News-Gazette

Excerpts from the article by Darya Esipova January 19, 2014

DA says human trafficking exists in Contra Costa County

District Attorney Mark Peterson told about 30 participants at the conference of the significance of human trafficking, and mentioned there are 16.5 million people throughout the world that become victims of labor exploitation every year – 65 percent of which are women used in slave labor.

Contra Costa County Prosecutor Nancy Georgiou said that since January 2011, the problem of trafficking started to become more and more obvious. In 2011 she had four cases to review, and in 2013, 32 cases, with a prosecution rate of 100 percent. In 2014 there are 10 cases on the waiting list.

Police officers and probation officers are trained to rescue human trafficking victims.

“It is vital for the general public to know the dynamics of human trafficking,” she said, “and to know that behind every girl there is a person that controls her: manages her transportation – where does she have to go, what clothing to wear and when to work. In 2013, the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors created a Human Trafficking Coalition, where community members, health service providers, law enforcement agencies and others collaborate with each other and exchange the information they have.”

Devorah Levine, Chair of Zero Tolerance for Human Trafficking, stated that their main message is that the public has an obligation not to tolerate trafficking as a kind of modern slavery in our county.

“If you are a victim of trafficking or if you suspect that someone may be being trafficked, we believe you and want you to come forward and to speak to people who can help, and the first step is to call hot-line number 211. There are many people standing behind that number that are ready to help – violence police officers, health services providers and many more,” explained Levine.

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Look Beneath the Surface - Human Trafficking is modern-day slavery. A victim of trafficking may look like many of the people you see everyday.

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services  http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/programs/anti-trafficking

The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Program (ATIP) identifies and serves victims of human trafficking, assisting foreign trafficking victims in the United States to become eligible for public benefits and services to the same extent as refugees.  The program also raises awareness of human trafficking through the HHS Rescue & Restore Victims of Human Trafficking campaign.

Together we can help make this world a safe place for all children.

Happy Women’s History Month – March!

http://womenshistorymonth.gov/ is a website hosted by the Library of Congress

Happy International Women’s Day – March 8, 2014!

Click on names of organizations that empower women, girls, boys, men – I’ve hyperlinked so that one click sends you to that website while this blog post remains open.

Bay Area Impact making the world safer – one woman at a time

Women Rising (San Jose area) and their page “Global Movement”

Girl Rising  “One Girl with Courage is a Revolution”

Community Violence Solutions provides support services to child and adult victims of sexual assault and their families through seven main programs.

One Billion Rising (one billion women)

Afghan Women’s Writing Project – To Tell One’s Story Is a Human Right

Women’s National Book Association was established in 1917, before women in America even had the right to vote.

Stamp Out Stigma, a community advocacy and educational outreach program dedicated to eradicating the stigma associated with mental illness

Bring Change 2 Mind is a national anti-stigma campaign founded by Glenn Close, The Balanced Mind Foundation, Fountain House, and Garen & Shari Staglin of the International Mental Health Research Organization (IMHRO), aimed at removing misconceptions about mental illness.

NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness.

The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Program (ATIP) identifies and serves victims of human trafficking, assisting foreign trafficking victims in the United States to become eligible for public benefits and services to the same extent as refugees.  The program also raises awareness of human trafficking through the HHS Rescue & Restore Victims of Human Trafficking campaign.

The Mission of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) is to organize for collective power by advancing transformative work, thinking and leadership of communities and individuals working to end the violence in our lives. NCADV strives to make issues relating to battered women and children one of the top ten political and legislative issues in the U.S.

The documentary FEMME: Women Healing the World – a celebration of women around the world actively transforming and healing our global society. Sharon Stone and leading experts in religion, science, history, politics and entertainment, discuss solutions to the multiple crises we are faced with. FEMME focuses on utilizing a feminine approach with nurturing energy to inspire a new hope for the future.

My dear colleague Margie Yee Webb is one of the producers of this extraordinary project.

There are thousands of organizations celebrating women and girls – may they all grow and grow and grow!

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Bardi Rosman Koodrin welcomes audience to Literary Arts stage San Mateo County Fair

Look at the many writing contests offered through the Literary Arts Division of the San Mateo County Fair!  Go to https://sanmateocountyfair.com/pdf/2014/literary_arts_14.pdf  and review rules and guidelines carefully.    All entries due April 1, 2014 by 5pm Pacific Standard Time

Entry Fees: $10.00 per entry       NO MAXIMUM ENTRY FEE

Writing Contests through the Literary Arts Division of the San Mateo County Fair include “Immigrant Experience Writing Contest” !

For a list of all writing contests, please go to: https://sanmateocountyfair.com/pdf/2014/literary_arts_14.pdf

Dear Teresa,

Thank you for your honest and poignant writing. You have a gift of writing from the heart with a sincerity that is far-reaching. Heart-felt, heart-warming and perfect. Just what I needed to hear right now.

Marlene Cullen

Please click here for “Transforming Depression Into My Writer’s Muse” by Teresa LeYung-Ryan (on Marlene Cullen’s blog)

Love Made of Heart (a mother-daughter love story) by Teresa LeYung-Ryan

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Please click  here for Writing Teacher Marlene Cullen’s Book Review of Teresa LeYung-Ryan’s Love Made of Heart

Love Made of Heart by Teresa LeYung Ryan is excellent. I read it in two sittings. Dinner could wait. I had to find out what would happen to Ruby Lin. Teresa uses her novel to advocate compassion for mental illness and to help survivors of family violence find their own voices. Teresa’s writing is evocative and from the heart. . . she reaches deep and succeeds with her genuine and authentic voice. I want to read Love Made of Heart again. Yes, it’s that good.

Teresa LeYung-Ryan is an advocate for mental health.   Advocacy For Mental Health — Resources for Women, Girls, Boys, Teens, Men, Families

Love Made of Heart Gift Shop

Marlene Cullen

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Thank you, Writing Teacher Marlene Cullen, for reviewing my book Love Made of Heart on your blog, facebook, and Goodreads. Being the author of the book gives me strength to encourage other adult children of mentally ill parents to speak openly about the stigmas. Also, thank you again for letting me guest blog to talk about “Transforming Depression Into My Writer’s Muse”  You have my deep gratitude.

Sincerely,

Teresa LeYung-Ryan

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For more information about Marlene Cullen’s blog, writing workshops and Writers’ Forum of Petaluma, please click here.

Teresa LeYung-Ryan

Teresa’s novel Love Made of Heart: a Mother’s Mental Illness Forges Forgiveness in Daughter Ruby is used in college courses and archived at the San Francisco History Center.

As author of Build Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase In 22 Days: Attract Agents, Editors, Publishers, Readers, and Media Attention NOW, Coach Teresa helps clients identify their themes and archetypes.

http://writingcoachTeresa.com   Subscribe to  “Coach Teresa’s blog”

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Thank you, dear Marlene Cullen, for asking me to be your guest-blogger this week.

Here’s how I had started the post for Marlene’s blog (The Write Spot Blog–Sharing the Light):

What do I have to be depressed about?

I am blessed with friends, writing colleagues, housemates, spouse, family members, coworkers, a half-time day job, health insurance, my intellectual properties . . .  and what friends call a sense of humor.  But I don’t feel like laughing in my condition, maybe later. I may have inherited the depression gene (or genes) from my loving mother.

While I sympathized with my mother’s illness (my novel Love Made of Heart was inspired by her), it would take experiencing the illness myself before I could gain empathy.

To read more . . .  please visit Marlene Cullen’s blog post by clicking on Transforming Depression Into My Writer’s Muse — by Teresa LeYung-Ryan

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For a list of resources, please visit my blog page Helpful Websites & Resources & Guides for Mental Health / Mental Illness / Depression.

Teresa LeYung-Ryan

Teresa’s novel Love Made of Heart: a Mother’s Mental Illness Forges Forgiveness in Daughter Ruby is used in college courses and archived at the San Francisco History Center.

As author of Build Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase In 22 Days: Attract Agents, Editors, Publishers, Readers, and Media Attention NOW, Coach Teresa helps clients identify their themes and archetypes.

http://writingcoachTeresa.com   Subscribe to  “Coach Teresa’s blog”

Any project or event that Kim McMillon is involved in is empowering!

I cheer for Kim McMillon and Everyone associated with 50 Years on the Black Arts Movement and Its Influences and the University of California, Merced!

Get tickets:  https://intelforms.ucmerced.edu/Form/Black_Arts_Movement

The conference is free for UC Merced students and Merced County youths, and $40 for the general public. To register or for more information about the conference, email Kim McMillon at kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu or go online.

Press inquiries should be directed to Scott Hernandez-Jason, shernandez-jason@ucmerced.edu

https://www.facebook.com/events/206503536195057/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/African-Diaspora-Graduate-Student-Association/260735274051324

Gala Host Belva Davis! at  50 Years on the Black Arts Movement and Its Influences!

Conference to Explore Black Arts Movement, Influences

The International Conference on the Black Arts Movement and Legacies will be held on March 1-2, 2014 at the University of California, Merced.

An international two-day conference on the Black Arts Movement will draw world-renowned scholars, musicians and artists, and offer new scholarship and perspectives on the 1960s and 1970s movement.

The International Conference on the Black Arts Movement and Legacies, on March 1-2, 2014 at the University of California, Merced, will provide an opportunity to hear and appreciate the elders, activists and artists who proclaimed “Black is beautiful” in their art, music, poetry and writings, while also shedding light on recent assessments of the movement.

“UC Merced is excited to contribute to the growing body of scholarship on the Black Arts Movement,” said Professor Susan Amussen, who’s also the director of the Center for the Humanities. “We look forward both to the presence of so many outstanding artists on campus and to the exploration of the impact of this important movement on mainstream American culture.”

Scholarly panels, poetry, art, theatre presentations and workshops on a wide variety of topics from the state of black studies in America to the impact of the Black Arts Movement past and present will be discussed.

“The Black Arts Movement and this UC Merced Conference comprise one whopping piece long missing from the jigsaw puzzle of cultural America,” said Al Young, California’s Poet Laureate Emeritus.

Askia Toure, Ishmael Reed, Marvin X, Eugene Redmond, Umar Bin Hassan, Nathan Hare, Emory Douglas, Judy Juanita, Avotcja and other key writers, musicians and artists from the Black Arts and Black Power movements will discuss their work and perform at the conference.

“No discussion of the Black Arts Movement or the radical left can take place without mentioning the late Amiri Baraka,” said event organizer and UC Merced graduate student Kim McMillon. “His words and art represent the beginnings of the movement, birthing black identity. Black Americans in the 1960s and 1970s created a new vision of blackness, one that celebrated the uniqueness of black culture.”

“The work of the Black Arts movement served as inspiration for many later artists, especially those from marginalized communities, and thus has shaped the flowering of artistic work over the last 40 years,” McMillon said.

The conference is co-sponsored by Associated Students of UC Merced, African Diaspora Student Association, the Center for the Humanities, Merced County Arts Council, Merced County Office of Education, Office of Student Life and The California Endowment.

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Any project or event that Kim McMillon is involved in is empowering!

I cheer for Kim McMillon and Everyone associated with 50 Years on the Black Arts Movement and Its Influences and the University of California, Merced!

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Dear Claudine,

Thank you for telling me about your benefit storytelling event this Saturday.

I’m cheering for you!  Thank you for raising awareness about mental illness in the Asian community.

Sincerely,

Teresa LeYung-Ryan

Thank You for Being Born

 Speaking the Truth About 

Mental Illness in the Asian Community

Claudine Woo

and

Kenny Yun

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Dec. 5, 2013 Director Emmanuel Itier so happy to show off FEMME: Women Healing the World movie poster enlarged by Producer Margie Yee Webb - photo by Teresa LeYung-Ryan, author of Love Made of Heart: a Daughter's Journey to Self-Forgiveness

Below is the announcement from Director Emmanuel Itier

We are proud to announce that FEMME: Women Healing the World (the movie) has been Awarded  #1 most important film of 2013 among Documentaries  that could change The World. Here is a link:

FEMME Women Healing the World movie's Fab Four - Margie Yee Webb, Celeste Yarnall, Nazim Artist, Director Emmanuel Itier - photo by 22-Day Writing Coach Teresa LeYung-Ryan