I am overjoyed to report that the inaugural issue of Synkroniciti Magazine is having its final proofreading before it debuts on Friday, August 30th! It has been an intense process and I have thoroughly enjoyed it, from planning to production. This issue is 80 pages long and features the work of 11 creatives and myself, exploring synchronicity and life. It is simply scrumptiously beautiful and I can’t wait to share it!
There are two ways to get a copy of Synkroniciti: you can subscribe ($10 every 2 issues, that’s every six months) or you can buy a single issue ($6) and we will drop a link right into your email inbox. Want to send some inspiration to a friend or loved one? We also do gift issues and gift subscriptions. Subscriptions offer the added perk of access to the new subscribers section of the website and also mean you can submit your own work to us for free for consideration for a future issue.
Here is the lineup for our first issue. Poetry, photography, short stories, narrative non-fiction, essay, visual art, a ten-minute play and the beginnings of a serial novel. Pretty rich!!
We are so excited to announce that we are accepting submissions for our new online magazine, debuting late August 2019. Submission deadline for the Summer Issue is July 15th, 2019.
The submission fee is $3. Here are the categories of work we are seeking, along with submission guidelines for each category. You may submit more than one entry in one or more categories.
Don’t want to pay submission fees? Become a subscriber ($10 every 6 months/2 issues) and you will have unlimited free entries (as long as you are currently subscribed).
If your work is selected we request the right to publish it in both the e-book and blog-style versions of the Synkroniciti magazine. You may also volunteer to be part of our promotional release. With your permission, will use your work or part of your work to advertise the magazine to potential subscribers.
Poetry: Send up to 5 poems in pdf format, 10-12 point Palatino font. We prefer free verse and are more fond of visual poetry than formal rhyme schemes, although rhyming does not disqualify your work. We will also accept bilingual poetry: poems in a non-English language with an English translation (poem and translation counts as one poem and both parts will be printed). Get your work the way you want it to look on the page and we will do our best to respect it.
Short story: Send a short story in Word format, double-spaced, 12 point Palatino font. 4,000 word maximum. We will reformat your work to fit our space.
One Act Play: Send a short play in Word format, double-spaced, 12 point Palatino font. 4,000 word maximum. We will reformat your work to fit our space.
Essay, Review or Narrative Non-Fiction: Send up to 2 works in Word format, double-spaced, 12 point Palatino font. 4,000 word maximum. We will reformat your work to fit our space.
Comic: Send up to 3 comic strips, single or multiple panel, in pdf or jpg form. If they are large, please send thumbnails and we will contact you for larger versions if we select your work. Since we are published quarterly, comics should be stand alone rather than storyline driven. All genres are accepted. If you send political cartoons, we prefer those that focus on social justice issues rather than partisan caricature.
Digital Visual Art: Send up to 5 computer generated or edited images in pdf or jpg form. If they are large, please send thumbnails and we will contact you for larger versions if we select your work.
Photography: Send up to 5 photographs in jpg form. If they are large, please send thumbnails and we will contact you for larger versions if we select your work.
Physical Visual Art: Send up to 7 photographic representations of your art in jpg form. You may send more than one photo per art work. If the files are large, please send thumbnails and we will contact you for larger versions if we select your work. We will accept a range of physical art, but the quality of the photography needs to be of a high level.
To submit fees, please click here to visit our Submissions page.
What interests us?
Synchronicity is a term coined by Carl Jung that refers to “the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.” This makes our focus eclectic, but we do have subjects that we favor:
The arts and creativity, the intersection of art and science, nature, social justice (pro feminism, pro GLBTQ+, pro Black Lives Matter and support for any opportunity to promote equality and respect across the lines of gender, ethnicity, culture, religion and economic status), mythology and storytelling, imagination and fantasy, dreams and their imagery, and personal and collaborative expression.
Thank you and we look forward to working with you!
On the last Saturday of March Synkroniciti had a small gathering to build faerie houses. It was cathartic and fun. We had many folks express interest who were unable to make it, so we are going to build homes for the little people again on June 15th.
Shawntil, Kelly and I started working in the backyard next to the garden, but the weather turned suddenly cold, unusual for Houston at the end of March. We moved inside and were grateful for the warmth and the ease in using Shawntil’s hot glue gun, which proved very useful this time around. We enjoyed getting to know one another as we shared and created.
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Faerie Throne
Kelly made a Faerie Throne! A seedling pot covered in moss on top of a corkscrew shaped shell, with an elegant back and seat skirt from potpourri stuff and a seat of sea glass. This is supported by a tripod of stiff reeds. Fit for a Faerie King or Queen!
Shotgun Shell House
My house is a low profile shotgun house (that is a form of house once popular in the south, so-called because, if both doors are open, you could shoot in the front door and out the back). It is made up of two seedling pots under a bit of palm leaf with a faux moss floor. It is crowned with feathers, purple raffia, pine cones and fronds, potpourri bits, rocks, glass beads inside of burr oak caps, and a sweetgum seed pod that I picked up outside of Houston Grand Opera on my way to rehearsal. There is a shell, two purple leaves and bit of pine cone between the front door and the back door on the side. The standing flowers are dried from the live bouquet we had at the last Synkroniciti gathering back in February. I love making connections between different parts of my life.
Branch House
Shawntil’s house was constructed from some strong twiggy branches put together with hot glue and decorated with natural and manmade items. Note the orange highlights. Someone had gotten a little excited with the orange spray paint marking a trail, inadvertently painting leaves and plant matter. Shawntil’s eye picked these items out while she was traveling and she took the time to set them aside for our construction project. There is also a lovely sea glass window, some arresting moss and a small pine cone from somewhere in the four corners region. So many fine details and a beautiful color scheme!
Our next event will be Poetry in Motion on April 27. We will be responding to poetry with movement. Come out and read some of your favorite poems!
February saw the second Synkroniciti event, themed Walk in My Shoes. It was a great time to recharge batteries and share new creations.
We began a wide ranging conversation touching on, among other things, art, family, ghosts, spirituality and work. The expression of selfhood and its impact on relationships was the center of our musings. This eventually lead us to speaking of teenagers and our own teenage years, and we continued with a reading of Sister Godzilla, a chapter from Louise Erdrich’s masterful novel, A Plague of Doves.
Evelina has a new teacher. Sister Mary Anita has a large toothy jaw and Evelina, lost in a daydream in class, makes a drawing of “Sister Godzilla”, not realizing that the Sister is looking over her shoulder. Erdrich’s honesty, matched by her riotous and impish sense of humor, are disarming and inviting as Evelina’s cruelty is changed into empathy. Here is the moment of transformation, which comes after a humorous and yet serious exchange between the two women. The evasive humor drops away, replaced by naked awareness.
“Can I go now?”
“Of course not,” said Mary Anita.
I was confounded. The magical two words, an apology, had dropped from my lips. Yet more was expected. What?
“I want you to understand something,” said the nun. “I’ve told you how I feel. And I expect you will never hurt me again.”
Again the nun waited and waited, until our eyes met. My mouth fell wide. My eyes spilled over again. I knew that the strange feelings that had come upon me and transfixed me were the same feelings that Mary Anita felt. I had never felt another person’s feelings, never in my life.
“I won’t do anything to hurt you,” I babbled in a fit of startled agony. “I’ll kill myself first.”
“I’m sure that will not be necessary,” said Sister Mary Anita.
After the reading, Kelly showed some beautiful prints she had made recently using the soles of old shoes. The prints were inspired by a fascinating pendant made by her son when he was in third grade. You can see that the first one is light and tentative; the second, rather like a flower’s corona, is aggressive and darker; and the third, which may evoke snakes, coffee beans, or strings of beads, is a play between the two. You can’t tell this from the pictures, but the prints also had a lovely texture. We don’t think about the patterns on the bottoms of shoes and the surprising variety and beauty in their design.
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I was very excited to present two pairs of my old shoes converted into art objects. One pair of high heels that became uncomfortable over time is now a pair of Party Shoes. I like to think of them as Shoe Drag Queens, beautiful and flashy with glitter, flowers, feathers and ribbon. A pair of boots, lightly worn because the arch was in the wrong place for my foot, became Nesting Shoes, earthy representations of nests with wings. They were so much fun to make that I had to force myself to stop (I have a couple more pairs of old shoes). You can read more about my process and my interpretation here. They are somewhat kitschy and very striking. I would love to make more of these for people…it can be an interesting way of preserving a favorite shoe. I am fairly sure this is the only time I’ve ever felt good about “putting my shoes on the table”.
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It was a lovely evening. Yuri came out to claim his position as official Synkroniciti Mas-cat. Those who attended our earlier Open Mics before the second and third floods in our old home will remember that his sister Lisa Sasabuki used to preside in meetings, taking an interest in art and performance. She was one of us, and she was always an encouraging and attentive critic. She passed over the rainbow bridge between the second and third flood. We miss her but still feel her big presence (especially for such a small kitty). Yuri’s specialty is performance art, especially rolling over for tummy rubs. Younger sister Keiko Buki spent the evening in the office closet, reminiscent of Yuri in his younger days.
Our next gathering, which is our first Playdate (these are more active than Soirées) is March 30th and we will be building faerie houses. We made faerie houses in 2016, right before the flood came and washed them away. We are confident and hopeful that things will last longer this time. If you are in the Houston area, please come and be a part of this delightful event. It is my absolute favorite!
2018 has been a wonderful year for quiet rebuilding here at Synkroniciti. We are looking forward to more outward growth in the New Year. These fourteen quotes are a meditation that looks over the past year into the next. May they become seeds for the future!
2018 was a year of personal rebuilding and change for me; a year to listen and adjust. I have a new home, one that does not threaten to flood every time it rains, and a new Microsoft Surface laptop/tablet that simplifies my interactions on the internet and gives me new tools for creativity. 2019 looks to be a year of expanding horizons and experimentation for Synkroniciti. As no one can exhale without inhaling, no one can be creative for long without nourishment. 2018, thank you for nourishing and healing me.
Let me preface this collection by saying that trying to quantify the life of another by your own experience is neither possible nor worthwhile, although we all attempt it. For me, life is about discovering the person I was created to be and embracing both the darkness and light in that person. Dwelling on either the positive or negative creates an unbalanced personality. You will always find Synkroniciti eddying between darkness and light. Her dialogue helps me to be that person I was created to be and to take my part in helping the world to be what is meant to be.
Thanks for remaining with me while I posted less and took a somewhat darker tone this year. These are the quotes that drew your eye most. I will follow soon with a list of my personal favorites.
After eight years marked by three floods, my husband and I are thrilled to announce we have a new home. We are reunited with our cat companion, the furry fat man we call Yuri. I love watching him find all the new spots where he can lounge and spy. I’m attaching a “Yuri around the house” gallery at the end of this post for your enjoyment.
It feels amazing to be together again. It also feels wonderful not to have to rebuild a home. We did that twice, almost finishing the second time when Harvey brought the third flood, a staggering four foot and eight inches of water. There are always things to be done in any house, but it is all “elective surgery” now, as my husband says. At the end of the work day I’m always excited to go home; I want to pinch myself to make sure it is real.
The home on Pagehurst was sold last December. After repeated floods crowned by the one Hurricane Harvey brought, the old street is now owned largely by investors hoping to flip and sell. The houses are shell-like and dead, waiting for someone to care enough to start remodeling. The process is slow; not many homeowners have stayed and one wonders how wise an investor is to buy multiple homes there as several have done. We are a few miles away, in a place with better than average drainage for Houston, some twenty feet, give or take a little, higher. It rained heavily here last week, and I could look out my window and see the street. No water in the yard at all. Rain still produces an anxiety in me, but it is a vague discomfort. In time, perhaps that will fade.
I am so excited to return to normal. For me, that means a return to creativity, to being able to have the space to make things and the leisure to read, attend events, and feel human again. Well, I’ll get out of the house more once we finish building all of our new furniture! It means I can return to you, friends, and to making the kind of environment that helps the mind and spirit to flourish. The themes for the next few months have been provided by some of my Facebook friends. They are things I hope we can all cultivate and share together. Flourish is the first of 34 words that we will explore. If you would like to contribute a word to that list, please don’t hesitate to leave it in the comments. See you around!
Hello from Houston! We are safe, but our home received 51 inches of water and we haven’t been able to go back in yet. Synkroniciti will be getting back on her feet in the next few weeks and will be bringing back the quotes as we can. Thanks to the city, who opened the floodgates on the Addicks Reservoir, we had a 12 hour period to remove as much stuff as we could. Here is a picture of our home taken by drone as the waters began to recede. We are hopeful that we will be able to move this time.
Here are the ten most viewed original art pieces posted in 2016. Synkroniciti is so proud that you like viewing the things we make! We look forward to producing many new things in 2017 and the years beyond.
Beloved’s Journey will be returning soon and Becoming Euridice, our first large scale collaborative project, will begin taking tangible form in 2017.
These are the ten most viewed articles written in 2016. I am excited that many of them involve experiences and works from our synkronicitiOpen Mics, which were happening once a month until our house flooded in April. I am looking forward to starting them up again sometime in 2017. I miss my tribe!
It was a lovely evening. Yuri came out to claim his position as official Synkroniciti Mas-cat. Those who attended our earlier Open Mics before the second and third floods in our old home will remember that his sister Lisa Sasabuki used to preside in meetings, taking an interest in art and performance. She was one of us, and she was always an encouraging and attentive critic. She passed over the rainbow bridge between the second and third flood. We miss her but still feel her big presence (especially for such a small kitty). Yuri’s specialty is performance art, especially rolling over for tummy rubs. Younger sister Keiko Buki spent the evening in the office closet, reminiscent of Yuri in his younger days.
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