FundsforWriters to the Rescue

FundsforWriters to the Rescue I have been writing in my spare time for more than 40 years. My file cabinets are crammed full of research notes, ideas for future articles, and manuscripts in various stages of completion. Fortunately, I have sold many magazine and newspaper articles, as well as two dozen children’s books, but I still have quite a collection of rejected picture book and early reader manuscripts. I also have the letters stating why they were rejected in the first place. When I wrote about Cathy Williams, the only female buffalo soldier in U.S. history, multiple editors told me she was â€Å"too obscure† to be the subject of a nonfiction picture book. I protested, pointing out that teachers and librarians are always looking for new stories for Black History Month, Women’s History Month and even Veterans Day. But no, they still weren’t interested. Cathy, they insisted, was just not marketable. Editors also rejected my fictional children’s story, â€Å"Oh-So-Clever,† a tale inspired When I wrote a nonfiction reader for youngsters in first through third grades about Admiral Peary returning from Greenland with the largest meteorite â€Å"in captivity,† editors deemed the subject too obscure as well - even though that particular 34-ton space rock remains on display in the Hall of Meteorites at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Thousands of school children take field trips there each year. From a marketing aspect, it would seem like a perfect book to sell in the museum gift shop there and at other museums with meteorites on display. Undaunted, I retrieved these rejected manuscripts from the file cabinet and looked at them again. I decided to think outside the picture book box and transform my manuscripts into articles instead. Reasoning that if children’s book editors considered my proposed topics too obscure, then children’s magazine editors might be equally shortsighted. Instead, I decided to use my extensive research notes to transform the original manuscripts into articles suitable for adult publications, which pay more generously than children’s magazines anyway. The market listings posted on the FundsforWriters website proved to be quite inspirational.   To my delight, the editor at Rural Missouri, (http://ruralmissouri.coop/submissions.php) the state where Cathy Williams was born and raised, promptly bought my article, â€Å"The Buffalo Soldier’s Secret.† It appears in the November 2014 issue. The Elks Magazine (https://www.elks.org/elksmag/WritersGuidelines.pdf) bought first North American serial rights to the Robert Peary meteorite article, as well as the one about the amazing globetrotting photographers, Osa and Martin Johnson - another topic I had hoped to pursue for a children’s book. This article appears in the May 2015 issue. â€Å"Oh-So-Clever† sold to the Center for Education Testing and Evaluation at the University of Kansas - a market mentioned in one of the weekly Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators electronic newsletters (https://cete.submittable.com/submit) that I receive each week. The center administers a variety of standardized tests and continues to accept submissions for poetry, informational and narrative texts suitable for students in grades 3-12. I have been successful in recycling this first batch of manuscripts and will retrieve another handful from the file drawer with the intention of giving them a makeover as well. I simply need to shift mental gears and think imaginatively outside the box - and review the market listing at FundsforWriters again.

Biography of Mao Zedong, Father of Modern China

Biography of Mao Zedong, Father of Modern China Mao Zedong (Dec. 26, 1893–Sept. 9, 1976), the father of modern China, is not only remembered for his impact on Chinese society and culture but for his global influence, including on political revolutionaries in the United States and the Western world in the 1960s and 1970s.  He is widely considered one of the most prominent communist theoreticians. He was also known as a great poet. Fast Facts: Mao Zedong Known For: Founding father  of the  Peoples Republic of China, ruling the country as Chairman of the Communist Party of China  from 1949 until 1976Also Known As: Mao Tse Tung, Mao Zedong, Chairman MaoBorn: Dec. 26, 1893 in Shaoshan, Hunan Province, ChinaParents: Mao Yichang, Wen QimeiDied: Sept. 9, 1976  in Beijing,  Peoples Republic of ChinaPublished Works: The Warlords Clash (poem, 1929), The Tasks of the Communist Party in the Period of Resistance to Japan (1937), Maos Little Red Book (1964–1976)Spouse(s): Luo Yixiu, Yang Kaihui, He Zizhen, Jiang QingChildren: Mao Anying, Mao Anqing, Mao Anlong, Yang Yuehua, Li Min, Li NaNotable Quote: Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. Early Life On Dec. 26, 1893, a son was born to the Mao family, wealthy farmers in Shaoshan, Hunan Province, China. They named the boy Mao Zedong. The child studied Confucian classics at the village school for five years  but left at the age of 13 to help out full-time on the farm. Rebellious and probably spoiled, young Mao had been expelled from several schools and even ran away from home for several days. In 1907, Maos father arranged a marriage for his 14-year-old son. Mao refused to acknowledge his 20-year-old bride, even after she moved into the family home. Education and Introduction to Marxism Mao moved to Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, to continue his education. He spent six months in 1911 and 1912 as a soldier in the barracks at Changsha, during the revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty. Mao called for Sun Yatsen to be president and cut off his long braid of hair (queue), a sign of anti-Manchu revolt. Between 1913 and 1918, Mao studied at the Teachers Training School, where he began to embrace ever more revolutionary ideas. He was fascinated by the 1917 Russian Revolution, and by the 4th century BCE Chinese philosophy called Legalism. After graduation, Mao followed his professor Yang Changji to Beijing, where he took a job at the Beijing University library. His supervisor, Li Dazhao, was a co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party and greatly influenced Maos developing revolutionary ideas. Gathering Power In 1920 Mao married Yang Kaihui, the daughter of his professor, despite his earlier marriage. He read a translation of The Communist Manifesto that year  and became a committed Marxist. Six years later, the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, under Chiang Kai-shek massacred at least 5,000 communists in Shanghai. This was the start of Chinas Civil War. That fall, Mao led the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha against the Kuomintang (KMT). The KMT crushed Maos peasant army, killing 90% of them and forcing the survivors out into the countryside, where they rallied more peasants to their cause. In June  1928, the KMT took Beijing and was recognized as the official government of China by foreign powers. Mao and the Communists continued to set up peasant Soviets in the southern Hunan and Jiangxi Provinces, however. He was laying the foundations of Maoism. The Chinese Civil War A local warlord in Changsha captured Maos wife, Yang Kaihui, and one of their sons in October 1930. She refused to denounce communism, so the warlord had her beheaded in front of her 8-year-old son. Mao had married a third wife, He Zizhen, in May of that year. In 1931, Mao was elected chairman of the Soviet Republic of China, in Jiangxi Province. Mao ordered a reign of terror against landlords; perhaps more than 200,000 were tortured and killed. His Red Army, made up mostly of poorly armed but fanatical peasants, numbered 45,000. Under increasing KMT pressure, Mao was demoted from his leadership role. Chiang Kai-sheks troops surrounded the Red Army in the mountains of Jiangxi, forcing them to make a desperate escape in 1934. The Long March and Japanese Occupation About 85,000 Red Army troops and followers retreated from Jiangxi  and started walking the 6,000-kilometer arc to the northern province of Shaanxi. Beset by freezing weather, dangerous mountain paths, unbridged rivers, and attacks by warlords and the KMT, only 7,000 of the communists made it to Shaanxi in 1936. This Long March cemented Mao Zedongs position as leader of the Chinese communists. He was able to rally the troops despite their dire situation. In 1937, Japan invaded China. The Chinese Communists and the KMT halted their civil war to meet this new threat, which lasted through Japans 1945 defeat in World War II. Japan captured Beijing and the Chinese coast, but never occupied the interior. Both of Chinas armies fought on; the communists guerrilla tactics were particularly effective. Meanwhile, in 1938, Mao divorced He Zizhen and married the actress Jiang Qing, later known as Madame Mao. Civil War Resumes and the Founding of the PRC Even as he led the fight against the Japanese, Mao was planning to seize power from his erstwhile allies, the KMT. Mao codified his ideas in a number of pamphlets, including On Guerrilla Warfare and On Protracted War. In 1944, the United States sent the Dixie Mission to meet Mao and the communists; the Americans found the communists better organized and less corrupt than the KMT, which had been receiving western support. After World War II ended, the Chinese armies started to fight again in earnest. The turning point was the 1948 Siege of Changchun, in which the Red Army, now called the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), defeated the Kuomintangs army in Changchun, Jilin Province. By October 1, 1949, Mao felt confident enough to declare the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China. On December 10, the PLA besieged the final KMT stronghold at Chengdu, Sichuan. On that day, Chiang Kai-shek and other KMT officials fled the mainland for Taiwan. Five Year Plan and the Great Leap Forward From his new home next to the Forbidden City, Mao directed radical reforms in China. Landlords were executed, perhaps as many as 2-5 million across the country, and their land was redistributed to poor peasants. Maos Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries claimed at least 800,000 additional lives, mostly former KMT members, intellectuals, and businessmen. In the Three-Anti/Five-Anti Campaigns of 1951-52, Mao directed the targeting of wealthy people and suspected capitalists, who were subjected to public struggle sessions. Many who survived the initial beatings and humiliation later committed suicide. Between 1953 and 1958, Mao launched the First Five-Year Plan, intending to make China an industrial power. Buoyed by his initial success, Chairman Mao launched the Second Five-Year Plan, called the Great Leap Forward, in January 1958. He urged farmers to smelt iron in their yards, rather than tending the crops. The results were disastrous; an estimated 30-40 million Chinese starved in the Great Famine of 1958-60. Foreign Policies Shortly after Mao took power in China, he sent the Peoples Volunteer Army into the Korean War to fight alongside the North Koreans against the South Koreans and United Nations forces. The PVA saved Kim Il-Sungs army from being overrun, resulting in a stalemate that continues to this day. In 1951, Mao also sent the PLA into Tibet to liberate it from the Dalai Lamas rule. By 1959, Chinas relationship with the Soviet Union had deteriorated markedly. The two communist powers disagreed on the wisdom of the Great Leap Forward, Chinas nuclear ambitions, and the brewing Sino-Indian War (1962). By 1962, China and the USSR had cut off relations with one another in the Sino-Soviet Split. Fall From Grace In January 1962, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held a Conference of the Seven Thousand in Beijing. Conference chair Liu Shaoqi harshly criticized the Great Leap Forward, and by implication, Mao Zedong. Mao was pushed aside within the internal power structure of the CCP; moderate pragmatists Liu and Deng Xiaoping freed the peasants from communes and imported wheat from Australia and Canada to feed the famine survivors. For several years, Mao served only as a figurehead in the Chinese government. He spent that time plotting a return to power and revenge on Liu and Deng. Mao would use the specter of capitalist tendencies among the powerful, as well as the might and credulity of young people, to take power once again. The Cultural Revolution In August 1966, the 73-year-old Mao made a speech at the Plenum of the Communist Central Committee. He called for the youth of the country to take back the revolution from the rightists. These young Red Guards would do the dirty work in Maos Cultural Revolution, destroying the Four Olds- old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. Even a tea-room owner like President Hu Jintaos father could be targeted as a capitalist. While the nations students were busily destroying ancient artwork and texts, burning temples and beating intellectuals to death, Mao managed to purge both Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping from the partys leadership. Liu died under horrific circumstances in prison; Deng was exiled to work in a rural tractor factory, and his son was thrown from a fourth-story window and paralyzed by Red Guards. In 1969, Mao declared the Cultural Revolution complete, although it continued through his death in 1976. Later phases were directed by Jiang Qing (Madame Mao) and her cronies, known as the Gang of Four. Failing Health and Death Throughout the 1970s, Maos health steadily deteriorated. He may have been suffering from Parkinsons disease or ALS (Lou Gehrigs disease), in addition to heart and lung trouble brought on by a lifetime of smoking. By July 1976 when the country was in crisis due to the Great Tangshan Earthquake, the 82-year-old Mao was confined to a hospital bed in Beijing. He suffered two major heart attacks early in September, and died September 9, 1976, after being removed from life support. Legacy After Maos death, the moderate pragmatist branch of the Chinese Communist Party took power and ousted the leftist revolutionaries. Deng Xiaoping, now thoroughly rehabilitated, led the country toward an economic policy of capitalist-style growth and export wealth. Madame Mao and the other Gang of Four members were arrested and tried, essentially for all of the crimes associated with the Cultural Revolution. Maos legacy today is a complicated one. He is known as the Founding Father of Modern China, and serves to inspire 21st-century rebellions like the Nepali and Indian Maoist movements. On the other hand, his leadership caused more deaths among his own people than that of Joseph Stalin or Adolph Hitler. Within the Chinese Communist Party under Deng, Mao was declared to be 70% correct in his policies. However, Deng also said that the Great Famine was 30% natural disaster, 70% human error. Nonetheless, Mao Thought continues to guide policies to this day. Sources Clements, Jonathan. Mao Zedong: Life and Times, London: Haus Publishing, 2006.Short, Philip. Mao: A Life, New York: Macmillan, 2001.Terrill, Ross. Mao: A Biography, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.