Murnau Moor

I am delighted and  honored! My micro-poem They send light to Earth was chosen to be the first piece to be published by new e-zine @textofiction.

Brand new, “Textofiction is an online literary publication dedicated to bringing the best writing in under 140 characters.”

Read my micro-poem and think, it packs a lot in. Better still, let me know your thoughts about it! Read it here

Date of publication: 29 August 2010

Frisian Lands

I brought back from my holiday this picture of the Frisian landscape  ( I’ve never seen so much sky! ) and a freshly-penned poem. Read it in escarp, “a text-message-based review of super-brief literature.”

My short, fast and deadly “The Collector” was published 13th of June 2010, in the Haiku-themed issue 27 of Short, Fast, and Deadly Online Journal. The line “For the love of God, no Haiku,”  made it to the front page (cover).

I went for a walk to the Dragonfly Sanctuary in the Lee Valley Park,  near Waltham Abbey, in the outskirts of London. Peaceful and dreamy, idyllic… though a different note entered my mind when I read the information provided about dragonflies: the lower lip technique of the dragonfly nymphs catching their prey, the cannibalism as a way of regulating population…
Reflecting on my experience, I wrote this poem which can be read both as a perfect idyll, with the dragonflies resting within a sssssh soundscape of silence; and as the calm before the next rush of the dragonfly for its prey.

The poem was published in escarp,  a text-message-based review of super-brief literature (www.escarp.org).

My Twitter-sized poem Sketch published in Escarp, sketches an idyllic picture of an old city. It also hints at  links between old cities, cobbled streets and Silence: http://www.escarp.org/

In April this year (2010) I committed to the Creative Climate diary project, a media and research project about climate and the environment run jointly by the OU and the BBC. As a global web log, it will chart online, through twice yearly diary updates, people’s ideas, concerns and experiences about the changing climate and its impact on the environment. Here is my first entry: http://bit.ly/9xd95H

I wrote this Twitter-sized poem on environmental awareness, the mania of cataloging, and our need, as well as the  impossibility, to recreate and return to Eden. Have a look: click here

Still Life, in Poets Online, Archive, Found Poems, February 2010

Novel Alexandrias 40: In the Shade of the Lemon Tree

to be published in 2010 by Vox Humana Books http://www.voxhumana-books.com

“In these tales of love, loss, and survival, Pierides embroiders a tableau detailing the lives of a refugee family in Athens, circa 1957. The novel is set in the house of the family on Alexandrias Street, where they came to settle years after their flight from Smyrni, now Izmir, Turkey. Framed by this house — a concoction of tin, cement, wood and mud, a paradise, a refuge and a prison to those who nestle in it — they struggle to come to terms with their predicament, attempting to establish themselves in Greece. Without idealising its characters, the novel unfolds — a tragicomic story, full of ethnic colour, warm sensuality and psychological insight. The book encompasses the “Catastrophe” of Asia Minor, the Greek Civil War, accusations and blackmail, adoption and betrayal, as well as the refugees’ love and bitterness towards their country. The characters’ traumatic past and struggle for survival, in a country that is both home and hostile to them, requires their ability to tap into psychological resources of generosity, masochism, denial and ruthlessness — and above all — humour and forgiveness. In a quick-paced narrative straddling both the genres of novel and short story, Stella Pierides recreates a world within a world, miles apart from the well-trodden tourist trail to Greece.”

“…Vox Humana Books…eclectic literature with a human voice”

Soul Song, in Poetry Monthly International, issue 15, January 2010 (p. 18). [Poem] http://www.poetrymonthly.com/15 PMI January 2010.pdf

The Refugee, Winter Picture, and Mystery Train, to appear in  Vox Humana Literary, Spring Issue, 2010. [3 Poems] http://www.voxhumana-lit.com

Girl, in the print Journal  Off the Coast, International/Translation Issue, Spring 2009. [Poem]

Song of the Aegean, in Poetry Monthly, issue 150, 2008. [Poem]

Article on the Munich literary scene Munich, in the summer 2007, issue 2 of the Berlin-based Literary Magazine Bordercrossing Berlin.

Short story It Could Have Been Love translated into Chinese by writer Yu Liwen http://www.yuliwen.com/463/

Stella’s very short story The Miracle was commended in the Micro-fiction competition, Leaf Books. It is included in the Leaf Books anthology of micro-fiction, Derek.  http://leafbooks.co.uk/New/Leaf%20Authors/Pierides,Stella.html

Stella’s poems Seferis’ Houses, What Was Left of Her and The Beach at Blakeney Point are included in Gathering Diamonds from the Well, the fourth ‘Word for Word‘ Anthology.

Stella’s poem Lake Ammersee appeared in the 2007 Anthology Sights to Behold. London: Forward Press

Stella’s poem If Trees, Then Olive Trees was awarded second prize in the Poetry Contest of the Canada based E-Zine Big Pond Rumours .

Stella’s poem History is on His Side included in Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems Inspired by Ken Saro-Wiwa. Edited by: Nii Ayikwei Parkes & Kadija George. Published by Flipped Eye Publishing, African Writers Abroad and SableLitMag, the Anthology commemorates the tenth anniversary of the writer’s execution and celebrates his life. More information about Ken Saro Wiwa and his work on http://www.remembersarowiwa.com/poetry.htm

Stella’s contribution to Triplopia’s theme on Noise appears in the current edition of Trip Picks, “The Saddest Noise, The Sweetest Noise” edited by Tania Van Schalkywk. Stella’s choice of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami to illustrate Noise, and Silence, can be read at: http://www.triplopia.org/inside.cfm/ct/460

Stella’s short story “Her Brother’s Keeper” appears in the Spring issue of The Muse Apprentice Magazine. Read it: http://www.muse-apprentice-guild.com/spring_2005/fiction/stella_pierides.html

Read Stella’s review of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle in The Muse Reviews Section.

Stella’s short story “The Accident” appears in the print issue 4 of “The Quiet Feather” out now.