Deadline Reminder - Mysteries of Juniper Tree

"It wasn't just the plants, 

the whole forest of animals were in an uproar 

and Jane's house was in the middle of it all."

Just a friendly reminder that your Mysteries of Juniper Tree submission deadline is TOMORROW!!!


The horror.

Quite. SO! You have until midnight tomorrow night to send them in.

junipertreelit@gmail.com

Banneret - Artemis Grey

  The darkness had always been empty before, but that night Umbra sensed something within it. After so many nights lost and alone she was no longer afraid of what sort of creature might find her.

     He came with the moonlight, turning in an unearthly dance, his nimble movements effortless and unhindered by the platinum scales of his armor. Frost trailed from the strange knight’s fingertips, leaving faint edges of crystal on the leaves. His features flickered from faerie allure to skeletal bones and back again. In his wake the entire forest seemed to unfurl.

     He almost trod over Umbra’s small form and was astounded to find her gazing up at him in awe.

     “Who are you?” She asked.

     Soundlessly he glided in a circle around her where she crouched. His silver eyes glinted, first curious then threatening.

     In the moonlight his feral visage was argent planes and salient edges - within the shadows, hollows caved into his cheeks and his flesh faded to show the bones inside.

     “What an extraordinary girl to see me and have no fear.”

     He reached out and stroked her tangled hair with a hand that changed from ivory-skinned to spindly bones in the undulating moonlight. Around his legs, fog twined into hunting hounds that snarled at her before prowling away with silent steps. Delicate spiders crept along his arm dropping from silk threads to peer into Umbra’s face.

     “No one has ever called me that.” She stared into his cold eyes and saw how they softened for her.

     “If you think I’m extraordinary then take me with you.” She said, stubbornly, “I’m lost but I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back.”

     “Once you’ve danced with me, you can never rejoin the sun.”      “All the sun ever did was burn my nose.” She made the spiders swing with her breath.

     His laughter cracked like ice making Umbra smile without meaning to.

     “I’m not a gallant banneret come to rescue you.” He warned.

     “I don’t need to be rescued.” She stood up and lifted her chin to look right into his ghostly face.

     He swept her into his arms, twirling back into the dance. Instantly she could feel the song all around them, dreamlike and lulling. The silver spiders gamboled across her shoulders, leaving gossamer strands until she was draped in a glittering gown. Around and around they whirled and dipped, across the grass, over old deadfalls and up the vale.

     “What foolish mortals who do not how marvelous you are.” His words left small blooms of frost along the back of her neck. “I promise I will never try to change you.”

     Umbra’s breath caught in her throat. No one had ever thought she was special.

     “I will take you as you are too.” She returned.

     His smile was first charming then gruesomely skinless.

     In the towering crown of a tree their dance slowed so that they could watch the coming dawn. As the light grew Umbra twisted to hide behind him, suddenly afraid. His body grew sheer, the morning rays of the sun streaking through its fading form. Umbra’s body grew thin too so that branches showed through it. He turned and gathered her close again.

     “Do not worry, my extraordinary darling.” He reassured, his powerful-then-skeletal arms fast around her. “Night is always waiting for us somewhere.”

- Artemis Grey 

What Do You Have In Your Pocketses Winner!

Thank you to everyone who put so much effort into submitting to our weekly challenges. We are so please that you find inspiration to keep writing and drawing and painting.

For this week's winner we have an artist again! And a writer! Thank you to Jonathan Arras for submitting his wonderful piece for the Pocketses challenge. It's colourful, fun and just left of crazy. We love it!

And congratulations to Priscilla Jolly with her piece Waiting that will be in the July issue. Below is a snippet for your grabby eyes:

"When dinner was over, Billy nudged Danny and they headed for the corridor. They spoke in whispers.

'Billy, do you really think that if we do this right, like it said in the book, that the three women will come?'”

Do YOU have an idea of a weekly challenge? Is there something that inspires you that you want to get your grabby hands on? Or maybe there's a theme that you're particularly smitten with.

T-t-t-TOES!

Send us your ideas to junipertreelit@gmail.com and we might just choose your challenge idea if it is terribly clever.

A Persistent Haunting - Grier Jewell

Penny Bishop knew her home was haunted. It had all the usual signs: creaking footsteps in the night, doors that opened of their own accord, and odd odors coming from the kitchen when no one was cooking.

There were other strange occurrences, too—ones that kept her up at night—such as the shadowy figure holding a cross over her bed and murmuring so loudly it made her scream.

Her parents took it all in stride, however.

“Pay them no mind,” Papa said. “You don’t trouble them and they won’t trouble you.”

But Penny was quite certain that the ghosts haunting her home were already troubled. They were becoming more and more brazen all the time, coming and going at all hours, and never minding to put things back where they belonged.

“They want us out,” she told her parents, showing them the red X on her bedroom door that had appeared out of nowhere. “One of them told me it was time to leave. I heard him with my own ears.”

“Hush now,” Mama said. “Enough with that talk.”

Mama never had liked it when Penny pointed out evidence of the ghosts, especially when the ones they’d gotten used to moved on and new ones showed up, always stranger and bolder than the ones they replaced.

Penny had had enough of the otherworldly intruders, especially when she found one lying in the four-poster bed that Papa made special just for her.

“Nooo!” Penny cried and stomped her foot. She was tired of pretending that the ghosts weren’t trying to take over the house—her house—the only home she’d ever known.

The odd thing was, the ghost in her bed was yelling too. It was yelling something about everyone being right that the Bishop place was haunted.

Penny shook the bedpost and refused to stop until the boy ran screaming into the night. No way was she going to be scared out of her own home.

She’d never leave.

Not even if they pulled that old rope off her neck and buried her all over again.

Story by Grier Jewell | Illustrations by Rebekah Joy Plett 

Frederick The Ornery Croc - Milly Van Aldenstein

Mysteries of Juniper Tree

Tex and I have a long list of People We'd Like To Meet And Eat The Toes Of. Chris Van Allsburg is one of them.

Chris Van Allsburg is the incredible creator of such works including (but not limited to) The Polar Express, The Z was Zapped and one of our personal favorites–

Oh, my mouth waters, oh delicate morsels–

Mysteries of Harris Burdick.

This week's challenge honors the incredible and edible work of Mr. Chris Van So-Good-It-Stings Allsburg. But there is a twist.

Writers – Below is an image from Chris Van Allsburg's children's book Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Write us one sentence of a story giving the reader only a taste of what has happened/is going to happen in this image. Remember, you want to leave the reader wondering what will happen so don't give too much away! Only intrigue.

Artists - Below is a one-sentence-story from Allsburg's Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Doodle up an image (or a series of images) that describe what you see as happening in these words:

He swung his lantern three times and slowly the schooner appeared.

Deadline for submissions: Tuesday, June 14 2011. The winners will be announced on Friday, June 18, 2011.

With your submission please put in the subject line "Mysteries of Juniper Tree Challenge Submission".

You can submit your work as a word document or directly in the email to junipertreelit@gmail.com and please forgive us in advance if we don't write back to you immediately. Tex is fairly anal about reading and viewing everything we get. With your submission please tell us a little bit about yourself.

For the rest of the guidelines and what should not be submitted, go to our Submit Work page.

Deadline Reminder - What Do You Have In Your Pocketses

Just a friendly reminder that your Pocketses submission deadline is TOMORROW!!!

The horror.

Quite. SO! You have until midnight tomorrow night to send them in.

junipertreelit@gmail.com

Sunday Poetry

The Coat Pocket


I reached my hand down through the slit in my coat

And in my deep pocket I pulled out a goat.

Putting it down, it grew wider and long–

It's horns curled 'round, so massive and strong.

I put my hand back in that strange coat pocket

Then hauled out a shiny, bright metal rocket.

Certainly, then my face must've turned blue

For my small red rocket, it also grew.

Eagerly, I thrust my hand in once more

To see what was next, a tree? A Barn door?

I opened the pocket, my eyes close to squint;

But all that was left was some matted old lint.

by E. Eldgerberry

Enter your What Do You Have In Your Pocketses piece to junipertreelit@gmail.com. Deadline is Tuesday, June 7th!

Music Challenge Winner!

This week's winning piece is not a potpourri of prose but a promising and picturesque painting. Congratulations to Elizabeth Rose Stanton and her incredible piece of artwork.

Keep the weekly challenge submissions flowing, my feathery friends. You still have a few days to enter your work for the What Do You Have In Your Pocketses challenge !

Monthly Contest - Time Travel

Here at UTJT, we not only sneak into dark forests and pretend to be ghosts, we also slip through space in our marvelously metal time machine into previous decades!

Centuries!

Milleniums!

Universi!

This month's contest is all about time travel. Perhaps your characters glide through time with a jet pack not unlike this image to the left here. Or maybe they use a giant, glossy bauble? Or maybe they don't need a time machine at all, instead flying through time by entering a cave guarded by savage crocodile beasts with scales so sharp they cut through bone with the slightest bit of pressure. 

Guidelines

Stories and drawings/paintings/doodles must be about time travel. However you think time travel should be done, let us know in 2000 words or fewer (or in ONE image, artists). It must also fit into our guidelines in our Submissions Page. Submissions that do not fit the requirements will not be considered so read carefully! If you aren't sure as to what we accept, thumb through our June Issue and July Issue or scan our site and see what we're all about.

Only the most curious and imaginative pieces will be chosen. Only the winning images and stories will be featured in the August issue of the Underneath The Juniper Tree. If your piece doesn't win but we're terribly keen on it (and Tex is in a good mood), we'll feature it on the site. The winning images will also be featured in Featured Artists on the side bar.

When emailing us, please put in the subject line "Time Travel Contest Submission". 

With your submission, please send us a short bio (50 - 75 words) about yourself written in third person, your name (or alias) and your website if you have one.

Email your story or artistic piece to junipertreelit@gmail.com

Submission Deadline: July 25, 2011.

Winner will be announced in the August 2011 monthly online issue.

We look forward to reading all your submissions and potentially eating a few. Good luck to everyone.

Bianca Swigger By Catherine Bailey

New Month - New Contest: Robots Need Love Too

Hello all you incredible folks. I hope you've been relishing in the wonderfully whimsical and deviously dark work that our contributors have bestowed upon us.

Tremendously...how you say...TERribly terrific. I printed off extra copies for dessert and I'm afraid I am a bit TOO full.

While Tex nurses his literature hangover, I will tell you about this month's contest: Robots Need Love Too.

Remember Tik-Tok from Wizard of Oz? Or that strange She-bot from Metropolis? And who can forget C3PO and R2D2? This month in honor of our beloved robot species, we want you to write or draw us a short story about robots.

Guidelines

Stories must be about robots. It must also fit into our guidelines in our Submissions Page. Submissions that do not fit the requirements will not be considered so read carefully! If you aren't sure as to what we accept, thumb through our June Issue or scan our site and see what we're all about.

Only the most curious and imaginative pieces will be chosen. Winning images and stories will be featured in the July issue of the Underneath The Juniper Tree. The winning images will also be featured in Featured Artists on the side bar.

When emailing us, please put in the subject line "Robots Need Love Too Contest Submission". 

With your submission, please send us a little blurb about yourself, your name (or alias) and your website.

Email your story or artistic piece to junipertreelit@gmail.com

Submission Deadline: June 25, 2011.

Winner will be announced in the July 1, 2011 monthly online issue.

We look forward to reading all your submissions and potentially eating a few.

Underneath The Juniper Tree Presents: The June Issue

You've all been waiting for it and now it's here.

Basket full of toes, let it be a basket full of toes.

That is in the mail, Tex. As for the rest of you, our very first issue is here.

You can download it for free by clicking HERE .




Thank you to all the incredible artists and writers who submitted their work. And a huuuuuge thank you to our Murder of Editors who pick and paw at all the work making it even more brilliant. Good show!

If you'd like to be in our future issues, please check out Guidelines Page to see what we're accepting. You can also keep up to date by entering your email in the little rectangle-box on the right side bar. Keep current on our weekly challenges and monthly contests plus much, muuuuch more.

Fingers, eyelids, delectable bellybuttons?

Yes, all those things. And even more. More than you can imagine.

Now without further ado, welcome to the Wonderfully Bewildering World of Underneath The Juniper Tree and DO stay awhile.

June Issue - Comes Out Tomorrow!

A reminder to all you ghoulish gals and fiendish fellas, the first issue of Underneath The Juniper Tree can be downloaded right here tomorrow. Don't miss out!

The June issue will include pieces not yet released and artwork that will tantalize the eyes.

Do you want to be in our next issue? Stay tuned at Underneath The Juniper Tree to find out the latest contests and challenges. Or you can send us general submissions. Please read our Guidelines Page before you submit.

What Do You Have In Your Pocketses Challenge

Sticks, stones, chewed gum, an old boot–

Watch hands, doll feet, poison ivy.


Our challenge to you this week is to write a story about what is in your character's pockets. Your character can be anything as long as it has pockets in which to have things. You can tell us why it has those things in it's pockets, or how those things got there. OR! How your character defeated the Bashful Bear of the dark forest with it's pocket contents.

Deadline for submissions: Tuesday, June 7th. The winners will be announced on Friday, June 11.

With your submission please put in the subject line "Pockets Challenge". For the name of your document please put your story/artwork name, underscore and your name. Ex: ToesForEating_MarjorieMerle.doc

You can submit your work as a Word document or stick it directly in the email to junipertreelit@gmail.com and please forgive us in advance if we don't write back to you immediately. Tex is fairly anal about reading and viewing everything we get. With your submission please tell us a little bit about yourself.

For the rest of the guidelines and what should not be submitted, go to our Submit Work page.

Deadline Reminder - Music Challenge

Just a friendly reminder that your Music Challenge submission deadline is TOMORROW!!!

The horror.

Quite. SO! You have until midnight tomorrow night to send them in.

junipertreelit@gmail.com

The Edward Gorey Challenge WINNER!

Please step forward, dearest Jenn Chushcoff, for I promise not to nibble on your toes. I would just like to sniff around your mind for a bit, for there is something truly lovely and dark within that skull.

Your devilishly debauched tale The Initial Murder: The ABCDeath Series is our winner for the Edward Gorey Challenge! Congratulations!

Thank you to everyone for your delicious stories and pictures. I loved them all so much, Marjorie made a few copies for me to gorge on.

Please, do join me as I read an excerpt from Miss Chushcoff's short story:


Edgar spotted his uncle’s top hat bobbing over a distant hedge and he skipped down the marble steps in pursuit. Fog slithered between topiaries shaped into fighting mythological beasts and stone sculptures twisted into awkward poses. It was as if Edgar had stumbled into an eerie game of Touch Freeze. Thankfully, the bodies were draped with swags of moss in all the right places. 

Sunday Poetry

Would you like to see your limerick or poem up on Sunday Poetry? Email it to us at junipertreelit@gmail.com and put "Sunday Poetry" in the subject line.

Tea With Emily

Play It Again, Tex | Music Challenge

This week we have something special for you.

Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor, perhaps?

Close – but no. What do you listen to while you work? What gears you up to take on the world?

This week we want music to be your muse, to flow through your veins and slip out your fingers in letters or pictures.

We want you to create a masterpiece.

Below is a score from Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands composed by Danny Elfman. Listen and feel the music. Shut your eyes and let the clouds behind your lids frolic and form images. Be involved in the violins and the haunting voices. Show us where this music takes you.

In under 500 words evoke this emotion in your readers. Play the story your mind creates. Paint us a picture. 

Artists, please submit one image only. Go to our Submit Work page under "Dimensions" for how to submit your work to us.

Deadline for submissions: Tuesday, May 31th. The winners will be announced on Friday, June 4th.

With your submission please put in the subject line "Music Challenge".

You can submit your work as a Word document or directly in the email to junipertreelit@gmail.com and please forgive us in advance if we don't write back to you immediately. Tex is fairly anal about reading and viewing everything we get. With your submission please tell us a little bit about yourself.

For the rest of the guidelines and what should not be submitted, go to our Submit Work page.