{"id":4542,"date":"2024-04-09T14:59:30","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T14:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/?p=4542"},"modified":"2024-05-13T20:35:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T20:35:24","slug":"tiny-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/from-the-publisher\/tiny-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny stories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>One of my favorite parts of the <em>New York Times<\/em> is Metropolitan Diary, a weekly collection of small stories that emerge from the neighborhoods of New York City. They tell of chance encounters in taxicabs and subways, on sidewalks and park benches. The subjects are dogs and music and pizza. They\u2019re about apartments and cafes and soccer balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The stories are \u201canecdotes and memories, quirky encounters and overheard snippets that reveal the city\u2019s spirit and heart.\u201d These \u201cdiary\u201d entries make you want to move to New York City (where I did live a long time ago). The heartwarming encounters are a world away from the typical news reports of politics, social issues, and other topics that are important but don\u2019t make you smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What about the Brethren neighborhood where you dwell? <em>Messenger<\/em> is interested in your tiny stories\u2014stories that reveal the spirit and heart of the Church of the Brethren. Maybe your story takes place in a church building, but it could also be at home or on the road, at a church conference or in a coffee shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is a tiny story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, it\u2019s tiny. The <em>New York Times<\/em> limits their submissions to 300 words, but we are limiting yours to 100. (Actually, many of the Metropolitan Diary entries are closer to 100; it\u2019s definitely possible to be that brief.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Second, it\u2019s a story. A story has a beginning, middle, and end. It\u2019s not an opinion or a description or a little essay. It\u2019s a narrative, an account of something that happened. So what we\u2019re inviting is a miniature story that conveys one thing that you like about the Church of the Brethren. You don\u2019t necessarily have to say what that thing is; it will be evident in your story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Send your submission to <a href=\"mailto:messenger@brethren.org\">messenger@brethren.org<\/a> and include your name, congregation, and town. If you must send it by postal service, include an email address if possible, or at least a phone number. We will contact you if we use your story. If each of our readers sends one tiny story, we will have enough to tuck them into the pages of <em>Messenger<\/em> for many years to come. We can\u2019t wait to see what your stories reveal about the spirit and heart of the Church of the Brethren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Messenger is interested in your tiny stories\u2014stories that reveal the spirit and heart of the Church of the Brethren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[49,568,38],"class_list":["post-4542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-publisher","tag-from-the-publisher","tag-tiny-stories","tag-wendy-mcfadden"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4597,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4542\/revisions\/4597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}