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Saturday, November 21, 2009

Magazine Idea for Oprah




I spent my entire afternoon today trying to e-mail the O Magazine with an idea, but it's been virtually impossible...duh? After hearing on the news that Ms. Winfrey would be retiring in a year, I decided to send the editors an article suggestion...while also giving them a large hint about the peace postcards Oprah's PO Box has been hosting.

Undaunted, I cut more from the blurb below and sent it off...not quite complete, but if anyone on the editorial staff wants to know more, the unedited English teacher format is here to fill in the gaps. The comment box allowed 2000 characters, and I kept whittling away...not too successfully, but I got better at taking out redundancies. Because Oprah is retiring, timing has become even more crucial to reaching the one million goal. I have decided to get busy encouraging twittering tweets, essays such as the soon-to-be posted essay by Pete K. on "respect," and other methods for creating those 1,000,000 visions of peace messages. Check out the youtube video "Visions of Peace" by David M.; this is in lieu of his postcard, for example. Pete and David had more to say/to dream/to ponder. They are two of the 1,000,000. No time to waste.

I find that I am a dismal(but happy) failure at small messages. Twittering is limited to 140 characters, right? (I found myself singing "Old MacDonald" this morning. "With a tweet, tweet here, and a postcard there. Here a tweet, there a tweet...everywhere...")

For those interested...here's what I wrote in the magazine's comment box that was not completely printed:

Title: "Women Advise Oprah for a Change."

Idea: Gather diverse "third chapter" stories and advice from transitioning women about adjustments, directions and dreams. Include my story ending with a teacher's promise and well wishes for Oprah: "Make a one-year promise to your fans about something you will do. What is your vision of peace? Be patient and listen as you await your transformation to a new chapter. Sleep in too."

Outline Story of a Teacher's Promise: Sixth grade students researched 23(now 24) U.S. Nobel Peace Prize winners last year. Heroes' lives inspired unique dreams of making the world a better place. These word-pictures were mailed as illustrated vision-of-peace postcards to O's PO Box. Kids set a goal to inspire 1,000,000 others to write cards. They actively taught all ages to write ways to make a peaceful difference; the acceptance of diversity was paramount. Over 1,000 anonymous cards were mailed but school ended. I promised to continue promoting their goal. I promised to spend one year taking a peace quilt "around the world" sharing their words of hope that will inspire more cards to be made and sent. But then came last night's news: "Oprah's show is ending in a year." The time has come for readers and viewers to twitter, tweet, e-mail, and write postcards of peace...to innundate the Oprah airways and P.O. Box. As someone I overheard in Albertsons say this week, "Peace is in the small details." Listen to the children.
See blog :"A Zillion Visions of Peace."

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