Archive for the ‘Artists of Interest & Guest Posts’ Category

I want to thank Will Meecham for writing his story for my TellTale Souls collection. Will Meecham’s story needs no introduction. It is complete:

Perhaps it was the last time I saw her.

We lived in a remodeled house on Woodcrest, with freshly painted clapboard siding, and a lawn that always looked like it needed mowing. Since our life there lasted less than a year, I surprise myself by remembering the name of the street. Lined by lookalike houses placed as regularly as railroad cars, Woodcrest had nothing to distinguish it from countless other suburban streets around Detroit. My mother’s father had built a handful of those postwar subdivisions, so with a bit of effort he had his construction company redesign our little gray tract house.  As a result, it differed from all the others, with two extra bedrooms and a garage converted into a playroom. But if you looked at the house from the street, it still appeared identical to the rest.  God forbid we look different from the neighbors. My mother had enough trouble as the only divorcee on the block. This was 1964, and broken families still scandalized the neighborhood.

I had just climbed the stairs to find my mom opening my dresser drawers, and placing neatly folded clothing into a slightly tattered brown and tan suitcase. As my mother added in some rolled up socks and my favorite toy fighter jet, I knew she was preparing me for yet another sleepover with my grandparents. I stopped and stared at her, and began the process of boiling into a tantrum. She didn’t look surprised when I started trembling with fury; everyone was used to my quick temper. I shrieked, whined, and stamped my feet. “I don’t want to go! Don’t make me go! I want to stay with you!” Perhaps because she wore an unfamiliar facial expression, as if resigned to eternal grief, I felt more fear of being apart from her than ever before. She grasped my arms and hugged me firmly against her breasts. Her eyes might have been wet with tears.

They say she received over thirty treatments with electroshocks in the course of her many hospitalizations. Sometimes when she left my mother seemed far away, shoulders and head huddled forward, arms wrapped around her torso. Her demeanor this time felt different. Her arms, at once both firm and tender, warmed me through to my boyish frame, and I could feel the rise and fall of her chest as she pulled me close. She was the most beautiful woman I knew, and I gradually melted into her embrace. A six-year-old boy adores his mother with a soul-saturating passion that he tries to rediscover for the rest of his life.

“You don’t want Grandma and Grandpa to think you don’t love them, do you?” I remember her exact words, and I can almost hear her voice, soothing me like a mourning dove’s song. She sounded tender and sorrowful, radiant with affection; but also as if she were leaning out a train’s window, the details of her face fading as a coal-colored and implacable engine tugged her away from me, gathering speed.

 I calmed. Her touch and her words had that effect on me. Beyond the innate responses of motherhood, she believed love should be profuse and resilient, no matter how furious, disappointed or despairing someone felt. I had been taught to return to love quickly, and I knew my grandparents deserved my affection. My attitude became pliant, and I let her finish packing flannel pajamas and wool socks, while I sat on the bed and watched. My cheeks were damp, my eyes puffy from quiet sobs.

It might have been the last time I saw her.

“You’re lying! It’s not true! Shut UP!” This tantrum went on and on. We were gathered in the tiny living room of my father’s mother, which always seemed crowded to me.  The carpeted floor was nearly obliterated by overstuffed furniture upholstered with exuberant floral prints, but faded into a dusty and pinkish pastel. Not long before, while scrambling fast across the carpet on my hands and knees, I had impaled my index finger with one of my grandmother’s sewing needles. My father had required pliers to pull it out because, as he told me, it had penetrated all the way to the bone.  For some reason, I had barely cried.

Now, however, I did not hold back my tears. I felt a rage explode inside me that was unlike any prior outburst. I shook so severely I could barely stand.  Tears burned down my cheeks like drops of hot oil. My entire mind, body, and heart screamed for my mother’s embrace, but it did not come.

The adults let me cry. They were too shattered themselves to provide comfort. I retreated into a corner and sat down, hugging my knees and regressing to sucking my thumb. When my father phoned from Minnesota I could barely whisper to him. “Have Grandma make you some warm milk,” he said. Leave it to my dad to suggest drinking a liquid to drown my grief.

She loved my father too much. After the divorce her faith in the redemptive power of affection and kindness must have been tested. She never gave up on it, despite the feelings of betrayal and jealousy that consumed her. When he married his mistress her wounded psyche crumbled like dry clay.  “God, just let me die!” When I heard her pleading, I would enter her room to visit her as she lay sobbing in her single bed, the air layered with a stale cloud of cigarette smoke. I would sit next to her, fascinated by the dust motes drifting in the thin shafts of sunlight squeezing between the pulled curtains. 

Despite her torment, and even after the nuclear battles that preceded the divorce, she never said an unkind word to me about my father.  She forgave him. She forgave him completely even though she was limping through life with a fractured heart, saddled with two needy children, facing piles of bills on the chrome and Formica kitchen table, and living in a house owned by her mother.

As much as anyone ever has, she was dying of a broken heart. But when I fell off my bicycle she still wiped my tears with an embroidered handkerchief, and left a trace of lipstick on my forehead. 

Part of me refused to believe that my mom would never come for me. I remained stranded in that living room where they told me she had died. I sat sobbing in the corner, waiting for my mother to gather me back into her arms. I wanted to feel safe again.

 I don’t know when I finally believed her death, or when I gave up and accepted she would never come back. It might not have been until I was ten. Or maybe a small part of me still clings to the prayer that she will return, smiling at last. Perhaps my heart keeps watch for her, expecting to see her unchanged, thirty-six and lovely, the face of a goddess leaning down to kiss my forehead as I lay on my pillow.  “Hush,” she would say, “it was only a dream.”

  Author Bio:

Severe neck problems forced Will Meecham to retire from his oculoplastic surgery practice at age forty-two. Career loss uncovered psychiatric vulnerabilities left over from a childhood blighted by major bereavement and severe child abuse. During a decade spent exploring psychotherapeutic and spiritual paths, Dr. Meecham regained stability with a combination of bodywork, mindfulness meditation, and profound acceptance. He now devotes himself to helping others follow similar paths to peace. He currently is training to encourage emotional wellness with the practice of acupuncture, a healing art ideally suited to the promotion of embodiment, meditation and acceptance. He is an occasional public speaker, and a frequent guest on mental health and creativity websites. His philosophy and suggestions can be found on his blog, WillSpirit.com.

Pushcart Prize winner, Harrison Solow’s powers of thought and prowess in writing are laudable to the degree that bringing her essay to you today is an honor and an adventure, both thrilling and expansive. The piece you are about to read was not digested immediately by me – only occasionally does the veil lift for me to glimpse Solow’s sensitivity toward liminality, but it is something that I am determined to catch hold of for myself, even bits of it, one illuminating rendition at a time. Now take your turns, as writers, to coax its significance into your worlds.

 Harrison’s latest book, Felicity & Barbara Pym, about writing, reading and what it means to be truly educated (http://felicityandbarbarapym.wordpress.com) has just been released in the UK with stellar reviews and is available to those outside the UK from The Book Depository (http://tinyurl.com/fbpbd ) which offers free international shipping.

 Liminality

In a letter to a friend, not long ago, I wrote this sentence: “I’d like to be in Wales – my Wales, where the leaves on the ground lift in response to a wind that isn’t there and uncover for a millisecond, small vibrant worlds.”

 Before I comment on this sentiment, which was neither deliberately constructed, nor designed, but sprang from my hand, fully formed before I got a chance to see it, I would like to very briefly discuss the concept of liminality, which is a very new area in literary studies – or rather a very old phenomenon that has recently captured the attention of those in literary studies and thus, been named an “area.”

 Gwyn Thomas of the University of Wales, Bangor wrote an article in A Place That is Not a Place: Essays in Liminality and Text, called “Your Margin is My Centre” in which he invokes Arthurian narratives, specifically Vita Merlini (The Life of Merlin by Geoffrey of Monmouth) to illustrate the idea, as I see it, that people live in different Matters within the same space/time continuum. The literary idea of ‘matter’ originated from a medieval conviction that certain romance writing could be divided into separate spheres which were both physical and thematic, not unlike the “parallel universes” of science fiction in which disparate beings and cultures co-exist and (and occasionally overlap) in the same place and at same time but in different dimensions. These dimensions are similar, in literary imagination, to Matters and although they seem more metaphysical than physical, are actually verifiable by theoretical physics.

 In the Prologue of my first book, Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation (manuscript edition) there is a passage that illustrates what I mean:

 ”There is a sense in which time is always present as space. Quantum physicists and astronomers describe the time/space differential as the result of space travel at (or near) light speed. And yet the point at which space becomes time (and the reverse) exists as a constant in everyday life as the verb “to be.” 

“Where are you?” carries within it the word, “now.”

 ”What time is it?” implies both “now” and “here, in this space.”

 Among the many unanswerable questions I have pondered over the years was one posed by my son when he was about six years old. When asked: “What time is it?” he replied, “What time is what?”

This is the very heart of the spiralled and unending quest of science fiction:  “What does it mean to be ? In this time, in this space, who are we?” Its struggle to answer those questions is a tale of time slippage and alternate space; a delicate and determined unravelling of current quantum theory – physics to metaphysics and back again.

  Quantum theory gives rise to the postulation that the universe consists of several linear, simultaneously active dimensions which coexist as interweaving patterns of timespace that are not relative to each other except at “weak points” where they meet. It indicates that several worlds may cohabit the same space at the same time, and remain unperceived because the “fabric” of one dimension is atomically dissimilar to the pattern of another. Only at random points of exceedingly low probability, could the non time non space between these dimensions ever be traversed. The quest of science fiction is to somehow leap over that chasm called “between” - to discover the random, the serendipitous, the luminous light shining through the tight woven cloth of our timespace reality; to break through, as it were, and leave our swaddling clothes behind. ”

This is also akin to the notion of “tzimtzum” in ancient Jewish mysticism, wherein it is thought that there was originally one Matter, but that it was fragmented into many. The notion is this: When God withdrew into Himself (tzimtzum – the great withdrawal) in order to leave space for the world to be created, a vacuum was illuminated by a thin veil of light. When God attempted to re-enter this space, the delicate process went awry (for God is too large to be contained solely by His own creation and the vacuum, since it exists, is a creation) – the light of God was shattered throughout all creation (a cosmic calamity known as Shevirat Keilim – the breaking of the vessels) and was trapped in fragments, by isolated shells (people, nature, etc.). It is the duty of human beings to release this light from their shells. When all the light is again gathered together by much care and tikkun olam (repairing the world through good deeds and the monitoring of one’s own soul) only then, it is thought, will the Messiah come. Of course this symbolism can easily be applied to Christianity, whereupon when the gathering of the light is fulfilled, the Second Coming will take place.”

 The allegory of these fragmentary “lights of God” in their cracked and faulty vessels corresponds to secular chronicles of what is – records of perceptions of reality, or realms of knowledge, or imaginative narratives that attempt a cohesive answer to the questions of who are we and why are we here.

 I am writing such a narrative in my forthcoming book, Bendithion, (an extension of the essay of the same name that was awarded a 2008 Pushcart Prize http://tinyurl.com/solow-bendithion) to create a network, a wholeness, a vessel out of some very mysterious Matter – both the one in which I lived in Wales, and the one I came from, each of them barely perceivable through the membranes and thresholds that both bound us to one another for that short time and divided us forever: A matrix of stories and tales, poems and legends about the thoughts and powers and deeds that illuminate a land and a people and the silence behind them. And therein lies liminality.

 Perhaps this is best explained by the answer I gave in another interview (http://tinyurl.com/solow-americymru), in which I explored my own perception of liminality as the “hinterland between fiction and nonfiction.”

 “[Jan Morris, the inimitable Welsh writer, describes Welsh literature as] ‘the indistinguishable blend of fact and fantasy.’ But that blend is not only emblematic of Welsh storytelling – it is at the heart of my writing.

 My literary life began as the Western World’s did – with oral stories and fables, and then moved on to tales of daily life and very quickly thereafter to Lives of the Saints and the rigours of the Baltimore Catechism, as I have said, at a very young age, all of which inculcated a deep affinity with imaginary heavens and hells and the rich portent with which earthly life was endowed: Biblical parables, medieval pedagogy, Arthurian quests, Bunyanesque allegory, Chaucerian pilgrimages and Apologias of all kinds. This literature comes naturally to me. Or rather, as it was clearly imposed on me, it was not a resisted imposition and comes naturally to me now. I’m not fond of overly academic approaches to it – “overly” meaning the triumph of theory over art. And all of these literatures are both fiction and non-fiction; depending on which side of belief you live. The Welsh, with their Mabinogion and highly allegorical literary history, have no problem with this apparent dichotomy.

 I’ve spent a lot of time in what can appear to others to be fictive worlds, “closed-to-the-public” worlds: convents, Hassidic communities, the very tightly guarded world(s) of Hollywood, NASA and JPL. Monasteries, astronauts associations, the clans and tribes from which my families came, lonely insular communities in the backwoods of Canada, girls’ schools, private clubs and green rooms, the hermetic enclosures of the famous. Even our house in Malibu was closed off from the world by ten foot high walls with locked gates, no windows on the side of the house that faced those gates (the opposite side of the house was all glass – 20 feet high and overlooking the Pacific Ocean) – and then, of course, Welsh-speaking Wales. All closed worlds. Nothing significant within these worlds can be adequately portrayed by an outsider. These are cultures to which you have to belong in order to understand, in order to verify the messages you think you are being given – and because the codes and secrets, values and rituals, attitudes and assessments of these enclosures are not available to the outsider, when outsiders write about them, they inevitably get them wrong. 

 To return to the sentence that opened this short commentary, “small vibrant worlds” are actually what I see.  In Wales, where I physically lived and metaphysically live, the gathering of light is a routine task for the oft hidden indigenous inhabitants. Wales is put together for others to see, but not to occupy, by the shedding of light on a hidden dimension of itself that is only briefly uncovered at times by what the outsider might call “wind” and the inhabitants of that particular Matter, might call the breath of God.

 Liminality, in this sense, is both stance (perspective) and perception (“seeing” as opposed to “looking at.”) It is the uncertain entryway through which the writer enters into such a world – either the one he is creating, or the one that he sees, that others do not.

 There is no possibility of studying these worlds from outside their own Matter, as a scholar does. Not for a writer. A writer must stand on thresholds that are not revealed until she has reached – or created – them, and enter worlds that he has never seen until he gets there. A writer must live liminally, in a chasm called “between” because he can’t do what he has to do if he is looking at it.

~~~

© Harrison Solow, July 2010

About the Author 

Pushcart Prize winning American writer and one of the two best selling UC Press authors of all time (at time of publication) Harrison Solow has received many awards for her literary fiction, nonfiction, cross-genre writing, poetry and professional writing. Her most recent award is First Prize for Short Fiction in the Carpe Articulum Literary Review International Competition for 2010.

Harrison has lectured at a number of universities, colleges, arts and cultural institutions in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. A former faculty member at UC Berkeley, she accepted a lectureship in the English Department of the University of Wales in 2004 and was appointed Writer in Residence in 2008.

 She is a strong proponent of the traditional Liberal Arts, the Fine Arts and the Utilitarian Arts as separate and equally respectable entities, an advocate for Wales and a patron of literary endeavours.

 Harrison speaks various varieties of English as well as intermediate Welsh and rusty French. She is a member of The Association of Literary Scholars, Critics and Writers, The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, The National Association of Scholars, The Women’s Faculty Club of the University of California, Berkeley, The Association of Welsh Writers in English, The Claremont Institute, The Association for Core Texts and Courses, The Red Room, The Association of Writing Programs, The Welsh Academy, and The National Coalition of Independent Scholars, where she served on the Board in 2009 and 2010.

 Harrison lives in the United States and Wales with her husband, Herbert F. Solow, the former Head of MGM, Paramount and Desilu Studios in Hollywood. She has two incomparable sons.

 You can find out more about Harrison at:

 http://redroom.com/author/harrison-solow

http://lamp.academia.edu/HarrisonSolow

http://tinyurl.com/amcyreview

http://tinyurl.com/harrisonsolowww

Review comment 7-2-10:

“Simply majesterial. As you know, this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. (And something I’ll hopefully write about in the near future, as soon as I have a house and a desk. Thrilled to know I’ll be able to allude to this brilliant essay.” ~  Elizabeth Eslami, author of Bone Worship.

Reply by Harrison: 

“Elizabeth, among of the happiest gifts in life, for me, is the exceptional bond that occurs between kindred spirits who are working in the same field with intellectual passion and creative limerance. Although we have only recently met, I have no doubt that this shared interest, among the others we have discussed, will lead to an invaluable association, a fruitful interchange and a lasting  friendship. I truly value your review of this essay. Thank you.”  ~Harrison

Masha Hamilton has been named this year’s recipient of the Women’s National Book Association WNBA Award, which is presented to “a living American woman who derives part or all of her income from books and allied arts, and who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation.”

Hamilton is a novelist and former foreign correspondent. Her fiction includes 31 Hours and The Camel Bookmobile. As a journalist, Masha worked for the Associated Press, reporting from the Middle East, and for the Los Angeles Times and NBC/Mutual Radio, reporting on the Soviet Union during its final years.

In 2009, she launched the Afghan Women’s Writing Project “to foster creative and intellectual exchange between Afghan women writers and American women authors and teachers.”

WNBA president Mary Grey James praised “the depth of Masha’s commitment to the world of literacy and books beyond her own career. She is a sterling example of what the WNBA Award truly intends to honor–meritorious work in the world of books beyond her profession.”

Thank you, Masha, for going the extra mile in the world of books,

Lynn Henriksen, President WNBA-SF

Jane Wenger is at it again – I wish I could go, even though I’m not a playwright. Everyone learns so much for Jane, a teacher with more than vision… and she’s fun, too! If you can possibly go to Assisi to study with her, don’t miss this opportunity.

Vision and REVISION

 Jayne Wenger, Instructor                                                                                                     

ASSISI, ITALY  August 6 – August 19, 2010

Live and write in a 12th century town in the heart of Umbria with a community of artists from around the world. The workshop will focus on plays that are in process, with emphasis on development and analysis of the script.  Writers will hear a scene or monologue daily and will receive individual dramaturgy from the instructor. In-depth and practical, this is a unique opportunity to concentrate your creative energy.      

Artists developing solo shows are also encouraged to attend.  Emphasis is on plot, organic structure and character, with focus on building a relationship with the audience. This aspect of the workshop is tailored for writers who want to act, actors who want to write, and performers who want to create new work. 

Jayne Wenger is a director and dramaturg whose exclusive focus is on original material. She is the past Artistic Director of the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation. She leads workshops on play development around the country, is nationally recognized for her work on new plays, and has developed the work of acclaimed playwrights nationwide.

 Additional details and information can be found at www.jaynewenger.com and www.artworkshopintl.com.

If you can’t attend Jane’s workshop, at least write your Mother Memoir and become a TellTale Soul! Bio-vignettes work.

Could just be that chaotic memories are poetry in motion leading us to write memoir. I’m posting a blog from Mara Buck, an exceptional writer of poetry and novels, among other artistic works. A sensitive person, with a great head on her shoulders, Mara and comes up with ingenious thoughts on most subjects. Today she has something to say about “from chaos comes the poetry of memoir.” Seems she’s got a scientific streak as well… 

     Which of us has memories as ordered as files in a desk drawer, neat and tidy, accessible or ignored, hidden or exposed only by our own decisive hand?  Not I and (I suspect) not you either.  The greater number of us live instead in a constantly evolving state of discovery and disorder, the past intruding upon the present, forever subject to ambush, chaos really.  Yet chaos can be a good thing, and when perceived and accepted for the potential gift it is, can render the most surprising of outcomes. 

     In chaos theory as applied to physics, small initial differences can yield widely divergent outcomes of unpredictable nature.  Such is life inside a family, each member with a slightly different viewpoint, seldom agreeing on cause or effect.  Chaos is created.  Such is individual memory, tinged unreliably with emotion, influenced by the memories and opinions of others.  The product is once again chaos.  We each see only a part of the whole at any given time, and these factions shift and split within our overloaded psyches and through the years, blemished by emotion and doubt, chaos results where clarity is needed.  Like fragments on the hard drive of a computer, remnants of abuse and distrust and pain clutter our brains in nano-bytes, useless within themselves, impeding progress until the defrag system clears the unwanted stash.

     Writing memoir can become a system of harnessing that chaos, of restoring order.

     It takes courage to surrender to chaos, to step back and grit our teeth and become a voyeur until, until…  Until that moment when the sun breaks through the clouds and highlights the answer that was there all along, hidden within the whirlwind of chaotic memories.  Writing through that chaos is a brave thing, an individualistic thing, such a difficult thing that when we attempt it we must first acknowledge the risk, that all our efforts may not produce the result we had imagined.  Yet it is a learning experience, as is life, and once we accept and examine the bumps in the ride, we can better enjoy the trip, and we are the richer for it.

     To illustrate the point in a rather physical manner, my desk is a partners’ model from 1910, a massive thing with four banks of drawers and a twenty-square-foot top which accommodates two complete computers, a printer, phones, answering machine, and all the bells and whistles befitting the twenty-first century.  However, cowering amid the computer wires and assorted piles of effluvia, there is the treasure of a small antique bisque creamer, formerly beloved by my mother, and every now and then I stroke the softness of the porcelain and it feels not unlike the touch of her skin.  A piece of beauty found amid the chaos.  A physical memoir. 

     I wrote a poem entitled Chaos, ending with the line “for out of chaos comes poetry.”  We must trust that the poetry of memoir will come someday from our own chaos, no matter how toxic, no matter how painful, because that’s what poetry ultimately is.  Poetry is truth.

http://www.redroom.com/member/MaraBuck

http://www.redroom.com/blog/marabuck/chaos

http://www.youtube.com/user/marabuck       Check Mara’s YouTube spot – intriguing, to say the least.

A few weeks ago, at the San Francisco Writers Conference, I had the good fortune to met Peter Beren, a publishing consultant for over 30 years and the author of this informative guest post. He graciously gives us the basics of the book business as he sees it – information, which all writers should be aware. 

Every author published or not, needs to know the basics of the book business. One of the most basic parts is distribution. When you pitch a publisher on a book idea, they have one eye on the consumer and one eye on their distribution system. It is only when both “eyes” say “yes” that they are seriously considering a book. 

 Books are ordered in advance of their manufacture. They are sold on the basis of future promises. Many books actually don’t exist at the time they are ordered. Most books are presented as unique, authoritative and complete even though they haven’t been finished at the time they are ordered by booksellers. 

20% of book sales occur in the E-commerce channel (statistics from Bowker) which captures all online booksellers, including Amazon. 27% of sales come from large chains

(3 accounts: Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million), 8% from Mass Merchandisers

(Costgo, Target, etc.), 11% from Book Clubs (membership Clubs by direct mail) and 5% from independent bookstores.

 When you or your agent pitches a book, the publisher is sizing it up on the basis of similar books and how they performed in these channels. Of course, if the publisher has a similar book on its list and the book was successful, it’s a lot easier to model it and project a reasonable lay-down across these channels.

 The “lay-down” is the sum of all the book units ordered in advance and the number of books in distribution immediately following its publication date. In my experience, if you wait 30 days for stragglers, you will have a complete picture of the number of books available to consumers in all the channels before the “sell-through” or sales out of the stores and etailers actually begin.

 It is shocking to note that most books do not sell more than their initial lay-down and that the size of the lay-down will determine critical mass in the channels and whether or not the book is successful. A book will succeed or fail according to the size of its advance orders or, in other words, the earliest possible moment in its sales life. That is one reason why authors need to promote their books ahead of pub date. When a publisher is asked how a book is doing and it’s already in the stores, the usual response is “it’s too early to tell…” what they mean is, “we know this book is going to be successful, we just don’t know how successful.” Or, the opposite.

 In the book business, perception is reality and distribution, the wider the better, is the single most important aspect in the success of a book.

 PETER BEREN is a Publishing Consultant to authors, self-publishers and independent publishers. Formerly Vice President for Publishing at Palace Press International, Publisher of Sierra Club Books and Publisher of VIA Books, he has more than 30 years experience in the publishing industry. The author of six books, including (with Brad Bunnin) The Writers Legal Companion and California the Beautiful (with Galen Rowell), his latest work, Hidden Napa Valley, featuring the photography of Wes Walker, was recently published by Welcome Books. Visit his web site at: http://www.PeterBeren.com/ and read his online column on Examiner.com at: examiner.com/a-25786-SF-Publishing-Examiner

San Francisco Writers Conference

 Become an author today by writing your Mother Memoir. Your short and true bio-vignette may be the start you need to write a memoir of epic proportions or you may deem it perfect just as it is – your choice.

There’s a movement mounting for that special niche in memoir where daughters and sons come together to zero in on mothers. Take a look at the potential:

• Discovering your mother’s distinct character and spirit
• Realizing the wisdom waiting in your mother’s actions
• Writing the stories only you can write
• Connecting on myriad levels through the art of storytelling

There are all kinds of ways to teach creative writing/memoir writing where folks can write their life stories, but my passion and focus isn’t on writing memoir in general.

Inspiring and teaching people to Tap Memory and Write Memoir – even if they’ve never written anything before – makes the world go ‘round.

Join me for the journey of a life time where you will write your short, true story. You can do it – you really can.

I promise; you’ll be glad you did!

The Story Woman asks you to write a bio-vignette capturing your mother’s character and spirit.

Photo by Jason Wells Photography

First Mine for gold, then Write Memoir

Hello, all you writers and authors and artists from across the board.  I recently read a great little book by Abigail Thomas, Thinking About Memoir, so I wanted to share my thoughts with you about this book and add it to my new Book Review blog category.

By the way, my reviews aren’t confined to the memoir genre. From the inception of my blog, which wasn’t that long ago, one of my main purposes was to give voice to a wide range of nonfiction and fiction writers as well as artists in general who have caught my eye and my spirit. If you’d like me to post a blog about you and your work, please contact me and we’ll go from there.

I believe the inspiration we get from each connection we make with art, whether through books, paintings, sculptures, theatre, dance, or music breathes life into our beings as we discover new ways to view our world.

Abigail Thomas’ book, Thinking About Memoir, is oriented towards crafting the story of one’s own life, whereas my guide book, Give the Gift of Story: TellTale Souls’ Essential Guide to Tap Memory & Write Memoir in Five Acts (yes, that’s a mouth full!) is all about looking at someone other than oneself – it’s about honoring a loved one with a bio-vignette that captures that loved one’s character. Both of our books, however, are meaningful guides to writing in general; they speak to a wider audience than memoirists to be sure.

Book Review: Great things come in small packages, so Abigail Thomas gets kudos for a job well done. She is honest, funny, and tells on herself, which, I believe, is the best way to teach.

Thomas’ rambling style of instruction isn’t so much about technique as it is about giving us stimulating exercises that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere, but result in remarkable insight on how to write memoir well.
The guide, at just 108 pages, is so packed with activities that a writing instructor could use it for a semester-long course and still not exhausted all of Thomas’ unique ideas. Let’s suffice it to say she’s a delightful task master. From the beginning when she asks us to write three word sentences so we have nowhere to hide and our writing won’t take up extra space to asking us to write two pages of what we don’t remember sheds a lot of light on her brand of Thinking about Memoir.

If we aren’t afraid to dig deep, zero in on details, write an honest account, make a habit out of writing, and learn to invent our own structure, this book is a gold mine.

Link to Abigail Thomas.

The Story Woman asks you to write a bio-vignette about a loved one to honor someone other than yourself.

Enter, stage right: Jayne Wenger, artistic director, dramaturg, and workshop leader par excellence. 

I’m excited that Jayne’s writing tips will be offered for the first time by The Story Woman here on the TellTale Souls’ blog. After you read Jayne Wenger’s Seven Tips for Playwrights, join her and artists from around the world this August in beautiful Assisi, Italy, for the time of your life. 

Write. Rewrite
 Write. Rewrite.

Summarize your Story and Subplots
Do this just for yourself.  It will help you to stay on course.  Or, if you are veering off course, you will know it. Maybe that’s the place you meant to go all along! And write a few sentences about each character. Just for yourself, again. What defines them? 

Stage Directions are Important
Don’t let anyone tell you that they aren’t.
Think about your vision of the play.  Cut all of your “Stage Left, Stage Right, he/she sits despondently,” those are Actions, and they are for the director to stage.  Help the director and designers by prefacing your play with your vision.  Is it Magic Realism?  Is it Naturalism?  What is the style of your play?  Be sure that you know what style it is.   

Keep Writing Dramatic Conflict
Who wants what in each scene and how do they go about getting it?  

Listen!
Develop your ear for dialogue by listening. Train yourself to listen to rhythms, patterns of speech and regional dialect.  How do different characters in your own world speak? Keep listening.  Keep writing.

 Read your Play Out Loud to Yourself
You will hear the weaknesses and strengths.  This works.

                                                           Playwrights‘ Intensive Retreat

Vision and REVISION

 Jayne Wenger, Instructor

ASSISI, ITALY August 5 – August 18, 2009

 Live and write in a 12th century town in the heart of Umbria with a community of artists from around the world. The workshop will focus on plays that are in process, with emphasis on analysis and development of the script.  Writers will hear a scene or monologue daily and will receive individual dramaturgy from the instructor. In-depth and practical, this is a unique opportunity to concentrate your creative energy and let go! 
     Artists developing solo shows are encouraged to attend.  Emphasis is on plot, organic structure and character, with focus on building a relationship with the audience. This aspect of the workshop is tailored for writers who want to act, actors who want to write, and performers wanting to create new work. 

Jayne Wenger is a director and dramaturg whose exclusive focus is on original material. She is the past Artistic Director of the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation. She leads workshops on play development around the country, is nationally recognized for her work on new plays, and has developed the work of acclaimed playwrights nationwide.

 Additional details and information can be found at www.jaynewenger.com and www.artworkshopintl.com.

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~TellTale Souls’ Daughters and Sons Write Bio-Vignettes Honoring their Mothers~

From my position on the worn, overstuffed chair, I can see outside the window and through the bars of my second story balcony to a wall of similar Chinese apartments beyond the narrow alleyway.  A neighbor across the way has an identical balcony, only the rusted bars of her confine support a few potted plants and the door to their kitchen is flanked by two red Spring Festival banners with gold letters – another banner is pasted horizontally across the top.  A caged bird flutter-jumps from perch to the top the cage to perch to bottom and back again.

The woman of the house is slight, middle aged and gentle looking – neatly bobbed hair frames her round, expressionless face.  Sometimes I see her sweeping the balcony floor or watering her two plants, while the husband watches television at a deafening volume.  A small window reveals images shouting from the screen in 1 to 2 second intervals. It is always on, and he is always sitting in front of it, his presence exposed by clouds of cigarette smoke during the day and the glowing tips of cigarettes in the night.

I look up from my book as the woman appears on her deck. I begin to pay attention as she reaches for the cage. Leaning forward in my chair, I see her slide her hand through the tiny door.  In one quick movement her hand appears outside the bars of her own cage, and I watch as the bird catches flight.

A lovely smile animates her face as she puts her hands together and bows in the direction of the freed bird.

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The author of this beautiful story is Colette Hosmer, my friend, a sculptor, and a contributor to TellTale Souls’ “Mother Memoirs,” with her bio-vignette, entitled “My Mother’s Wash.”  I love this View From a Cage story written on her travels through China, where she is often an honored guest sculptor.

And I loved the quaint image of the laundry strung across the balcony by the gentle Chinese lady in the picture above.  I realize it was probably out of necessity that she dry her family’s clothes in this fashion, but it also struck me funny, as I immediately saw it another light. In Colette’s story in my book, she relates how her North Dakota mother took the art of line-drying laundry to another level with her sun-dried whites, even though she had a clothes dryer.

The sun works it’s magic for mothers the world over, whether out of necessity or not, and mothers work their magic on us from one culture to the next, with very similar spirits they are birds of a feather.

Thank you, Colette, for being TellTale Souls’ first guest blogger. Please follow this link to Colettehosmer.com. As I promised my readers in my first blog, I’ll bring you blogs and interviews from a wide range of artists, this is just the beginning.

Daughters and Sons Write “Mother Memoirs” that Connect Us All