Authors and Writers

 “Speed-Dating” by the Bay at our 9^th Annual Signature Event

Back by popular demand:  Keynote Luncheon (see below)

MEET-THE-AGENTS & ACQUISITION EDITORS

Lynn Henriksen, Event Chair, lynn(at)telltalesouls.com 

Saturday, March 24^th, 2012 • 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Sinbad’s Restaurant, Pier 2, San Francisco

$50 WNBA member, $65 non-member, or $75 at the door

(Bonus:  Coffee and “How to Pitch Training” included from 8:00 to 9:00 am)

Space is limited (we sold out last year) – REGISTER SOON

Register via PayPal at www.wnba-sfchapter.org or mail your check made out to WNBA-SF to P.O. Box 244, Half Moon Bay, CA  94019

Meg Waite Clayton is the nationally bestselling author of The Four Ms. Bradwells, The Wednesday Sisters, and the Bellwether Prize finalist The Language of Light, all published by Random House’s Ballantine Books, and all major national book club picks. Her novels have been published in six languages, and her shorter work has aired on public radio and appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The San Jose Mercury News, Writers Digest, Runners World and other print and online magazines and news sources. A graduate of the University Michigan Law School, she lives with her family in Palo Alto, and is at work on a fourth novel, The Wednesday Daughters, to be published in 2013. www.megwaiteclayton.com

This year’s list of Agents and Acquisition Editors are posted on our website.

Event sponsor:  Women’s National Book Association – San Francisco

WNBA-SF is a non-profit organization that fosters professional development and exposure of our members through a variety of book-related programs, workshops, and hands-on opportunities to make valuable contacts and connections that are beneficial at any stage of one’s career. WNBA-SF is part of a National network promoting the value of books and reading since 1917 throughout ten chapters stretching from coast to coast. Annual Membership is $45.

501(c) (3). 4061 East Castro Valley Blvd., #193, Castro Valley, CA 94552

As The Story Woman and a TellTale Soul, I can’t think of any place I’d rather be. Hope to see you sometime during the 5 day extravaganza, February 15-20, 2012.

I ask people to write one short story to capture the intrinsic character, whether positive or negative, of their mothers to keep spirits alive. In the case of difficult relationships, people can use what they learn from mindfully writing about their flawed connection with mom to honor themselves. Understanding ensues.

The Mother Memoir is about honoring the relationship with the woman who gave you life, with the word honor being multifaceted, implying more aspects than admiration. Looking at what honor means in the context of relationships is anything but clear-cut. In Laura’s guest post, her angst is palpable, her anger frank, due to the actions of the mother who shockingly abandoned her and for the stepmother who abused her.

As long as we draw breath, our feelings about our relationships with our mothers will be ongoing journeys, and their spirits will be alive within us, even if we think we’ve shut out them out. Cutting them off completely isn’t an internal possibility. Laura chose to write a compelling memoir, Reversible Skirt; as she stoked the spirits, she was honoring her own essential being in a powerful way. She also wrote a short Mother Memoir, which I’ve included in my upcoming book, TellTale Souls Writing The Mother Memoir… (Spring 2012)

Some Spirits are Better Left Alone

By Laura McHale Holland

 Should you honor the woman who raised you if she abused you? How about a mother who abandoned you? I had two such women in my life: a mother who killed herself when I was a toddler and a stepmother who was a Nurse Ratched, not a June Cleaver. And, frankly, I don’t feel like keeping the spirit of either one of them alive today.

 It jolts me, after decades of life as an independent adult, how mutable my feelings about both of them are. My mother and stepmother are long gone, yet my relationships with them are ongoing journeys. For quite a while, I’ll think I’ve reached a resolution and stopped wishing for what never was. Then an article or book I read or an anecdote someone shares will bring negative feelings to the surface, and one or the other of my mothers will be on my sh– list for a while. Over the years, however, I am more often at peace with their legacies than not, and for this I am thankful.

 It has been a complicated process, sorting through layers of feelings about my early years. Take my mother. I wrote a memoir, Reversible Skirt, about what it was like to grow up in the aftermath of her suicide, which cast a long shadow on my childhood even though (or maybe because) her life and death were swept swiftly under a rug by my father. My stepmother was a major part of the aftermath, as she took a wrecking ball to any part of me that didn’t conform to who she thought I should be. And one of the things I was never allowed to be was my own mother’s daughter.

 I couldn’t really portray my mother in Reversible Skirt; I could only convey my sense of who she might have been and why she came to a tragic end. I could, however, portray my stepmother because I had many years of memories to plumb. My goal in the book wasn’t to honor either one of them, though, nor was it to condemn them. The goal was more to honor the resilience of my sisters and me for finding ways to not only cope but also provide for ourselves the love and support our mothers should have given us but never did.

 For my sisters, I will forever be grateful; for my mothers, not so much. I know they, like most of us, had their good points. I also know I’ve learned something from all of my experiences, good and bad. And I do have compassion for both of my mothers, especially my stepmother because I know much of her story and why she was so broken.

 But neither of them is truly dear to my heart. They are far removed from the Eleanor Roosevelt mold; their memory doesn’t uplift the spirit. They aren’t unsung heroines who rose to life’s greatest challenges and gave it their all. Instead, each in her own way, gave up on herself and her family when her mettle was tested. And my stepmother in particular did me great harm. So I can love them and forgive them, but as far as honoring their spirits goes, I believe I have better things to do with my time here on earth.

Laura McHale Holland’s memoir, Reversible Skirt, won a silver medal in the 2011 Readers Favorite book awards. Her stories and articles have appeared in such publications as Every Day Fiction Three, Wisdom Has a Voice, the Vintage Voices anthologies, NorthBay biz magazine, the Noe Valley Voice and the original San Francisco Examiner. She is a member of both Redwood Writers and the Storytelling Association of California. To keep up with her and purchase her book, please visit http://lauramchaleholland.com.

The Buddha in the Attic

The Story Woman highly recommends this book. It makes a beautiful gift.

It may inspire you to become a TellTale Soul and write about a woman you know – as in the Mother Mother, where women are at once one and all.

“If you’re writing a novel or memoir, what does your protagonist want?”

• “What are your themes and who are your archetypes?”
• “If you’re writing a how-to book, what are the issues?”
• “Do you want to build your platform to attract agents, publishers, and fans/readers?”

These are the questions I ask when writers hire me as their coach.

For many writers, the first question (“What does your protagonist want?”) is not an easy one to answer. What does your main character want when the story opens? As the story moves forward?

For memoir authors, the protagonist is the Self. You the author lived your story and you know the outcome; now is the chance to engage readers via story-telling techniques and show them what you wanted and how you went about getting (or not getting) what you wanted.

For novel authors, oftentimes the protagonist (or another major character) is modeled after the author; what the protagonist wants is also oftentimes a recurring theme for the author.

In the opening scene of Love Made of Heart (my autobiographical novel about an adult-daughter struggling to understand her mother’s mental illness), protagonist Ruby Lin asks herself: What have I done? (as she watches police officers escort her mother from her apartment).

Ruby wants her mother to get well; she wants to return to her routines; she wants to forget her past; she wants a wise elder who listens and doesn’t judge. As we get to know Ruby, we find out what her “big wants” are—to find love and forgiveness.

I, Teresa LeYung-Ryan, author of the novel, did not have a maternal grandmother. How I used to fantasize about a kind and wise Grandmama to run to! Writing fiction gave me the luxury to give my protagonist something I never had, so, I created the elderly neighbor Mrs. Nussbaum (embodying the mentor and ally archetypes); she would listen to Ruby and not judge her.

In the introduction of Lynn Scott’s memoir A Joyful Encounter: My Mother, My Alzheimer Clients, and Me, the author reveals: I needed money. I was sixty-seven and living thinly on Social Security… As we read on, we meet the other characters/archetypes and see how they help the author get the “big want” (what money can’t buy) . . .  a spiritual journey to her mother’s love.  Lynn Henriksen’s review of this same book ends with “… Scott’s book made me laugh, cry, and wish I could have my mother back for just a day, even one more hour.”

Aah, to have Mom back for just a day, even one more hour. That is exactly what yours truly wants right now.  I’ve been ill (coping with symptoms from wheat-intolerance) and I yearn for my mom’s hugs and encouraging words: “All will be fine, my darling daughter.” But, I can’t get what I want on a physical level; Mom died over ten years ago of metastasized breast cancer.

My biggest angel is my mom, and, I ask her to help me on a daily basis. “Mom, I want to feel well.”  My muscles and sinuses were hurting; fatigue overwhelmed me; then, when depression moved in . . . I knew that I needed to be an active protagonist. I stopped eating breads and anything made with wheat flour (and that include flaky pie crusts, almond tea cakes, Challah, tortilla that hold a burrito together, Pad Thai, and pasta).

My mastermind colleague Lori Noack reminded me that wheat is in soy sauce (gosh I eat a lot of Chinese food too) and in marinades and salad dressings (yikes).  LN, thank you for your encouraging emails!

Next, I went to see a Chinese Herbal Medicine practitioner. Heather Richmond said “Teresa, the foods you’ve been eating are ‘damp.’ To treat the ‘dampness’ so that you’ll feel better, not only am I advising eliminating wheat from your diet, I’m also recommending eliminating soy as in tofu and corn.” No tofu and corn, in addition to no wheat?  Oh my.  Heather had explained that wheat, soy and corn are the top three most genetically-modified foods in this country.

Mrs. Nussbaum’s voice (my inner Wise Self) stepped into my head.  “Making a lifestyle change calls for perseverance. Go easy. Go gentle.  I’m proud of you.”

I tell my clients “Reach out, not stress out, when pursuing your dreams.” I too have been reaching out—by telling my friends about what I want—to feel energetic again. I will need their moral support (to cheer for me when I turn down their fresh croissants or homemade pizza crust).

At a meeting, Linda Joy Myers, author and founder of National Association of Memoir Writers gave me delicious rice crackers, wild salmon, and green beans when she found out about my wheat intolerance. Thank you, LJM!  Thank you to all my friends and family members who are cheering me on!

These books continue to be helpful as I want to live well in spite of food allergies:

• Eating Gluten Free: Delicious Recipes and Essential Advice for Living Well Without Wheat and Other Problematic Grains by Shreve Stockton

• Optimal Healing: A Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine by Patricia Tsang, M.D.

Heather Richmond is recommending I stop eating rice in the next phase of treatment.  Oh oh . . .

I still want hugs from my mom.  I feel them.  Every morning and every night, in my prayers.  And I give hugs back. “Thank you my Main Angel.”

Lynn Henriksen aka The Story Woman, thank you so much for asking me to guest-blog. You’ve given me a lovely gift—a chance to talk about my mom, knowing what the protagonist wants, and how to reach out not stress out!  I cheer for you, your books, blog, and classes!

Sincerely,

Teresa LeYung-Ryan

Author, Writing Career Coach, Manuscript Consultant.

Teresa’s blog http://writingcoachteresa.com  for  resources.

Teresa uses Love Made of Heart to inspire adult children of mentally ill parents to speak openly about the stigmas and find resources for their families. (the novel is available in libraries, archived in the San Francisco History Center, and used by teachers in college and universities).

She’s also the author of Build Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase In 22 Days: Attract Agents, Editors, Publishers, Readers, and Media Attention NOW (a workbook to help writers of all genres gain a competitive edge before and after publication. Available as ebook too!  Customers of the workbook are saying that it’s useful for anyone who has anything to promote.)

Thousands and thousands of bright red, paper poppies were sold all over the United States in support of World War II Veterans. These crinkly poppies went for a 5¢ piece, and were worn with pride by all Americans. To us kids, they were like badges of honor. Perhaps this is another reason why the California poppy is so special to me, even though it is not the same poppy as the Poppy Day poppy.

 I love spring time in California, when poppies suddenly appear in their glorious orange splendor, standing tall and bright on spidery stems, but strong and hardy nonetheless. These common poppies can be seen everywhere, from ditches to the best-kept yards, and each and every time I catch a glimpse at them, they remind me of the uncommon valor of our soldiers, the fragility of life, and the indebtedness I have for them for keeping America the land free and the home of the brave.

The Star Spangled Banner ?link to complete lyrics

By Francis Scott Key 1814
Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Are you – Nobody -  Too?

Then there’s the pair of us!

Don’t tell! They’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!

How public – like a frog –

To tell one’s name – the livelong June –

To the admiring bog!

                        Emily Dickinson

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.

 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

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