Love that line: The past soaks into you

“In February, the overcast sky isn’t gloomy so much as neutral and vague. It’s a significant factor in the common experience of depression among the locals. The snow* crunches under your boots and clings to your trousers, to the cuffs, and once you’re inside, the snow clings to your psyche, and eventually you have to go to the doctor. The past soaks into you in this weather because the present is missing almost entirely.”

- Charles Baxter
The Feast of Love

*also applies to rain


How's the weather — real, imagined, or on the page — in your world?

 

Thankful Thursday: By hand and dots

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things, and more. Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand?

No sweeping statements, no big ideas, no declarations or decisions. On this Thankful Thursday, I offer three simple joys: 

On National Handwriting Day, I received this envelope in the old-fashioned mail from the young editor of The Yachats Gazette. 

 



A new polka dot blouse is a perfect pick-me-up.




 

I'm a planner. I like to look forward. Preparing for this writing workshop makes me happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 Enough about me. What are you thankful for today?


Thankful Thursday: Road Trip!

We've stayed at two KOAs, stopped at three Stuckey's,

bought one kachina doll, and sang the same Norwegian

song for sixty miles. We ate ham sandwiches on

Grandma's rye bread, and though I don't like the

taste I love the grandma effort, and even at ten

I know this matters.

 

Sometimes you need a little nudge. The gates of memory swing open, and the pen rolls on its own. Thank you, Lynda Barry, writer/cartoonist, for the road trip flashback. Thank you, Hannah Stephenson, for sending me to Lynda.

Now it's your turn: Write here!

 

It's Thankful Thursday. Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate people, places & things. What are you thankful for today?

 

 

The writer you're supposed to be

 I think that when you

break out of the idea

that you have to be

a certain kind of writer,

you can actually be

the writer you're

supposed to be.

 

For weeks I've been mulling these words from a friend. 

Writing came naturally, and at an early age. I churned out the neighborhood newspaper from my own mimeograph (a Christmas gift, age 10). The high school paper saved my life. The college paper honed my skills. An internship expanded my vision.

All along, I imagined a future as a journalist, covering hard news and uncovering injustice.

But while my friends were starting careers at the hard-hitting dailies — the Wall Street Journal, the Dallas Morning News — my first job took me to a small town far from anything I knew. Instead of breaking news and fighting for truth, I was writing obituaries, attending city council meetings, and taking photos of the latest Eagle Scout.

In short, I wasn't the hard news reporter I thought I should be.

Instead I was immersed in the mundane, and drawn to the offbeat and ordinary: the 100-year old fiddle player, the woman who saved a historical church from wreckage, a young family rebuilding from a fire. As natural as breathing, I was drawn to people, to their simple stories. But it took me years to feel good about it, to feel that what came naturally held any value. 

Later, when I left newspapers for nonprofits — promoting good grassroots organizations — I liked the work but still worried it wasn't "substantial." I wasn't a journalist.

Ten years ago, when poems bubbled, it was all over. I could barely look my news colleagues in the eye. What kind of journalist writes poems, for god's sake?

In an essay about faith, Andrew Cooper writes, "My failure to accomplish or attain any of what I had hoped I would, I think, is the thing that has most enriched my practice."

For years I struggled to be a "real journalist," and discounted my writing and reporting as not serious enough. But now, I see that I've explored and enjoyed more terrain that I ever imagined I would in my original, and very narrow, definition of a "real writer."

After all these years, I think now I was always the writer I was supposed to be. 

 

Are you the writer you were supposed to be? What did you imagine, and what have you learned along the way?


Thankful Thursday: Name it, claim it

Thomas Hawk photo


Never wear white shoes.

Never arrive at a party without flowers, wine, a token gift.

Never say, you look great for your age.

Never get to Thursday without a bit of thanks.


But here I am, empty-handed.

It's not that I've had a bad week. Or that I'm a self-absorbed ingrate (admittedly, I'm working on this) badgering the waiter: what, only one dessert? I want more!

It's that today my gratitude feels both too small (the brilliance of chopsticks) and too large (to love and be loved). I don't want to share my insipid observations (sun shines after many damp days), or accomplishments that made my head and heart swell, if just for a bit.

This week, I'm looking to you. Make this space yours. Name it, claim it, big or small, tender or tacky, tell me, what are you thankful for today?

 

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things (and poems). Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand?


Write Now! 10 Online Classes

We take stock. We look ahead. We make plans. In this new year, have you a thirst to improve your writing? Start now!

The selection of online writing courses seems to expand daily. Now dozens of respected organizations offer quality classes.

Here are 10 to Consider*:

The Writers Studio
Offering beginner to advanced workshops in fiction and poetry. Classes are 10 weeks, with an emphasis on "encouraging students to try on voices and attempt a variety of narrative techniques as a way of discovering their own material and personal voices."  Now offering free Craft Class podcast.

WoodSprings Institute
University-level literary instruction, offering workshops in poetry, short story, novel, creative non-fiction, and memoir. Also: manuscript mentoring and MFA prep courses.

UCLA Extension Writers' Program
A pioneer in online offerings, UCLA has 175 beginning to advanced-level online courses in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, writing for the youth market, feature film writing and television writing. Classes are typically 10-weeks, though some 6-week and 12-week options are available.

Stanford Continuing Studies
The Writer's Studio offers approximately 20 courses every quarter in the principal genres of creative writing— novel, short story, poetry, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting. All writing levels welcome.

MOOC - Massive Open Online Course
It's the Year of the MOOC, according to the New York Times.  The world of free, online, university-level courses is growing, from Coursera to Udacity and dozens more. Classes skew to science and technology with writing classes in short supply but that may change, and quickly. In fact, the number of MOOCs has become so unwieldy that outside websites have popped up to sort and rate courses and providers, see knollop and coursetalk.

The Loft Literary Center
Classes for adult and youth, online and on-site, all writing genres. Serves beginning, intermediate and advanced writers. Scholarships available.

Lisa Romeo's I Should Be Writing! Boot Camp
Led by no-nonsense nonfiction writer Lisa Romeo, this popular tough-love class helps turn the stuck, blocked, and rutted into happily producing writers. The six-week course is open to both new and seasoned writers.

Gotham Writers' Workshop
With more than 7,000 students annually, this New York-based organization is one of the most popular writing resources. Their interactive classes have been named Best of the Web by Forbes magazine. Six and 10 week workshops available in seemingly every genre.

Chicago School of Poetics
Offering online classes fostering innovative poetics. Students use visual web conferencing, desktop sharing, and collaborative whiteboards. The school offers "an alternative to, and a community beyond, the Creative Writing MFA."

Cambridge Writers' Workshop
Offering creative writing courses and literary salons in a variety of genres, including translation and manuscript prep. Classes run six to 10 weeks.


Have you taken a class from any of these organizations? Did you love it? hate it? Would you take another? I'd love to hear your experience!


*This is NOT a sponsored list. No compensation has been offered, considered or received.


Thankful Thursday: Plenty

In a post-holiday haze, I'm bumping into books and magazines, stumbling over journals and papers, and sinking into stories and poems. I am surrounded by plenty, sated and grateful.

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause of gratitude for people, places and things that bring joy. What are you thankful for today?


I Did It!

Jessica Hagy

The jig is up. In the waning light of 2012, and before I walk into the fog of New Year promise, I'm taking stock and admitting that: 

1. I'm not going to write every day.

2. I'm not going to lose 10 pounds.

3. I won't run daily, give up sugar, or grow nicer, kinder, and more patient.

As the new year nears I dread those well intentioned, high-octaned, and, ultimately, short-lived resolutions to live more! do more! be more! Can we just jump ahead to March when all those commitments are distant (and, admit it, painful) memories?

This year, instead of resolutions, I'm doing the I Did It list. This brilliant idea is the work of writer Lisa Romeo, who says: "It's my small act of defiance against all the emotionally upsetting lists we humans tend to mentally make as the year draws to a close: the one that ticks off the things we failed to do all year. . . As writers we tend to see our writing year as a finite lot of things not yet achieved instead of a valuable step along an infinitely curvy road. Give yourself a break. Please."

I like her style. I'm starting my Did It list now.

How about you? Did you take a class? teach a class? write a poem? start a novel? join a writing group? Write it down! You might be surprised and heartened by all you've accomplished.

 

Thankful Thursday: All Your Nothings


and may all your nothings, too, hold something up and sing.

— Michael Blumenthal
from And the Cantilevered Inference Shall Hold the Day


In this last week of the year. In this season of illumination, when everything lights and shines against deep winter, dark night. In this time of reflection, hope and, yes, hints of sorrow and sometimes regret, this poem arrives. And gratitude swells for words that fit just right.

Read the full poem here.

 It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate the people, places and things that bring joy. What are you thankful for today?


White-Out, Black-Out, Erase


A brief affair


Light on details

we’re obliged to ask

questions, talk about

nothing much.

 

Against this fictional utopia,

hope is a slow burn.

In the dark, tales

are engineered.

 

- Drew Myron

 

Every writer has a special trick to get the mind stirrin' and words flowin'. My go-to is the erasure poem. Out of words and inspiration? Just pick up any print material and start scratching. By mining words that are not my own, new combinations appear and fresh ideas follow. For me, the erasure poem is a way to kick my head and hands into the writing groove. Some are keepers, most are not. But the process is always fun.

For great erasure inspiration, see:

Mary Ruefle (white-out erasure books)

Austin Kleon (newspaper black-out poems)

Lawrence Sutin (text and collage erasure books)


What's your trick? Have you tried an erasure poem? How do you kickstart your writing mind?

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Moved to Good Cheer

It's been a grim week. Hearts are heavy with the mass shooting of children, with the sudden death of poet Jake Adam York, and with a strain of flu that has hit unusually hard this winter. In all this, the thread of thankfulness that stitches the season with hope and joy feels rather thin and tenuous.

And still, it is Christmas. We have our symbols, our traditions, our touchstones. For me, it's Silent Night. I'm not sentimental but that song tears me up. Usually, it hits me while I'm driving alone at night along a quiet road. A distant radio station plays a static version of Silent Night, and I am overcome with a melancholy ache.

Sometimes I am among others, in a crowd, when the song flattens me — while mumble-singing at church, or while buying milk at the market.

It's a lonely sort of lump-in-the-throat.

Once, I broke down at the Dollar Store. I was ambling down the aisles of cheap plastic baubles when Silent Night played over the din of harried shoppers. Overwhelmed with the season, I rushed from the store holding back a sob.

The other night, at Seashore Family Literacy, a small group of youngsters offered an impromptu concert to a mix of proud parents and restless siblings. Beaming and happy, the children belted out their favorites and valiantly mumbled through tougher terrain. All the while, their joy, their effort, was contagious. When the earnest young ones sang Silent Night, I was lifted from my state of ache and moved to good cheer.

Thank you Seashore singers for allowing Christmas spirit to trump a string of dark days.

 

It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to appreciate people, places, things and more. Joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude. What makes your world expand? What are you thankful for today?

 

 

Winter, this muteness

Hold on, a friend says, light will return. Oh, these December days of long dark and little light. In this season — when the heart is heavy, the body chilled — I cling to her refrain.


December

Too long alone again and words clutter,

hover behind my clenched teeth, my mouth

no longer sure what slight adjustments equal speech.

 

My tongue is the petal of a tulip touched by front.

My throat, in the next year, will belong to the hawk

or the fat, black garden snake lying dormant

now in the crawlspace beneath the house.

 

Winter is made of this muteness and these windows

and the long view of white fields through icy glass

where nothing moves and nothing raises its voice.

 

— Sandy Longhorn
from Blood Almanac

 

5 Great Novels of 2012

After a rough patch in which every book I read left me with an underwhelming sense of "eh," I'm happy to announce the literary lethargy has passed. In this last month I have enjoyed a joyous rush of really good books. Mind if I share my favorites?

5 Great Novels of 2012  

The Orchardist
by Amanda Coplin
A spare and moving story set at the turn of the century in the Pacific Northwest. A masterful debut in both character and pace.

 

Beautiful Ruins
by Jess Walter
An Italian history and a modern Hollywood combine for an engaging love story.

 

Rules of Civility
by Amor Towles
Set in 1930s New York, this fictionalized tale of money, opportunity and social circles is both energetic and touching — and a loving tribute to a glorious city.

 

The Shore Girl
by Fran Kimmel
Glass Castle meets Ghostbread in this story of lives on the edge, written with clarity and perception by an author who smartly skips the cloying sentimentality that often infuses this topic.

 

All the Dancing Birds
by Auburn McCanta
In this hand-me-the-hanky fiction, the narrator — a woman with Alzheimer's — shares the story of her eroding mind.

 

How's your reading life? What's on your shelf, or your mind? What book grabbed you and won't let go?


I've had this meal

Anthony's Diner

Yes, to the fresh
blueberry cobbler
even though I'm not
hungry and it will
double my bill,
because I'm on the verge
of tears and can't finish
my egg salad sandwich,
because this waitress
who never smiles,
whose eyes are hard
from seeing,
has somehow noticed
my sadness
and when she offers the cobbler
there is that other thing in it—
she and I, part of that small
black tepee of crows
I saw on the road this morning,
all business, sharing this beautiful violent day.

— Diane Swan
from the 2012 Women Artists Datebook

 

Thankful Thursday: Hang On Lil' Tomato

It's time again for Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause for gratitude. Go ahead, take a moment to appreciate the big things (life, love) and small things (books, breakfast) and the assortment of people, places & things inbetween.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for Pink Martini, a quirky but elegantly cool band from Portland, Oregon that mixes, mashes and dishes up delightful tunes such as the one above. 

Hang On Little Tomato

The sun has left and forgotten me
It's dark, I cannot see
Why does this rain pour down
I'm gonna drown
In a sea
Of deep confusion

Somebody told me, I don't know who
Whenever you are sad and blue
And you're feelin' all alone and left behind
Just take a look inside and you will find

You gotta hold on, hold on through the night
Hang on, things will be all right
Even when it's dark
And not a bit of sparkling
Sing-song sunshine from above
Spreading rays of sunny love

Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Stay on, soon you'll be divine
If you start to cry, look up to the sky
Something's coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead

And so I hold on to his advice
When change is hard and not so nice
You listen to your heart the whole night through
Your sunny someday will come one day soon to you

— Pink Martini


Join me, won't you? Gratitude, like people, gains strength with a bit of appreciation. Please share your Thankful Thursday thoughts in the comment section below, or on your very own blog, facebook page, twitter account, school locker, cubicle wall, bathroom mirror . . .

 

Do you know what this is?

In this digital age, I'm an antique — and not in that retro, vintage, hipster-chick-cool kind of way. Case in point: I don't text, don't like cell phones, and prefer to write with that old-fashioned apparatus called a hand.

The image you see here is a datebook, also known as a day planner. Remember those? It's a portable calendar, on paper, with spaces to write your appointments, deadlines and important events (my birthday, for instance). This datebook is especially nice because it features art and poems by over 30 women, and includes a poem by me.

The 2013 Women Artists Datebook is published by the Syracuse Cultural Workers, a progressive publisher committed to peace, sustainability, social justice, feminism and multiculturalism (or, more simply, they dig peace, love & understanding), and can be purchased here.

And because I am perhaps one of the few people left hoarding paper, the Women Artists Datebook may now be a rare (and collectible?) gem. Due to declining sales, the publisher has reduced the print run, and is reconsidering future versions.

This seems an excellent time to celebrate the old ways with a new datebook. Support the arts, write by hand!

 

Thankful Thursday: Late November Light

It's Thankful Thursday! Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate the people, places & things that bring joy.

After food, feasting and family, I study light. The way sun dodges and glows, the way the season calls for new illumination. Days shorten, light hangs at a heavy tilt. Just a bit more, I plead. Praise what little there's left, writes Barbara Crooker. And I do.


Praise Song

Praise the light of late November,

the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.

Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;

though they are clothed in night, they do not

despair. Praise what little there's left:

the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,

shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow

of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,

the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky

that hasn't cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down

behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves

that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,

Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy

fallen world; it's all we have, and it's never enough.


— Barbara Crooker
from Radiance

 

It's Thankful Thursday. What are you thankful for today?


Feast of Words: Dessert!

The Feast of Words continues. Today we move into dessert, and the fullness of reflection. Like a good meal, gratitude fills and slows to show us all we have, hold, love.

Today's poem is from Allyson Whipple.

"I wrote this poem," she explains, "after a friend brought me some mangoes and taught me how to remove the pits in a way that would not damage them, so that they could be planted. I spent much of 2012 dealing with the loss of a good friend, and the simple act of paring a mango and then preparing the seed for planting was a sort of lightbulb moment, realizing the way good things endured. From the destruction of a piece of fruit came nourishment for myself, as well as the potential for a new mango tree. . . the poem comes from a grateful spirit — grateful for a friend, for fruit, for the reminder of what endures."

You bring me mangoes

and you bring me mango pits

you never make promises,
but in your smooth hands,
there is potential for sustenance,
nourishment,
for roots –

there is a reminder
that life goes on after
skin is cut
flesh is eaten,

that a future exists;
that something beautiful
endures after loss

— Allyson Whipple

 

Our annual Feast of Words celebrates the power of gratitude through words. Thank you — friends, family, readers & writers, for offering your heart, your words. Thank you for taking the time to savor and share.

With gratitude,

Drew