Rather, I have only a few short things to say:
I’m surprised to feel resistant to revising some first drafts that I wrote way back in the spring. It’s not that I feel they’re finished—oh, haha, so very, very far from that—but I think that I’ve become slightly addicted to the thrill of the first draft, the excitement of discovering what happens next, of watching the story unfold under your hand. In revision, there’s a little excitement as the story shifts and changes, but basically I know what happens. Does this mean I’m bored? Does this mean the story is boring? No wonder revision isn’t so fun when these are the questions spinning in my head.
I still love what one of my favorite writing teachers, Richard Bausch, used to say: “Write until something surprises you.” Lucky for me I don’t have to pay him a royalty every time I say that in a class!
I wrote by hand the other day, and it was interesting how much less I worried about which word was exactly right; it just seemed more urgent to get down any word at all before my hand started to cramp up. Writing on the computer is often start-and-stop, whereas writing by hand felt like an uninterrupted flow.
Just when I think that maybe I should save time and $$ by giving up The New Yorker, I read two amazing pieces: Alice Munro’s short story “Gravel” and Aleksander Hemon’s essay “The Aquarium.” Interestingly, neither is one of my favorite writers (in fact, I may actively be irritated by one of these two), though I guiltily believe that I should like their work. It’s always nice to have one’s eyes opened. The Alice Munro story is online, but the Hemon essay is not.
Does anyone else get sad when replacing and updating an address book? (Does anyone besides me even continue to use a hand-written address book?)
The lesson for the day is JUST BEGIN. When I sat down to write this blog post, I thought I had nothing to say, and in the act of forcing myself to begin, I found something. It may not be much, but “not much” will always trump “nothing”!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Link Corral: Beasley & Carson Readings; Experts Galore; No-Fee Novel Contest
Sandra Beasley, who wrote last week’s great post about perfectionism, will be reading from her new memoir, Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life on Saturday, July 23, 2011, at Politics and Prose Bookstore, in Washington, DC.
Details are here: http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/sandra-beasley-dont-kill-birthday-girl
***
Tom Carson, who wrote here about his new Gatsby-inspired novel, Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter, will be reading from the book on Sunday, July 24, at Politics and Prose Bookstore, in Washington, DC.
Details are here: http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/tom-carson-daisy-buchanans-daughter
***
Someone on Facebook recently recommended this site for finding people—experts!—who can help you research your historical novel or read it over for glaring inaccuracies: http://www.experts.com/index.aspx
I can’t vouch for it personally, but it seems like a good resource for writers. And not just for historical research…there are a zillion categories of various experts.
***
This no-fee contest for a novel looks great:
ANDERBO SEEKS NOVELIST (by September 21st, 2011) for its 2nd Biannual No-Fee Novel Contest
http://www.anderbo.com/anderbo1/andernovelcontest-02.html
http://www.anderbo.com/
The Mercer Street Books Fiction Prize
Anderbo.com wishes to post up to the first 36 manuscript pages of an unpublished novel on its website by December 21st, 2011 for at least the following six months. We will look at the FIRST 36 PAGES (up to 9,000 words) of your e-manuscript submitted to (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail) and decide within 60 days of its arrival if we want to see more.
YOU MUST SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT ENTRY WITHIN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL—NO ATTACHMENTS!
THERE IS NO READING FEE and all literary rights will remain with the author.
NO NOVEL SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER SEPTEMBER 21st, 2011.
This contest is not open to anyone previously published on anderbo.com at any time.
This Anderbo No-Fee Novel Contest will be judged by the anderbo.com editorial staff; Anderbo guarantees to choose and use one manuscript-excerpt. There will be an honorarium of $500 paid by the sponsor of this contest, Mercer Street Books & Records, to the winning author upon publication on Anderbo.
Details are here: http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/sandra-beasley-dont-kill-birthday-girl
***
Tom Carson, who wrote here about his new Gatsby-inspired novel, Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter, will be reading from the book on Sunday, July 24, at Politics and Prose Bookstore, in Washington, DC.
Details are here: http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/tom-carson-daisy-buchanans-daughter
***
Someone on Facebook recently recommended this site for finding people—experts!—who can help you research your historical novel or read it over for glaring inaccuracies: http://www.experts.com/index.aspx
I can’t vouch for it personally, but it seems like a good resource for writers. And not just for historical research…there are a zillion categories of various experts.
***
This no-fee contest for a novel looks great:
ANDERBO SEEKS NOVELIST (by September 21st, 2011) for its 2nd Biannual No-Fee Novel Contest
http://www.anderbo.com/anderbo1/andernovelcontest-02.html
http://www.anderbo.com/
The Mercer Street Books Fiction Prize
Anderbo.com wishes to post up to the first 36 manuscript pages of an unpublished novel on its website by December 21st, 2011 for at least the following six months. We will look at the FIRST 36 PAGES (up to 9,000 words) of your e-manuscript submitted to (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail) and decide within 60 days of its arrival if we want to see more.
YOU MUST SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT ENTRY WITHIN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL—NO ATTACHMENTS!
THERE IS NO READING FEE and all literary rights will remain with the author.
NO NOVEL SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER SEPTEMBER 21st, 2011.
This contest is not open to anyone previously published on anderbo.com at any time.
This Anderbo No-Fee Novel Contest will be judged by the anderbo.com editorial staff; Anderbo guarantees to choose and use one manuscript-excerpt. There will be an honorarium of $500 paid by the sponsor of this contest, Mercer Street Books & Records, to the winning author upon publication on Anderbo.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Seven Random Things
I was tagged by writer Marty Rhodes Figley (whose too-funny blog is found at http://martyrhodesfigley.blogspot.com/), so here are seven random things about me:
1. I’m really great at packing a car for a road trip. I can fit any suitcase anywhere. This is genetic, as both my sister and father are also supremely skilled at packing a car. I bet my father could pack the contents of a house neatly into a Volkswagen.
2. I’m allergic to fresh pineapple—but not canned. Now you know how to kill me. (Actually, you don’t: now you know how to make my face immediately turn blotchy and itchy and my eyes swell almost shut.)
3. The first story I wrote (and, naturally, illustrated) on my own was titled “Seagull,” about two orphans traveling the world with some sort of magic dolls.
4. In eighth grade I was briefly in a school mime troupe, and there may still exist a photograph of me looking dorky in full mime whiteface.
5. I bought a first edition copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in a secondhand bookstore for a couple bucks.
6. Once, at an all-you-can-eat salad buffet, I ate 50 shrimp. Then I had a steak. And dessert. This was after an all-day hike in the desert mountains, but still.
7. I had a secret crush on Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys.
1. I’m really great at packing a car for a road trip. I can fit any suitcase anywhere. This is genetic, as both my sister and father are also supremely skilled at packing a car. I bet my father could pack the contents of a house neatly into a Volkswagen.
2. I’m allergic to fresh pineapple—but not canned. Now you know how to kill me. (Actually, you don’t: now you know how to make my face immediately turn blotchy and itchy and my eyes swell almost shut.)
3. The first story I wrote (and, naturally, illustrated) on my own was titled “Seagull,” about two orphans traveling the world with some sort of magic dolls.
4. In eighth grade I was briefly in a school mime troupe, and there may still exist a photograph of me looking dorky in full mime whiteface.
5. I bought a first edition copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in a secondhand bookstore for a couple bucks.
6. Once, at an all-you-can-eat salad buffet, I ate 50 shrimp. Then I had a steak. And dessert. This was after an all-day hike in the desert mountains, but still.
7. I had a secret crush on Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain Boys.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Present Tense: Friend or Foe?
I’ve been working on a story and realized that it probably should be in the present tense, which panicked me, since everyone “knows” the present tense is hard to manage and makes everyone sound like robots knocking around on a stage filled with mirrors endlessly reflecting each other. (“She gets in her car and turns the key. She backs out of the driveway. She wonders if her credit card will go through or if there will be an embarrassing scene at the grocery store.”) For a few moments, the best I could contemplate about this present tense story was that at least it was in the third person, not the first person.
On the other hand, I knew I had to use present tense, so I dutifully combed through my computer file deleting all the “ed’s,” preparing for the bigger battle to come. How to make the present tense work?
Here’s how: post something about the present tense on Facebook that the amazing Robin Black happens to see (author of If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This) which by happy and lucky coincidence for me motivates her to write a terrific blog post about the present tense for the Beyond the Margins blog which she kindly sent to me.
If you’re a present tense doubter, read what she says and then decide. And if you love the present tense, read what she says because I know she’ll show you how to make the present tense work more effectively in your stories. And then offer an opinion about cilantro, which I happen to love-love-love!
From Robin’s post:
“One of my newest crusades (stay tuned for a post defending adverbs) is to convince the world that there are no bad craft elements, only not such great uses of them…..In other words, present tense is no more or less constricting than past. It has its purposes and its limitations. And as with so many other writing elements – point of view being the other big one – the choice of tense for a story has more to do with the best way to tell that particular story than with whether in the abstract one prefers one form of storytelling over another.”
Pertinent links:
Read the post here: http://beyondthemargins.com/2011/06/living-in-the-present/
Are you joking? You still don’t have a copy of Robin’s book when you know how much I love it?! Buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Loved-You-Would-Tell-This/dp/0812980689/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1309182974&sr=1-1
Here’s a great recipe if you like cilantro: http://workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/2008/07/work-in-progress-take-break.html
And another: http://workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/2009/09/work-in-progress-fabulous-soup-recipe.html
On the other hand, I knew I had to use present tense, so I dutifully combed through my computer file deleting all the “ed’s,” preparing for the bigger battle to come. How to make the present tense work?
Here’s how: post something about the present tense on Facebook that the amazing Robin Black happens to see (author of If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This) which by happy and lucky coincidence for me motivates her to write a terrific blog post about the present tense for the Beyond the Margins blog which she kindly sent to me.
If you’re a present tense doubter, read what she says and then decide. And if you love the present tense, read what she says because I know she’ll show you how to make the present tense work more effectively in your stories. And then offer an opinion about cilantro, which I happen to love-love-love!
From Robin’s post:
“One of my newest crusades (stay tuned for a post defending adverbs) is to convince the world that there are no bad craft elements, only not such great uses of them…..In other words, present tense is no more or less constricting than past. It has its purposes and its limitations. And as with so many other writing elements – point of view being the other big one – the choice of tense for a story has more to do with the best way to tell that particular story than with whether in the abstract one prefers one form of storytelling over another.”
Pertinent links:
Read the post here: http://beyondthemargins.com/2011/06/living-in-the-present/
Are you joking? You still don’t have a copy of Robin’s book when you know how much I love it?! Buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Loved-You-Would-Tell-This/dp/0812980689/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1309182974&sr=1-1
Here’s a great recipe if you like cilantro: http://workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/2008/07/work-in-progress-take-break.html
And another: http://workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/2009/09/work-in-progress-fabulous-soup-recipe.html
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Guest in Progress: Sandra Beasley on Perfectionism
The fabulous and fabulously talented Sandra Beasley’s memoir will be coming out in July. Here’s the description of Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life:
"Like twelve million other Americans, Sandra Beasley suffers from food allergies. Her allergies—severe and lifelong—include dairy, egg, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard. Add to that mold, dust, grass and tree pollen, cigarette smoke, dogs, rabbits, horses, and wool, and it’s no wonder Sandra felt she had to live her life as “Allergy Girl.” When butter is deadly and eggs can make your throat swell shut, cupcakes and other treats of childhood are out of the question—and so Sandra’s mother used to warn guests against a toxic, frosting-tinged kiss with “Don’t kill the birthday girl!”
"It may seem that such a person is “not really designed to survive,” as one blunt nutritionist declared while visiting Sandra’s fourth-grade class. But Sandra has not only survived, she’s thrived—now an essayist, editor, and award-winning poet, she has learned to navigate a world in which danger can lurk in an unassuming corn chip. Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is her story."
Having loved Sandra’s gorgeous poetry in her second book, I Was the Jukebox, I’m very much looking forward to reading her memoir, which I’m predicting will be a Big Book. How does someone get two books of poetry and a memoir written (and published) in less than ten years? Perhaps a clue (and a warning) can be found in the following blog post—which originally appeared on Sandra’s—yes, I must say it!—fabulous!! blog, Chicks Dig Poetry, on May 9, 2009. (Links to books, blogs, and more below.)
Strangely Perfect, Perfectly Strange
by Sandra Beasley
At 3:47 A.M. last night, if you'd been looking for me, I could be found puttering around my apartment. I had things to do: watching an episode of The West Wing. Plucking yellow leaves off a peace lily. Pouring a dollop of Bluecoat gin, pulled from the freezer, into an already full martini ("martini" = redeeming olive).
So help me God, I am a perfectionist. If you've escaped that fate, it may not be obvious how all of these pursuits (each obviously inferior to, um, sleep) are spokes on the perfectionist wheel. I'll explain.
Some time ago I discovered that if you happen to be up at 3 A.M. on a given weeknight, you can probably find a re-run of The West Wing on Bravo. Ever since then, once it's 2:56 I become a lost cause. Even if my eyes are already half-shut, I will pry them open to stay up and tune in. My love for the show can be traced directly to Aaron Sorkin's dialogue. Every damn character is meticulous--whether it be in their politics, their ethics, their addiction to witty banter, or their martyrdom. Every sentence is polished to a golden glow; if you are right you will be perfectly right, if you are wrong you will be perfectly wrong, and if you are vague it will be a mists of vaguedom so thick and diffractively glorious as to spawn rainbows.
Realistic? No. But West Wing dialogue is crack to a perfectionist.
Exhibit B: To a perfectionist's eye, a room-temperature martini is a fatally flawed martini. So even though I'd stopped actually drinking a good hour before, I freshened it up with cold gin from the freezer, so that the glass once more assumed its glaze of frost. That was the last time I touched it until I dumped it in the sink before bed.
Besides being wasteful with reasonably expensive liquor, perfectionists adopt sadistic attitudes toward innocent plants. Take the peace lily, which was completely wilted to the floor upon my return from a holiday-weekend road trip. The moment I'd noticed it, I got out a trash bag and picked it up to pitch it. Give it a cup of water, pled my boyfriend. It could come back. I looked at him suspiciously. Clearly this plant was broken. Not only that, it's presence in the living room was raising the big red flag of bad housewifery--I hadn't even thought about watering it before leaving town. I couldn't take the reminder of my failure. Give it a day, he said.
Come around 3:20 A.M. (as Josh is worrying over Stackhouse's third-party candidacy), I hear a rustling sound. I look over, and--lo and behold, the peace lily is visibly perking up.
Do I sit back, bless my boyfriend's patience, and enjoy the Lazarus show? Nope. I become fixated on the dozen or so irreversibly yellow leaves. I stalk over, hunker down, and start stripping them off with my bare hands. It's not easy. They're wilty, but still kin-flesh to the plant. I'm become some barbarian, dragging maidens off by their long, soft hair even as they try to cling to their families.
Once I'm done, what remains is a plant free of any but the most perfect, glossy green leaves. And, probably, severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
As a writer, perfectionism offers a lot of benefits. I am dedicated to pushing ahead on revisions. I don't lose things. I meet deadlines. But the next time someone says I wish I had your drive I'm going to be honest and say, Seriously, dude, you wouldn't wish for it at 4 A.M.
About: Sandra Beasley is the author of I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize; and the memoir Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. Honors for her work include selection for the 2010 Best American Poetry, the University of Mississippi Summer Poet in Residence position, a DCCAH Individual Artist Fellowship, the Friends of Literature Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and the Maureen Egen Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. She lives in Washington, D.C., where her prose has appeared in the Washington Post Magazine.
Pertinent links:
About Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: http://www.randomhouse.com/book/196742/dont-kill-the-birthday-girl-by-sandra-beasley#abouttheauthort
Direct to buy Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Kill-Birthday-Girl-Allergic/dp/0307588114/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1308838478&sr=1-1
Book trailer (very fabulous!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCx4jznLVZE
More about the fabulous Sandra Beasley: http://www.sandrabeasley.com/
Sandra’s fabulous blog: http://www.sbeasley.blogspot.com/
Because now I'm dying for a martini, Bluecoat gin (also fabulous): http://bluecoatgin.com/
"Like twelve million other Americans, Sandra Beasley suffers from food allergies. Her allergies—severe and lifelong—include dairy, egg, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard. Add to that mold, dust, grass and tree pollen, cigarette smoke, dogs, rabbits, horses, and wool, and it’s no wonder Sandra felt she had to live her life as “Allergy Girl.” When butter is deadly and eggs can make your throat swell shut, cupcakes and other treats of childhood are out of the question—and so Sandra’s mother used to warn guests against a toxic, frosting-tinged kiss with “Don’t kill the birthday girl!”
"It may seem that such a person is “not really designed to survive,” as one blunt nutritionist declared while visiting Sandra’s fourth-grade class. But Sandra has not only survived, she’s thrived—now an essayist, editor, and award-winning poet, she has learned to navigate a world in which danger can lurk in an unassuming corn chip. Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is her story."
Having loved Sandra’s gorgeous poetry in her second book, I Was the Jukebox, I’m very much looking forward to reading her memoir, which I’m predicting will be a Big Book. How does someone get two books of poetry and a memoir written (and published) in less than ten years? Perhaps a clue (and a warning) can be found in the following blog post—which originally appeared on Sandra’s—yes, I must say it!—fabulous!! blog, Chicks Dig Poetry, on May 9, 2009. (Links to books, blogs, and more below.)
Strangely Perfect, Perfectly Strange
by Sandra Beasley
At 3:47 A.M. last night, if you'd been looking for me, I could be found puttering around my apartment. I had things to do: watching an episode of The West Wing. Plucking yellow leaves off a peace lily. Pouring a dollop of Bluecoat gin, pulled from the freezer, into an already full martini ("martini" = redeeming olive).
So help me God, I am a perfectionist. If you've escaped that fate, it may not be obvious how all of these pursuits (each obviously inferior to, um, sleep) are spokes on the perfectionist wheel. I'll explain.
Some time ago I discovered that if you happen to be up at 3 A.M. on a given weeknight, you can probably find a re-run of The West Wing on Bravo. Ever since then, once it's 2:56 I become a lost cause. Even if my eyes are already half-shut, I will pry them open to stay up and tune in. My love for the show can be traced directly to Aaron Sorkin's dialogue. Every damn character is meticulous--whether it be in their politics, their ethics, their addiction to witty banter, or their martyrdom. Every sentence is polished to a golden glow; if you are right you will be perfectly right, if you are wrong you will be perfectly wrong, and if you are vague it will be a mists of vaguedom so thick and diffractively glorious as to spawn rainbows.
Realistic? No. But West Wing dialogue is crack to a perfectionist.
Exhibit B: To a perfectionist's eye, a room-temperature martini is a fatally flawed martini. So even though I'd stopped actually drinking a good hour before, I freshened it up with cold gin from the freezer, so that the glass once more assumed its glaze of frost. That was the last time I touched it until I dumped it in the sink before bed.
Besides being wasteful with reasonably expensive liquor, perfectionists adopt sadistic attitudes toward innocent plants. Take the peace lily, which was completely wilted to the floor upon my return from a holiday-weekend road trip. The moment I'd noticed it, I got out a trash bag and picked it up to pitch it. Give it a cup of water, pled my boyfriend. It could come back. I looked at him suspiciously. Clearly this plant was broken. Not only that, it's presence in the living room was raising the big red flag of bad housewifery--I hadn't even thought about watering it before leaving town. I couldn't take the reminder of my failure. Give it a day, he said.
Come around 3:20 A.M. (as Josh is worrying over Stackhouse's third-party candidacy), I hear a rustling sound. I look over, and--lo and behold, the peace lily is visibly perking up.
Do I sit back, bless my boyfriend's patience, and enjoy the Lazarus show? Nope. I become fixated on the dozen or so irreversibly yellow leaves. I stalk over, hunker down, and start stripping them off with my bare hands. It's not easy. They're wilty, but still kin-flesh to the plant. I'm become some barbarian, dragging maidens off by their long, soft hair even as they try to cling to their families.
Once I'm done, what remains is a plant free of any but the most perfect, glossy green leaves. And, probably, severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
As a writer, perfectionism offers a lot of benefits. I am dedicated to pushing ahead on revisions. I don't lose things. I meet deadlines. But the next time someone says I wish I had your drive I'm going to be honest and say, Seriously, dude, you wouldn't wish for it at 4 A.M.
About: Sandra Beasley is the author of I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize; and the memoir Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. Honors for her work include selection for the 2010 Best American Poetry, the University of Mississippi Summer Poet in Residence position, a DCCAH Individual Artist Fellowship, the Friends of Literature Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and the Maureen Egen Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. She lives in Washington, D.C., where her prose has appeared in the Washington Post Magazine.
Pertinent links:
About Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: http://www.randomhouse.com/book/196742/dont-kill-the-birthday-girl-by-sandra-beasley#abouttheauthort
Direct to buy Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Kill-Birthday-Girl-Allergic/dp/0307588114/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1308838478&sr=1-1
Book trailer (very fabulous!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCx4jznLVZE
More about the fabulous Sandra Beasley: http://www.sandrabeasley.com/
Sandra’s fabulous blog: http://www.sbeasley.blogspot.com/
Because now I'm dying for a martini, Bluecoat gin (also fabulous): http://bluecoatgin.com/
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Carolyn Parkhurst: "The World's Most Awesome Novelist"
My friend and fellow writing group member Carolyn Parkhurst has put together the most hilarious and clever book trailer to celebrate her new novel, The Nobodies Album, which has just been issued in paperback. The video is less than three minutes, and I know you’ll laugh.
Read more about Carolyn here (as well as enjoy an opportunity to buy items from the “Carolyn Parkhurst Collection” as seen in the video!): http://carolynparkhurst.com/site/
If you haven’t spent all your money on items from the “Carolyn Parkhurst Collection,” you can buy the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Nobodies-Album-Carolyn-Parkhurst/dp/0767930584/ref=pd_sim_b_2
Direct link to the book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-As0pRJHiM
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Dan Wakefield's Workshop in PA
My dear friend and Converse Low-Res MFA non-fiction colleague Dan Wakefield is teaching a weekend class at a beautiful and restful Quaker retreat center fifteen minutes from Philly. I haven’t taken a class from him per se, but the Converse non-fiction students are absolutely devoted to him, and I’ve learned so much from his craft lectures and in conversation with him. I have no doubt that he's an inspiring and smart teacher.
Check out his workshop:
Creating from the Spirit
July 10-14, 2011 (four nights)
Write, draw, listen to music, meditate on natural objects to evoke and expand your natural creativity. Break the myth of alcohol and drugs as stimulants to creativity, and experience clarity as the key. Gain access to ideas, stories, and new life directions. Learn to break "the creative slump."
$620/private room; $515/shared room; $395/commuter.
And if you don’t know Dan’s work, you should. New York in the Fifties is one of my favorite memoirs! But here’s his official bio:
Dan Wakefield is a novelist, journalist, and screenwriter who has led workshops in spiritual autobiography and creativity at churches, synagogues, adult education centers, retreat centers, health spas, and prisons throughout the United States, Mexico, and Northern Ireland.
You can get more details about the workshop here: http://www.pendlehill.org/workshops/summer-2011/530-creating-from-the-spirit
More details about Pendle Hill, the Quaker retreat/conference center are here: http://www.pendlehill.org/
Read about Dan Wakefield here: http://www.danwakefield.com/
And because I think it’s so cool to have one of these, here’s his IMDb profile: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0906764/
Check out his workshop:
Creating from the Spirit
July 10-14, 2011 (four nights)
Write, draw, listen to music, meditate on natural objects to evoke and expand your natural creativity. Break the myth of alcohol and drugs as stimulants to creativity, and experience clarity as the key. Gain access to ideas, stories, and new life directions. Learn to break "the creative slump."
$620/private room; $515/shared room; $395/commuter.
And if you don’t know Dan’s work, you should. New York in the Fifties is one of my favorite memoirs! But here’s his official bio:
Dan Wakefield is a novelist, journalist, and screenwriter who has led workshops in spiritual autobiography and creativity at churches, synagogues, adult education centers, retreat centers, health spas, and prisons throughout the United States, Mexico, and Northern Ireland.
You can get more details about the workshop here: http://www.pendlehill.org/workshops/summer-2011/530-creating-from-the-spirit
More details about Pendle Hill, the Quaker retreat/conference center are here: http://www.pendlehill.org/
Read about Dan Wakefield here: http://www.danwakefield.com/
And because I think it’s so cool to have one of these, here’s his IMDb profile: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0906764/
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