Poetry for These Times
- At June 15, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
3
A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.—Salman Rushdie
The last two weeks have been ones of strong emotion and calls for change, the brutal death of George Floyd making it impossible to go on as before, to maintain what seems to have become the status quo in this country: systemic racism, social injustice, and police brutality. While we as a country may denounce such racism and the awful fruits of it, we haven’t done enough to make it stop.
Read More»JoySpace
- At May 04, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 6
Your art is a place you always return to. — Pat Benincasa
The pandemic has caused a shift in our daily lives and we are forced to think and behave in new ways. What can we as writers hold on to during these challenging weeks? How can we spark joy? Be open to exploring? Find JoySpace in what we know best and return to the love of line, words and stories. Yes, it’s possible to be “graced” even now by our love of creating. Creativity grabs our attention in a blessed way—it feeds us, nourishes our soul, and brings us joy. But we must be willing to depart from routine, explore a little and stretch ourselves. I was reminded of this lesson when my two youngest granddaughters Zoomed with me this week.
Read More»Kindness in the Time of Quarantine
- At April 20, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 2
Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change.—Bob Kerrey
Lately, I have been thinking about “Kindness,” the moving poem written by Naomi Shihab Nye and published in 1995. “Before you know kindness,” she wrote, “you must lose things…” For this is a time when we as a world and we as individual people are going through loss. For some, it is deep heart-wrenching loss when a loved one passes away. For most of us, it is loss experienced in other ways–loss of financial security and loss of freedom of movement, loss of the loving contact of friends and family, the solace that comes from talking things over.
Read More»Writing from the Heart
- At March 02, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 4
Words are events, they do things. –Ursula K. Le Guin
We carry stories around in our heads all our lives, often forgetting about them until we see an image in a photo, experience a dream or hear a word dropped from a conversation or song. For me, the word speck triggered a memory, and suddenly a story written in fourth grade came into clear view. Mrs. Matthews, my teacher, assigned an essay on the topic of “Favorite Animals” and we were supposed to write with strong emotion. Oh, I thought that would be easy. Being with Speck, my brindle-colored rat terrier, was like being with a best friend. He was a cuddly bundle of fifteen pounds who accompanied me on solitary walks all over the farm. I did talk to him, only occasionally I told my friends; but when I told him something of great importance, Speck would cock his head as if he understood. Through rain or snow, he waited for me after school and when the bus pulled up, he yipped and barked, saying hello in dog language.
A Fresh Start
- At January 27, 2020
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 6
Prairie Sunrise
I hope you realize that every day is a fresh start for you. That every sunrise is a new chapter in your life waiting to be written.—Juansen Dizon
Welcome to our blog! And to our past readers, welcome back! After a hiatus of some months, we are back again, extending an invitation to you to join in community, to write in community. We believe that each and every one of us have great immeasurable creative potential, and we want to be a source of encouragement and inspiration as you go about your writing lives.
Read More»Without Words
- At August 27, 2018
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 3
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. – Friedrich Nietzsche
What better place to talk about creative flow, the magical experience where actions and awareness merge, than dancing? Scott Barry Kaufman describes flow when “one’s mind is fully open and attuned to the act of creating.” Where a sense of wholeness arises, and we move away from the cerebral to the body. Everything feels engaged and meaningful.
Read More»Act on Your Dreams and “Make It So”
- At August 06, 2018
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 0
The world of reality has its limits; the world of the imagination is boundless.—Rousseau
Remember Jean Luc Picard, Starfleet Captain in Star Trek? When he and his officers hit upon a solution to get themselves out of a sticky situation—by going to warp speed, say, or activating the deflector shield to evade a hostile force—he instructed his crew to “make it so.” And it would be done. I love that. Determining a course of action and following through. Making it so.
Much of what we do in this life is based upon the decisions we make. Generally speaking, if we decide to pursue a particular dream, if we believe in it strongly enough and dedicate ourselves to shepherding it to fruition, that dream will come into being. Perhaps you want desperately to achieve a college education. What do you do? Study hard in high school, complete college applications and line up loans and scholarships. Or perhaps you want to write a novel. You go to work—preparing an outline, blocking out periods of time to write, and paragraph by paragraph, you write the book. You “make it so.”
Turning to Others
- At June 25, 2018
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 1
Mentors come to us in all kinds of ways. You may meet them face to face at art shows, writing conferences, or in your local artist community, or they may be artists in your field you court from afar, working with them by phone or the occasional email. However, they come to you and whatever form the mentee-mentor relationship may take, the work is always heart-to-heart.
My mentors have been impactful during different stages of my life, helping me uncover more and more moments when my writing accomplishes what I desire, conveying the message I want. During times when my creativity goes on sabbatical, they provide the encouragement, the little nudge I need to get me going again. More than anything, however, their mentoring pushes me to reflect upon my own writing, and notice like Swiss cheese all the holes. And I learned, and learned again, that satisfaction for one’s finished art is a rare thing.
Read More»A Master Craftsman
- At May 21, 2018
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 9
The following essay is a salute to my father and to all fathers who make a positive difference in their children’s lives.
Although my father was a private person, his beliefs were evident in how he treated the earth as if it were holy, and the many ways he applied the wisdom of nature to his life. He didn’t just think about how he valued the planet, he lived out that basic precept in the activities of each day, his life exemplifying what he believed. Coming from the old school of farming, he knew that all things mattered.
Read More»Creative Karma
- At April 16, 2018
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 6
Realize that everything connects to everything else.—Leonardo Da Vinci
From 2005-2009, a TV sitcom, “Earl,” featured a slackard good-for-nothing who discovers he holds a $100,000 lottery ticket. He is overjoyed, jubilant. But just as Earl realizes his good fortune, a car hits him and he wakes in a hospital bed to find his lottery ticket gone. It is karma, he believes, the forces of the world punishing him for the hurt he has done to others. And from then on, Earl dedicates himself to righting the wrongs he has committed in the past.
It really wasn’t that great a series (in my estimation) and I only watched a few episodes. But the idea of some sort of cosmic karma is intriguing. As ye sow, so shall ye reap, the Bible says, suggesting that in the grand scheme of things, we get what’s coming to us. We get what we deserve. I’m not sure I believe that. Bad things happen to the innocents of the world, to those who have done only good. And, as we know, right does not always prevail. We see injustice everywhere.
Read More»
Recent Comments