Volume V, Issue 35 August 29, 2016 Dear ,
I'm a big fan of writer Ann Hood, whether she's writing memoir, essays, or fiction. So it was great to see her again at Chautauqua last month—we met there several years ago. We who attended her Sunday reading were the first to see her latest book—she herself didn't realize it was available yet, and it was fun
to see her surprise and delight. The Book That Matters Most is the story of a woman named Ava who is putting her life back together after her husband leaves her. There is finally a spot in the book club her best friend has been talking about for years, and Ava is very excited to join, but, as you'll see in the excerpt below, the book club turns out to be more than she's bargained for. For every member has to pick the book that matters the most to him or her, and Ava is at a loss.
I don't know how I could possibly pick one book that matters most out of all the books that have been important to me in my life, but I love this premise, and making a list of as many of them is I can think of is a delightful occupation. What would be on your list?
Beyond books, the word
"matter" itself is a provocative one. I especially love words that are both noun and verb, and this is a great example: We are made of matter, and our lives matter, right? And what we think matters most says a lot about who we are...and how we live our days. In fact, I'd say what matters most is what we make of our lives. What do you think?
Love and
light, Maureen
P.S. While this November's regular Coastal Writing Retreat is full, there are still a few spots left in the Coastal Retreat that focuses on memoir. I'd love to have you! Details here. Upcoming WordPlay
(Fulfilling Writing Dreams & Goals; Creating New Writing; Revising & Polishing Your Writing)
This
class is designed to fulfill your writing dreams and projects. You’ll set goals and support structures and watch your writing flow! You’ll also get feedback on your work (any genre) and learn revision tools and methods. Each week, writing prompts will generate material for new writing or further a piece in process, whatever your preferred genre. Through examples of accomplished writers, you’ll learn techniques to aid you right where you are in the process.
* We have Tuesday evening and
Wednesday morning classes available
WHERE: South Charlotte area (Tuesday evenings) OR Covenant Presbyterian Recreation Center, 1000 E. Morehead, Charlotte, NC 28204 (Wednesday mornings)
WHEN: Tuesday evenings OR Wednesday mornings, starting in September. COST: $419 for 12 sessions
TO REGISTER: Please email us at info@wordplaynow.com if interested. We currently
have a waiting list and would be happy to add your name to it.
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THE
GIFT OF MEMOIR COASTAL WRITING RETREAT (A Retreat Focusing on Memoir)
You’ll learn and practice engaging tools and techniques to retrieve and record your adventures, loves, losses, successes, and more with ease and enjoyment, no matter where you are in
the process. $418 for the weekend beginning Friday, November 4th through Sunday, November 6th. Includes two nights’ lodging, two breakfasts and Saturday lunch (hotel tax and Saturday dinner at a local restaurant not included).
WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, November 4 – Sunday, November 6, 2016*
TO
REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at 888-575-1001 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here first, then call). Because the Inn is holding rooms for you, our participants, they are blocked off as unavailable online. Register soon by phone — this is a popular event and there are only
3 spaces available. The Inn will hold your reservation with a credit card.
*Also, please let the Inn know when you call if you are interested in the bonus opportunity to stay Sunday night, November 6th, at half price.
-------------------------------------------------------- DELICIOUS
MEMORIES (Writing about Food in Any and All Genres)
Food not only nurtures and sustains us, it’s a rich source of metaphor and memory! We’ll explore our connections with food as we write of when, where, what, with whom, how — and even why — we ate! You can use your food writings to create a family cookbook, individual essays, stories, or poems, scenes in fiction or memoir, a food blog, etc. — or just for your own pleasure.
More WordPlay opportunities here. Featured Writing An excerpt from the novel
The Book That Matters Most
by Ann Hood “Our theme, of course, is ‘The Book That Matters Most,’” Cate said happily, and the group applauded. “Everyone chooses a book that mattered the most
to you in your life and each month we read that one book. John? Ava? I thought you two could go last, if that’s okay?”
Ava straightened. That’s what she was supposed to do? Choose a book? Not any book, but the book that mattered the most to her? She couldn’t even remember the last book she’d read that
mattered at all. In fact, she purposely chose books that didn’t matter. In summer she enjoyed sitting on the beach with a paperback while Jim worked his way steadily through Robert Caro’s thick biographies of LBJ. But those paperbacks she read—mysteries and travel stories and novels with banal, forgettable plots—did not stay with her. She’d plucked a few off the shelf at this very library, read them, and forgot about them. They didn’t matter.
Around her, everyone was taking pens out of their pockets or purses and opening those expensive Moleskine notebooks. Was that another thing she had missed? Bring a Moleskine notebook and the book that matters most to you? She thought of when Maggie and Will were young and she made a trip every September to buy their school supplies, the lists
long and detailed, requiring three ring binders of various sizes, and all kinds of pens and markers and pencils. She missed the rituals of her young family, of slicing cucumbers and carrots, checking homework, folding the warm laundry, making hospital corners on the beds—all of it. And for the tenth or hundredth or thousandth time that day she thought, Damn you, Jim.
Sounds of everyone settling in and Cate’s voice announcing yet something else brought Ava back to attention. Who knew book groups were so complicated? Cate had a big bronze urn that reminded Ava of the kind that held a dead person’s ashes.
Cate stuck her hand inside, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and grinned.
“Penny,” she said, “you get to choose our January book.”
The elderly blonde in the Chanel suit stood.
“As many of you know, I was Radcliffe, class of ’47,” Penny said proudly. “And while there I fell in love with a certain Miss Jane Austen. I read her
novels in order, Sense and Sensibility first, which was published in 1811, then…”
Ava couldn’t concentrate on what Penny was saying. All she could think about was that she had one month to read a Jane Austen novel. To date, she’d never read even one.
WordPlay Now! Writing
Prompt This is WordPlay—so why not revel in the power and
potential of one good word after another? This week, it's "matter."
PROMPT: This week's prompt is to Sprint, beginning with the words "What matters most is... " Set a timer for ten minutes and keep your pen moving, writing from your own perspective or the point of view of any of your
character's. MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. One of her long-held dreams came true in July of 2015 when Garrison Keillor read one of her poems on The Writer's Almanac. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with
intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours! |
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