Volume V, Issue 44 October 31, 2016 Word of the Week: connection Dear ,
I have always love Halloween, in part because it's followed by All Saint's Day, which
happens to be my birthday.
(This year is one of those big birthdays, and I'm so grateful that all four of my siblings, along with their spouses, came to spend this past weekend with me. We're pictured above at Childress Winery.) We did our share of connecting, celebrating that we are all still alive and well, and also sharing memories and reflections of our loved ones who are no longer with
us.
I didn't learn about Dia de los Muertos until several years ago, when my beloved friend and teacher Irene Honeycutt and I went to a Day of the Dead celebration at the Levine Museum of the New
South.
While a day to celebrate the dead may sound morbid to some, it's really a day of connection, an opportunity to remember those who have gone before us. I learned even more about it when Irene went to Mexico as a faculty member of San Miguel Writers' Conference. Day of the Dead photo which Irene took inside a museum on the outskirts of San Miguel de
Allende when she was there in 2015 on the faculty of the San Miguel Writers Conference
This week, I'm excited to be
featuring a poem from Irene's upcoming book of poetry, Beneath the Bamboo Sky, which will be published in January 2017. You can order now for a discount and you'll receive a special gift: a limited edition of a numbered & autographed broadside of one of Irene's poems in the form of a diagram.
However you choose to celebrate Halloween, All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day, and/or Dia de los Muertos, I hope it will include some sweet connections with those you love. And memories that make for good writing, whether it's poetry or prose, fact or fiction!
Love and light, Maureen P.S. Due to cancellations, we have one spot left in the Memoir Writing Retreat this
weekend, November 4th through 6th. Details below and here. Call the Sunset Inn now at (910) 575-1000 now to reserve your spot.
We also have one spot available if the Coastal Writing Retreat November 11th through 13th. Details below and here. Call the Sunset Inn now at (910) 575-1000 now to reserve your spot. Upcoming WordPlay
GIFT OF MEMOIR WRITING RETREAT (Telling the Times of Your
Life)
1 spot left!
Our stories are a precious legacy. Writing them is a gift, not only to ourselves, but to those who love us—they’ll be treasured for generations to come. Memoir is a popular genre for
readers as well, should you be interested in sharing individual essays or creating a book-length work. 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
Gift of Memoir sessions, two nights’ lodging, two breakfasts and Saturday lunch (hotel tax and Saturday dinner at a local restaurant not included). Additionally, for those who might like to stay another day to work on their writing, or to just enjoy the beach, the Inn is offering Gift of Memoir Retreat participants the opportunity to stay Sunday night, November 6th, at half price.
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 is only 1 space available.
*Also, please
let the Inn know when you call if you are interested in staying Sunday night, November 6th, at half price. The Inn will hold your reservation with a credit card.
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COASTAL WRITING RETREAT (Writing—and more—as Renewal and Inspiration)
1
spot left!
Renew yourself and reconnect with your own creativity, whether you are a practicing writer, closet writer, or as-yet-to-pick-up-the-pen writer! The techniques and prompts we’ll use will spur your imagination, and can be used to create nonfiction, fiction, and/or poetry—the choice is yours. $418 for the weekend. The Coastal
Writing Retreat includes writing sessions, two nights’ lodging, two breakfasts and Saturday lunch (hotel tax and Saturday dinner at a local restaurant not included). Additionally, for those who might like to stay another day to work on their writing, or to just enjoy the beach, the Inn is offering to Coastal Writing Retreat participants only, the opportunity to stay Sunday night, November 13th, at half price.
WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, November 11 – Sunday, November 13, 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 is only 1 space available.
*Also, please let the Inn know when you call if you are
interested in the bonus opportunity to stay Sunday night, November 13th, at half price.
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WINTER WRITING
RETREAT (Writing as Renewal/Creating New Writing/
Tools for a Writing Life)
Renew and delight yourself. The Winter Writing Retreat is an opportunity to create new pieces of writing and/or possibilities for our
lives. Enjoy various seasonal prompts; they elicit beautiful material that can be shaped into essays, poems, stories, or articles. After a communal lunch, you'll have private time that can be used to collage, work with a piece of writing from the morning, or play with a number of other writing prompts and methods. You'll take home new ideas, new drafts, and new
possibilities.
$97 includes lunch and supplies
WHERE: South Charlotte area. Details will be provided upon registration. WHEN: Saturday, December 17th, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. TO REGISTER: To pay with a check via mail, email info@wordplaynow.com for instructions. Click here to pay online, using PayPal.
More WordPlay opportunities here. WordPlay Featured Writer
Meet Irene Honeycutt
A dream come true in San Miguel: Irene relaxing on a sofa in the historical Hyder House, where she will become an
assistant to a photographer she met before her writing workshop. He will be photographing none other than the Keynoter, Gloria Steinem.
Irene Blair Honeycutt, born in Jacksonville, FL, is the
author of three poetry books. The first, It Comes as a Dark Surprise (1992), won the New South Poetry Book Series Regional Contest. The third, Before the Light Changes (2008), was a finalist for the Brockman-Campbell Book Award. Other awards for her writing and advocacy of writers include a NC Arts Council Scholarship, a Creative Fellowship from the Charlotte Arts and Science Council, and a Best of Charlotte Award from Creative Loafing for Best Contribution to the
Improvement of Charlotte’s Literary Climate. She founded Central Piedmont Community College’s Spring Literary Festival in Charlotte, NC, which expanded into Sensoria. At the college, she received the Award for Excellence in Teaching. Upon her retirement, the college established a Distinguished Lectureship, a Lifetime Achievement Award and a Legacy Award in her name. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Nimrod, Southern Poetry Review, Virginia Quarterly
and the Southern Poetry Anthology. She lives in Indian Trail, NC.
What Irene says about
WordPlay "My "Condensed Cinderella Story" is
below. Very condensed. But you'll get an inkling of where my writing life began, how the seeds of my dreams were planted, and how I would grow up to be a teacher and a writer. And a traveler. I now have a cabin in the woods (instead of a bamboo hut). Among the blessings I cherish are the many friends who were once in my classes. One of the dearest is Maureen Ryan Griffin who came to my journal writing class at Queens and then enrolled in my creative writing classes at CPCC.
While a student there, Maureen won a national poetry contest sponsored by the League for Innovation. I vividly recall the feeling I had when first reading Maureen's entry: This is a real poem. Maureen is a real poet. Maureen has the gift of metaphor. It's been such a joy to see her writing life and career blossom. No one works harder with and for her students than Maureen.
Now, imagine her as a student years ago. I remember her nipping at my boot heels on writing retreats I led on Jonas Ridge. "Are we going to be doing more writing exercises when we get back to the cabin?" she asked. "Yes, Maureen," I answered. "But we're on the trail right now. Look at the leaves!" After the weekend retreat ended, our dear friend Mary Wilmer (now deceased) and I were cleaning the cabin with Maureen sitting at the writing table; and I kept
giving her writing exercises while I swept the floors! "Just call me Cinderella," I told her.
Our lives have enriched one another. I know I'm certainly richer spiritually and in so many ways nourished by my dear turtle friend.
When my brother was dying in Florida, I called Maureen one day when I most needed her support. That conversation helped Ralph and me through his remaining days on this earth. I'll never forget that important call.
That's one of the wonderful things about Maureen's friendship and
her creation of WordPlay: It's all about connections, isn't it?
Irene's "Condensed Cinderella Story"
Once upon a time, Irene was a child who grew up in Jacksonville, Fl. She and her brothers
loved playing in the woods behind their little house on Lowell Avenue. They swung on vines across creeks and built huts made of palm and bamboo. They each had their own hut in which they hid from or viewed the world.... She and her brothers dug holes in the ground and secretly hid their treasures. Irene's treasures? A stone. A tiny pastel writing pad. And a maroon ballpoint pen a neighbor had given
her.
The hut was Irene's sacred space, although she did not know to call it that. But she knew this was a special place of her own where she could write little poems and thoughts.
She placed the pastel pad, the pen, and the stone inside a cigar box her dad had given her. Then she
covered the hole with a palm frond and smoked one of her dad's cigarette butts.
Irene dreamed of traveling to faraway places, inspired by the maps in the back of the Bible her mother had given her. She loved the fragrance her mother wore and the midnight blue bottle of "Evening in Paris" on the dresser top. She dreamed that one day she would fly to Paris. She and her brothers dragged
time through their nets in the creeks they waded, catching minnows—making memories long enough to last a lifetime. The night before her older brother left home to join the Navy, she and her brothers and the gang on the street sat on the screened porch and sang along with Jo Stafford: see the market place in old Algiers/send me photographs and souvenirs. They sang with Patti Page: if you spend an evening you'll want to stay/watching the moonlight on Cape
Cod Bay. The next morning, Irene watched her brother walk down the sidewalk with his suitcase. And that night as she looked out the window from her bed, she saw a shooting star. Life had changed. Her philosophy was born.
If you want to read how Irene captures memories; how grief becomes her friend
when she loses her adult siblings; if you want to walk with her on her journey, then you'll want to read her new book, with a title inspired by those childhood huts: Beneath the Bamboo Sky.
You can order it for a discount now an you'll receive a special gift: a limited edition of a numbered &
autographed broadside of one of Irene's poems in the form of a diagram. Poet, artist, and educator Amy Bagwell says of this poem: I so love Irene’s diagrammed poem, “When Sorrows Come.” And to represent it visually is powerful. The impulse she describes is elementally human/even animal. And the diagram is elemental—in a different way, of course, but pulling us back to early lessons, to the basics. The echoes are beautiful. The lines are a scaffold. And they create a shape that one could imagine entering (a geometric cave, almost).
Featured Writing
Words to Wang Wei on the First Day of Autumn
by
Irene Honeycutt
How different you would find it here.
I sit in a bamboo chair on a concrete patio,
not in a boat on the Han River,
my two dogs at my feet, barking
when the geese fly over the pond.
This morning I drank coffee, mesmerized
by the clouds. Amazing circles they had formed—
a heavenly show of what dreams
can paint. Within a few fleeting minutes
while I warmed my coffee,
the geese had disappeared, the air
had shifted, and the clouds looked
like goose down the wind had loosed.
In those moments when I was not looking,
all had changed. Now I must tell you.
My youngest brother has died.
If it were possible
I would paint
a cloudburst on the sky,
wishing you could see it, old friend—
you who drifted long, long ago,
leaning on a single oar . . .
without thought of going home.
This beautiful poem, and many others, can be found in
Irene's new poetry book, Beneath the Bamboo Sky, available here:
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 "connection."
PROMPT: Note that Irene's poem above is addressed to Wang Wei, an eighth-century Chinese poet. I call any writing addressed to a particular person a "Hello It's Me" in honor of my husband's favorite musician, Todd Rundgren.
This week, try your hand at writing directly to someone, living or dead. You can use poetry or prose. A letter would be perfect, in fact, given that we're focusing on connection this week. (And that letter can grow into a whole novel. As my friend Vivé Griffith once wrote me, “When I saw Isabel Allende a few weeks back, I
was struck by how at least two of her novels began as letters: House of the Spirits as a letter to her grandfather; Paula as a letter to her daughter Paula, who was in a coma.")
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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