The WordPlay Word-zine Volume VII, Issue 18 May 7, 2018 Dear ,
All our lives hold endings—some expected, some shocking, some instantaneous, some lingering, some bittersweet, some piercing. Long-time WordPlayer Cathia
Friou "developed a real vision" for turning
one of her endings—that of her marriage to her high-school sweetheart—into a memoir in 2017, while she was taking my Gift of Memoir class.
It was a thrill for me to receive Cathia's Rock Paper Scissors: Scenes
from a Charmed Divorce in the mail. I took in the words on the back cover: "Sometimes divorce happens. Sometimes it's not the end." Hmm. And then I flipped it open to a random page and read a wrenchingly honest recounting of a post-divorce relationship with an almost-perfect guy that was so entertaining, as well as wrenchingly honest and good-hearted, that I couldn't wait to read more. I confess—as soon as I could, I put on my
PJ's, curled up in bed, and read the entire book in one sitting. The back cover didn't lie: Cathia's family did not come to an end when her marriage did. Rock Paper Scissors: Scenes from a Charmed Divorce illustrates that appreciation and respect can continue after a divorce, and that claiming your own piercing truth can
allow something new to grow from an ending.
Check out an excerpt from Cathia's memoir below. (One of the things I loved
about her book is that fact that each of the stories is followed by a quote that reflects, and deepens, the experience shared.) On your way down, you can also check out a few fall WordPlay offerings. And don't forget to try this week's prompt...
Love and light,
Maureen
Upcoming WordPlay
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
NOW TAKING REGISTRATIONS FOR FALL 2018! 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.
* For the benefit of participants, an audio recording of the class will be made
each week so that participants are able to listen to classes they miss and/or review material covered at any convenient time and place. These recordings are available throughout the class session, along with all handouts, in a shared Dropbox folder.
WHERE: Covenant Presbyterian Recreation Center, 1000 East Morehead Street, Charlotte, 28204. Click here for map.
WHEN: Wednesday mornings from 10:00 a.m. – noon, starting in September 2018. (Other class time/day of the week may be available.)
COST: $435 TO REGISTER: Please email us at info@wordplaynow.com to start the registration process by filling out a short "Clarity
Tool" to share your writing dreams and goals and where you are in the process (anywhere you are is a perfect place to begin).
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GIFT OF MEMOIR WRITING PERSONAL AND FAMILY STORIES (Preserving Family History; Writing for and about Your Family; The Art of Memoir)
NOW TAKING REGISTRATIONS FOR FALL 2018! Our life stories are a precious legacy.
Putting them in writing is a gift to all who know and love us—they can be treasured and enjoyed for generations to come. It is also a gift to ourselves. As best-selling author Rachel Naomi Remen says in her book Kitchen Table Wisdom, facts bring us to knowledge, but stories bring us to wisdom.
If you are interested in writing family and/or personal life stories—those significant tales of adventure, transition, love, loss, and triumph, as well as lovely everyday moments from times past or the present, come learn specific tools and techniques to retrieve and record them.
* For the benefit of participants, an audio recording of the class will be made each
week so that participants are able to listen to classes they miss and/or review material covered at any convenient time and place. These recordings are available throughout the class session, along with all handouts, in a shared Dropbox folder.
WHERE: Covenant Presbyterian Recreation Center, 1000 East Morehead Street, Charlotte, 28204. Click here for map.
WHEN: Thursday mornings, 10:00 a.m. – noon., starting in September, 2018.
COST: $285
TO REGISTER: Please
email us at info@wordplaynow.com to start the registration process by filling out a short "Clarity Tool" to share your writing dreams and goals and where you are in the process (anywhere you are is a perfect place to begin).
WordPlay Success Story "Maureen creates a safe and nourishing space,
attracting like-minded folks. The WordPlay tribe is the perfect place to birth (or unearth)
a writing project." Cathia is the author of Rock Paper Scissors:
Scenes from a Charmed Divorce (2018) and the booklet The Art of Co-Parenting (2012). Formally trained as a leadership coach and mediator, she is an ardent devotee of self-awareness, courageous conversations, and conflict transformation. She is also a Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator, which is a body of work based on the pioneering research of Brené Brown, exploring topics like courage, shame, vulnerability, and worthiness. A native Charlottean and former Manhattan dweller, Cathia is an adventurist
at heart. She is a graduate of the North Carolina Outward Bound School, walked 200 miles along the Camino de Santiago, and is a former Latin ballroom dancer. She possesses an insatiable appetite for Jungian psychology, TED talks, and cartoons appearing in The New Yorker.
Please email Cathia at cathia@cathiafriou.com or visit cathiafriou.com What Cathia says about WordPlay “I have been writing on and off my whole life, but it wasn’t until one of my first classes with Maureen that I was able to claim myself a writer. In an exercise we did constructing our writing histories from childhood to present, I was thrilled to see concrete evidence, starting with a play I co-wrote in the 3rd grade. It was so affirming and a thrilling discovery…I am a
writer! I took my first of many writing
classes with Maureen in 2004, and it was “The Gift of Memoir” class in January of 2017 that was a turning point for me. In that class I developed a real vision for my divorce memoir and a year later I had my book finalized. Maureen creates a safe and nourishing space, attracting like-minded folks. The WordPlay tribe is the perfect place to birth (or unearth) a writing project."
Chapter 3 Spring 2010
Sitting on a bench in a park near our house, we try to make sense of what’s happening in our lives. High-school sweethearts married for eighteen years, we are trying to digest the dismantling of our lives. And it seems we have no better tools in our forties than when we met as teenagers.
Gasping for the last bits of marital air, the cabin pressure dropping precipitously, I ask him a question.
“Do you think I ask too much of marriage?”
In a single, exhausted exhale he replies, “For someone like you, no. But
what you ask of me, yes.”
And there it is. All the years of confusion and underlying pain, the months and months of marriage counseling, no one could pinpoint it as precisely as the man living
it.
It’s a story I tell people often both for its economy of words, one of his specialties, and its piercing truth. I believe it’s the beginning of a kind of belated intimacy. He validates my hunger, and I get a glimpse into the pain I’m causing him in longing for something more.
How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of
losses?
– STANLEY KUNITZ
Rock Paper Scissors: Scenes from a Charmed Divorce is available for purchase on
Amazon 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 "end."
PROMPT: Write about an end—of a relationship, a career, an era...or anything else, from
your point of view or anyone else's, in any genre.
It's fun to play with prompts in
community with fellow writers, and to be able to share the results when you're done. You can find out about WordPlay classes, workshops, and retreats here. 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. You can listen to it here. 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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