Volume VI, Issue 9 February 27, 2017 Dear ,
This week's featured writer, Suzanne Strempek Shea, is a master at making lists that exude that mysterious thing called voice. I met Suzanne at the AWP conference I've been sharing about, at which she was a member of a terrific panel
discussion on voice in memoir.
One of the things that intrigued me about the panelists' conversation was the thought that
every memoirist is balancing at least two different voices: that of the present narrator, who knows the ending of the story being told, and that of the younger, more "innocent" self who lived out the story, and is therefore closer to it. I'm finding this a very helpful distinction as I work on my own memoir, Erasing Texas. (I don't have the subtitle down yet, but it's about my 33-year marriage and a large event that turned it upside down for a
while.)
There is a lot that can be said about developing one's voice as a writer, but I have a very easy entry point for you,
modeled by Suzanne in the excerpt from Shelf Life you'll find below: lean into the power of a list that only you can write, because of your particular life and your particular passions.
And if you're working on a novel, like these two delightful writers who attended this past weekend's Coastal Project:
Book retreat, listing is a great way to get know your character's, whether it's listing a character's personal lexicon, or his or her clothing choices, or their most notable "firsts" and "lasts."
Yes, when it comes to a writer's voice, a list has the power to deliver. Hope you have fun WordPlaying your own lists this
week!
Love and light, Maureen Upcoming WordPlay
DELICIOUS MEMORIES WORKSHOP
This Saturday!
FREE!
(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.
WHERE: Union County Library (in the Training Room). 316 East Windsor Street. Monroe, NC 28112
WHEN:
March 4th, 2017, from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m.
COST: Free!
TO REGISTER: To register, contact Lori Grem by phone (704-283-8184 ext. 224) or email (lgrem@unioncountync.gov). * Please be sure to specify that you’d like to attend this particular workshop, as the library has many programs.
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WRITE YOURSELF! (FOR TEENS) WORKSHOP
FREE! Explore how creative writing can enrich your life
with writer and teacher Maureen Ryan Griffin. You’ll learn fun, easy tools to help your words flow. Whatever your interest, you’ll enjoy this informative workshop.
WHERE: South County Regional Library. 5801 Rea Rd, Charlotte, NC 28277
WHEN: Saturday, April 1st, from 2:00 – 3:30
p.m.
COST: Free!
TO REGISTER: To register online, please visit the South County Regional Library website here.
More WordPlay opportunities here. Suzanne Strempek Shea is the author of six novels: Make a Wish But Not for Money, Selling the Lite of Heaven, Hoopi Shoopi Donna, Lily of the Valley, Around Again, and
Becoming Finola, published by Washington Square Press. She has also written three memoirs, Songs from a Lead-lined Room: Notes - High and Low - from My Journey Through Breast Cancer and Radiation; Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Bookstore; and Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith, all published by Beacon Press.
Her books of nonfiction include This is
Paradise, a book about Mags Riordan, founder of the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic in the African nation of Malawi, published by PFP Press; and 140 Years of Providential Care: The Sisters of Providence of Holyoke, Massachusetts, which she cowrote with her husband, Tom Shea, and with author/historian Michele P. Barker.
Winner of the 2000 New England Book Award, which recognizes a literary body of work's contribution to the region, Suzanne began writing fiction in her
spare time while working as reporter for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Newspapers and The Providence (Rhode Island) Journal.
Her freelance journalism and fiction has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Yankee, The Bark, Golf World, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Organic Style and ESPN the Magazine.
Suzanne is a member of the faculty at the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA program in creative writing and is facilitator
of Bay Path’s summer Creative Writing Field Seminar in Ireland. She is also the university’s Writer-in-Residence and director of the undergraduate creative writing program. at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Mass. Suzanne has taught in the MFA program at Emerson College and in the creative writing program at the University of South Florida.
Featured Writing
by
Suzanne Strempek Shea
This is what they want:
Names for babies. Used car prices. Richard Nixon
paper dolls. Tips for performing music on stage. Drug contraindications. Alternatives to the typical smoothie. A guide to the chakra system.
The Playboy interviews. A source for old-fashioned bulbs used in the kind of old-fashioned radios that run on old-fashioned bulbs. A map of the Northeast Kingdom. Rules of gay etiquette. The recipe for Ring
Dings.
Jesus Christ. The Dalai Lama. Scooby Doo. Rules for arena football. Treatment for a sickly koi. Fluency in Urdu. A copy of the Constitution. The route of the Cinque Terre.
They want to find that special someone. To wed that special someone. On a budget. They want to have a child. Or to
adopt a child from one of the less popular categories of children available domestically. They want to decorate its nursery in nontoxic materials, to prepare the family pet, to build cribs and toy trains from scratch even though they’ve never before held a hammer. They want to knit the child booties and hats bearing traditional Aran Isle patterns. To homeschool it, potty train it, teach it French as its first language. In utero. They want to spark its creativity or to investigate whether its
surprisingly high level of imagination could mean it is gifted. They want to deal with its invisible friend, its dyslexia, its bullying, its obesity, its teenage nastiness, its decision to quit college after the first three-and-a-half weeks.
They want the step-by-steps—with illustrations, charts, an accompanying CD or DVD, if possible. They want to sail, crochet, bunt, stir-fry, wail on power
chords, win at Scrabble, at chess, at bridge, at keno, at craps. They want to stamp, stencil, weave, weld, paint animals on rocks, construct massive front-door wreaths from roadside branches. They want to master their Windows ’98, predict the weather, give an unforgettable toast, do their estate planning, their cornrows, their regrouting, their astrological charts. They have digital cameras, snowboards, termites, shih tzus, plastic ray guns from the ‘50s. Low blood sugar, wrinkles, back pain,
osteoporosis, and something they mercifully stop short at describing as “distress down, you know, down there...” They have anger, paranoia, addiction, loneliness, “the disease to please,” and a whole boatload of unmet needs. They will be going through divorce, through the purchase of a first home, through an audit, through menopause, through the Chunnel from England to France and require nonallergenic sleeping locations at each end.
They are pop culture fanatics, eBay regulars, mystery buffs, day-trippers, insomniacs, water gardeners, scholars, children of the ‘60s, atheists, Red Sox fans. They are self-employed, self-sufficient, newly retired, newly diagnosed, newly literature.
They all have many questions.
And so they come to me.
~ the opening of "Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventure from a Year in a Bookstore" available 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 "list."
PROMPT: Whether you are writing fiction, memoir, or nonfiction, start with a "list of lists." What are the objects, interests, activities that you or your character find yourself/her- himself interacting with or engaged in? Set a
timer for five minutes and brainstorm things you could list, like, say, what people who come into the place you work are looking for, or articles of clothing your character has in her closet, or places your character has always wanted to go. (Don't list items on a list yet. Your first job is to use listing as a tool to contemplate possibilities for lists.
After your brainstorming, choose the list that you find the most intriguing or pleasurable to work with, and list as many items as you can.
Lastly, take this list and turn it into a scene in a current or potential writing
project.
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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