Volume VI, Issue 14 April 3, 2017 Dear ,
While this week's word is "cause," the theme is "cause and effect." Can you pinpoint what
caused certain people, activities, and events to be a part of your life? It's a tricky business, sometimes, being able to say for sure that "x" caused "y." At times, it turns out that we have it backwards, that, in reality, "y" was the cause of "x."
Sometimes, though, we do know beyond all doubt that, because of "x", "y" happened. And one person who definitely caused all manner of good
things for the Charlotte writing community is Irene Blair Honeycutt. If you think WordPlay is a part of that, you can thank Irene. She recommended me for my first two teaching opportunities and gave me my first writing client. AND, more to the point, she founded the CPCC Literary Festival, now Sensoria. (I am proud to have been on the planning committee for this annual event at the beginning, and for a number of years.) If you're local and free this evening, I am personally inviting you to a free reception at 6 p.m. honoring Irene, and to her reading that follows at 7 p.m. Details here: Our Founding Poet Irene Blair Honeycutt – Poetry in Times of Loss: the Necessity of Attention at the Overcash Building, 1206 Elizabeth Avenue,
Charlotte.
Irene Blair Honeycutt founded Sensoria as a literary festival in 1993. To celebrate this landmark 25th year of the literary events of the festival, we welcome her back to discuss her new collection Beneath
the Bamboo Sky, and we honor her and other members of that original literary committee. Irene will focus on the organic process of writing, clarifying through her poems the groundwork and background of her book about the loss of her three siblings helped her navigate the waters of grief.
This event is presented in partnership with the Charlotte
Center for Literary Arts.
Check out the Sensoria website is filled with good opportunities—too many to mention! Though I must tell you the chance to hear George Saunders for free right now, so soon
after the publication of his new book, Lincoln in the Bardo, is incredible.
Presentations on Wednesday, April 5th 10:30 a.m. - presentation on kindness (Dale F. Halton Theater)
Each event is free
and open to the public, and book signings follow each.
Whether or not
you can attend any of these events, I'm excited to be able to share these writers and their books with you!
And I hope you have a great time thinking about cause and effect this week! Be sure to scroll on down to the prompt if you'd like some inspiration.
Cause something good for yourself and those you love this week!
Love and light,
Maureen
Upcoming WordPlay
POETRY ROCKS
(Learning the Ins and Outs of Poetry; Strengthening Your Writing Skills; Adding a
New Layer of Literary Beauty to Your Life) Would you like your writing — prose and/or poetry — to be more graceful, powerful, beautiful? Do you sometimes find poetry confusing or intimidating and wish you could “crack the code”? Or do you enjoy writing and reading poems, but want a more thorough understanding
of what makes a poem good? Then this poetry extravaganza is for you.
Expect a good time exploring what makes a poem a poem, gaining the knowledge you need to confidently create and revise poetry, and strengthening your writing skills in all genres.
It would be a joy and an honor to share what rocks about
poetry with you!
HERE’S WHAT YOU GET: - 23 poetry creation tools, delivered one per day (Monday through Friday) to your inbox — in honor of National Poetry month. Use them as you get them, use them when you can, use them over and over to create poems.
Each tool zeroes in on one aspect of poetry and provides an innovative method to approach writing a poem. Many of them are great for creating prose, too. The tools include:
* a purpose, so you’re clear what you will learn
* background information when helpful
* “how-to” directions to create a
poem
* an example that illustrates the poetry tool in action
* a short reflection to solidify the concepts covered
* “Hone Your Craft” suggestions for further exploration
* a short reflection to solidify the concepts covered - A PDF document of each tool that you can print or save on your
computer
- An audio recording of each tool, so you can learn by listening and/or reading
- Instruction on the role of audience, reading like a writer, and the process of revision, including a handy Revision Checkpoint Chart — this information can be applied to
strengthen your prose as well as poetry
- Additional poetry resources
- An e-book that contains the information and resources covered, as well as your 23 poetry creation tools for ongoing use
WHERE: From the comfort of your own home, via the web. WHEN: Any time you want! And once you receive all 23 tools, they’re yours to keep, which means that you can keep using them for years to come. COST: $45
TO REGISTER: To register for Poetry Rocks online, click
here. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WRITING OUR WAY TO HAPPINESS
(Learning New Practices and Strategies for Our Writing and Our Lives; Creating New Writing; Expanding Our Well-being) Come explore time-tested ways writing can increase your happiness level! This class will not only teach you how to use writing as a tool to increase your sense of well-being, but also jumpstart your pen and provide inspiration and knowledge about the process of creative writing, whether you want to write memoir, fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. For writers of all levels,
including beginners, who are interested in expanding their writing practice—for personal fulfillment or for publication.$630 for one week-long session (lodging and meals are additional – options can be found on the Folk School
website)
WHERE: John Campbell Folk School, 1 Folk School Road, Brasstown, NC 28902
WHEN: Sunday, May 28th – Saturday, June 3rd, 2017.
More WordPlay opportunities here. Photo courtesy of http://www.georgesaundersbooks.com “The best short story writer in English—
not ‘one of’,’ not ‘arguably’, but the Best.”
—Time
George Saunders is the author of four collections of short stories, a novella, a book of essays, and an award-winning children’s book. His most recent collection, Tenth of December, was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner
of the 2014 Story Prize for short fiction and the 2014 Folio Prize.
The recipient of a 2006 MacArthur Foundation Genius grant, Saunders’ work appears regularly in The New Yorker, GQ, and Harpers Magazine, and has appeared in the O’Henry, Best American Short Stories, Best Non-Required
Reading, New American Stories, and Best American Travel Writing anthologies.
He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME Magazine in 2013. Read more at his website.
Featured Writing An excerpt from
An Interview with George Saunders
by
Cara Suglich
from
TriQuarterly Magazine
TriQuarterly: What role does research play in your fiction?
George Saunders: I feel like living is the main research. Just getting a bunch of different kinds of data in your head with no agenda. Just, you know, living. And observing. And if something sticks in your craw, then you carry it around with you, like it or not. But I’ve never in my productive writing life, fiction life, looked up anything that I can think of. Every so often I’ll look up a word, or some small concept, but nothing
extensive. I just started working on something that has a little more of a research component. You almost imagine it as a big hopper and you just put different kinds of information in it.
Everything in a short story should be doing some causal work. This section causes the next, which causes the next. So mostly what I’m doing is trying to figure out the work underneath it. What’s the causal arc?
And then if I need something, I just open the hatch on that hopper and let something drop in. So if it becomes apparent that I need a character to be taken down a notch, then I scan my memory for stuff that has happened to me or that I’ve heard of happening, and sometimes a perfect thing will come up or sometimes not, but I’m never researching explicitly. Only because it seems to get the cart before the horse a little bit. To me, a perfect short story is just a perfect little machine of cause
and effect. And when you go to fill in the specifics, you want exactly the right specifics. And you don’t want to be swayed by the thing you happened to have written down in your notebook that you wanted to get into a story. I know there’s a lot of different ways, but that’s how I do it.
My colleague at Syracuse, Dana Spiotta, she taught a class on research. She’s a big researcher. And she’s a
terrific, imaginative, crazy fiction writer. So I think it’s really for the individual to kind of feel around and see what’s productive for him or her. There’s not any one way. Whatever gets the prose energy to rise. That’s your approach.
~ Tenth of December: Stories
is available on Amazon here.
~ Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel is 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 "cause."
PROMPT: Make a list of at least ten people and ten activities (including career, hobbies, entertainment, holiday celebrations, vacations, and anything else you can think of) that you (or one of your characters) really love having in
your life. Now pick one, and consider the "cause" of that "effect." What person(s) and/or circumstance(s) led to this person or activity being a part of your (or your character's) life today? Write a scene, poem, essay, or story about this.
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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