Volume IX, Issue 24
June 10, 2020
Word of the Week: sanctuary
Dear ,
These days. These weeks. These months. Have we ever been more in need of a sanctuary, "a place of refuge or safety"?
When I discovered an essay from my friend Melissa Ballard on Brevity's Nonfiction Blog called "Sanctuary," I immediately knew I wanted to share it—and Melissa—with you. It was also a great chance to reconnect with a good friend I've been out of touch with for a
while.
Melissa and I met in this building, Alumni Hall, also home to the Literary Arts Center at Chautauqua Institution. This beautiful old place is one of my sanctuaries, and I can't tell you how I'll miss being in it this summer, due to the coronavirus. But even Covid-19 can't take away the wonderful memories made here, and meeting Melissa is one of the
best!
I still remember so much about the essay class we were taking with Liz Rosenberg in the summer of 2008, including Melissa's writing, which I loved. Melissa is also the reason I get to go to Chautauqua each summer (well, except for
this year). She's the one who encouraged me to apply to teach writing classes through Special Studies. Last summer, I even got to teach in this same venerable building! (Thanks again, Melissa!)
I think Melissa and I were meant to meet. In addition to our writing connection, back in 2011, she helped me, all the way from Ohio, find a dress for my daughter's wedding, based on her experience finding a dress for her daughter's wedding. And I had to smile when I saw the photo on her website, which I've shared below. I have this same painting hanging above my bed!
As they say, you can't make this stuff up. When I wrote Melissa to ask if I could share her "Sanctuary" essay about with you, this is what she wrote back: "I told a friend I'd been wanting to write about my living room for a long time and, this morning while having coffee and reading, I realized I first wrote about it for a prompt in one of your classes! It's likely somewhere in my massive paper
files, but it stayed in my increasingly sieve-like brain all that time. I feel as though a circle has been completed with you asking to share the essay. Thanks so much."
What about you? Where is your sanctuary? Or, if you're like me, where are they? I could make quite a list, although, right now, many of them, like Alumni Hall at Chautauqua, are now out of reach. I find comfort in the words that pop into my head immediately upon hearing the word: Herman Hesse's "Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself."
I hope you enjoy reading about Melissa's sanctuary, as well as learning about her. (I've included a link to her website below, so that you can check out more of her writing.) And I hope that spending some time contemplating your own place(s) of sanctuary provides comfort and peace.
Love and light,
Maureen
I'm excited to be a part of Writing for Your Life Online Mega-Conference, bringing together many leading spiritual authors and industry experts for your virtual enjoyment! This online conference brings together what we had planned for two separate in-person conference to create 10 days – YES, 10 DAYS!! – of
outstanding content! There are a ton of things for you to enjoy:
- Keynote presentations from Barbara Brown Taylor
- Over 20 presentations from featured Christian authors
- Over 10 presentations from leading Christian publishing industry experts
- No overlapping presentations, so you can easily see all of the speakers
- Six emerging Christian writers
- Worship service
- Live Q&A sessions with all featured speakers (via Zoom)
- Live group discussions with each speaker (via Zoom) – an opportunity for you to ask the speaker questions
- Optional 1-on-1 private online meetings with selected speakers (separate registration required; limited availability)
- Writing and elevator pitch advice from Barbara Brown Taylor and Brian Allain (via Zoom)
- Book discussions with each author (via Zoom) – an opportunity for you to learn more about our speakers’ books, to learn how they talk about their own books, and to ask them questions
- Open mic (via Zoom)
- “Submit your pitch” program (by email)
- Exclusive early access to the Beta release of the new AuthorConnect online networking platform for spiritual writers (when available)
The conference will take place June 22-26 and June 29 – July 3, but don’t worry – attendees can enjoy recordings of all sessions for the following 3 months.
Tuition for the main conference is only $359 and includes all presentations, live Q&A, all group meetings with speakers, all book discussions, elevator pitches, worship services, Leighton Ford interview, and an open-mic session.
Find out more and register here:
https://writingforyourlife.com/writing-for-your-life-online-mega-conference-june-2020/
WordPlay Opportunities
How Do I Say
Goodbye? and Praying You Goodbye
These two books are for anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one—whether the loss is
impending, recent, or in the past. (The holiday season, for all its overt merriment, is often a time we struggle the most with grief.)
The contemplative exercises within are a guide through the “many waters” of grief (from Madeleine L'Engle's A Two-Part Invention), including "treasuring" and "keeping" as well as regret and sadness.
What is grief, after all, but a sign of the depth of our love? On the far shore is always gratefulness, for, as the French proverb says, “Gratitude is the heart’s memory.” Those who enjoy writing will likely also find poems, essays, and/or stories emerging as they make their way through these
pages.
I created the process shared in these two books in June of 2002, shortly after my mother died, as a way to mindfully mourn this loss—and celebrate her life. I shared it with a beloved friend, the Reverend Rebecca Taylor, when she lost her father, and she encouraged me to make it available to others. Here it is, in two versions, both of which offer quotes, reflections, prompts, and space to write about your loved one, as well as beautiful photographs by Wendy H. Gill that enhance each part of the process. Either
version makes a thoughtful condolence gift for a friend or family member.
How Do I Say Goodbye? is for those of any faith, with quotes from many different sources to accompany the process. It can be purchased on Amazon here.
Praying You Goodbye is specifically for Christians, with accompanying quotes from Scripture chosen by Reverend Rebecca Taylor. It can be purchased on Amazon here.
-------------------------------------------------------
UNDER CONSTRUCTION: YOUR WRITING
(Fulfilling Writing Dreams & Goals;
Revising & Polishing Your Writing)
Special offering! If you'd like to try out a class like the one Featured Writer Kathy Brown speaks of below, there are a few spots available in WordPlay's short summer
sessions. I'd love to talk with you to discuss if the class is right for you. Email info@wordplaynow.com for more information.
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. 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: ZOOM from your own
home
WHEN: Wednesday mornings from 10:00 a.m. – noon
(Other class time/day of week may be available. Email info@wordplaynow.com for more information.)
COST: $35 for one
session
TO REGISTER: Please email 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.)
Featured Writer
Meet Melissa Ballard
Here's Melissa's bio from her website:
“About” pages give me writer’s block, but here goes:
I’ve always lived in northeastern Ohio. I was a nervous, awkward child who wore industrial-strength glasses and loved to read. School was a bit of a roller coaster for me and, while I had no idea what a gap year was, I took a couple of them after high school.
I studied fashion merchandising, worked retail, and was a bank teller and a public school camp counselor before I decided higher education might be a good idea. The first in my family to attend college, I stumbled on a major that made it necessary to go to grad school. After that, I worked as a speech-language pathologist for many years, and then as a college instructor and advisor.
Through it all, I’ve retained my love of reading and the feeling of never quite fitting in.
Now I’m retired, and I write essays. Not the five paragraph essay assigned in high school. Not the college application-type essay. These essays wander, even the short ones, as I simultaneously try to figure something out and tell a good story. Often, I end up with more questions than answers, but that’s one of the things I love about the genre.
I’ve studied with some wonderful writing teachers, including: Sarah Einstein, Maureen Ryan Griffin, Rebecca McClanahan, Marsha McGregor, Dinty W. Moore, and Liz Rosenberg. I’ve written essays for Brevity, Compose Journal, Full Grown People, Gravel, and other publications.
You can read more of Melissa's writing here.
What Melissa says about WordPlay
Maureen filled every minute [of class] with samples of inspiring prose and poetry, amazing writing prompts, and plenty of time to share and discuss our writing. She somehow managed to provide a perfect mix of encouragement, nurturing, and nudging. Thank you, Maureen, for being a wonderful friend, writer, teacher, and editor.
Above are Melissa's "official words," after she took one of my writing classes at Chautauqua. I'm grateful for them. But I love even more these words she wrote about the class we took together, in which we met:
Melissa met Maureen when they were both participants in a summer writing class at Chautauqua Institution four years ago. It was the first week-long writing class she'd ever taken. After she read an essay about her grandmother aloud, with sweaty palms and a flip-flopping stomach, Maureen looked at her over her half glasses and said, "Oh, that stuff about the towels is just great. You should end
it there. You don't need the rest." She said it nicely, but Melissa was shocked. She was asking her to part with her precious written words. Melissa was new to this process, and her immediate thought was to stab Maureen (gently, of course) with the .7 mm lead in her mechanical pencil. But there were too many witnesses. Later, she realized that this was called editing and, if you are a lucky writer, you find an editor like Maureen. She revised the piece, ended it with the towels, and sent it off.
When it was rejected, Maureen told her it was "too nuanced" for the market she chose; Melissa loved her for that. The second submission did the trick.
|
|
Featured Writing
Sanctuary
by
Melissa Ballard
from BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog
https://brevity.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/sanctuary/
In this strange season of face masks and fear, my living room is my sanctuary. Books, music, photographs, a wall of windows, a lumpy brown couch,
flowers.
The dried hydrangeas my friend pulled from a
cardboard box in her garage. We had just finished walking, before we began distancing. “These are extras,” she said. “Take them.” I had tried several times to dry my own, without success. This bunch is a perfect fit for my green and black pottery vase, thick and round, with a small neck. They last and last. I think of giving my friend a hug the next time I see her, but that will have to wait.
The orchid plant my husband and I bought January
27th, the last time we went to Trader Joe’s, not long before the last time I wrote any words I thought were worth revising. At its peak, twenty-three white flowers with pale yellow centers. Usually, they pucker up one at a time, day after day, until the plant is bare. This time, a few have fallen, but the rest have stayed. And there are two new buds. Nothing else remains from that shopping trip except a box of unbleached coffee filters and two bottles of wine. It seems too far to go now, too
much of a risk.
The rose my husband buys me every Friday, this one
a pale pink. The slightly puckered, but still beautiful, yellow rose of two weeks ago has been moved to my home-office windowsill.
A shot glass of violets, picked from the scrap of
garden beside the garage door. We brought these from the last house we lived in, where they grew under a tree at the side of our driveway. They came from the house before that, where they were part of a rock garden on a slight hill that flanked our front steps. After the first day inside, they begin to crumple into fists, but they are still a bright spot of purple among neutrals.
I sit down to read a library eBook. Anchorless,
with no pages to touch, no covers to study, I drift through novels and memoirs, not entirely sure what I’ve read when I reach the end. Still, I can disappear into someone else’s words. Maybe if I ingest enough of them, I’ll be able to produce some of my own. I keep an old notebook nearby. I jot down words, phrases, anything I think might eventually turn into an essay.
When I’m done reading, I set my device on the
coffee table, next to a small glass vase that holds the last of the daffodils. I’ve been picking them twice a week for at least a month, while staying at home. They are some kind of lovely hybrid: Cream-colored, with centers thinly outlined in orange. At first, the petals were delicate and opaque, now they stretch and wrinkle like onionskin. Like my skin. Maybe tomorrow I’ll add them to the compost, along with the violets. I’m ready to let them
go.
I carry my notebook to my desk, open Word, and hit
“Create.” This time, I will not move my draft to “Trash.” I will choose “Save.”
~ Melissa Ballard on Brevity's Nonfiction Blog.
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 “sanctuary.”
PROMPT: Write about a sanctuary, either your own or, if you're a fiction writer, one of your character's. Or write a piece centered in/at a place that feels like a sanctuary.
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.
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!
|
|
|
|
