Volume VIII, Issue 36
September 11, 2019
Dear ,
I'm delighted to share a good friend of mine with you this week. I first met Clara Silverstein in the early 1990s when we took poetry classes together at the Chautauqua Writers' Center, and we hit it off from the very beginning.
For nearly twenty years, we have each looked forward to seeing each other at numerous events on the Literary Arts Center Porch (especially once she became the director!) and to our lengthy annual "walk and talk" along the lake as we catch each other up on the latest happenings in our lives, both personal and
writing-wise.
This photo was taken last month, following the reading Clara gave celebrating her latest book, Secrets in a House Divided: A Novel of Civil War Richmond, today's featured
writing.
Growing up in Richmond gave Clara a close-up look at the impact slavery, the Civil War, racism, segregation, and desegregation have had—and continue to have—on our country. In fact, over the years, we had many conversations about her experiences as a white child court-ordered to be bused to a black school
in the early 1970s—experiences she shaped into her 2013 memoir, White Girl: A Story of Desegregation.
This summer, Clara shared that she's loving the opportunities she's had to speak to organizations and groups around the country about her new novel, which is written from the perspective of two women during and immediately after the Civil War. One book club, she said, "commented on how the book gives an interesting perspective on women's history as well as the Civil War and Southern
history."
I read with great interest an interview led by a young woman named Elizabeth, who works for Clara's publishing House, Mercer University Press, "Dual Perspectives: Clara Silverstein’s Creative Challenge." Here's an excerpt I think you'll find interesting:
E (Elizabeth): I read your book as an intersectional feminist text. I feel like a lot of feminist texts aren’t intersectional. It’s refreshing to read a story in which we have a three-dimensional black female character and a three-dimensional white female character.
C (Clara): Interestingly, I was in Amanda’s head at first. But I wanted to see an enslaved person walking out on a slaveowner. Because that happened in Richmond—Richmond is in flames and out walks the servant! But, then I realized, no one would believe that. It just seemed too easy. I wasn’t sure I was going to create Cassie, but as I was writing, I realized that
this story had another point of view. What would it be like to be the enslaved person in this situation? What’s the power balance?
E: That’s what a lot of southern literature is missing, a story from both perspectives. You either get the slaveowner’s perspective or the slave’s perspective. That’s something unique about your book. It shows both in detail. They both go on their own journeys. Whereas Amanda’s is at home, Cassie’s is a journey in an attempt at freedom. Cassie wants to leave, she has
no desire to remain a slave. However, it’s such a dangerous feat and she has to be careful and patient.
C: She does.
If you'd like to read the entire interview, and learn more about Clara's book-writing journey, you'll find it here.
I hope you enjoy the excerpt from Secrets in a House Divided below as much as I did. And that you enjoy delving into the subject of secrets in this week's prompt. It struck me that secrets have the power to both divide and connect us. That duality
makes for rich, complex, authentic writing.
And whether a secret is held, shared, kept, and/or revealed, it's likely to contain drama and conflict that makes for a good story—here's to writing about one of yours, in fact or fiction.
Upcoming WordPlay
THE GIFT OF MEMOIR:
WRITING PERSONAL AND FAMILY STORIES
New! Coming soon!
Just for you, a Gift of Memoir workshop to help you get your most meaningful life stories written. 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.
You will learn and practice the fundamental tools and steps needed to both capture individual events that have been important to you, reflecting on the impact and meaning as well as what happened, and the process of collecting events together into a full-length memoir or book of essays—whether this is for personal reflection, to share with family and friends, or to publish to reach a
larger audience.
After this workshop, you’ll have a chance to join one or more monthly classes, also held on a Thursday morning, to share one of your life stories with the class to receive feedback and guidance in moving forward.
Our 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.
WHERE: The WordPlay studio, Ballantyne area. Directions will be sent upon registration.
WHEN: Thursday, September 19th, from 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
COST: $46
TO REGISTER: To pay with a check via mail, email info@wordplaynow.com for instructions. To register online with a debit or credit card, please click this link to pay via
PayPal.
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POETRY ROCKS!
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 pay with a check via mail, email info@wordplaynow.com for instructions. To register for Poetry Rocks online, click here.
More WordPlay opportunities coming soon. Stay posted!
CLARA SILVERSTEIN is the author of the memoir White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation, a chronicle of her experiences during busing in Richmond, Virginia. A former food writer at the Boston Herald, she is also the author of three cookbooks: The Boston Chef’s Table, A White House Garden Cookbook,
and the New England Soup Factory Cookbook– based on the restaurant right down the street from her. Secrets in a House Divided is her first novel.
Clara’s articles and essays have appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and in publications including the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, American Heritage, Runner’s World, and The Boston Globe. She blogs about historic recipes at heritagerecipebox.com.
The former director of the Chautauqua Writers’ Center, she has taught writing at Boston University and at Grub Street. She and her husband live near Boston.
Learn more about Clara and her books at www.clarasilverstein.com/
an excerpt from
Secrets in a House Divided
A Novel of Civil War Richmond
by
Clara Silverstein
Chapter One
Amanda cannot see what has snagged inside her. It’s no bigger than a marble, yet it weighs her down, draining her pride, her respectability, her will to stand up straight. She spends the days dizzy, one minute thinking that a walk in her garden will do her good, the next slumped on a bench with her handkerchief
against her mouth.
The predicament of pregnancy torments her. At night, she wakes, the dark choking her like dust, ashamed of herself and fearful of every punishment that is to come. She's become pinch-mouthed and impatient with her four-year-old daughter, Nell, too often pushing the girl off her lap. Nell’s eyes grow dark and
imploring with the constant rejection.
Amanda dares not speak of her troubles to anyone, as if closing her mouth will somehow close off her head from the rest of her body. As if one day, she will wake up and go about her business without dizziness and panic. Soon she will have to tell her lover, Jed, poisoning the easiness of their afternoons in the
arbor. Soon her condition will become obvious to him, obvious to everyone.
The war against the United States drags on and on, dispiriting the Confederacy. Union troops have moved close to Richmond, their cannon shots concussive enough to jar Amanda’s windows. The bell tower in Capitol Square rings an alarm so often she barely hears it anymore.
The nourishing warmth of April, 1864 has given way to the damp, suffocating heat of May. Most mornings, Amanda directs Cassie, the house slave, to weed the tomatoes and cucumbers. Amanda dons a sunbonnet and gloves, then comes out with scissors and a basket. Nell trails behind them, sometimes picking up weeds,
sometimes strewing them to wither on the paths between rows. Amanda gratefully harvests whatever they can grow because of Richmond’s food shortages. Hungry people roam the streets, lurking behind the First Market to pick through the refuse, hoping for a scrap. The most they might find these days is a moldy potato peel, nibbled by rats.
The privations make everyone drawn and haggard. Only the pluckiest ladies manage to put on a brave face, mostly because it’s good manners to be pleasant. Amanda has heard talk of their “starvation parties,” at which nothing is served but water.
Amanda’s husband, Edwin Carter, enlisted in the Confederate Army in the summer of 1861. He went off to fight a little more than two years after they married. Amanda couldn’t help but resent his cavalier attitude about abandoning her, and their daughter. It was difficult enough for Amanda, only sixteen years old
at the time of her wedding, to move into the home where Edwin had once lived with his first wife, a woman who died in childbirth. Now, with a daughter to raise, Amanda still feels completely unprepared to manage the household without him.
Edwin came home for a Christmas furlough in 1863 but Amanda hasn’t seen him since. He writes her frequently, always beginning, “My Dear Wife.” In his letters, he sounds more attentive than he did when he lived in Richmond, preoccupied with secession and enlistment. His most recent letter arrived at the end of
March and told of wind cutting through a crude winter hut in Orange County. “I look forward to the spring campaigns, if nothing more than to go on the march instead of waiting and shivering,” he wrote. She has received no word from him for nearly two months. If he’s still alive, Amanda imagines him gaunt, a shell of the proud man he was. Worse, he could be lying at the side of a battlefield, his broad chest torn open, bleeding to death, while his men had to fight on instead of tending to him. It
does no good to worry about him. Her once-simmering anxiety has cooled to an ache that she surmounts by distracting herself in the garden—and lately, with Jed.
Learn more about Secrets in a House Divided and/or order your copy 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 "secret."
PROMPT: Write about a secret hidden, kept, and/or revealed, in any genre you like.
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.
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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