A few weeks ago, I received an email from Cameron Von St. James regarding a campaign to spread his wife Heather’s story about surviving Mesothelioma-– an often fatal consequence of asbestos exposure. The nurse in me wants to share her story here and the writer in me wants to spread the power of hope through her story.
It is my pleasure to present this introduction and interview by the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance with Heather Von St. James.
“The Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance’s (MCA) very own Heather Von St. James is spearheading an awareness effort on behalf of mesothelioma victims by sharing her personal holiday, LungLeavin’ Day, the anniversary of her surgery on February 2.
LungLeavin’ Day started out as a personal celebration in the beginning of February between Heather and her husband Cameron to recognize each year Heather remained cancer-free, but has now turned into a celebration of life and overcoming fears with many family members, friends and cancer survivors.
LungLeavin’ Day is not just for cancer survivors though, it is a day for anyone who desires to take control of their lives and throw their fears to the fire. Read our interview with Heather below, check out her new page and share with your loved ones!”
You have permission to smash your fears…LungLeavinDay Photo Credit: Mesothelioma.com
Thank you Heather and Cameron for sharing your cancer survival story. And congratulations, Heather for overcoming this devastating disease and spreading your hope to others.
I love the idea of smashing our fears like throwing a plate so it breaks into smithereens and loses any functionality and power over us in our lives!
I hope you’ll all go visit the Mesothelioma blog and enjoy this interview. Any thoughts?
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Author’s Note:This post was adapted from a previous post from January, 2011.
“When a loved one becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.” Author Unknown
Photo Credit: Creative Commons
Single significant events can implant in our psyche and leave a lasting mark. Don’t we all remember where we were and how we felt the day JFK was shot? Or for those who have given birth, the minute details of labor and delivery?
Every year, whenever January 28 comes around, I immediately flash back to that date in 1986.
On January 28,1986, the world watched in horror as the Challenger space shuttle exploded 73 seconds after lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Anyone over the age of thirty-five will remember what they were doing on that day. School children everywhere tuned in that morning to watch the launch of the first schoolteacher and ordinary citizen bound for space, Christa McAuliffe. While this high-tech catastrophe was unfolding on live TV, life was unfolding in living rooms, kitchens and offices around the world; moments in time when life events would forever be connected with the Challenger explosion.
For my mother, Kathryn, it was the moment she asked her mother, my Nan, for forgiveness. She and Nan seemed to have a tentative relationship at times. From my point of view, Nan was a wonderful, loving grandmother, but there were times I would sense from my mother that there was friction between Nan and her children. I never really knew why. Nan had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in November 1985 at the age of 83. She was living with my mother’s sister, my Aunt Rose and my mother was visiting to help care for her. My mother recently shared the following story of that day in January,1986 with me:
“Mama and I were sitting in the living room of my sister Rose’s home watching TV. Mama was in the floral upholstered rocking chair in the corner and I was on the blue Broyhill couch across from her. A Special Report on the Launch of the Challenger Space Shuttle interrupted the Maury Povich show. I looked over at Mama. She looked so frail and thin. Her eyes were sunken in and her skin had turned yellow.
I have to go back home soon and I may not see her alive again, I thought to myself.
In the background, the seven astronauts, one of them a young school teacher from New Hampshire, flashed across the screen, smiling and waving before boarding the Challenger.
I got up from the couch and knelt before Mama as she sat still and quiet in the chair. Holding out my hand, I put her tiny, wrinkled hand in mine and, sobbing, said,
“Mama, will you please forgive me for all the times I may have hurt you or was mean to you?”
Looking surprised, she said,
“Kathryn, you have nothing to apologize for. You have never hurt me.”
I felt her small, weak hand rubbing my shoulder as I sobbed uncontrollably ,my head bobbing in her lap.
We remained in that position for awhile. With my head resting on her lap, I watched the smoke from the space shuttle furl up in the sky out of the corner of my eye. I sat straight up and we both glared in shock at the scene.
The moment of the Challenger explosion was the moment Mama forgave me. “
This memory is precious to me because I realized that my mother allowed me to have a special, loving relationship with my Nan even though she was not able to experience that same special relationship with her, until the end. When Nan died on May 28, 1986, my mother had the peace of forgiveness in her heart.
So on January 28, the anniversary of the Challenger Explosion, I pay tribute to the seven astronauts who sacrificed their lives. I also pay tribute to my Nan who showered me with love my entire life and who showed compassion, love and forgiveness to my mother when she needed it the most,and to my mother for allowing me to have a lifetime of precious memories with my Nan, through her love.
These memories are a treasure.
What memories do you have that you pay tribute to? Do you have memories triggered by historical events?
I‘d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Announcement: Congratulations, Jayne Martin! Your name was selected in a random drawing of commenters to receive Bridget Whelan’s book, Back to Creative Writing School.
Next Week: Monday 2/03/14: Therapeutic Musician Robin Gaiser will share “How Music Led Me to Memoir Writing.”
In the broad daylight of our habitual memory the images of the past turn gradually pale and fade out of sight, nothing remains of them, we shall never recapture it. Or rather we should never recapture it had not a few words been carefully locked away in oblivion, just as an author deposits in the National Library a copy of a book which might otherwise become unobtainable. ~ Marcel Proust French writer 1871-1922
It is my pleasure introduce you to UK Author and Creativity Coach Bridget Whelan whose eBook, Back to Creative Writing School just came out on Amazon and Amazon UK. My book reviews can be found on Amazon and GoodReads.
Bridget is going to take us all back to creativity writing school in this post,“Time Traveling with a Pen.”
Welcome, Bridget!
Bridget Whelan, Author and Creativity Coach
Time Traveling with a Pen
The American philosopher Suzanne Langer argued that memory shouldn’t be thought of as a noun – a storehouse or recording machine – but as a verb, an activity. Revisiting our younger self and the world we once inhabited is not easy, but there are ways of unlocking the words that can trigger the past and bring it back, vivid, detailed and authentic.
Sometimes a chance encounter will do it. A scent carried on a breeze can transport us to a specific afternoon in childhood or an overheard conversation can spark a flashback to an acne-dominated adolescence. But as a writer, you can’t trust to luck.
I’m convinced that one of the best ways to stir your memory, snap it awake and fire it up, is with a pen in your hand. The very act of writing can produce where-did-that-come-from? moments that will help you add substance and detail to the faded pictures of the past that you carry around in your head.
The right exercise can let you travel back in time.
Try this one. The aim is to compile a set of notes that no one else is ever going to see. There’s a great freedom in deciding that before you start. You don’t have to worry about spelling or grammar, if a phrase is a bit of a cliché or if someone else would be upset by what you’re writing. You are just gathering the raw material. Later you will refine and reflect on it, but for now it’s notes that are for your eyes only.
Decide on a period in your life that you are interested in writing about. If you’re not sure, I suggest sometime between the ages of 6 and 16. Don’t generalize: pin down a specific year.
Choose five words to describe yourself at that age.
10 words to describe your family at that time.
What was your favourite thing to eat at this time in your life? Who made it/sold it? How often did you eat it?
Write a sentence to describe the house or apartment you were living in.
Write a paragraph describing the kitchen. Think about the floors and walls, the colour of the cabinets, the view from the window, the background noises and the radio playing. Think about the table and where you once sat.
Write down five smells you associate with the kitchen: remember we often do more than cook and eat there. It can be the powerhouse of the home – where clothes were laundered, shoes shined, games played, friends gathered and work completed
Right, note-taking’s over. Now you are writing for real.
Use your jottings and the memories generated to describe a weekday winter breakfast. Don’t limit yourself to what you ate. Is there condensation on the inside of the window and icicles outside? What can you see when you look out? Who is in a rush and who is already late?
You can’t cop out and say that you didn’t have breakfast back then. Of course you did – it might have been a doughnut at lunchtime, but if that was the first meal of the day write about it and about why you left home with only the taste of toothpaste in your mouth. Go off on a tangent if one occurs to you and see where it leads.
If you have no desire to write about an everyday breakfast and can’t see how it connects with your writing project, I ask for your patience and urge you to do it anyway. Thinking about the exercise is not the same as doing it. To work it needs pen on paper or fingers on keyboard, digging up those sights and smells in short bursts. Remember, if you can capture the routine of an ordinary day you will have gone a long way towards stepping back in time.
And food is very revealing.
A simple meal can define emotional relationships and economic status, disclose ethnicity and establish context. It can give the reader a sense of the time without having to give month and year, surprise with the unusual or offer a gentle hug of recognition
I hope that worked for you. I didn’t use that particular exercise in BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL so you can think of it as a Memoir Writer’s exclusive.
I did, however, start the book with one that is ideal for anyone engaged in autobiographical writing. It is about the names you’ve been called over the years, the nice names, the ones that you were happy to answer to, where they came from and who was allowed to use them. The exercise also introduces the merits of one of the most useful words in a memoir writer’s vocabulary: the word perhaps.
Amazon allows you to see the first couple of exercises so you can pop over and try without having to buy, although of course I hope you’re so impressed that you won’t be able to stop yourself from doing just that.
I believe passionately that the creative techniques we often associate with fiction and stories from the imagination can be used equally well in memoir and autobiography.
All good writing is creative.
Author’s Biography
Bridget is a London Irish writer living in southern England. She studied creative and life writing at Goldsmiths College – the leading creative university of the UK – as part of the MA creative writing programme. Two years later she was back lecturing in biography and autobiography. She is now teaches at many locations, including City Lit, the largest adult education centre in Europe. She has also been Writer in Residence at an inspiring community centre serving the unemployed and low waged
BACK TO CREATIVE WRITING SCHOOL is an ebook collection of 30 practical writing exercises covering such subjects as dialogue, description and magic for grown-ups, but it is more than just a set of prompts and how-to instructions. Novelist Lizzie Enfield observed: “..it’s a book which anyone could read and if they did they would probably find their pleasure in words and the world heightened.”
Thank you , Bridget for sharing your thoughts on creativity and for taking is all “back to creative writing school”. You have given us a glimpse of what your new book has to offer all writers.
How about you? How do you tap into your own creativity?
Bridget has graciously offered to give away a copy of her ebook, Back to Creative Writing School, to a commentator whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week: ” When Historical Events Trigger Memories: A Memoir Moment”
As I write this, new predictions are coming out every day. Check out these 2014 predictions by Smashwords CEO Mark Coker. My favorite one is #14:
” Production takes on increased importance in 2014. Organize your time to spend more time writing and less time on everything else.”
At some point soon, I will have to make a decision.
My final decision will be based upon what is right for my story.
How do I best get my story into the hands of the readers who need it the most; the ones who will care about my story as much as I do?
It reminds me of the pains I took to check out the right day care for my children when I was a single parent and had no choice but to place them in that setting. I knew I needed to find a place where they would be well-cared for and I would have some peace of mind. As it turned out, some were fine and others…let’s just say I had to learn the hard way that things don’t always work out as planned.
There’s always a risk involved in any decision.
Like fine wine that should not be sold before it’s ready, I can’t rush my story.
On the other hand, if I wait until all is perfect, nothing will get done.
Somewhere between close enough to perfect and taking a risk, I will find the right path to get my story out there.
In the meantime, I’m in decision-making mode,
All dressed up for the party with so many places to go. . .
Photo Credit: Academchix from Flickr Creative Commons
Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
* If I don’t believe in my story, no one else will. Connecting with my purpose for writing my story is my guide.
* Knowing my storywell enough to discern which path to my readers is right for me will keep me focused on my readers.
* Finding the balance between knowing what still needs work and knowing when further editing will dilute my intent is both a challenge and an opportunity.
* Remaining open to ways to improve my story, a commitment to excellence, no matter which route to publication I decide upon,while also remaining clear on what is not negotiable will help me get my best work out there.
* Writing up a book proposal based on specific guidelines has been a valuable experience in helping me hone in on my intent, my message and my marketing plan. Even if I don’t end up using it.
* Remembering that , as a reader, I care more about the story than how it was published will also help me stay focused on my reader.
***
There are many resources available about each publishing option. This is by no means an all-inclusive list but here are a few select ones I found helpful:
“You will succeed by how you write, not by which route to publication you choose.”
How about you? For those who are already published, what made you decide the best route for your story? For those seeking publication, what has gone into your decision-making process?
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Announcement: Congratulations, Sandra Smith! Your name was selected in a random drawing of commenters to receive Maureen Murdock’s Kindle short, The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective.
Next week, Monday, 1/20/14: UK Author Bridget Whelan will discuss “Back to Creative Writing School: Traveling with a Pen.” Her eBook, Back to Creative Writing School” is now on Amazon.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Rev. Martin Luther King , Jr.
Bestselling Author, Memoir Teacher and Clinical Psychologist Maureen Murdock returns for Part 2 of the spoken word piece she did for SPARKS theater in Pacific Palisades, CA. She describes a heartwrenching visit with her son Matt in prison. Here is Part 1 if you missed it.
Welcome back, Maureen!
Memoir Author and Teacher Maureen Murdock
“Hooked on Hope, Part 2: A Mother’s Story About Bipolar Disorder and Prison.”
I am a therapist. What I do is help other people give voice to their lives to heal. When people come to my office it’s safe for them to have their feelings, to cry, to rant, to rage. My office is a sanctuary. But when I visit my son in prison, I have to go against my every instinct as a therapist and mother—encouraging him to express his feelings would only put him in danger.
Safety is a big issue for me. I have struggled with and failed to keep my son safe. When he had his first mental health emergency in his second year in college I tried to get him the help he needed, to stabilize him, to keep him contained. But it was not enough.
When bipolar illness is paired with substance abuse it’s a recipe for disaster.My son has made some bad decisions that have had huge consequences.
The night Matt was arrested for knowingly buying a stolen laptop while he was on probation, my first thought was well, now he’s safe in County Jail. I know where he is. This was before he was sentenced to 4 years and transferred to San Quentin.
I want you to understand— that in spite of all of his struggles, my son is a talented artist. He has had gallery shows in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Our shared love of art is a way we connect in the purest, uncomplicated way. Making art is the way he makes sense of and connects with the outside world.
Over the past year, he did a series of silkscreen prints in the art studio inmates use when a volunteer teacher comes into prison. A recent assignment was to create a print about human rights in the prison system.
Matt’s artwork: Towers Linoprint
His silkscreen illustrating Solitary Confinement, Mental Illness and the 8th Amendment was chosen to be part of an art show in San Francisco. His statement under the print read: “In prison, it’s not possible to do artwork which is not political. The very act is one of resistance.. Solitary Confinement is a clear constitutional violation, an insidious exercise of cruel and unusual punishment.”
Matt’s artwork: Solitary Confinement
Matt was proud to be in the show; it meant he still had a presence in the art world. His dream after prison is to curate a show with art from prisoners he admires.
He had been saving stamps for six months to send home his additional prints and the prints of other inmates he had bought. Stamps are the only currency in prison. They are bartered for CDs, junk food and inmate art. He had constructed a large make-shift envelope for the prints and waited to send it home until he knew the guard on watch who would inspect it. Officer Lee examined the contents and taped the envelope closed.
It arrived at my house sealed shut but empty.
One of the other guards must have confiscated the art. Six months worth of scrimping and saving and creating only to be stolen by someone who can–with impunity.
It is conceivable that the art was taken to be examined for gang-related imagery. It is also known that inmate art is stolen by guards for sale on e-Bay. The journal in which he had written an essay on the injustice of solitary confinement had also been taken.
Matt was devastated.
I wish I could tell him that everything will be okay. That he just has to hang on for 3 more months.
But I don’t feel like things will be okay.
I feel powerless to change his circumstances. All I can do is ask you to keep an open mind about those you might not understand. There’s always a hidden narrative.
***
Maureen, the sense of injustice is palpable. Anyone, especially a mother with a child in prison, will be touched by your words. I admire your courage in getting your story out there so that we all can know the realities of prison life. I am joining you in being “hooked on hope” that Matt will move forward from this harrowing experience with purpose and strength. And yes, may we all be more understanding of the “hidden narratives” when we face that which we may not understand.
Author’s Biography and Contact Information(from Amazon):
Maureen Murdock is the best-selling author of The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness, a ground-breaking work which revealed a broader understanding of the female psyche on both a personal and cultural level and was Murdock’s response to Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces. When Murdock showed Campbell her book, he said, “Women don’t need to make the journey.” Murdock’s readers around the world have shown that he’s wrong! A Jungian psychotherapist and creative writing teacher, Murdock is also the author of Fathers Daughters: Breaking the Ties that Bind, The Heroine’s Journey Workbook, Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children, and Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory, a seminal work about memoir and what’s involved in writing a memoir. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and she lectures internationally.
The Emergence of a Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective by Maureen Murdock informs the reader about the early signs of bipolar disorder in an adolescent or young adult from a mother who has been through this journey with her son. The book describes what’s involved in a mental health crisis, the trauma of a first hospitalization and facts and figures about bipolar disorder, the fastest growing brain illness in children today. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, four million children and adolescents in America suffer from a serious mental disorder. Through early diagnosis and treatment these young people can live productive lives.
As a mother and a psychotherapist, it was difficult for me to find adequate resources when my son was first diagnosed so I offer tools to navigate these turbulent waters. Included are suggestions about Mental Health First Aid, personal recommendations for links to TED Talks by two young people talking about living with bipolar disorder and community resources a family can access for support before, during, and after a mental health crisis. Like the award-winning movie “Silver Linings Playbook,” The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective gives the reader a glimpse into the challenges a family experiences when a child is struck with a mood disorder.
The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder:A Mother’s Perspective
How about you? How do you handle life circumstances when they don’t turn out the way you want them to? How do you help a child whose choices have led to consequences and injustices that are difficult for you as a parent to deal with?
Maureen has graciously offered to give away a copy of her Kindle short to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
We’d love to hear from you. Please share your comments below~
Next Week, Monday, 1/13/14:” All Dressed Up and So Many Places to Go–Publication Decision Time.”
“There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.” John Stuart Mill
I am thrilled to kick the New Year off with a guest post by Maureen Murdock about hope while dealing with an imprisoned son who has also been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. Maureen is a clinical psychologist as well as a leading figure in the memoir community and the author of several memoir writing books. Her current memoir, Hooked on Hope is pending publication. Her recently published Kindle short, The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder addresses why she chose to write about mental illness in the family.
I had the pleasure of meeting Maureen when I attended her memoir writing workshop at the International Women Writers Guild (IWWG) Annual Convention this summer at Drew University in Madison, NJ.
This is Part 1 of an excerpt from a spoken word piece Maureen did for SPARK theater in Pacific Palisades, CA.
Welcome , Maureen!
Memoir Author and Teacher Maureen Murdock
Hooked on Hope: A Mother’s Story About Bipolar Disorder and Prison
Ten years ago I taught a week-long memoir course at Skidmore College. One of the writers, a middle-aged woman from Queens, wrote about being the mother of a son in prison.
“People don’t realize,” she wrote, “When a child is in prison, his mother is there too. I see the fear and disgust in people’s eyes when I say my son is in prison. I imagine they’re thinking, ‘she must have been a terrible mother for her son to be incarcerated.’”
I was deeply moved by her statement about being imprisoned too. I had never thought about that. Up until then, like many people, I thought prison was primarily populated by low-level drug dealers, thieves, and murderers, mostly black. I grew up in New Jersey and the only white people I knew who went to prison were Italian mobsters. This well-dressed white woman was the first woman I had met who was the mother of a convicted felon.
Six years later I am too.
Every other month I drive 6 hours to visit my son, Matt, at San Quentin. Female visitors are forbidden to wear underwire bras so I make sure I have my sports bra on. I put my car key, ID, and single dollar bills for the vending machines in the clear plastic purse I am permitted to bring into prison. The contents will be inspected. Nothing else can be brought into or out of prison.
After being searched and passed through the metal detector I go through a series of metal gates–surrounded by barbed wire. I hand my identification to the officer who sits in a platform on high—like some olive green khaki god– looking down at me. I take a seat and wait as the guard calls for my son. After he is strip searched, Matt is given a pass to enter the Visitors room. He walks toward me with a big grin, hands his ID to the platformed guard, and gives me a big bear hug.
It feels good to embrace his thin muscular body. I look into his eyes. Yes, he’s still there. They haven’t beaten him down–yet.
We sit across each other in plastic chairs eighteen inches from the next inmate and his visitor. Any attempt to find out how my son is really doing will be overheard. He tells me he just received a letter from the gallery owner who offered him an internship upon his release from prison next February. At the time of his offer a year ago the gallery owner told me, “Nobody should be judged by his last mistake.”
I thought what a humane person, what a good egg. The gallery is not far from my home in Santa Barbara so it meant my son would have a safe place to live with me and my partner, a roof over his head, a job, a new start. I could relax a bit about what he was going to do upon release.
But, Matt said, “He changed his mind. He rescinded his offer. He wrote that it was too risky to have me ‘handle’ millions of dollars of artwork.”
The gallery owner knew that my son was qualified—that he had done installation work at the Corcoran Gallery in Santa Monica– so rescinding his offer didn’t have anything to do with skill. It had to do with stigmatization.
Losing that job meant that upon release Matt would be paroled to San Francisco where he was arrested, with nothing but a clear plastic bag for his clothes and $200.
I wanted to reach out to my son and hold him and tell him it would be okay. That something else would come along. But I had to sit on my hands and look at him as he put his head down, his hair covering his eyes so that neither I, nor the people sitting next to us on either side could see his tears. . .
to be continued, 01/09/14 with Part 2. . .
***
Maureen, this story leaves me spellbound. I could feel your mother’s love and anguish. Thank you for your bravery in sharing such a deeply personal and heart-wrenching story. I join you in hoping that getting your story out there will help to increase awareness and create changes in our judicial system.
Author’s Bio and Contact Information (from Amazon):
Maureen Murdock is the best-selling author of The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness, a ground-breaking work which revealed a broader understanding of the female psyche on both a personal and cultural level and was Murdock’s response to Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces. When Murdock showed Campbell her book, he said, “Women don’t need to make the journey.” Murdock’s readers around the world have shown that he’s wrong! A Jungian psychotherapist and creative writing teacher, Murdock is also the author of Fathers Daughters: Breaking the Ties that Bind, The Heroine’s Journey Workbook, Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children, and Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory, a seminal work about memoir and what’s involved in writing a memoir. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and she lectures internationally.
The Emergence of a Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective by Maureen Murdock informs the reader about the early signs of bipolar disorder in an adolescent or young adult from a mother who has been through this journey with her son. The book describes what’s involved in a mental health crisis, the trauma of a first hospitalization and facts and figures about bipolar disorder, the fastest growing brain illness in children today. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, four million children and adolescents in America suffer from a serious mental disorder. Through early diagnosis and treatment these young people can live productive lives.
As a mother and a psychotherapist, it was difficult for me to find adequate resources when my son was first diagnosed so I offer tools to navigate these turbulent waters. Included are suggestions about Mental Health First Aid, personal recommendations for links to TED Talks by two young people talking about living with bipolar disorder and community resources a family can access for support before, during, and after a mental health crisis. Like the award-winning movie “Silver Linings Playbook,” The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective gives the reader a glimpse into the challenges a family experiences when a child is struck with a mood disorder.
The Emergence of Bipolar Disorder:A Mother’s Perspective
“A man must have dreams–memory dreams of the past and eager dreams of the future. I never want to stop reaching for newgoals.“– Maurice Chevalier
It’s that time again to take inventory on what worked and what didn’t in 2013. Thanks to all who filled out the survey. The results of my survey showed areas you liked–variety of guests, memoir moments, feeling of communityas well as a few areas I need to work on–loading of my website, comment system viewed as cumbersome.
My take:
2013 has been a year on continual growth with many talented memoir writers and authors sharing their projects and stories as well as giving away their books…enlightening, inspiring and enriching all of us.
I love that Memoir Writer’s Journey continues to grow and be a gathering place for people to learn what other writers are up to.
As previously mentioned, I have reached the final editing stage of my journey to my first memoir, Ever Faithful to His Lead: A Memoir About Choices, so the goal of publishing in 2014 has become a reality. Still lots of work to be done with this and the completion of my second memoir, Hope Matters: A Memoir of Faith (working title). My focus will be on exploring publishing and marketing options.
I’m hopeful the tough lessons I’ve learned through writing my first memoir will facilitate the completion of the second one. I realize the publishing/marketing phase will bring a whole new set of challenges and learning curves.
Dreamstimefree_204269
I want to thank all my guests who posted this year. You are all winners in my book!
“Choices and Chances” story published in My Gutsy Story Anthology: True Stories of Love, Courage and Adventure from Around the World, editor Sonia Marsh, Gutsy Publications, 2013
Goals for 2014:
* Publish/market my first memoir and complete the second memoir.
* Continue monthly vignettes, “Memoir Moment” and featuring other writers and authors in book promotion tours and giveaways.
* Present a NAMW online workshop on memoir writing. It is in the works…TBA.
*Enjoy the ride!
Thank you all for your loyal following and for making this year an enjoyable and productive one. I love how we continue to learn so much from one another—enlightening, enriching and inspiring each other along the way.
Here’s to more gathering “ around my kitchen table” in 2014 and to all we have yet to learn from one another.
Let’s keep sharing hope one story at a time. Our stories matter.
Photo credit: Sunflower field by Dreamstimefree.
I’ll leave you with an inspirational quote from lifehacker.com:
““Try not to become a person of success. Rather, become a person of value. ”
Next Week:
What better way to start out 2014 than with a series about Hooked on Hope~
Monday, 1/6 and Thursday, 1/9/14: Memoir Author and Teacher Maureen Murdock will share excerpts from her upcoming memoir, Hooked on Hope: ” A Mother Speaks out on Bipolar Disease and Prison.” She will give away a copy of her newly released ebook, The Emergence of BiPolar Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
“What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present and hope for thefuture.” Charles Dickens, Ebeneezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.
Author’s Note: This story has been adapted from the original story posted on Linda K. Thomas’ Spiritual Memoirs 101 blog in December, 2011, “Kathleen”s Christmas Past.”
As Christmas approaches every year, I reflect on many memories of Christmas Past. This particular memory warms my heart and makes me smile as I recall the blessings of growing up Italian and of gathering around a table to share Christmas Eve with my loving family.
Gathering around the holiday table, 1953. Grandpa (R) looked full!
Christmas Past: The Feast of the Seven Fishes
The smell of spicy tomato sauce mixed with hearty laughter greet me and my family as we climb the circular staircase to my Nan and Grandpa DiCerbo’s home. We have traveled six hours to join our family for Christmas Eve. When we open the door at the top of the stairs, aunts, uncles, and cousins surround us with warm hugs and loving smiles. I am seven years old and can hardly contain my excitement as I throw off my coat and return the hugs.
We are celebrating Christmas Eve in traditional Italian fashion with the Feast of the Seven Fishes. Christmas Eve in the ancient Catholic Church was a sacred fast day, on which no meat could be consumed.
The table extends the length of the dining room and is adorned with Nan’s finest ivory crocheted tablecloth and gold-rimmed china plates surrounded by sparkling silverware and shiny goblets. Pretty soon, I know the center of the table will be crowded with steaming bowls of pasta, sauce and baccala (salted cod fish), silvery smelt, crab cakes, baked Mackerel, boiled shrimp, trout and calamari (squid).
My seven-year-old taste buds rebel against the fish but I love my Nan’s spicy, warm tomato sauce and homemade pasta. My mouth waters before I even put a forkful of sauce-drenched pasta into my mouth.
I run into the kitchen to see my Nan stirring the sauce. She wipes her hands on her red gingham apron and bends down to wrap her arms around me as we both squeal with excitement.
“Oh, I’m so happy to see you Katarina (my name in Italian),” she says, smiling as she offers me a spoonful of sauce after blowing on it a few times.
The smooth, tomatoe-y sauce slides down my throat and warms my insides.
“This is s-o-o-o good, Nan,” I say as I close my eyes and take in the sweet smell and taste of home.
“Well, it’s ready.” Nan says.
“With that Mom and her sister, my Aunt Rose, begin draining the pasta over the sink, laughing together as the steam clouds Aunt Rose’s eyeglasses. I join the parade of relatives delivering the heaping bowls to the center of the table.
Uncle Freddy, Nan’s brother, pours the homemade red wine from the galloon jugs. Grandpa and his brother, Uncle Vincent have made a new batch from the winemaking press in the basement. I think about how they both came over on the boat from Naples, Italy when they were sixteen and eighteen and wonder how they could ever leave their family in Dugenta behind. I love it when we all get together. There is always laughter.
As Nan places the tomato sauce in the center of the table, Grandpa says grace ,then,smiling, raises his wine glass,
“A saluto!”
Even the children get a small glass of wine. “It’s good for your blood” is the mantra.
I’m sitting between Mom’s brother, my Uncle Michael and my two-year–old brother, Tom. I pass on the yucky calamari, even though the adults are getting seconds. Uncle Freddy places his closed fingers to his lips then fans his fingers out in compliments to Nan.
Before I know it, the bowls are nearly empty and we’re all sitting around with our hands on our bellies. The table is cleared and Mom and Aunt Rose place trays of pears, apples, tangerines and walnuts, almonds and pecans in the shell for dessert.
All the women gather in the kitchen to wash dishes while the men sit around and start playing Pinochle.
When the kitchen is all cleaned up, Aunt Rose heads over to the bay window and motions for the four little cousins, ages two through seven, to come into the living room. “There goes Santa around the corner.”
With noses pressed against the window pain, we see fluffy, white snowflakes falling against the street lights, disappointed we missed him.
We believe with all our hearts though that he was there.
How about you? Do you have a special memory of Christmas Past to share?
I’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Congratulations to book winners, Joan Z Rough and Pat MacKinzie! Joan is the winner of Kristen Lodge’s memoir, Continental Divide and Pat is the winner of Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the ’60s and ’70s anthology.
Next Week:
Monday, 12/23/13:“Christmas Blessings, 2013”
Memoir Writer’s Journey, 2013 Survey:
I am doing an annual review of my website and would love to have your input on ways to improve. If you haven’t already done so, I’d be most appreciative if you would be so kind as to fill out this brief survey.
I am very pleased to participate in this Wow! Women on Writing Blog Tour for the Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the ’60s and 70’s anthology with a guest post by Merimee Moffit. Merimee is the Winner, First Honorable Mention, Poetry.
She will discuss how what we learned in the ’60s and ’70s is important for women today.
Welcome, Merimee!
Merrimee Moffitt
“How What We Learned in the ‘60s and ‘70s is Important to Women Today?”
The anthology, Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the ‘60s & ‘70s, encourages younger women who are now the age we were back in the Times to not stop, not give up, to listen to their own inner voice, and if need be, to shout it out!
Many of the writers tell about shedding the “Shoulds” they had been burdened with and moving into a new way of prioritizing their own needs.
The story, “Proud Spinster,” reveals the barriers to home-owning and child-bearing for a single woman, but Patricia Vestal, the author, proudly outlines her successes while going it solo.
In my poem, “Before the Summer of Love,”I write about an almost romance as a potential career move, simultaneously poking fun at the sanctity of a marriage I’d never witnessed. I, as the voice in the poem, had foregone many “Shoulds” to revel in the bliss of my lover’s body and to twine with him in our meandering search. I write about a “dizzying search for God,” but I couldn’t have defined it that way then.
The book gives evidence that as we live our lives honestly, not necessarily guided by “Shoulds,” but by our own integrity,we don’t know what lies ahead. Each story and poem focuses on a pivotal moment that contained the seed of a strong inner voice, a new way.
“Dispatches from the Heartland”shocks us when a father accuses his daughter of destroying his marriage and influencing his wife, violently attempting to re-impose his “Shoulds” upon her. Dorothy Alexander, the author, wanted to become a lawyer and her father felt threatened. This scenario is less and less frequent due to the brave women whose stories tell of facing down such confrontations.
The drug stories, “Tripping on High”and “Altamont,” give us a frightening truth with a wake-up call to young women today. Drug experiences were part of the Times; these two written by Venus Ann Maher and Amber Lea Starfire remind women that the survivors of the Times had to stand up for their right to be sober, had to fight the short-term “Should” about being stoned forever.
The writing in the anthology stresses the importance of women knowing that their own intuition is the healthiestguideline, not the “Shoulds” imposed generically upon a generation or a gender.No, you don’t have to be married, nor do you need to be the wildest at the party, nor do you have to follow a powerful guru. Yes, rights can be removed and yes, you may, like your mothers and grandmothers, have to fight, even for rights you already have and may be taking for granted.
You are worth fighting for, these writers say, and your beliefs and efforts will bear fruit. Women’s history is just beginning to be scribed, valued, and studied.
Young women of today are living tomorrow’s history. It is up to each woman to add her mark, to tell her story, paint her visions, dance her dance.
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Thank you Merimee for capturing the essence of the stories in the anthology. My favorite line is “you are worth fighting for and your beliefs and efforts will bear fruit.” May the lessons of the ’60s and ’70s as relayed through your stories serve to guide young women today.
Author’s Bio:
Merimee Moffitt arrived in New Mexico in a shiny green Chrysler from Portland in 1970 and fell in love with the land, sun, culture—everything northern New Mexico. She stayed to raise her four children, has four grandkids now, a husband, and two dogs. She is semi-retired and currently co-hosts the only prose open mic in Albuquerque, Duke City Dime Stories (dimestories.org). She performs her poems and teaches workshops and classes in the community. Her poetry appears often in the fabulous reviews and journals in New Mexico such as Malpais Review, Mas Tequila Review, Adobe Walls, and the Santa Fe Literary Review. She received First Honorable Mention in the Times They Were A Changing anthology for her poem “Before the Summer of Love.” She has published three chapbooks and her first book, a collection of poems, Making Little Edens, is available at your favorite bookseller and on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Making-Little-Edens-Merimée-Moffitt/dp/1492881589/.
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Just in time for the holidays, anthology editors Linda Joy Myers, Kate Farrell and Amber Lea Starfire launch their anthology Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the ’60s and ’70s. The book is the perfect gift for opening discussions with friends and family members and illustrating what a powerful time the ’60s and ’70s truly were.
Anthology Editors Kate Farrell, Amber Starfire and Linda Joy Myers
Anthology Synopsis:
Forty-eight powerful stories and poems etch in vivid detail breakthrough moments experienced by women during the life-changing era that was the ’60s and ’70s. These women rode the sexual revolution with newfound freedom, struggled for identity in divorce courts and boardrooms, and took political action in street marches.They pushed through the boundaries, trampled the taboos, and felt the pain and joy of new experiences.
And finally, here, they tell it like it was.
Through this collection of women’s stories, we celebrate the women of the ’60s and ’70s and the importance of their legacy.
Paperback: 354 pages
Publisher: She Writes Press (Sept. 8, 2013)
ISBN-10: 1938314042
ISBN-13: 978-1938314049
Times They Were A-Changing Book Cover
Times They Were A’Changing: Women Remember the ‘60s & ‘70s is available in print and as an e-book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and She Writes Press and Indie Bound.
Linda Joy Myersis president and founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers, and the author of four books: Don’t Call Me Mother—A Daughter’s Journey from Abandonment to Forgiveness, The Power of Memoir—How to Write Your Healing Story, and a workbook The Journey of Memoir: The Three Stages of Memoir Writing. Her book Becoming Whole—Writing Your Healing Story was a finalist in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award. A speaker and award-winning author, she co-teaches the program Write Your Memoir in Six Months, and offers editing, coaching, and mentoring for memoir, nonfiction, and fiction. www.namw.org. Visit her blog at http://memoriesandmemoirs.com.
Kate Farrellearned a M.A. from UC Berkeley; taught language arts in high schools, colleges, and universities; founded the Word Weaving storytelling project in collaboration with the California Department of Education with a grant from the Zellerbach Family Fund, and published numerous educational materials. She is founder of Wisdom Has a Voice memoir project and edited Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother (2011). Farrell is president of Women’s National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter, a board member of Redwood Branch of the California Writers Club, member of Story Circle Network and National Association of Memoir Writers.
Amber Lea Starfire, whose passion is helping others tell their stories, is the author of Week by Week: A Year’s Worth of Journaling Prompts & Meditations (2012) and Not the Mother I Remember, due for release in late 2013. A writing teacher and editor, she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from University of San Francisco and is a member of the California Writers Club in Napa and Santa Rosa, the Story Circle Network, National Association of Memoir Writers, and International Association for Journal Writing. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time outdoors. www.writingthroughlife.com.
How about you? If you “came of age” in the ’60s and ’70s, do you have any stories of your own?
If you are older or younger, do you have any thoughts on how the ’60s and ’70s shaped women’s lives?
A lucky commenter’s name will be selected in a random drawing to win a free copy of the Time They Were A-Changinganthology.
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
Next Week:
Monday, 12/16/13:“Christmas Past: A Memoir Moment.”
