Dear writing sisters, Anne Panning’s memoir Dragonfly Notes: On Distance and Loss begins, “My mother appears regularly to me in the form of a dragonfly, or so I like to think.” From there she draws on decades of memory and experience, from her childhood home in rural Minnesota to the riverbanks of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, […]
Dear writing sisters, For a number of years now I’ve taken to decorating the corner mantel in our family room in place of a tree. I string it with star lights that twinkle, then I add ornaments that conjure snow–a snow owl and a tree made of feathers, white poodles with silver glitter, silvery pheasant feathers […]
Dear writing sisters, Years ago, when I was in my twenties and just setting out on what would become a quest to recovery my voice from silence, I joined a peer counseling class. The theme of the class was women’s empowerment. In this class, we learned how to listen to each other deeply. We would […]
Dear writing sisters, Every year at this time I choose a writing word to guide my writing in the coming year. Then I spell out my word with Scrabble tiles and set it above my desk so that every time I look up there it is, my writing word, reminding me of my conscious writing […]
Dear writing sisters, One of my quirky gifts is a knack for spotting potential writing prompts, especially when I’m reading a memoir. Prompts jump out at me. And when they do, I flag the page with a Post-It note and jot a craft category in the margin: develop your narrator, create empathy for your antagonist, […]
Dear writing sisters, At the start of my Virtual Writing Retreats, I like to hold a space for participants to set their personal writing intention. I also like to set a group writing intention as a way to keep us unified and connected—to really ground us into the power of the group energy—before we disperse […]
Dear writing sisters, Last week was my birthday—I turned 52 : ). On the day after my birthday I received a gift that will stay with me for the long haul: I got to hug Lydia McGranahan, one of my mentoring clients, in person for the first time after years of connecting via email, text, […]
Hello writing sisters, It’s been a while since I touched base with you! First, I was busy devoting extra writing time to my submission for the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I’ll be attending the post-graduate writing conference in August. I’ve heard so many good things from a number of writing friends about this […]
Dear writing sisters, As many of you know, every year at this time I choose a writing word to guide my writing in the coming year. Then I spell out my word with Scrabble tiles and set it above my desk so that every time I look up there it is, my writing word, reminding […]
Earlier this week I posted the following in Writing Out Loud Sisterhood, a Writing Women’s Lives Facebook group: “This morning on the way to an annual check-up I caught the tail end of an NPR report about children and self-confidence. The report stated that when children dress up as one of their heroes–Wonder Woman, for […]