A Plummy Party

Come celebrate the launch of The Poeming Pigeon: Poems From the Garden this May.

Saturday, May 6, 2- 4 pm

The Pond House at The Ledding Library

2215 SE Harrison Street, Milwaukie, OR 97222

Among the readers will be: Annie Lighthart, Brad G. Garber, Brittney Corrigan, Carolyn Martin, Cathy Cain, Liz Nakazawa, Marilyn Johnston, Rosemary Douglas Lombard, Pattie Palmer-Baker, Stan Zumbiel, Suzanna Sigafoos, and Tricia Knoll.

Spring Flights

My spring classes are starting soon!

Once again, the Monday morning group will be just for women. All experience levels are welcome to join this encouraging group. Write from prompts that you can take in any direction - poetry, fiction, memoir or a hybrid of your own.

Creative Writing for Women - Mondays

April 3 - May 22

10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

$12 to drop in for a class or $80 for all 8 classes

TaborSpace Library, 5441 SE Belmont

Prick up Your Ears!

A reprint of my story "Some Tigers - A Story in Two Parts" has just been published by the online journal Psychopomp. https://psychopompmag.com/digital-reprint-issues/some-tigers/

The piece was originally published in the 2014 issue of Gold Man Review, who kindly nominated it for a Pushcart Prize. To order a copy of this issue, which also includes work by Judith Arcana, Paulann Petersen and Penelope Schott, click http://www.goldmanpublishing.com/. Many thanks to the editors of both Gold Man and Psychopomp.

Psychopomp. Now there's a name that grabs your attention. Taken from a Greek word, a psychopomp is a creature that guides spirits to the next life, which makes me think of the women who participated in my most recent creative writing class. Not because they were scary, but because each one of them so skillfully transported the rest of us to other worlds.

This was a particularly cold, wet Portland winter, but thanks to these talented writers, everyone in our group got to imagine what it's like to take a kayak out on soothing waters or to play on an attic floor with an array of paper dolls or to walk on the sunbaked bricks of a distant city. 

Listening to my students read their work reminded me of how important it is to keep trying to hear what other people have to say, even (or especially) if their experience is radically different from my own. Maybe in those moments when we stop and listen we start to move closer to understanding and empathy. And maybe those are two traits that help distinguish humans from other animals.

Love, baby

Many thanks to Imitation Fruit Journal for publishing my story "The Badminton Champion of the World." This piece, which features a badminton player from India, starts out as a romantic love story, but ends up being about a different kind of love. To read the story, click here http://www.imitationfruit.com/Issue_15/badminton/badminton.html.

Here's to all the forms of love we enjoy -- from the affection we feel for other people to the sweetness of taking one full, conscious breath.

Only Connect

Me, at the apex of my "Hey Jude-loving" days.

I'm happy to say my poem "Dia de los Muertos" won second place in the Member's Only category of the Oregon Poetry Association's Fall 2016 contest. This was a fun piece to write. Since poems for this contest have to be six - twelve lines, I took four haiku I'd written a few years before and linked them together.

As a teacher of creative writing, I love this type of play. Take a line from your journal, a line from your grocery list and a line from a medical bill or a concert program or a Valentine and see what happens when you combine them. Of course some of our greatest works were created by following a carefully drawn road map, but it's also fun to be surprised, to follow some hidden paths and make new discoveries along the way. In my poem, I wouldn't have consciously sat down and made a connection between dry cookies and my brother's silver trumpet, but as I began to weave my haiku together, I found that when I united these images, they expressed something that went beyond the ideas I'd set down in the two separate pieces.

In the Poet's Choice category of the same OPA contest, my longer piece, "Hey Jude, Hey You," won an honorable mention. Once again, in writing this piece, I had the pleasure of making some unexpected connections. I took the song and scribbled away until I found what it meant to me. I actually thought this piece was going to be about my brother, but the poem took me to an entirely different country.

If you're interested in entering an Oregon Poetry Association contest, you can learn more about them at http://oregonpoets.org/. At the same site, you can also order copies of Verseweavers, the OPA's journal of award-winning poems.

Here's to a year of traveling to new places and making new connections!

Certain Women

As I make plans for a new season of women's writing classes, I've been thinking about all of the women who've inspired my work. I've also realized that the list is nearly infinite because it includes famous writers (Jane Austen! Kate Atkinson! Naomi Shihab Nye!) as well as friends, family members, neighbors, students and even cyber friends I don't know all that well who enrich the lives of others by sharing snippets of their personal stories online.

If you live in the Portland area and are looking for creative inspiration from other women, my winter writing classes begin January 9.

Creative Writing for Women: Explore the depths of your imagination and memory. Write from prompts that may lead to new poems, stories, personal essays and other creative pieces. All experience levels are welcome to join this encouraging group.

Mondays, 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

January 9 – March 13

TaborSpace, 5441 SE Belmont

 $80 for all 8 weeks or $12 to drop in

(No class 1/16 & 2/20)

It's a Wonderful Life

My son, after his first Portland State
University choir concert in 2009.

I'm happy to have one of my poems included in the new collection from The Poeming Pigeon. Poems About Music includes a chorus of powerful work by Tricia Knoll, Carolyn Martin, Judith Arcana, Shawn Aveningo, Claudia F. Savage, and many others. To buy a copy of the book, click   http://www.thepoetrybox.com/_DetailPagesBookstore/TPP-MusicOrderPage.html

My contribution to the journal, a piece called "My Son, Singing," was inspired by the many Portland State University choir concerts I attended when my son was a member of the aptly named Man Choir. As the granddaughter of a drummer/dance band leader and the sister of a trumpet player, I've always been in awe of anyone with musical talent, although I'm proud to say that I've recently learned how to pick out "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" on the piano, much like George Bailey's daughter Janie does in It's a Wonderful Life.

Our family watches that movie every year, but this December it took on a new meaning. Mr. Potter, a wealthy, "frustrated, warped old man" steals $8,000 from good-guy George Bailey's puny business and gets poor George in trouble with the law. But never fear, the regular folks of the town raise the cash to keep him from going to jail. Mr. Potter gets off scot-free (and gets to keep the money), but who cares? The rest of the town celebrates Christmas together by singing.