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Poetry–the Door to a Healing Memoir

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Poetry–so often this topic seems daunting. People whisper, “I’m no poet,” as they shrink from the subject. But on Friday, Mary Mackey, author of many award winning books, a memoir teacher, and a poet, regaled the National Association of Memoir Writers with her knowledge about poetry and creativity during our monthly teleseminar. She showed us how poetry can open the doors to our unconscious, invite new memories, and infuse our memoirs with the sensual details we need to create a good story.
I was enjoying this presentation so much because I began my own autobiographical journey by writing poetry, and produced a chapbook long ago called Songs of the Plains. Poetry allowed me to capture snippets of memory and snapshots of moments and landscapes when I was not ready to write the stories in prose.
She suggested that we view poetry as a brief and freeflowing way of opening the doors to memory and our memoir writing journey.
Mary showed us how three of her novels emerged from the raw material of one of her poems, and told us these tips:
1. Write in longhand, a direct link from the mind to the body.
2. Write quickly for twenty minutes without stopping. We enter a trancelike state that bypasses the inner critic.
3. Poetry gets us closer to the center of our creativity and stimulates the right brain.

Mary had much more to share, and the NAMW members that were on the line were mesmerized by her suggestions and even inspired to begin writing poetry. They can tune into the audio on our website to hear the whole teleseminar.
I agree with Mary–through my own experience writing poetry, reading to groups, and freeing my imagery
that my writing was enhanced by reading and writing poetry. I recommend that everyone try it!

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Capitol City Young Writers–Busy Writing at 8 AM on a Summer Day

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It was like a taste of heaven seeing the 15 young writers the other day at the workshop in Sacramento, heads bent over their notebooks. They were writing on demand–creating stories from writing prompts that asked them to bridge the gap between memoir and fiction. Becky Levine and I drove up at 6 AM for the week long workshop organized by Verna Dreisbach for her non-profit, Capitol City Young Writers. The fog rolled back to reveal golden hills just before we arrived to blue skies and a quick trip to Starbucks.

As Becky and I talked about it later, it warmed our hearts to be at the workshop where for 4 hours, everyone’s focus and energy was on writing, books, creativity, and imagination. We projected our younger selves into the scene using our imagination, wishing that we’d had this kind of summer morning long ago. I showed them how scenes worked, reading from my book Don’t Call Me Mother, and talked about the Power of Memoir as a way to heal. The kids were brave and shared their work, and later when Becky talked about critique groups, they even got up and role played with smiles and good humor. The lunch afterward was delicious and the ride home went fast as Becky and I talked over the day. Inspired by the creative kids and the workshop, we sorted out plot problems in our novels all the way home!
It was a perfect writerly day for all.

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Capitol City Young Writers Conference—Meeting Leaders in the Writing Community and Getting Inspired

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I’m so inspired! A few days ago I spent a lot of time with young people who are interested in writing and their mentors. At the Capitol City Writers Conference in Marin just north of San Francisco, I joined Peter Beagle, Jane Friedman, David Corbett, and Seth Harwood among others. Verna Dreisbach, the founder of Capitol City Writers, has developed her nonprofit organization and this conference to support and inspire young writers to take seriously their ideas, their writing, and their dreams about being writers.

Jane Friedman’s energizing workshop
After teaching my memoir group, I battled traffic and got to the conference in time to tuck into the workshop by Jane Friedman, the publisher and editorial director of F+W media and the Writer’s Digest Community as soon as I arrived. Throughout the year, I listen to a lot of authors, writers, teachers, and publishers talk about the current state of writing and publishing, too often hearing something like: “Sure, go ahead and write, but don’t get your hopes up. Publishing is in a transition, and it’s hard to know what will happen. There’s so much competition that you shouldn’t count on anyone accepting your work, but you can write if you want. Have fun!”

Jane’s message is very different. The summary of what I heard was this: “All of you are creative and there are so many ways to participate in the ongoing conversation in the world. Technology has expanded so that we can draw upon all these new ways to connect—from traditional publishing to blogs, social networks, radio, webinars, ebooks, podcasting and so on. Just write, get your work out there in every way you can. Over time the energy will build and you will make new connections, find new opportunities to publish, and create new ideas. It’s ongoing and creative. Join in and express yourself.”

After listening to her explain the current state of publishing, writing, and connecting, you could feel a lively energy buzz around the room, and uplifting of creativity, a juicy excitement about what we are all doing. Everyone knows that we work better in an atmosphere of support and optimism, so the seeds were planted there for the young people in the audience as well as us adults—to keep writing, creating, and connecting!

The young girls who spoke in the workshops knew so much about writing and literature—I was really impressed. They were writing stories, checking out ebooks and blogs, and were tuned into the online community of newsletters and social networks. It all is so natural to them, they’ve grown up with computer since babyhood. The rest of us are catching up!

In my work with memoirists, it’s important to work on several levels at once: writing—creating new material that comes from somewhere inside us. Re-shaping and revisioning—looking again at our work, seeing it anew, which is what revision means. Being open to continue the creative process in a new way. And sharing our work with the world, when we’re ready, and when we’ve taken the work to fullness and completion.
In the meantime, we need to find our writing tribe, whether in “real” groups face to face, online, or in the social networking and blogosphere where thousands, perhaps millions of writers from all over the world are making new friends.
I have to go now. I need to post on Facebook, Twitter, check my other blogs, check in on the Writer’s Digest Community which I recently joined, and…oh, I’d like to get some writing done on my book too!
Keep writing! Everything you write makes you a better writer.

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