Living the Comma #28

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Summer Break. Poetry Outdoors. Cheryl Strayed.

Dear Writer Friends,

Yesterday, we gathered for our last face-to-face Living the Comma Writer’s Group before we take a summer break. It is hard to believe it has been 9 months since our first gathering. We will resume meeting again in September. The Living the Comma newsletter will continue during the summer months to keep us connected. I am grateful for the fierce bravery it takes to sit down and write and share what we write. I am grateful for the gentle reminder to tell our stories. I am grateful for our capacity to gather together and make our hearts, and world, a little softer and safer one story at a time.

It is said that our word is our bond and I believe that to be true. Our writers group has bonded over words. Writing is trust and showing up. Writing is thinking and creating. Writing is memory and calisthenics. Writing is paying attention and delight. Writing is prayer and joy. Writing is scar tissue and healing. Writing is caves and stars. Writing is tea cups and tables. Writing is rocket ships and recipes. All that happens in our group.

We took time yesterday to reflect on our year and look toward September. Our session turned into an informal focus group, of sorts. We talked about what has worked and what has not. We talked about process and product. We shared aspirations for what the group — as evidenced by our writing — can become within our lives, church, community, and world. Continuing to write together, encouraging others to join and write with us, and exploring publishing what is created in our group bubbled up to the surface in our discussion about the group’s future. Intentional growth and consistent connection is the key. It is all important.

I will use this summer to reflect and plan, talk and research, and learn and grow. Stay tuned for questions, thoughts, and musings. They will be peppered in the newsletter this summer.

Poetry Outdoors

Welcome to Dream Work: A Year-Long Writing Journey with Mary Oliver

This week’s writing exercise is an exploring of nature writing. Poetry Outdoors, “is a writing community devoted to restoring our relationship with the natural world through poetry, storytelling, and environmental stewardship.”

In the spirit of immersing myself deeper in the practice and studying of nature poetry,/ I am embarking on a year-long writing journey with Mary Oliver, reading a single poem of hers each day and then writing one in response to it./ I’m bringing you along on the journey. — Ash Kilbeck, Poetry Outdoors

This week’s prompt can be found on the post, I Don’t Know Who God is Exactly, But I’ll Tell You This.

This Week’s Prompt: A River Cento/ This week, write a response poem exploring the cento form based on Mary Oliver’s poem At the River Clarion. A cento is a form of “found poetry” that borrows fragments or lines from other poems to make a poem of your own./ Think of this as doing a complete re-arrange of Mary Oliver’s poem to tell it in a different way while still finding a way to honour the original spirit of the poem. The trick is to not use any words of your own except for articles like a, an, the, into, such, which, etc. — Ash Kilbeck, Poetry Outdoors

Writing Conversations

Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film. Her bestselling collection of Dear Sugar columns, Tiny Beautiful Things, was adapted for a Hulu television show and as a play that continues to be staged in theaters nationwide. Strayed’s other books are the critically acclaimed novel, Torch, and the bestselling collection Brave Enough, which brings together more than one hundred of her inspiring quotes. Her books have sold more than 5 million copies around the world and have been translated into forty languages. Her award-winning essays and short stories have been published in The Best American Essays, the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, and elsewhere. Strayed is also a popular podcaster, having hosted the shows Sugar Calling and Dear Sugars, which she made with Steve Almond for the New York Times. She’s now the host of the weekly podcast Mind Over Mountain for the iHeart Women’s Sports network. She lives in Portland, Oregon. — from Cheryl Strayed’s website

A Design Matters conversation with author Cheryl Strayed

A Longform conversation with author Cheryl Strayed

A conversation between Marie Forleo and Cheryl Strayed: How To Become A Writer & Advice Every Creative Needs To Hear

As we make our way through May, let’s take a deep breath. Thank you for the last 9 months of writing together. Thank you for showing up in the exact perfect way at the exact perfect time. Thank you for planting the seeds of a writing community with me. I look forward to continuing to write together.

From the heart of the comma,

Katie

Thank you for Living the Comma with me. This community is truly love and light. Subscribe to the Wide-Awakeness Project and share your light. It has never been more important.

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