Living the Comma #17

[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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Pitches. Lent. Nadia Bolz-Weber.

Hello Writer Friends,

This week, peer inside my writer’s journey window. I write a weekly summary of a few pitches I send out to a breadth of publications — Spit and Spaghetti: Pitches from the Wind and the Wall — and publish it on Substack. Last week, I applied for a grant, a fellowship, and a job. Highlighting my writer’s hustle counters the silence of relentlessly pitching and hearing nothing, provides proof/evidence of action, (Action brings clarity. Thank you, Marie Forleo.) and celebrates the process which beats twiddling my thumbs waiting to land the assignment and/or job. Also, I can feel in my bones my pitches have improved, my process has improved, and my attitude about the slog of it all has improved. Writing about it lets me see where I have been, where I am, and where I want to go.

Join our Weekly Writer’s Call happening every Thursday from 1-2. Each call will be an hour of silently and virtually writing together. Whatever project you choose to work on. Whenever you want to join in. Between the cracks of our busy days. Join our effort to write together. Here is the link for this Thursday.

This newsletter — Living the Comma — will continue to be delivered weekly to keep our broader community up-to-date and writing. If you know other’s who might want to be involved, please share word of our group, the newsletter, and the virtual link.

Our next face-to-face writing session will be March 1 at VHC after snack time. We are scheduled to meet from 12:15 to 1:30 EST in April and May, too. To virtually connect with the group during our meetings, use this link — https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85095318186.

As Lent begins, I want to share a Nadia Bolz-Weber project as possible writing inspiration, 40 Days of Good Shit (a lenten discipline for cranky people.) She describes the Good Shit Project saying, “Each day in Lent (which starts Wednesday, Feb 18th), I’ll either: Take one photo of something beautiful I notice in my day—like how the light comes through our front room in the afternoon, or Write one sentence about a warm interaction with a stranger—like the guy in the hospital elevator who asked which floor I was going to and pushed the button for me, or Post something helpful someone said to me that day—like the six-word prayer my friend Jackie just shared: I can’t. You can. Please do.”

You can also hear Nadia preach the sermon, Phosphorescence; a Sermon For Dark Times, and listen to, “When Shit Hits the Fan: A Conversation with Suleika Jaouad & Nadia Bolz-Weber” to learn more about Bolz-Weber and her work.

Sending lots of love from the heart of the comma.

Katie

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