My love affair with all-things-bookish goes way back, so I barely paused before volunteering to help at my library’s handmade books workshop. As well, my friend Jerri had recently won this year’s MFA Contest in the Amoskeag Journal, and in honor of her award, the ‘concertina’ or ‘flower fold’ style book seemed the perfect something special. After…
Tag: SNHU MFA
Time Travel, a photo tour – part 1
The second half of the summer residency (SNHU-MFA) was held at the Oceanic Hotel on Star Island, in the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of Rye, NH. My first thought as I stepped off the Thomas Laighton ferry was, “This is just like the setting for a Bobbsey Twins novel!” Peeking around the corner towards Vaughan…
Seeing the Patterns in Coincidence
A recent blog post by my guru of all things entrepreneurial, Barbara Winter, caught my attention. She writes about “intentioned serendipity,” which may sound like an oxymoron, but it all depends on how you look at it. Some people may take objection to the concept of serendipity, relegating it to the New Age world of woo-woo….
The Pink Dress and a Black Robe
It’s been a wild and woolly few weeks, culminating in my graduation last Saturday evening. Final academic requirement for the MFA was a 20-minute public reading from the body of work produced over the past two years. Seeing as my project title is Homemade Heart, it seemed absolutely necessary that I make my outfit for the…
About that vision board … an update
Wide awake and it’s 3:00 a.m. So I pull my fancy night light out of the drawer in my bedside table and read magazine articles that might otherwise never see the light of day. I always enjoy Martha Beck’s perspective; she jogs my imagination. Her column in the May issue of “O” magazine on vision…
Post-thesis Celebration
There it is, in the right-hand corner of the photo: the project that kidnapped me for two years. Words cannot describe the relief I feel now that I’m on the other side of 59,000 words and the emotional archaeological dig required to write Handmade Heart – On the run and looking for love. What better…
Things are looking up …
… now that the memoir manuscript, Handmade Heart, is complete. Copies for my mentor and second reader have been delivered. (Mentors’ sign-off signatures will approve my graduation and degree.) Truth be told, I would rather write another critical essay than read aloud in front of an auditorium full of people — but that is the…
A Strange Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Last Chapter
In case there are any new readers here, I just want to preface this little story with a bit of background. This week marks the end of the third semester of a two-year MFA in Writing program. My manuscript project is a memoir focused on my teen years, ages 13 through 18. Mine was not…
Thank You for 2009
I used to think I could manufacture time out of thin air. Why shouldn’t I be able to indulge every single one of my creative interests and curiosities — all at the same time? If the Memoir Project has taught me one thing, it’s that when bringing a new endeavor on board, it is best…
If I had a fireplace …
… I’d curl up in a big fat overstuffed armchair, with a pot of tea and a stack of books that have been waiting for me, and I’d read the afternoon away. Books just finished: The Impostor’s Daughter – A True Memoir by Laurie Sandell. This is the first ‘graphic novel’ I’ve ever read and…