I'm busy researching and now writing my next novel based on the life of Dorothea Dix. She was a reformer in the early nineteenth century but she thought her destiny was to be a teacher. Teaching is a remarkable profession. Most of us can remember a special teacher and how they changed our lives. I remember Miss Patsner. ( I think her real name was Potsner but she changed it to forestall the giggling she could anticipate with second grader potty humor). She taught first through third grade at the two room rural Naples school in Western Wisconsin. One day she called me into the "sick room" and she had me sit on the cot while she pulled up a chair. It had been a bad day with kids teasing me because I'd been asked to narrate the Christmas program for the fourth-sixth graders in the room next door.

"You're a good reader," she told me. "That's why you were asked to narrate and yes there were other children in older grades who could have done it but we thought you'd be best. There will be other times in your life," she told me, "when others might ridicule your talents or success. You have to keep your chin up, stand tall and be grateful for what you were given and just let it shine." I confess, I didn't really know for sure what she was talking about as I didn't feel talented or successful. I just liked to read and couldn't remember a time in my life when I couldn't. But her words gave me encouragement, a body of care to draw upon when I struggled with self-confidence or purpose later in life.

One of the qualities that makes a good teacher so special is that they can see the promise inside a student most often when the student can't. Whether it's someone teaching me how to change the oil on my car (yes, I used to insist I do it myself) or how to put on cross country skis, it is their vision to see what will one day be and know what to do to support that turns a teacher into a mentor.

For the past four years, I've joined my writing mentor, award-winning columnist and author Bob Welch, to teach a weekend class in Yachats, OR. Yachats is a beautiful little beach community. We tend to details -which a good teacher does - and we keep the focus on the students and what they're looking for to take the next step on their writing journey. Some attendees aren't sure they are writers. Others are looking for permission to not only write things down but allow others to read what they've written.

There are publishing questions, explorations of fiction and nonfiction and a whole lot of people helping people see that they are the captain of their writing ships, not those inner voices that might keep them from pursuing a dream. A community forms in those short hours from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. And what I listen to as some chose to read and what I experience as a teacher is great joy at seeing a student unfold their talents and bloom.

A few years ago I was accepted into the teaching sorority Delta Kappa Gamma as an honorary member. It's humbling because I don't see myself as having those sustaining qualities that enable teachers to face classrooms every day or as a homeschool teacher committed to the educational experiences of their own children. Teachers find within themselves the ability to be the model that for many children and teens may be the only model of how to learn, seek, care and succeed. I'm honored to be there with people who call themselves teachers.

There's an interview on my blog with author Bob Welch, my very first writing teacher whom I now co-teach with once a year. http://janeswordsofencouragement.blogspot.com/ . If any of you are closet writers, let 2012 be the year you invest in your belief about You. We'd love to have you join us at Beachside Writers March 2-4. (check out my website for a video about the event http://www.jkbooks.com ) but most of all, I hope you'll remember a teacher and maybe even send them a note of appreciation for what they contributed to your life.

Running the Rift (Algonquin) January 16, 2012 by Naomi Benaron

Before I even knew what the book was about I knew I wanted to read it. I sat in an audience of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association listening to Naomi Benaron talk about her passion as a Ironman triathlete and about the morning she found out she was the winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction. The award is given biennially by Barbara Kingsolver and funded totally by her. The prize is for fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships. It carries a $25,000 prize and publication by Algonquin.

Naomi is a slender yet sturdy woman whose body reflects her status as an Ironman triathlete. She was funny, articulate but most of all passionate about her writing. I suspected she'd put that kind of passion into her novel regardless of the subject and lo and behold, she did. Her choice of subject is stunning.

Running the Rift is about a young Rwandan boy for whom running becomes his life's passion. He's Tutsi and in the 1990s, this is the affiliation that is set for genocide by Hutu people. The genocide is close enough to our present life that while reading I kept wondering how it is that the killings could have happened? What inside us as human beings allows us to objectify a neighbor, a government to attack its citizens, and in so doing kill them as though they were nothing more than a chair? Have we learned nothing from the holocaust?

I wouldn't normally have picked up a book about such a time but as I said, Naomi's passion was contagious. Perhaps her years working through the Afghan Women's Writing Project or her advocacy for African refugees in her community or her work with genocide survivor groups in Rwanda brought her not only great compassion in the telling of this story where all people were victims but also brought her great hope. It's that hope that keeps a reader reading.

Naomi invites us into the family of this young man and his dream to be an Olympic runner. We meet his little sister, his brothers, his uncle the fisherman. We discover the complex relationship Jean Patrick Nkuba has with his Hutu coach and the portal to another life introduced by his American geology professor and by running. We watch as he falls in love in the midst of curfews, identity cards, the hovering of strife hanging over their lives like the hot breath of horror.

Not once did I consider not finishing this book even though I knew there would be bad times ahead. Naomi wrote into her story a rich invitation to another culture, a landscape made knowable through her remarkable language, and underpinned it all with the deep breath of seeking a better world that inspires.

Naomi Benaron has an MFA from Antioch University and an MS from Scripps Institute of Oceanography. She teaches at Pima Community College and online through the Afghan Women's Writing Project. This book will inspire. It reminded me that we live in a world where bad things can happen but where we'll also find stories of bread crumbs left behind for us to follow to find out way to home.  

From mid December until mid April, I'm in my "writing mode." I schedule few events during that time. But two in March and a special one in April I want you to know about.

WHEN:  Friday-Sunday, March 2-4
WHERE:  Yachats, Oregon
WHAT:  Beachside Writers. Once again Jane joins award-winning author and columnist (and humorist) Bob Welch. New classes but the same weekend of inspiration, fabulous food, amazing ambiance and nurture from Friday night until Sunday. Beachside is for all people at whatever stage of the writing life you're in, even if you're not sure you are a writer! Check out Bob's websitewww.bobwelch.net for more information. Registration is limited to 50 people.  Give your writing honey an early Valentine's Day gift and come along and enjoy the beach.

WHEN:  Monday, March 5, 6:30 p.m.
WHERE:  Willamette Heritage Center at the Mill, Willamette University, 1313 Mill St., SE, Salem, Oregon
WHAT:  Lecture and book signing. Join Jane as she presents a lecture on the Aurora Quilters during the Willamette Women Winter Exhibition (January 20 through March 10). For more information call 503-585-7012 or e-mail kenis@missionmill.org. 

And don't forget to sign up for the April launch of Where Lilacs Still Bloom.

WHEN:  Friday, April 20, (the day before the annual Lilac Days opening), 10:00 a.m. or 1:00 p.m.
WHERE: Woodland Grange, 404 Davidson, Woodland, Washington
WHAT:  A HULDA KLAGER LILAC GARDEN PRESENTATION. Your $35.00 prepaid reservation for this fundraising event to benefit the lilac gardens includes a copy of Jane's latest release, Where Lilacs Still Bloom, her presentation and signing, refreshments and entrance to the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens and House on the day before the official opening.  Choose either the 10:00-noon or 1:00-3:00 presentation. Seating is limited to 75 for each session.  Mail your check, payable to Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope and preference of seating time to: HKLG Special Event, c/o Judy Card, PO Box 1861, WoodlandWA98674. For more information e-mail  jcard20983@aol.com or call (360) 225-9212.