Newsletter for Writers - January 2013
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Upcoming Events |
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From the Book
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Early in our writing life, we tend to give our power away by accepting every critical comment as truth.
We can learn to strain criticism from outside sources like a whale does plankton.
Like this giant creature sieving the whole sea for nourishment, we strain the criticism for the gem that will make our writing better.
When we perceive an attack, it is natural to want to defend ourselves and our work.
The desire to defend, however, often comes from resistance to some truth we already know and do not want to accept.
The more a comment annoys us, the more likely we need to listen for the grain of truth within it.
The more we practice straining criticism through our own awareness, the more refined our discernment becomes.
Peggy Tabor Millin Women, Writing, and Soul-Making: Creativity and the Sacred Feminine
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Keep the pen moving!
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Have you joined our prompt writing community yet? Sign up is quick, easy and free! Peggy's Practice Makes Possible™ Writing prompts can be delivered automatically to your inbox five days a week, and always with an inspiring quote for the day.Since you're already a newsletter subscriber, just send an email to [email protected] and ask to receive the prompts as well. And of course, you can choose to unsubscribe at any time. Jump in and join us!
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Peggy's Monthly Reminder
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Practice Makes Possible Practice. Practice. Practice. Process before product.Writing requires silence, solitude, space, and the courage and awareness to search our shadow side.Write from the belly, not the brain; write from the heart, not the head.The body with its intuition and our willingness to listen to what the body says are our greatest assets as writers.Writing and publishing are not the same thing. If we write, we are writers. If we publish what we write, we are published writers. A published writer is not a better writer. A published writer is simply a writer who is published.-Peggy Tabor Millinexcerpts from Women, Writing, and Soul-Making
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Likeable Links |
Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses.
Click here to watch the video.
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Picture Prompt |
Ready. Set. Write!
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Give the Gift of Creativity
| Looking for a gift for the writer in your life?
Visit the ClarityWorks Online Bookstore for a selection of books and CD's by award-winning author Peggy Tabor Millin
Gift Certificates are also available and can be used towards classes and retreats.
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Wordly Wise from Peggy Tabor Millin
2013: A Sabbatical Year
The word sabbatical is related to sabbath and refers to a period of rest. Particularly in academic circles, it refers to an extended period of leave from one's customary work, especially for rest, to acquire new skills or training.
I have chosen 2013 for a sabbatical. After twelve years of establishing and developing ClarityWorks, I need a break, to catch my breath, to intuit what is next. I plan to write, yes, and also to camp in our new used pop-up camper, to cycle and hike, to explore upstate New York, Vermont, and Maine, and to spend time with my new grandson who will make his debut in April.
I do not want to lose contact with you while at the same time I find it necessary to reduce my overhead expenditures and administrative time, including Jennifer's supportive assistance. Jennifer will be departing ClarityWorks to resume a full-time career as an esthetician. If you want to treat yourself to pure relaxation and marvelous skin care, contact her. You can visit her website for contact information and to learn more about her new venture.
Right now here is my plan: - The writing prompts will continue as long as you continue to donate support. If you haven't done so, please explore the options and
- The newsletter will change from monthly to bi-monthly. Your next newsletter will be in March. Between newsletters you may receive an email announcement flyer. If I decide add retreats, other services, or additional books, be certain that I will let you know.
- You may keep up with me by subscribing to my blog Writing Out of Bounds. I intend to write regularly.
Thank you so much for your support, kind words, and loyalty. You are very much appreciated. Meanwhile, keep writing! Please, please, keep writing. I'll let you know what lies ahead when I know.
Peggy
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Books to Explore - What Peggy is Reading | | Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins
Read this book! Read it for its incredible use of language --the weaving together of dialect and colloquialisms into pure poetry. Read it to learn about an important slice of American history: the race to build the bomb that would end WW II and its effect on two ordinary people from North Carolina. Read it to learn about love -- friendship, marriage, parenthood -- and how love meets the challenges of hardship, technology, and the limits of human knowledge. This is a book that will change you as a writer, a reader, and a person. So read it!
From the book: "Her father...was all front to back in his transparency: what you saw was what there was, there was nothing clandestine in his character, and those few aspects that were disguised or hidden were that way because they were his closely kept emotions. When on those rare occasions he allowed his emotions to be seen, their appearance was all the more surprising. And more powerful. Which taught her early on a thing or two about the power of what's visible -- it derives its mystery from what it hides. How many stories had she heard of people sensing ghosts behind the walls, hobgoblins in the woods? People living on the shores of lakes since time began have conjured creatures from those depths. If you believe a thing is something different from the evidence before you, if you believe something is hidden by the wall or in the woods or beneath the surface of the lake, then that belief gives power to the darkness and the depths -- power to enchant; to terrify."
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News You Need to Know | | Spring Into Your Book: how to finish your book by this spring. This online course is sponsored by The Book Catalysts If you want--or need--to write a book to fulfill a long-held dream or boost your business or career, try the Fast Start-Strong Finish method developed by experienced writers, book authors, and book writing coaches Lynda McDaniel and Virginia McCullough. Virginia is a long-time writing colleague of Peggy's, someone she strongly recommends. Banish procrastination, boost productivity, double your writing speed, unleash your creativity with dozens of tested tips and techniques. Six classes (Feb.14-May 2) , three strategy sessions, email check-ins, and valuable bonuses. Check out the Early Bird Special. If you sign up, please say you learned of the course through ClarityWorks/Peggy Millin and we will earn a reward!
Tin House Magazine is currently accepting submissions for it's Fall 2013 issue, themed WILD. They are looking for poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and interviews about the Wild--untamed places, people, things, events, happenings, and experiences. Submission deadline is April 15, 2013. Visit the Tin House website for complete details and submission guidelines.
Glimmer Train Press is accepting submissions for its Very Short Fiction Award. A prize of $1500 and publication in Glimmer Train Stories is given twice yearly for a short story. Short stories of up to 3,000 words may be submitted online by January 31, 2013. There is a $15 entry fee. Please visit the Glimmer Train Press website for complete guidelines and to submit.
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NC News for Writers
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The Great Smokies Writing Program announces it's newest lineup of classes for spring 2013. Visit their website for more information and a complete course listing. The North Carolina Writer's Network is accepting submissions for the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize until January 30, 2013. The winner receives $1000 and possible publication in the Thomas Wolfe Review. Click here for complete submission guidelines. The North Carolina Writer's Network is now accepting entries for its annual Doris Betts Fiction Prize administered by the North Carolina Literary Review. The Doris Betts Fiction Prize awards $250 and publication in the NCLR to the author of the winning short story. Up to ten finalists will also be considered for publication. The contest is open to writers with North Carolina connections (who live or have lived in NC), members of the North Carolina Writers' Network, or subscribers to the NCLR. Deadline for entries is February 15, 2013. Full submission guidelines can be found here.ClarityWorks participant Lauri Maerov is hosting a Vision Board Playshop on Sunday, January 20, 2013 at the Common Light Marketplace in Black Mountain, NC. The cost is $45/person pre-registered or $50/person at the door. To register, visit Lauri's blog or call Lauri at 323-203-6747. Liz Gunn, an intuitive astrologer with over 25 years experience, is hosting Entering the Mystery with Radical Trust on Saturday, January 19 at Crystal Visions Books in Naples, NC. The program starts at 10am. Please join Liz for a presentation of her personal experience with Radical Trust. She will share what it looks and feels like to embrace living in the Mystery as a way of life. Liz will also offer insight on the recent challenges we are all facing as we step deeper into the unknown. No registration required. Terry Tempest Williams, award winning author of Refuge and other books, will be speaking at Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville on March 8th at 7pm. Tempest Williams will be reading from her newest book When Women Were Birds. The cost of this program is $18 and includes a paperback copy of the book. Visit www.malaprops.com for more information and to purchase tickets. "When Women Were Birds is a carefully crafted kaleidoscope that keeps turning around the question: What does it mean to have a voice." The Writers at Home series will present readings from Molly Walling and Vievee Frances on January 20 at 3pm at Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville. Frances is the author of two books of poetry, Blue-tail Fly and Horse in the Dark. Walling is the author of the creative nonfiction work Death in the Delta: Uncovering a Mississippi Family Secret. This event is free and open to the public.
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ClarityWorks Participant Spotlight: Alicia Porterfield
| | Hello, stars, I wasn't paying attention, I didn't see your pinpoint smiles amidst this earthly light. But if I slow my pen and move my eyes heavenward I see you are still there looking back at me, distant blessings reaching out, there to be gazed upon grasped, appreciated, noticed-- the wonders of the galaxy, harbingers of creation of big bangs and the constant reminder that we are, that I am, not all there is.
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Alicia Davis Porterfield is a minister, mother and writer living in Wilmington, NC. She has attended a Clarity Works workshop and the Spring Beach Retreat and looks forward to another retreat with Peggy soon.
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Send it in!
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We would love to feature something you have written to a prompt. Send it in and enjoy seeing your words published in the newsletter! Just email: [email protected]
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ClarityWorks Participant Blogs & Retreat Anthologies
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Follow these links to visit the blogs and websites of a few members of our ClarityWorks community. Enjoy!
Cheryl Dietrich
www.cheryldietrich.net
Ginger Graziano
www.gingergraziano.com/blog
Karen Lauritzen
www.nothingvanishes.com
Kimberly Childs www.kimchilds.com Martha McMullin www.marthamcmullin.com Follow this link to read anthologies of retreat participants on the ClarityWorks' website. |
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And the Kudos Go To...
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...Mary Jo Balistreri on the publication and glowing reviews of her latest book Gathering the Harvest, published in 2012 by Bellowing Ark Press.
Maribeth Fischer, author of The Language of Goodbye and The Life You Longed For, writes, "Gathering the Harvest is both a beautiful elegy and a quiet celebration--an elegy for a world either lost or never fully realized, but celebration too, of all that remains, survives and flourishes."
Ed Bennett writes, "She has the ability to describe details, be it a painting or radiation therapy, with an insight usually found in the most accomplished poets. Her imagery is crystalline and by the end of each poem one becomes aware that it has taken an emotional hold of your soul."
A review by Tiger's Eye Press states, "Women poets often shy away from traditional female subjects, motherhood, sensuality, anger, and frequently mimic the present model of distance and cleverness. Balistreri's poetry transcends this movement, giving the reader an entirely sensual and intellectual view. At no point does she stop on the knife's edge to posture or pontificate. Instead of relying on cleverness, she trusts language to carry her. Whether in a mangrove or a hospital room, lush words and images create a naturally feminine setting, in every positive permutation of the word."
Copies of Gathering the Harvest can be ordered directly from Mary Jo's website www.maryjobalistreripoet.com for $18.00 + $2.00 for shipping. All proceed benefit the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation.
Mary Jo receives the Daily Writing Prompts and currently resides in both Wisconsin and Florida.
...Alice Owens Johnson whose poem, "500 Rue Chartres", was accepted by Bill Griffin of the NC Poetry Society in a competition called the One Sentence Southern Poem.
500 Rue Chartres still decays with its cracked walls, tiled floors, slow cranking ceiling fans, the aged patina masonry burnt umber and rose, fissures shaped like Italy, perhaps Elba his exile, but in this building time stops with the daily New Orleans downpour ticking moments on banana leaves in the courtyard and sometimes the ghostly whiff of Josephine drifts, as she paces the upper galleries, keeping her promise not to bathe for two weeks so he can smell all of her as he ascends the curved staircase in the Napoleon House, the house where Napoleon never lived.
Alice lives in Black Mountain and has been a participant in many ClarityWorks classes and retreats.
...Wanda Reagan, whose poems "Wendall", "Aunt Sadie's House", and "Cemetery Duty" will be published in the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature's online journal in February.
Wanda has attended the ClarityWorks retreat at Montreat and lives in Oxford, Georgia.
ClarityWorks enjoys celebrating the accomplishments of writers who have attended our classes, retreats and workshops. We want to share your writing success with our ClarityWorks' community! Send Peggy a "kudos" note at [email protected].
Thank you for sharing!
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The Gift of Creativity
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Gift thyself... or someone else! Order Peggy's award-winning book, cd workshop, or gift certificates online at Shop ClarityWorks.
Share the inspiration. Share the community.
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Peggy Tabor Millin, MA
ClarityWorks, Inc. - PO Box 9803 - Asheville, NC 28815 - (828) 298-3863 www.clarityworksonline.com - [email protected]
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Inspire your writing. Enrich your life.
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