Early Registration Advised

Spaces Are Limited

 

Announcing 2014 dates

for weekend retreats  

at Montreat Conference Center 

Visit the Calendar of Events
to view upcoming dates.
More information and
registration details coming soon.




Alumni Retreat!
Fearless Writing on the Blue Ridge Retreat for Women
Oct. 27--Nov. 3, 2013
Lake Logan Conference Center
Canton, NC
 

  

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 Millin
excerpts from

Women, Writing, and Soul-Making

David Whyte

This line of poetry stops me in my tracks every time I read it.  It awakens a deep yearning to know while reminding me that any truth I uncover is only true if freely shared.

As writers we must be visible. This realization is what scares us. After all, we have spent years erecting images, beliefs, and constructs to live by and more years defending and guarding these same images, beliefs, and constructs so we won't be seen for the charlatans and failures we fear we are. To write means we cannot hide because we always write ourselves, whether we write humor or sermons, chick lit or dissertations.

To be visible means to be vulnerable. Vulnerability usually makes us squirm with discomfort. But, as the Zen teacher Cheri Huber says, "Nobody ever died of uncomfortable." 

 If we accept that writers must risk being visible, what is it that Whyte says we carry hidden? I think he means our essential truth, which some call Self or Soul. Inside the wadded ball of familial and cultural patterns that is tied with knots of fear is an inexpressible knowing, an unlimited YES! to life. We don't need to acquire it because it's already there waiting to be recognized. 

Group writing is one way to bring forth our truth. By writing in a safe group, we can risk being vulnerable and, like the lotus flowers on the pond in spring, the synergy begins. We open petal-by-petal, all hues and shapes, sinking long roots into the darkness of the Mother, while we float effortlessly, faces toward the sun.

The truth we have learned to hide holds the gift we have to give to others-our souls, the best part of ourselves, the magic only each of us can offer, the gift that is unique to me, to you, to her, to him. Why hold back? Why, indeed?

Keep writing!

Peggy

American Poetry Review's Honickman First Book Prize is now accepting entries. A prize of $3,000 and publication by American Poetry Review is given annually for a first poetry book. The winning book is distributed by Copper Canyon Press through Consortium. Stephen Dunn will judge. Submit a manuscript of at least 48 pages with a $25 entry fee by October 31. Send an SASE, call, or visit the website for complete guidelines.

American Poetry Review, Honickman First Book Prize, University of the Arts, 320 South Broad Street, Hamilton #313, Philadelphia, PA 19102. (215) 717-6800. Elizabeth Scanlon, Editor.

 

The North Carolina Writer's Network 2013 Fall Conference will be held in Wrightsville Beach November 15--17, 2013. Registration opened in early September and the conference will feature readings, keynotes, and tracks in several genres. Visit www.ncwriters.org for more information.

Malaprop's Bookstore is hosting a reading to celebrate Writers at Home host Tommy Hays' new book, What I Came to Tell You on October 20th at 3pm. Tommy Hays is the author of three novels for adults, including The Pleasure Was Mine. He is Executive Director of the Great Smokies Writing Program and a lecturer in the Master of Liberal Arts Program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Visit www.malaprops.com for more information.