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Newsletter for Writers - May 2014
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 Upcoming Retreat |
Registration opens
April 1, 2014
August 1-3, 2014
Zen Mind, Writer's Mind
Great Tree Zen Temple
Alexander, North Carolina
More information here. |
| BLOG: A Woman's Way with Words |
Read the latest from Peggy
at her blog
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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
clarity@clarityworksonline.com and ask to receive the prompts as well. And of course, you can choose to unsubscribe at any time. Jump in and join us! |
From the Book
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The only limits are the ones I myself impose.
The experience I am growing
to honor is the total
moment-by-moment
experience of life itself.
I think this is what Mary
is teaching.
It is simple.
It is all about Love.
Peggy Tabor Millin's
Mary's Way: Cultivating a Peaceful Heart in Trying Times.
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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 |
| Likeable Links | 
Do you wish for a magic button
that will make everything better?
Look no further--
Make everything OK
with the click of a mouse.
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| Picture Prompt |
Ready. Set. Write!
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Upcoming Events
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For the latest updates
and events, visit
Peggy's Calendar of Events.
Dates for 2014
retreats updated regularly.
Stay tuned for registration
information and updates.
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ClarityWorks participant blogs & retreat anthologies
| Cheryl Dietrich
Ginger Graziano
Karen Lauritzen
Martha McMullen
Follow this link to
read anthologies of retreat
participants on the
Clarityworks website.
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| Wordly Wise from Peggy Tabor Millin |
Midway this way of life we're bound upon, 
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone... .
It is so bitter it goes nigh to death.
Dante
I have felt stalled out on writing. If I believed in writer's block, I would call it that. But doing so feels to me like an avoidance of something deeper that wants to be recognized and embraced. Deep breath.
What is happening here? I am no longer teaching and after carefully organizing all the material I have for my novel, am not writing it. In fact, I have been procrastinating writing this piece for the newsletter and also keep pushing writing the blog to one side. I write weekly with 3 friends and that's about it.
I keep saying I'm waiting to discover what I want to be when I grow up. I laugh when I say it but I know it's no laughing matter. I don't know what is next. I only know I can't continue teaching on the schedule I had developed. I love teaching, love the presence of all you lovely, lively, intelligent women in my life, and look forward to the two retreats scheduled later in the year. Yet I can't go back. I must go forward--but to what? Retirement is not an option; I need purpose in my life and I find it through work.
"Wait." That's my body's message, and my soul's. I recall that I spent much of 2013 until very recently dealing with medical crises--my own and my family's--and that I do not have total control over the nature of "recovery" or its duration. Still I feel I "should" be able to manage it.
How do we wait when everything in our culture tells us to press on, grab the bull by the horns, and make a splash. Maybe it helps to think of "waiting until the time is right." If I treat each moment as the right time for whatever is appearing, then the right action must become evident. "Wait and observe," another message.
From the book shelf, I retrieved When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd (Secret Life of Bees) and have begun opening my heart to the message. At the same time, my husband and I are re-reading Women, Writing, and Soul-Making together, (sometimes it is necessary to retrieve one's own wisdom!)reading again what I wrote about letting our writing rest, trusting the process, and leaning on our intuition. I have, it seems lost myself in my own life to discover, as Dante says, that I have stepped off my right road and blundered into the dark woods with the right road lost from sight.
What is the underlying fear? I open Women, Writing, and Soul-Making to Audre Lorde's words: "Maybe this is the chance to live and speak the things I really do believe, that power comes from moving into whatever I fear most that cannot be avoided." So what is the fear? Perhaps that I won't find the road again.
 I now recognize this place. I have lived long enough to celebrate this as a "late-life crisis," a time of facing anew the transitory nature of life and its preciousness. An opportunity to spin a chrysalis and embrace the process of metamorphosis. Who knows the nature of the butterfly that will emerge?
Ranier Maria Rilke wrote, "Patience is everything." I believe him. I will wait with an open heart. I will listen to the water in the fountain and for the song of my soul. Already the writing of this is opening me up to possibility.
Meanwhile let me know if something here resonates with you. If so, look for more on this subject on my blog. You can sign up to be notified in the left-hand column.
Keep writing!
Peggy
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Books to Explore
| | A Small Hotel: A Novel by Robert Olen Butler
If you write, you will read this book not only for the story, but for how skillfully Butler moves the reader from the present to various times in the relationship of Michael and Kelly Hays, who have decided to separate after twenty-four years of marriage. He does this while giving us  both Michael's and Kelly's points of view. He manages these shifts seamlessly so that the reader is guided on converging currents without feeling lost at sea. The New Orleans' setting adds a dimension to this emotionally charged story.
I agree with Jeff Guinn of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram : "An intelligent, deeply moving, and remarkably written portrait of a relationship that reads as a cross between a romance novel and a literary page turner, A Small Hotel is a masterful story that will remind readers once again why Robert Olen Butler has been called the "best living American writer".
Robert Olen Butler is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of fourteen novels, six story collections, and a book on the creative process, From Where You Dream. He teaches creative writing at Florida State University.
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Calls for Submision
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10th Annual Burnside Review Poetry Chapbook Prize. Judge: Hannah Gamble. Runs March 15-June 30. Winner receives $200 and 10 copies of the published chapbook. Letterpressed covers. Beautiful design. Send 18-24 pages of poetry. Entry fee: $15. Complete details are available on their website, www.burnsidereview.org.Pat Schneider Poetry Contest sponsored by Amherst Writers & Artists. $1,000 and publication in Peregrine. Accepting 3 unpublished poems. Contest fee of $18. Postmark deadline: July 1. Chief judge: Dr. Sue Walker. Poems not returned. Guidelines at: www.amherstwriters.com.Glimmer Train announces its Short Story Award for New Writers. Submission deadline is May 31, 2014 and this contest is open only to writers whose fiction has not appeared in or is scheduled to appear, in any print publication with a circulation over 5,000. First prize wins $1,500 and publication in Glimmer Train. Read complete submission guidelines here.
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News You Need to Know
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Thrift Books is an excellent online used bookstore with  a staggering selection of titles. Peggy has ordered from Thrift and cannot recommend their service more highly. "Spend Less, Read More."Your Brain on Stories. Do you know what happens to your brain when engaged in a story? Two wonderful articles describe the science of story telling and fiction on our brains. Read them here and here.
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NC News for Writers
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The Writers at Wolfe series presents North Carolina's ambassador of literature and seventh poet laureate Joseph Bathanti on June 21 at 10:00 am in Asheville. Bathanti will read from his works at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, 52 North Market Street, Asheville. Learn more at www.wolfememorial.com.The Great Smokies Writing Program is now enrolling summer courses. Creative non-fiction, flash fiction, and poetry are among the course offerings. Visit the Great Smokies website to view complete listing and enroll.
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Writing in Circles Anthology
| | Writing in Circles: The Process of Soul-Making, an anthology of writings from nearly forty participants of the ClarityWorks' seven-day retreats, is moving towards completion.
Sunburst Cabin Press will be the publishing imprint and the book will be printed by LightningSource. The editing process is complete and the designer, Ginger Graziano, stands ready to begin the cover and internal design. As you can see, the Sunburst #1 Book Committee has been very busy.
If we can make this book a success, Volume II will be next with writing from a wider circle of participants. Once we know the ropes, subsequent volumes will be easier to produce.
Right now, the Writing in Circles anthology project needs your further financial support. Please Join the Vision!
Besides contributing to the funding of the project, you may have expertise to volunteer such as in marketing and promotion, especially online. The circle sustains us, whether we submitted a piece or not. Once Writing in Circles is published, all of us will have the opportunity to promote to friends and family and by creating "buzz" on blogs, newsletters, forums, and networking sites.
Let's see what a circle of committed writing women can achieve.
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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: pmillin@clarityworksonline.com
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And the Kudos Go To...
| | ...Ginger Graziano, whose poem "Blood" is featured in the latest edition of The Great Smokies Review. Congratulations Ginger!
 Ginger lives in Asheville, North Carolina and has attended ClarityWorks classes.
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 pmillin@clarityworksonline.com.
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
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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 - clarity@clarityworksonline.com
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Inspire your writing. Enrich your life.
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