This month, I’m sharing some of Dad’s conversations in his final days, and in one of them that you can hear at the bottom of this post, he revealed a surprising thought about how we feel about folks from time to time. His revelation reminded me of a poem that I wrote recently for a small group of women in one of my writing circles.
My Stafford Challenge group meets the first Monday of each month by Zoom to chat and write together, and we’re a group of women who enjoy reading as much as writing. I’ve been writing a form each month called Gift Basket writing, where I choose three things I’d give a person in a gift basket for that month. This one is dedicated especially to my Stafford Writing Group sisters – Barb Edler of Iowa, Glenda Funk of Idaho, and Denise Krebs of California. At the time I wrote this, I’d recently stumbled across a book club I’d love to join, even for the name alone, and there is actually a summer camp in Maine for its readers – this is a real thing. My dream summer is going to this book club’s summer camp, and I’ve added it to the bucket list.
Bad Bitch Book Club
if I were giving you
a gift basket
I’d make it a
Bad Bitch gift basket
to welcome the storms
of the world~
you’d receive
a t-shirt that says
BAD BITCH BOOK CLUB
complete with
a membership to
the Bad Bitch Book Club
(yes ~ it’s a real thing
with its own dot com)
and a mirror
so you’ll always
see the
baddest of the kick-ass bad
right in the palm of your hand~
knowing your Bad Bitch sisters
have your back!
It’s okay to have a BB attitude sometimes……even my preacher Dad in his final days confessed that there are times we are all a little bit badass. You can listen here:
Jessica Handler led a session on using sensory details in writing to make characters come alive
We shared our favorite techniques using what we’re currently writing as our material for organizing in different ways. Mickey is a master at teaching how to outline!
I didn’t want to leave. I wanted the writer’s conference to last a full week, and I wanted to stay in a lodge with other writers, where we could sit in the common room by the fire in the evenings in sweatpants and scarves and sip wine and share writing. But I keep that vision in my mind, that image of total peace and bliss, and carry it with me back into reality on the heels of this fabulous winter break.
I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference.
Seana Hurd Wright of Los Angeles is our host today for the fifth and final day of the February Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. You can read Seana’s full prompt and the poems of others here. Today, Seana inspires us to write poems about the favorite characters we’ve had over the years.
Unexpected kindnesses can happen anytime, in the most needed ways. A couple of weeks ago, fellow slicer and friend Barb Edler of Iowa reached out to see if I wanted to be part of a small group she was putting together for The Stafford Challenge of daily writers in our second year of writing a poem a day for one full year. Each of us writes in three common writing groups and have met in person to make presentations at NCTE. We keep in touch, and I’ve often thought that my friends in the midwest and west coast and I share deeper connections than friends sitting next to me each day at work – – because we share the bond of kinship through writing. And I’m so thankful for this, because along with Denise Krebs and Glenda Funk, we found we were kindred spirits all seeming to need a lift right about now. Each of us shared a poem via Zoom that we’ve written recently and found a common thread – a numbness, disbelief, sadness about what is happening in our world with its shocking politics, heartbreaking plane crashes, and other woeful wreckage.
There are no words to capture the deep feeling of comfort that comes when you sit with friends, near or far, with a cup of tea and spend time sharing writing. I’m thanking each of you today, because that’s what slicing does, too. It brings us together to share what is foremost on our minds and hearts and keeps us in touch with what is going on in our lives across the globe. I love having my gardening friends, my RV bloggers, my travel buddies, my fellow grandmothers who share amazing ideas, fellow readers and birdwatchers and more. Thank you for being a writer in my life.
I’m sharing my tricube (three stanzas, three lines per stanza, three syllables per line) that I shared last night (below). I’m also making plans for March slicing – – I’ve sectioned out the waking hours of a typical day, and I plan to write a poem for every 31-minute time slot about something happening during that time, just to feel the real-lifeness of each moment, just because there can be deep comfort in things as simple as stirring honey into a cup of hot green tea and accepting that it’s okay not to want to read the tea leaves.
If you asked me to share the highlight of this year’s NCTE Convention in Boston, I might think for a few moments before landing on an answer, for there is much to consider.
I’d think about the keynote speakers, and how I had the fabulous opportunity to hear Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson share her story and offer signed books so that attendees can all read more about her journey. I stood in that book line for well over one hour, chatting with a writing friend, happy to have the right to read and the freedom to choose it. I did not complain, either, like I do in Wal Mart when there is a long line.
I’d think of Kate McKinnon of Saturday Night Live and Weird Barbie and Ms. Frizzle voice fame and also getting a copy of her new signed book.
With Kate McKinnon and a signed copy of her new book
I’d think of the trade book author signings – meeting them, sharing a photo op, and wondering about all the unique ways they sign. I’d think of the sessions – trying to pick just one each time – and the poster and mini sessions offering shorter chunks of learning time.
With Linda Rief, the queen of the Quickwrite, who attended our session where I was leading a quickwrite as part of a poetry process – and stayed at my roundtable for a double round! Love this author!
I’d think of the iconic green couch and the surrounding cityscapes with the vast array of restaurants and historic landmarks.
I’d think of the quiet moments of reading and writing, and I’d think of the wide webs of networking and meeting new friends.
I’d think of the excitement of sharing the five books my writing group has written over the past year, and the way it feels like we are walking on a cloud every single time we get to open the pages of them and share them with others – and presenting on two of them at this NCTE Convention. I hope that the two that will be published by Routledge Press in 2025 will bring us back to NCTE next year in Denver to present on those titles as well.
Enjoy a complimentary download of the books above with this QR code!
I’d think, too, of the Boston Writing Marathon Workshop that was being held at the same time as my presentation and how Richard Louth, the founder of the writing marathon and leader of the workshop, ran for his handout (I felt like I might cry) because I was hungry for the experience and needed to know more – and how I’d emailed him and he’d responded, inviting me to join in and share my writing. He’d even suggested a peaceful place to go and write – at Boston’s “Grub Street,” a bookstore/coffee shop/ cafe with a top floor for writers at work. I’ll feature my visit to that shop in tomorrow’s blog.
Sy Montgomery and Matt Patterson signed my book, “To Our #1 Fan, Kim!” I got there early to be first in line. I’ve been a fan of Sy’s for many years, and love that she is here in Boston, right where she did all of her research at the New England Aquarium and made me cry with grief over Octavia in The Soul of an Octopus.
The highlights would be hard to determine, but I wouldn’t have to think long before responding that the most heartfelt highlights of NCTE are found in the connections – – the sharing of stories, dreams, and ideas. Breathing the same air as 7,800 other educators who are all passionate about their careers and their love of reading and writing is empowering. Planning a session with a virtual poetry writing group, then presenting together and meeting for dinner is energizing. Having dinner a second night with yet another writing group (my blogging friends from Slice of Life) is the icing on the cake. To meet those face to face with whom you’ve read and written over the years is a gift – one that continually reminds us that the simple act of finding the beauty in an ordinary moment and sharing it in writing so that we can all be present across the miles – and then holding togetherness in person – is as humanly highlighting as it gets.
The Slice of Life writing group met at Serafina in Boston Seaport
With fellow Georgia educator and children’s book author Randi Sonenshine, who turned up at the front of the line early, too, to meet Sy Montgomery because Sy inspired her children’s picture book The Den That Octopus Built. It was great to see her again!
When I was in California last November for the NCTE Convention, I programmed my phone’s navigation to take me to McCormick and Schmick’s at the Anaheim Garden Walk for the Slice of Life Meet-Up at 5:00. I couldn’t wait to meet everyone, to put faces with the names of the bloggers whose posts I read every Tuesday throughout the year and everyday during the month of March for the Slice of Life Writing Challenge. We were each bringing a gift for a writer for a gift exchange, but I knew that the best gift of all would be the personal connections I would make with my fellow writers.
I planned to arrive right on time so that I could be back at the Anaheim Hilton at 6:30 for the Open Write Meet-up in the MIX Restaurant for dinner with my group giving a presentation at the conference. Even though I was still in a boot as my broken right ankle healed, I figured this walk would be quick and easy.
I was wrong.
I’m not sure why, but whenever I’m walking in a major city along with hundreds of thousands of other people, I imagine that everyone is going to the same place I’m going – or at least that they know where everywhere is and can help me if I get lost. At the first intersection, my arrow was still wonky, changing directions like a compass that couldn’t locate magnetic north, so I took a chance and stayed in the stream with the masses.
I started scanning the throng of people for anyone who looked like a writer who might be headed to the table for the dozen or so of us who would be attending, and my eyes fell on two women about my age who appeared to have had the characteristic writer’s callus on the last knuckle of their middle fingers. I was convinced I’d successfully used my detective skills and found them.
At the next traffic light, I eased my way closer to them so that I could tag along and listen for a moment. They’d stopped talking, so I made a bold move and decided to ask.
“Are you going to the Slicer meet-up?”
No sooner had I gotten the words out of my mouth, I realized I had asked the wrong people the right question the wrong way, given the state of our world.
I found myself looking into two completely horrified faces. Horrified.
The walking light turned white, and they turned and took off in another direction, looking back over their shoulders at me as if I’d been sporting a knife in my boot. Me. A murderous slicer. I was glad I had saved a chain of emails in case the cops came and I had been taken in for questioning.
Next time, I’ll know to inconspicuously whisper, “Would you happen to be headed to the Slice of Life invitational dinner for celebrity writers?”
I walked on another block, and then I saw a familiar female face standing at a traffic light, waiting to cross. At least I was pretty sure it was her. I decided on a safer tactic.
“Fran?”
“Yes,” she replied, looking at me curiously.
“I’m Kim. I recognize your picture from your blog. Are you going to the meet-up?”
We walked the rest of the way together, and we managed to find our fellow writers.
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing the Slice of Life Writing Challenge now and throughout the year, and to Melanie Meehan for arranging such a lovely gathering, full of fun, laughter, writers’ gifts, and stories! I’m hoping that we will be able to enjoy time together again at this year’s NCTE Convention. I’ll plan to Uber and would love to share a ride with you to the Citrus Society Celebrity Writer’s Red Carpet Invitational Gala!
2022 Slicer Meet-Up in Anaheim, California
A street somewhere in Anaheim where I got lost and somehow avoided being arrested.
A springtime stay at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina convinced me that I needed a writer’s desk like F. Scott Fitzgerald had. I’d slept right across the hall from the two rooms he’d regularly occupied there, positioned strategically over the front doors so he could keep an eye on the comings and goings of folks. Downstairs, where his desk is on display, I’d taken pictures from every angle.
Oh, to have a writer’s desk like that, I thought, admiring the heaviness of the oak and its ample surface space.
I priced desks online. I looked in stores. I came home and made a makeshift writer’s desk from an antique dresser in our guest room, even buying a comfortable chair for my newly-crowned space until I found just the right big oak desk.
Every morning at my same pre-civilization hour, though, I returned to my favorite living room chair and perched up with my lap desk and Chromebook to write. I still do, 8 months after falling in love with Fitzgerald’s desk. I used the makeshift desk only once, and it was not my wave to ride. So instead, I ordered a bigger lap desk with more surface space – and after that fine-tuning step, my chair is my spot!
All this got me thinking: what were the habits of writing among the classical writers? Where do my contemporary writing friends and authors I follow write today? Learning about the writing habits of others is fascinating. I’ve included some links below for exploring. Happy writing!
Common Threads 