Writing Full Tilt

When I wrote Maud & Addie I did not identify a particular audience or age range. I wrote out of the joy of keeping company with characters who asked good questions and tried to solve their own dilemmas. If they were sad, I was sad; if they were satisfied; I was satisfied. Like many authors, I wrote first out of my own need to express what was within me. When I finished, I wanted others to read it. Who read it was not important to me; I simply wanted to share my work. But the publishing and marketing industry don’t operate that way. For them it’s important to designate genre and age group. Thus, Maud & Addie became a ‘middle-grade novel,’ which means it is targeted towards 9-12 year olds. I’m thrilled to have people of those ages read the book. It makes sense since that’s how old the characters are.

But here’s the thing: just because children are the main characters of a book does not mean it is childlike. Childhood emotions, children’s lives and their reactions to their lives are just as complicated, just as profound and sophisticated as adults. To assume that a five year old does not grapple with the depths and variety of human motivations and feelings is to not understand one’s own journey through life. One has only to read the Frances series of picture books or Piglets trials and tribulations of being Pooh’s friend to know that small people perceive the human heart quite astutely. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have the adage: Out of the mouths of babes . . . . Talking down to children in stories or conversation risks alienating them and the child in all of us who easily recognize authenticity in intention and reaction. To have one’s writing designated for a particular age simply means that the content is appropriate for everyone above that age. The Life of Pi and The Diary of Anne Frank or even Romeo and Juliet feature protagonists of few numerical years, however, each of them experience and respond to the truths of human conundrums and pressures. Please don’t think I am comparing my creative attempts to these timeless works; I’m simply making the point that if Anne Frank’s journal writing were to be reserved only for YA interest, millions upon millions would be led astray and away from a very particular voice that echoes across generations. Children are not a monolithic group, not in their interests, their perceptions, or in their emotional range. They are as varied and sophisticated as their fellow readers of more advanced age. As Piglet so wisely says: “The things that make me different are the things that make me.”

Maud & Addie Readings

June 10 2021 8:00 p.m. ADT/7:00 p.m. EDT Zoom event hosted by Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. Register here

Reading May 13 2021 hosted by Broadside Bookshop, Northampton MA Watch Here

Maud & Addie Purchase

Regal House Publishing: Hard copy & Paperback

iPg Independent Publishing Group: Paperback & Ebook

Review

With an old-fashioned feel, Jones has molded a memorable pair of sisters in 1910 Nova Scotia. As the story begins, with their parents away and a new and mysterious companion in the house, Maud, 11, and Addie, 12, go on a life-changing adventure. All prepped for an afternoon social, the girls miss their transport and decide to row across the bay to meet their friends. Unfortunately, they are blown off course, landing on one of the many uninhabited islands in the area. What starts out as a bit of a lark turns into days of surviving off the land and self-discovery, as they wonder whether anyone will come to their rescue. As the story builds to a crisis, a discovery shines a light on a dark corner of their family history, and a brave journey brings them home. For readers who enjoy historical fiction full of era-appropriate details, a dash of adventure, and a timely message, this series starter will satisfy. — Beth Rosania  Booklist Reviews

Prompt Photo

Two sisters arrived one afternoon, in the middle of an argument with each other. I didn’t know it then, but their argument was taking place on an island at the heart of their story. Around the same time that I wrote that dialogue, I was daydreaming, and the bow of a small wooden boat appeared, bumping gently into rocks. I began to wonder: Who was in the boat? Where did they come from? How did they get there? Where were they going? Who were they to each other? And why were they arguing? That set of questions launched me into the detective work of following these two sisters through their adventures and transcribing their actions and conversations. They have kept me company through many, many hours. Now they’re here to keep you company too.  

Many of you have heard scenes from Maud’s and Addie’s dilemmas and triumphs, and you have told me what was strong, what stayed with you, what was working. You kept me going, encouraging me to shadow these characters closely and watch as they developed into wonderful companions to each other, but especially to me. These two sisters own the book and their story. I am grateful to them and to all of you.

Three agents, over 40 editors, a dozen readers, and one contest later, Maud & Addie will be released May 6, 2021, by Fitzroy Books, an imprint of Regal Publishing House.

Links for Purchase

Regal House: Hardcover & Paperback iPg: eBook

Please join me for these for virtual readings!

May 13 7:00 p.m. EST Broadside Books Northampton MA

June 10 8:00 AST Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia Halifax NS

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews Foreword Review Avaliniah’s Books

Prompt Photo

When I was fairly new to falling headlong into creative writing, I complained one day to a group of more seasoned writers that I kept repeating the same scenes or stories. Many of those scenes and characters were based on lived experiences. I believed that this repetition was a sure sign of my imaginative limitations. The group listened respectfully and then one writer laughed. Then they all laughed. One of them said, “Of course you’re repeating yourself. It’s your story.” Their answer has helped me form an understanding of an essential part of the process of creating art.

Every life contains large moments, and those large moments are filled with mystery, complication, confusion, and collision. These are rich and layered experiences, which means that one examination will not be enough for us to understand their full meaning. These moments create us, so we, in turn must create them in our art, turning them around, inside out, sideways, shaking them, entering them from different vantage points, looking down at them from the ceiling, or entering through a window. We can begin the story anywhere we want, end it where we want, tell it backwards, leave elements out and add different ones in. Life gives us our stories so that we can understand what it is to be alive. By writing something repeatedly we mine the obvious and the elusive, the fundamental and the metaphoric.

Our lives are mythic and mundane at the same time and all of these elements intersect and interact for illumination. From these events we write a memoir or inform fictional characters, compose music, make pencil drawings, or paint murals. We also delve into our experiences, transform it into art so that we can get along with our neighbors and family, and, even better, to get along with ourselves. As we tell our stories for the third or three hundredth time, the story evolves because we know something we didn’t know the first time we told it. We have listened to ourselves as narrators and characters. Art is, of course, an expression of who we are, but it is even more an illustration of the questions we ask, how willing we are to keep asking. So, by all means, say it again, Please!

Upcoming Events

Advance Review:

What an amazing read – I couldn’t even decide whether this was to be considered middle grade, or if it’s for adults – I think this book is perfect for both children and adults. It talks about very real and important things, maturing in our relationships and becoming less selfish, seeing the bigger picture. Also, it’s just an incredible story of survival and healing. It’s definitely a must-read! Read here.

Available for pre-release purchase:

Regal House Publishing for advance hardcopy & paperback:

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
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Prompt Photo

We’ve been at home with ourselves for a long time now. Some of us have cleaned out that storage closet, some of us have established new exercise routines and some of us have learned to play the flute. Many of us have also dived into writing as a way to process and escape. The question I’m hearing is: What do I do with these pages? This is a fine time to step back and see what you have. The writing you have been doing this past year may feel random or disconnected or very personal. None of those designations mean that the writing isn’t worthwhile. Just as you set aside time for writing, also set aside time to go through your work from the past, even if the past is yesterday. Look for the following things:

1. Repeated themes or characters. These repetitions can mean a collection of poems, essays or stories is emerging. They can also mean the beginning of a novel or a memoir or a chapbook of poems. What you have is the start of a larger project you didn’t know you were creating.
2. Lines that stand out. We all write pieces that are essentially journal entries. Those are valuable for many reasons. What I’m suggesting here is that in those pieces there are hidden gems. Lines that are embedded prompts just for you. Copy these phrases, images or whole sentences into a document and begin to use them as springboards into new writing.
3. Pieces of writing that you discounted at the time, but now appreciate for their craft and value. I’m not alone in reading something, enjoying it and being surprised that I’m the author. Time can do that to our relationship to our voice.
4. What’s missing? Notice what you haven’t said yet. What subjects, characters, settings, forms, and moments have been omitted? Perhaps one of the lines from #2 can be the portal to help you through to filling in this empty spot. There is always something more that we haven’t yet explored. Writing it and finding where it fits with what has gone before is a good catalyst for writing again and again.

Notice what has changed. Each writer returns to foundational themes. Each writer also evolves as their craft develops and their understanding of their own life unfolds. These changes are reflected in the writing. Taking note of what is different acknowledges the distance you have come and how writing has been the vehicle to carry you. After cleaning out this closet, take a good walk or listen to the birds and then start writing again.

Upcoming Events

Available for pre-release purchase:

Regal House Publishing for advance hardcopy & paperback: https://www.regalhousepublishing.com/product/maud-and-addie/

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

Online Writing Workshops & Retreats:

March 20 & 21 Two-day Poetry Retreat: 10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. EST. $200. Want to write your way into Spring? Let your muse go wild? Try on something new in imagery or form? Join me for two days of literal and metaphoric free-wheeling and shape-shifting. You never know what’s waiting to arrive! Contact: maureen@maureenbjones.com

Prompt Photo

When we write, we create main characters. They are the lens through which we experience the story, the sensibility that readers identify with. In traditional terms, this character is the protagonist. In even more traditional terms, they are the hero, the one who struggles, confronts, wrestles and learns. As writers, how do we go about creating a hero that our readers believe in, and that we ourselves can understand and sustain? It’s no different than how we create ourselves as we go about our day, faced with dragons and villains that test our capacities. A weak and simple adversary does little to help our main character evolve and display a depth of resources and flaws. The dragon may even live within the protagonist or can be the most precious part of the hero’s life. But the essence of a good story is this: the better the villain, the better the hero. Whether evil is defeated or not, the struggle is all. I offer an example:

I have an infestation of wool moths. They are not poetic, except for their silver slippery, sliding wings as they slither along the sides of the bureau, the cedar chest, the soft wool coat. They curl themselves by the hundreds into tiny spiral sweaters matching what they have eaten. We play a game of hide and seek and catch me if you can. I am exhausted and discouraged and raging. Twice I have washed all my sweaters. I have thrown away coats, blankets, sweater, rugs and socks. They have eaten them all. They are relentless. I have used cedar blocks, moth balls and bars, moth sticky paper, mint, lilac, and sunlight. Now I am freezing them. Trash bags full of garments sit outside my back door. The internet says freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw. Then wash. But to dry the wool garments, they must be hung in a moth-free environment. I transport them to my office and drape them over chairs. When they are dry they immediately go into sealed bags and into trunks, drawers and storage buckets. I have vacuumed, scrubbed, dismantled beds and furniture. I have unscrewed the heat vents and baseboards. I live under the ravages of minute teeth, a scourge of spinning larvae and tiny fluttery wings. But I have learned respect. Individually, these creatures are as lovely as snowflakes, as formidable as a blizzard. So far, my efforts have fallen short. Will I keep trying? And if I do, what will vanquishing this foe look like?

So, when setting out on your writing adventure, you might consider how worthy the enemy is. How complex and relatable are they? Perhaps begin with what makes the hero stumble, what daunts the hero’s resources. And then let your hero engage with best practices and bad habits. Wait, watch, listen, and the real story will be revealed. Good vs. Evil is never so satisfying as when the hero tries and learns and misses the point, turning away only to see the story from another angle entirely. Perhaps the villain is heroic as well. My point is that a challenging villain needs to be a very worthy adversary, perhaps even detestable.

Upcoming Events

Available for pre-release purchase:

Regal House Publishing for advance hardcopy & paperback: https://www.regalhousepublishing.com/product/maud-and-addie/

iPg Independent Publishers Group https://www.ipgbook.com/maud—addie-products-9781646030606.php?page_id=21

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Maud-Addie-Maureen-Buchanan-Jones-ebook/dp/B08C3ZGWV8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PO45QV97C57U&dchild=1&keywords=maud+%26+addie&qid=1601324587&sprefix=maud+%26%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

Online Writing Workshops & Retreats:

March 20 & 21 Two-day Poetry Retreat: 10:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. EST. $200. We will write and shape our writing into poetic forms, respond to what is strong, what is working and discuss the effect of poetic elements to support the overall poem.

Tuesday Mornings, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., eight weeks beginning January 26, ending March 23, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/ $360

Contact: maureen@maureenbjones.com

Prompt Photo

In this season of starlight, in this year of isolation, a great deal has been asked of us. We have managed and survived by finding our stamina, being inventive, determined, introspective, and outreaching. I have unwrapped, unpolished, unassuming gifts for you. Please use them freely and share them widely: gratitude, trust and hope.

To each of you who writes with me, to each of you who may someday write with me, and to each of you who write with one another, gratitude overwhelms me. You have saved each other and you have saved me by sharing creativity and by listening. Every human person needs to be heard fully, without preconceived attitudes or conceptions. In this way of hearing, we build a fire, circle ourselves around it and share our authentic selves even in the darkest moments. We witness each other’s pain and ecstasy, our abandonment and fierceness. We keep each other whole and safe.

By writing together, we give the astonishing gift of trust. Every artist fears the unknown and empty page or canvas. What do we have within us and will it emerge as we imagine it? By offering our writing, we offer trust in our listeners. By listening to others’ work, we enact that trust and build it between us. But there is also the trust we learn to place in ourselves as we set out to say what we mean to say. Trusting in our ability to range and soar strangely, startlingly, sublimely, is a profound gift to ourselves. Trust your own voice to return infinitely with unending rewards.

The third gift we exchange as we write together is hope. Whether a piece of writing comes from memory or imagination, its adventures and philosophies give listeners multiple ways to feel alive. We experience what characters encounter and endure and surmount. We leave our own perspectives behind and set out for places and times unknown. We stretch our own understanding of what it is to be human in all its gloriously perfect imperfections. We become more by letting each other’s imaginations captivate us. We see beyond our own boundaries. We see horizons we could never imagine on our own.    In all these ways, by writing with you, I am more grateful than I can bear, more trusting and trustable each time I listen or write, and more hopeful than I thought possible. I am a better human being because of you. Many, many blessings to you under your very own stars.  

Upcoming Events

Available for pre-release purchase:

iPg Independent Publishers Group https://www.ipgbook.com/maud—addie-products-9781646030606.php?page_id=21

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Maud-Addie-Maureen-Buchanan-Jones-ebook/dp/B08C3ZGWV8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PO45QV97C57U&dchild=1&keywords=maud+%26+addie&qid=1601324587&sprefix=maud+%26%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

Online Weekly Workshops:

Monday Evenings, 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m., eight weeks beginning January 18, ending March 15, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/ $320

Tuesday Mornings, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., eight weeks beginning January 26, ending March 23, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/ $360

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In this pandemic we are gripped by the vast and the invisible and the chaotic. We feel the largeness that makes us feel small, our days confined to repetitions. What does this kind of existence do to our writing life? If we don’t feel expanded into life’s excitement and adventure, if we feel tamped down and circumscribed, how can our creativity flourish? We can easily feel worn down and uninspired, so where can we find our spark or even the flicker of invention to lure us into our writing? If we wait, we could be sitting for a long time, becoming more convinced that no words are ever going to appear. So don’t wait. Don’t look for the muse. Practice recognition instead. Life is always happening, it will always show up. It, accompanied by its images, sounds, smells, questions and rhythms, surround us and wash over us every second. Set aside the insistence that creativity comes in dollops and splashes; let it make itself known in soft currents and flickers. Write about what is before you: this untied shoe, electric bill, yowling leaf blower, mounded sour cream. Write about the trip to the store, the back steps, the phone conversation, the sorted out drawer. All of these are prompts. All of these and more will continue to hold direct and indirect meaning. Strange things are happening too. Let the strange and unexpected take you by the hand and lead you to someplace new. Writing and life are like that if you let them come to you like someone you haven’t met but might like to get to know. This weekend I waited for eight hours in my car while my cat was tended to at an emergency veterinary hospital. COVID-19 lurked in the air, so no one but staff could enter the building. I watched human beings wait patiently for a whole day in their cars, as nurses and technicians came to each car, did intake interviews then led beloved animals into the building. I saw dogs in casts, in cones, trembling and scared. I heard cats calling out and pressing noses to carriers. I saw people pacing, reading, sleeping, scrolling, working, talking, crying and grinning. A blonde woman from Vermont had three small kids and a beagle puppy. How many hours had she driven to find help? A nurse, came out of the building with a clipboard, looked at the thickening clouds, shrugged and plunged forward to find the right car, the right animal. When the hail started, she stayed at the car window asking the necessary questions and listening for accurate information. There was just about a full moon when my cat and I drove home. I had witnessed people in love, waiting. That’s what we write about right now. How we do what we do, the same and differently because of this moment. We practice our craft by letting today fill us up and then reliving it on our page.

Upcoming Events

Available for pre-release purchase:

iPg Independent Publishers Group https://www.ipgbook.com/maud—addie-products-9781646030606.php?page_id=21

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Maud-Addie-Maureen-Buchanan-Jones-ebook/dp/B08C3ZGWV8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PO45QV97C57U&dchild=1&keywords=maud+%26+addie&qid=1601324587&sprefix=maud+%26%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

Online Weekly Workshops:

Monday Evenings, 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m., eight weeks beginning November 9, 2020, ending January 18, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/ $320

Tuesday Mornings, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., eight weeks beginning November 10, 2020, ending January 19, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/ $360

Friday Mornings, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., ten weeks beginning December 4, 2020, ending February 19, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/ $450

Prompt Photo

In 1978, Carolyn Forché published her poem “The Colonel.” Debates ensued about whether this piece of writing is truly a poem or whether it is prose. At first glance it looks like a poem, a thick, narrative poem. On closer inspection, critics decided it is actually prose with full sentences connected by a storyline. So which is it? And was this the moment when the prose poem was born? With a different arrangement on the page, “The Colonel” comfortably rests inside the structure of a prose poem. Here’s the thing. “The Colonel” brings into relief the truth about Art. Yes, there are genres. But there are no electric fences between them. There is, however, electricity that connects them. A poem like “the Colonel” can be shaped as a ‘traditional’ poem or it can be shaped to be a prose poem, justified both left and right, or it can be shaped again with paragraphing and separated dialogue to become flash fiction. The Poetry Foundation defines prose poems as “A prose composition, that, while not broken into verse lines, demonstrates other traits such as symbols, metaphors, and other figures of speech common to poetry.” But these elements are not unique to poetry. Amy Lowell’s “Bath” is a fine example, where we recognize vivid imagery, internal rhymes, and a decided rhythm. Flash fiction is a close cousin to prose poetry, because it is a compressed narrative, relying on poetic elements to deliver a complete story in anywhere from 100 to 1000 words, depending on the publication. Franz Kafka’s “Give It Up!” is a 128-word display of how flash fiction works. These formatting choices are discretionary and cross back and forth among these genres. The question then is what suits the intention of the writer best? What form conveys the energy and the meaning best? What form affects the reader the way the writer wants the reader to be effected? A poem should contain poetic elements. Prose should have a narrative. Prose easily embodies poetic moments, and poetry can hold a story. We writers can experiment with form until we’re satisfied that the shape of our work fits the content. We get to choose.

Upcoming Events

Available for pre-release purchase:

iPg Independent Publishers Group https://www.ipgbook.com/maud—addie-products-9781646030606.php?page_id=21

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Maud-Addie-Maureen-Buchanan-Jones-ebook/dp/B08C3ZGWV8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PO45QV97C57U&dchild=1&keywords=maud+%26+addie&qid=1601324587&sprefix=maud+%26%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

Online Weekly Workshops:

Thursday Evenings, 6:30 – 9:30 p.m., ten weeks beginning December 3, 2020, ending February 18, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/ $450

Friday Mornings, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., ten weeks beginning December 4, 2020, ending February 19, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/ $450

Monday Evenings, 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m., eight weeks beginning November 9, 2020, ending January 18, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/ $320

Tuesday Mornings, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., eight weeks beginning November 10, 2020, ending January 19, 2021. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/ $360

Prompt Photo

Discipline is a tricky word for artists. It is for me, at least. As a noun, there’s the larger, inclusive meaning: a branch of knowledge and there’s also the practice of training oneself or another to obey rules. Sometimes a method of correction for disobedience is understood as part of the definition. As a verb, it means to train oneself or another. For a writer, discipline can mean sticking to one project until it’s completed or focusing entirely on one genre. This approach offers a continuing and deepening understanding of the way we want to express ourselves and can continue to narrow, so that writing becomes exclusively poetry which becomes only sonnets. There is merit to immersing oneself in this way. We live inside a form and the world is transformed and understood within the guidance of this sensibility. But there is a limitation as well. What if what we want to say is not best suited to the form we have chosen? Or it has been imposed upon us through work or culture? Inside this dilemma can live the seeds of writer’s block. Human nature likes resistance, and it likes an escape hatch. It also likes variety as the cliché says. When inspired to write, the form often finds its voice along with what is being said. How do we know if a piece of writing is best suited to a sestina, flash fiction, or a scene in a novel? If we choose the form first, does the meaning bend to fit the structure? These are questions that writers ask before, during and after they write. If applying strict discipline, the parameters are set and creativity partners with logic. A powerful duo. But there is also an argument to be made for letting ourselves wander into our writing, finding what wants to be written and following it. Much like a dog detecting enticing scents full of important information about what else is out there in the wild woods. Being let loose is a wonderful cure for being stymied in a project. The joy of writing anything that comes can actually help develop and finish the Big Project rather than create a diversion from it. The cross pollination of poetry and prose is also fertile ground for developing both disciplines. How many incredibly poetic lines have you discovered in a novel? How many vivid scenes have played out before you as you read a poem? The fabulous thing about art is that there are no real borders between genres, and letting ourselves write through those filmy scrims is exciting. Of course there comes a time when the chapbook or the novel needs to be made presentable for an audience of more than one. Then discipline and focus are the right companions. At the outset, and for a goodly length of any creative endeavor, letting the mind meander enriches expression. For me, it’s much like when I was a kid. I had school clothes and play clothes. I liked them both and knew what each meant. In play clothes I explored and discovered what I chose. In school clothes I attended to and learned what was expected of me. Off leash or tight reins. Each serves the writer when we allow ourselves the freedom to choose.

Upcoming Events

Available for pre-release purchase:

iPg Independent Publishers Group https://www.ipgbook.com/maud—addie-products-9781646030606.php?page_id=21

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Maud-Addie-Maureen-Buchanan-Jones-ebook/dp/B08C3ZGWV8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PO45QV97C57U&dchild=1&keywords=maud+%26+addie&qid=1601324587&sprefix=maud+%26%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

Online Weekly Workshops:

Thursday Evenings, ten weeks beginning September 17, 2020 https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

Friday Mornings, ten weeks beginning September 18, 2020, https://www.writingfulltilt.com/workshops/

Monday Evenings ten weeks beginning September 14, 2020. https://www.writingfulltilt.com/online-workshop/

Prompt Photo

                        for Pat Schneider  6/1/34 – 8/10/20

Hot cornbread in cold milk.

Singing all the way home from Chicopee.

The way she said Missouri and diabetes.

Her long legs and the sweep of her skirt.

Hands steepled before her mouth.

The private shorthand catching the exact words.

Index cards.

Stones like temples.

Elizabeth’s pen.

Everyone remembers the brownies, the smell as they enter the hall. That front hall, the liminal space of dreams before finding a place in the circle. Dreaming came fast or hard or strange or a thousand other ways.

It’s always like that with dreams.

She told me once—if you lose your words, lose your place, or your way, close your eyes, breathe gently, relax, let your mind wander. It will come back to you. All of it. All of what you need. It hasn’t disappeared. This story is still yours, all the words.

She was right. She was talking about a notebook of writing I had lost. I was distressed. I am distressed again, having lost the words we said to each other, the humanness we shared until we no longer could.

I close my eyes, breathe, and enter the hallway, the coat pegs on the right, the deacon’s bench on the left, the stairs just there, and ahead the room of writing, the kitchen beyond, each in light and shadow. In the middle ground, the chair, its turtle cushion, where she sat, placed her feet. The low side cabinet against the wall where she set her pad of paper and her pen. This room where she said to us: Let’s write. Take what comes.

We dreamt with her, every one of us—each in our own wandering and creations. She, dreaming with us, the hum of her pen nudging us forward.

We were welcomed once or a hundred times into that hallway. And there’s no reason now to turn back. We are in; we are held. It will always be so. We shape our own hallways and rooms and chairs. We welcome others and others beyond them.

She is easing back.

Hot cornbread and cold milk.

Later, a glass of diet Dr. Pepper on the porch swing.

If you dream long enough,

there’s a cave in Missouri,

a convent in County Cork,

a small waterfall in Massachusetts;

a room with your chair,

and a suitcase full of magic

for always.

Upcoming Events

Release Date: May 6, 2021: Maud & Addie, a middle-grade novel. In 1910, sisters, Addie and Maud Campbell are swept out to sea off the coast of Nova Scotia. With a half-filled picnic hamper, a carriage blanket and their wits, they survive the North Atlantic and landfall on a deserted island. As castaways, their resilience, courage and inventiveness are tested.

Join Maud & Addie on Instagram: maud.addie
and
Facebook: Writing Full Tilt

BREATHING WHILE BLACK Virtual Exhibit at Augusta Savage Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Tuesday September 1, 2020 6:00 p.m. Terry Jenoure, Director http://www.fineartscenter.com/augusta

Third Eye on the Prize Poetry by Debra Sansone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4fGFprcLj8

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