writerly world: news & tidbits
end of April, 2025
In this issue: grief writing & workshops; creative resistance; book of alchemy; flash prose publication; rejection roulette; documenting oppression; celebrating successes; local lit crawl; one writer remembered; creative writing workshop openings; and more!
“In the opening buds and the rebirth of spring, we remember him … ”
writing through grief
Sunday, April 27 marked six months since we buried my 21-year-old nephew: “so near and dear,” as my stepsister says, “yet not within reach.” I took the above photos of spring blossoms during a visit to Maryland when he was 10 years old: one of dozens, decorating eggs with his brothers, over two decades.
Sunday also marked one year since Kristen and I walked with him in the Berkeley Hills, just a week after he moved to California. Below is a blooming cherry tree above his grave, which blew snow blossoms upon it when we first visited a few weeks ago.
“We remember him,” we recited again, sitting with his eldest brother and his fiancee.
The day after I heard the news of Chris’ suicide, I wrote pages of questions. A task I periodically repeated as I wrestled with grief, haunted by wonderings and what ifs. From these lists I recently shaped a short piece, which I titled “Unanswerable.” This litany of inquiries into the unknowns, which survivors of suicide loss often contend with—much of it taboo to utter—also reckons with the reality that knowing the circumstantial details won't answer the why’s nor banish the pain of loss (his or mine).
When a writer from my workshops first read about his death in my November news, she called it “one of the hardest kinds to accept—someone so young, so full of promise, and an action that seems like love could have prevented it, but it can’t.”
Then she offered these poignant words, a kind of writer’s prayer:
“May his life find language in yours.”
Last Monday I attended a Power of Story writing session offered by Amherst Writers (AWA) called The Art of Losing: Writing Through Grief, a 2-hour generative workshop that I’ll attend again on May 5, 19 + June 2, 16. (Missing June 30.)
Here’s a poem I wrote to a 15-minute prompt to look around and notice:
As I look around me I see suffering, grace in spite of structural aggression, “tell me about despair, yours”— meanwhile the mockingbird trills from the highest treetops, unaware stock markets crash; worlds collapse, meanwhile the squirrel mother wraps her squirrel baby in her forelegs for a bath on the blacktop before my eyes while I look around, and see grace, with suffering.
Power of Story workshops include: POC/BIPOC Voices, The Caregiver Project, Survivors’ Voices, Invisible Disability/Chronic Illness, and Teachers Talking. Cost is $20, or 8 sessions free for AWA Writer Members.
100 days: creative alchemy
Yesterday concluded the first 100 Days of Trump 2.0 dismantling our democracy. During that time I received daily email from Writing Co-Lab’s 100 Days of Creative Resistance: “encouragement, opposition, and commiseration — a reminder of why we write and create — from 100 iconoclastic contemporary voices.” You can now read them all, from R. O. Kwon on Listening to Your Body, January 20th to With Love and in Solidarity, Brian Gresko, April 30th.
, who curated the project, writes:“Love for the idea that we can hold ourselves together in the face of an autocratic annihilation machine that wishes to tear us apart. Love for speaking up, for language, truth, and art, in opposition to the forces of silence and obedience.”
The May/June issue of Poets & Writers recalls when, in 1989, “North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms called for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to be defunded because it supported work he deemed ‘obscene.’ ” Today, grantees are required to comply with two executive orders to eradicate racial equity and gender diversity.
Poets & Writers, as always, includes some excellent pieces “in opposition”:
On Monday evening I joined creative friends—musician/visual artist Yurika Chiba plus two writing worshoppers, including
—to see The Alchemy Tour in San Francisco by , hosted by Jon Batiste. It was regal!!
The Book of Alchemy is part memoir, part writing encouragement, with 100 prompts offered by 100 creative people, many from
. Starting this morning, I’m using her beautiful book to write toward the next 100 days.Suleika (and Jon) read from the book, spoke together from their comfy stage sofa, and played music (piano and bass). She also shared a few journal entries from her youth (those diaries on the table!), which was especially fun since I wrote last month about ripping out then setting fire to all my old pages I’m ready to relinquish to the past:
p.s. You can still buy tix to LA’s Saban Theatre (Beverly Hills): TONIGHT at 7:30pm.
writing in the zone
In April my flash essay, “Roadside Markers,” was published online in Zone 3 (Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts). It was a long wait after a “we love it!” acceptance last May, but I’m excited that my CNF is featured alongside authors like Sarah Fawn Montgomery, with stunning cover art by Billy Renkl whose collages illustrate his sister Margaret Renkl’s book, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss.
rejection roulette
During National Poetry Month I sent six poems to Hayden's Ferry Review for the Spring Web Issue: On Desire. “Ode to Possibility”; “Dormant Desire”; “Ordinary Patience”; “Love Inanimate”; “Love Letter: From the Candle to the Lighter”; and “Awake, Again” have been under consideration for 5+ months. Stay tuned…
My 1,500-word essay “Cease Fire” was declined by the EcoTheo Review (on RESILIENCE), so I sent it to Ninth Letter’s web edition on REVERSAL:
This collage (or segmented) essay sprung from a gratitude journal I started in October 2023 when the so-called Israel-Hamas war began. It weaves peaceful domestic scenes of abundance with news of Gaza and reflections on the Holocaust while growing up Jewish. The fragmented structure mimics the ways we digest genocides while dissociating ourselves in partitioned lives.
In addition, I entered “Dissolution” in the Ninth Letter Literary Awards for Nonfiction.
no other land
Kristen and I watched No Other Land, which won best documentary at this year's Academy Awards. The film, by joint Palestinian-Israeli directors, documents the systematic destruction of Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian village in the South Hebron Hills region of the West Bank. Witnessing the real-time human impact of Israeli state and settler violence on families enduring expulsion via “forcible displacement, home demolitions, restrictions on movement, arrests, and prevention of access to resources” was chilling. We were fortunate to see it in a movie theater in conjunction with the Sebastopol Documentary Film Fest, but it’s had difficulty finding distribution.
Watch the official trailer then rent the film, available online through May 8.
standing ovations
Kudos to several current and past participants in my Amherst Writers workshops:
Barbara Krasner received acceptance of a poem from the Journal of Expressive Writing, which welcomes writing generated during a 20-minute free-write using one of a dozen sentence stems offered as thematic writing prompts.
Barbara recently attended my 6-week series, Prompted by Literary Publications. While the poem she submitted didn’t originate from my workshop, she says she wouldn't have known about this publication without my introduction.
Kim D. Hester Williams submitted her poem, “I Saw a Butterfly,” to the literary journal Fresh Words for a special online and print anthology Voices Unbound and received an acceptance the very next day! She generated the poem from the prompt “everyday moments” in my October 2023 workshop. Reading poems publicly several times to positive reception, she then revised and sent in several:
“I wouldn't have even written those poems if I hadn’t taken AWA workshops with you.”
Mary Silva published her first book, No Small Thing, available on Amazon (“Two polar opposite personalities meet in a senior living facility and form a fun, surprising, quirky friendship”) and gave a book talk in her hometown of St. Louis.
“Your workshop was certainly one of my inspirations. I didn’t specifically work on my book in my sessions with you, but I definitely got ideas that I worked into its chapters. The encouragement that I received in your sessions was absolutely essential to my sticking with and finishing the project. I so believe in the power of working in a supportive and talented group as a writer!”
literary citizenry
If you’re near Sonoma County (SF Bay Area), put this date on your calendar:
Saturday, May 17, from 12–6pm
Lit Crawl Sebastopol features 200+ poets and writers, drawing nearly 1,000 revelers to "crawl" through downtown and listen to readings from Sonoma County’s spirited and diverse literary community. Last year I curated a group of Amherst Writers workshop participants. This year I was invited to join Under the Round Table Writers representing The Sitting Room—a library and reading room of women’s literature, art, and archives. See the schedule of events and our listing with author bios!
We’ll read at The Livery CoWork space on Main Street, 2–3pm PDT.
“The Under the Round Table Writers, many of whom depend on the quiet solitude, caffeine and carbs the library mavens provide to fuel our creativity, offer an eclectic, audience-centered program of poetry and prose intended to both entertain and perhaps ease listeners’ discomforting angst concerning the socio-cultural, political chaos of our current lives.”
Lit Crawl Sebastopol is a project of SebArts and The Litquake Foundation.
arrivederci, dear adrienne
With a heavy heart I shared news of the death of Adrienne Momi, who began taking my writing workshops in August 2020—35 women wrote with her, some once, many multiple times. She signed up for her 14th series in November, but she had to drop out due to a diagnosis of esophageal cancer with chemo and radiation treatments. She started another chemo round in January, which was to last a few months. On the first day of spring, I learned that she’d just passed away at the age of 82.
I'll always remember when Adrienne revealed a scene of Venice outside her window as she Zoomed from another artist residency. She created many prints and artist books from writing to our prompts. Here’s a poem she sent me for last year’s Lit Crawl Sebastopol; she couldn’t read it then, so I’ll share it posthumously:
writing into the unknown
I typically end each workshop series with a closing circle so that each writer can share an appreciation or takeaway: something learned or discovered. One recent participant with an academic teaching background appreciated “the gentleness of the Amherst Writers method” and the “welcomeness of writing into the unknown.”
Someone brand new to AWA thanked everyone for their skilled responses, while a longtime participant appreciated my steady leadership: “a calm through-line.”
Another frequent flyer described my groups, with their configuration of familiar and fresh voices, as “a kaleidoscope of crystal bits that shift and create new patterns.”
Now we’re nearing the middle of another 8-week series with nine participants. I’ll be traveling (hiking PEI and Newfoundland) for much of the summer, but fall workshops are available. Register at Pencil & Pen. And please help to spread the word!
Plus: I’m offering a 6-week series for Newly Trained AWA Workshop Leaders
If you’re an AWA-certified facilitator who hasn’t yet fledged, join other newly hatched workshop leaders in the same “nest.” You’ll gain more experience using the Amherst Writers method and develop more confidence to “fly” on your own.
Nicole, I’ve been wanting to watch No Other Land— so grateful you shared a source where we can also donate to help Palestinian innocents.