writerly world: news & tidbits
January 2025
In this issue: artistic inspiration; new business website; writing prompts; Amherst Writers workshops; Write Around the World; submission/publication/rejection; a bit of Zen.
I recently took the photo above at San Francisco’s de Young museum exhibit: Matisse’s Jazz Unbound, from his 1947 artist book on the circus and theater.
“Matisse here draws on traditional references to the artistic process and spirit: the heart … The dominating black form, thought to represent the absence of creativity, threatens to overtake the red heart, the artist’s inspiration.”
According to the museum: “Jazz includes 20 color stencil prints (pochoirs) … created using the artist’s lively paper cutouts, what Matisse called ‘drawing with scissors.’” Local to Sonoma County? Create Matisse-inspired paint and collage in person at Artaluma! I signed up for a separate gelli printing & collage series in mid-Feb.
pencil & pen in business
When I was around nine years old I made up stories, imitated radio commercials, and interviewed my stuffed animals (“reporting from the streets of San Francisco”) — all recorded on a cassette tape. One tale featured a girl whose mother sends her on an errand to the store:
“Oh, look — all these papers, pencils, and pens!” the protagonist (aka me) says, delighting in writing supplies as tempting as candies. Wavering, she dares to defy authority, ignoring her mother’s list to purchase what she wants instead. The story ends with a classic admonishment: “Just wait until your father gets home!”
Fast forward “a few” decades and I’ve finally launched my business website:
My business name (& logo) reflects the basic tools a writer needs.
Pencil & Pen speaks to the physicality of writing and its revisionary stages — from those first pencil strokes to committing ideas to paper with a pen. I meet you wherever you are in the writing process, with a mutually supportive writing community and mentoring support.
Click on my Home page for an intro to my services, including Manuscript Review and Office Hours consultations; the Workshops page includes upcoming offerings; the Events page shows upcoming readings or special events, such as themed sessions for Amherst Writers & Artists’ annual Write Around the World in February (see below).
writing prompt & response
In last week’s writing workshop I offered my Trader Joe’s tulips as a prompt:
I also shared Hannah Lillith Assadi’s words from Writing Co-Lab’s 100 Days of Creative Resistance (free emails of encouragement, opposition, and commiseration — a reminder of why we write and create — from 100 iconoclastic contemporary voices on each of the first 100 days of the 47th president’s regime):
“For months, everything had been screaming. (It’s still screaming.) The noise of this world had turned murderous. Would there ever be music again? And then sometimes a poem, sometimes a song, paused the brutal soundtrack…
An act of beauty is sometimes our last weapon. Clinging to the beautiful, our only resistance.
… At least one dose of beauty a day.”
Listen to
read her response, “Privileged Mass Murderer at the Helm” [… waiting like vultures to clean the national bones], a piece she wrote in 10 minutes:
upcoming workshops
My next 6-week series of Writing From Memory or Imagination is FULL. Women & nonbinary writers with any experience can sign up for Prompted by Literary Publications on Fridays, starting Feb. 21:
Write to prompts provided by literary journals seeking new writing! We might write on a suggested theme, try out unique forms, or practice ekphrastic — responding to an image. You're introduced to several literary outlets, either as a possible home for your work or simply for your reading pleasure — whether or not you choose to submit any poetry or prose for consideration.
Not sure? Join my Feb. 7 single session (only 4 spots left!) as part of Write Around the World, a monthlong fundraiser to support AWA programs—see more below.
Are you a newly trained AWA workshop leader? Consider my April–May series:
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 AWA method and develop more confidence to “fly” on your own.
Each 2-hour session follows the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) method, reflecting back what’s strong and memorable. No critiques! $240 for each 6-week series.
write around the world
AWA-curious? Check out this monthlong marathon of writing sessions in February.
In addition to Prompted by Literary Publications (Fri Feb 7 2025, 10am–12pm PST) I’m also volunteering to lead these sessions (Sliding scale from $14–40):
Writing As Spiritual Practice (on Super Bowl Sunday) Sun Feb 9 (FULL!)
LGBTQ+ Community Valentines Day: Practicing “S(h)elf-Love”
Fri Feb 14, 9am–11am PST (6 spots)
President’s Day: Finding consolation in poetic expression
Mon Feb 17, 3pm–5pm PST (5 spots)
give me your tired, your poor
An article I pitched to Viator (a Tripadvisor company where I edit travel roundups and itineraries) will soon appear on the site. In next month’s newsletter I’ll link to:
“Visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Gave Me a Deeper Appreciation of Immigration History in America: Travel writer Nicole R. Zimmerman joins a small-group tour to reimagine her great-grandparents’ arrival in New York City.”
In 1904, my paternal grandmother’s mother Rebecca (Rifke), after whom I was named (middle name Renee/Rivkah) came to NYC from Minsk, Belarus, at age 23. My paternal grandfather’s mother Dora (photo cut off) came through Ellis Island with her eldest children in 1905 from Zambrów (also Jews fleeing the Russian Empire).
Recognized worldwide as a symbol of welcome, the Statue of Liberty, I learned, wasn’t built to be a beacon of freedom for the millions who arrived in NY Harbor — a mass wave of immigration eventually restricted by laws with similar rhetoric to today. It was the young Jewish American poet, Emma Lazarus, who called Lady Liberty the “Mother of Exiles” in her eloquent lines of 1883:
“... The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
My editor called it a “super solid and interesting piece” and “Definitely teared up!”
lit mag submissions
I recently sent 130 pages (10 essay chapters) of my memoir in progress to Fourteen Hills, the SFSU Review, for consideration for the The Gina Berriault Award (GBA):
a national award given to an emerging prose writer for an exemplary work-in-progress. The winner will have an excerpt of their winning submission published in the Fourteen Hills journal. Monetary award of $1,000 for the selected work.
I also sent a just-written flash essay, “Unanswerable” to The Pinch for the Page Prize in Nonfiction, which “recognizes the best short-form nonfiction writing. All forms and types of nonfiction (essay, lyrics, hybrid, multimodal, hermit-crab, braided, etc) are eligible for this prize, so long as they are fewer than 1,000 words, previously unpublished and original. Every submission will be considered for publication in the Pinch and the winner will receive $1,000 in addition to publication.
Finally, I sent two previously published flash essays to the WOW! (Women on Writing) Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest. The contest is open (each quarter) to any style of narrative nonfiction (personal essay, memoir, braided, hybrid, lyric, hermit crab, and more) between 200–1,000 words—one of the few contests that accept reprints. First place has a cash prize of $500 for the best essay, $300 for second, $200 for third.
encouraging rejection
My hermit crab essay, "Recovery As Annotated Bibliography" (another memoir excerpt) was declined by The Linden Review, which invites submissions of essays, memoir, flash, experimental, lyric, immersion reportage, graphic medicine, and other nonfiction about personal, public, and environmental health and medicine.
My experimental piece cites psychological and recovery texts to map the complex retrieval of a self subsumed by codependency, with no easy resolution. Submitted at the end of March, it took 9+ months to reply. However, the entry was a semi-finalist:
“Our readers enjoyed the piece, but it unfortunately did not make the final cut this time around. Please keep us in mind if you have anything else you would like us to see.”
Jody Keisner, Editor in Chief and author of Under My Bed and Other Essays, noted:
“We liked the experimentation but felt that the reliance on direct quote was unbalanced with the personal narrative. However, we'd like to see more of your work. You can contact me directly if you're interested.”
I replied with a word of thanks/appreciation for the generous feedback and the invitation (which I’ll respond to with something new soon). I'd actually begun to revise the piece with similar considerations, so it was really useful to hear and to know the editors otherwise found that the work had merit.
revise, submit, repeat
Not sure how to revise your writing, or where (and how) to send it for consideration? Here are a few resources:
The Insider's Guide to Submitting to Literary Journals led by Parisa Saranj
90-minute seminar on Saturday, February 8 from 1–2:30pm ET. $75
Revision Strategies for Prose & Poetry with Bethany Jarmul
90-minute live webinar on Sunday, February 16 from 2–3:30pm ET. $25The Fine Art of Deep Revision with Katey Schultz, author of Flashes of War
3-week workshop on Thursdays, starts February 27 from 6–8pm ET. $235How to Submit: Getting Your Writing Published with Literary Magazines and Small Presses (book to be released February 25) by
Chill Subs Submitters Club: Members send their work every month. They read it, research lit mags, and send 10 vetted recommendations. $40/m or $400/y
grief bundles & beauty
It’s the Lunar New Year — one month after the New Year’s Kristen and I spent at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center as weeklong volunteers to support the annual Tassajara Wildland Firefighter Retreat. We first spent a quiet winter holiday snowshoeing at Lake Tahoe where we stayed at a friend’s cabin and read by the gas fireplace or practiced yoga while huge snowflakes fell from the sky.
Then we joined Tassajara students and staff along with the firefighters. They came “to find refuge, rest, and renewal and to learn mindfulness and meditation practices and tools to meet the ever-increasing stress and dangers of their work” — as described by co-leader Chris Fortin, Zen priest and teacher of our sangha Dharma Heart Zen.
Kristen, who cooked all week with the kitchen team, arose early to meditate while I snuggled into my cozy sleeping bag in our tatami-floor cabin until the bell rang for breakfast. When I wasn’t washing dishes, sweeping/wiping the dining hall, shoveling compost, cleaning bathrooms, arranging flowers, or raking the gravel steps to the zendo (meditation hall), I enjoyed nature hikes, reading in the library’s poetry loft, and soaking in the Japanese-style bathhouse fed by hot springs. No cell phone or internet!
[Bathhouse photo credit: Melissa Kent, co-author of Tassajara Dinners & Desserts.]
On New Year’s Eve, we joined an optional group meditation in the zendo and took a turn ringing the outdoor bell 108 times — a Japanese Zen tradition of releasing the “108 earthly desires that cause us suffering” and transition into a new year renewed.
That afternoon I’d made a “grief bundle.” The firefighters, and all of us, were invited to assemble our own to toss on a bonfire that night. Tears streamed as I wrote a letter to my 21-year-old nephew who died by suicide (108 days ago now). I wrapped it in long stems of scented herbs — bay leaves, lavender, rosemary, sage — tied with twine.
I carried this bundle like a dead bouquet, like a baby. The weight of it made my sorrow tangible, visible. “What a beautiful bundle of grief,” said the Tassajara gardener.
In the spring she and other community members had lost their dear friend, Caroline, who went on a hike and never returned, her body found four days later at the base of a waterfall.
"Grief feels like a large, opaque bag filled with unknowable items. Stuff that I don’t know what to do with. I feel like I can’t set the bag down or keep carrying it. It keeps ending up on my lap even though I want to get rid of it. I want to throw it into the creek and watch it float away.”
Days after the retreat ended, the Los Angeles fires began. The destruction was reminiscent of prior northern California fires, which I wrote about in my poem Firestorm, the lines compiled from nearly 500 GoFundMe campaigns in 2017 — my attempt to measure the magnitude of the devastation.
Tassajara is no stranger to fire either. In 1977 the Big Sur-Marble Cone fire burned 200,000 acres of the Los Padres National Forest, surrounding and nearly destroying the monastery, saved by Forest Service Hotshot Crews — including the first female hotshot who is part of our sangha and volunteered with us.
In the Tassajara library I took these notes from the book The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang Tzu, Taoist of ancient China.
“Forest fires come; tress turn into ashes. Saplings then shoot up to the skies, as if none had done so before, just as the parent trees did before — thanks to the parents, thanks to their ashes, thanks to their clearings.”
Of course, it was written in the 4th century BC, not a modern-day metropolis.
“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.” — Zhuangzi, from above
May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe.
May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature. May all beings be free.
As usual, excellent, thoughtful, Zuihitsu-like. I marvel at the rich, busy life of teaching and travel you lead Nicole, and how you manage the time needed for creating such beautiful prose as come out of your Pencil & Pen.