Creative Writing Blog
My Favorite Meditation for these Difficult Times
How are you doing in these unusual times? I’ve been finding myself experiencing waves of feeling, and talking with friends who are cycling through levels of anxiety. So far, at least, I feel like one of the lucky ones: the four of us in my nuclear family are safe at...
How To Publish A Poetry Book
If you are thinking about how to publish a poetry book, I recommend that you read this guide. It will walk you through the important steps of publishing a poetry book and will give you the tools you need, over the long term, to learn how to get poetry published. How...
How To Get Published – The Three Key Steps To Getting Published
People frequently ask me how to get published, so today I want to address that question directly. How To Get Published For The First Time How do you go about getting published? What steps should you take? Where can you submit? And how does it all work? I’ve created a...
I Said To The Wanting Creature By Kabir
Do you ever have times when words are both helpful and insufficient? This weekend was one of those times. A few months ago, my husband's much younger brother, Jonathan, died of a heart attack. On Saturday, we attended the memorial service. Jon had been living with...
The power of your voice
Monday was Martin Luther King Day—it was very cold and I stayed inside, baked some bread, spent some time with Eric and Simone, worked on an essay, and had dinner with some friends. All day, I was also thinking about the legacy of Dr. King, who is such a model of how...
A Winter Solstice Poem
A friend recently sent me a winter solstice poem. I was happy to be reminded of this poem, and thought I’d pass it on to you–it’s so nice to be able to share what we enjoy and find helpful. The solstice is the darkest time of year, but it also is a time that reminds...
Joy Harjo’s Poetry
People have widely different experiences of Thanksgiving, which can bring up all kinds of things.I want to share a poem by Joy Harjo, a member of the Muscogee Nation and the current national poet laureate. In our complicated history and nation, I like to return to...
You Are Enough
This happens to me every year: suddenly, without my knowing quite how it happened, it’s the holiday season again. The days are getting darker, and I wonder where all the time has gone. Life passes so quickly! It’s a challenge to keep up, to pay attention and to...
Practicing with Silence
I was away last week at a silent Vipassana retreat in Western Mass. For three days, we meditated at least 10 hours a day and had very few external stimuli. In meditation, we bring our attention inward, to our own internal sensations and practice noticing—but not...
Killer Whale Moms, Women’s Wisdom, My Book Party, and more
So what do I want to have in common with a killer whale mom? This probably isn’t the question that you’ve been wishing I’d answer, but I’ll tell you anyway: it’s not a hunger for seals; it’s not my weight; it’s that when an orca mother’s reproductive years are...
The High Shelf is here!
The High Shelf is here!!! This is a special moment—and a bit surreal. So much work goes into making any book, and I can say this book in particular has been such a labor of love—and time. As many of you know, this book has been over a decade in the making, and it...
Poetry, Emptiness and Mindfulness: the Cover of The High Shelf
The cover of my poetry book, The High Shelf, is an image of a painted sky with a few birds soaring in it. In the poem from which the book takes its title, I imagine a high shelf suspended in the sky without supports: Explanation of the World It was a shelf–– a high...
Life Transitions, a Poem and More
It’s already the end of summer! I've had a wonderful summer enjoying more time in the country, soaking up the sun and the woods and enjoying the water. Even when I'm mindful and trying to be present, time still speeds by, and it's hard to keep up with life...
Wealth, Abundance and What Really Matters
What we value: wealth, writing, and more. I'm writing from Maine, and I'm very lucky to get to spend a lot of time outside in the summer. For most of my adult life, I've prioritized time over money, the leisure to appreciate over the ability to accumulate. I...
July 4th, Strawberries, Ellen Bass and more
I’m just back from Vermont, where it felt like real summer: lots of swimming and cooking over the outside fire in the evening. When Simone, my 14-year-old, and I were walking on the path around our field, we looked down at our feet and noticed tiny wild...
The Legacy of Mary Oliver
I was delighted to be part of a tribute remembering Mary Oliver co-hosted by WBUR and The Mass Poetry Society.I join panelists Helene Atwan, Krysten Hill, and Susan Edwards to discuss Mary Oliver's work. We also discuss the impact of her work on our own writing and...
Mind-Body Connection: Power of Bringing Yoga and Writing Together
I used to think that bringing yoga and writing together would water down both the yoga and the writing, but that was because I was still operating in a traditional mindset that wanted to keep mind and body separate. Today we know how powerful it is to bring mind and body together, but we often don’t have the tools to do it. By bringing yoga and writing together, we can have more powerful mind-body integration and come into our true potential and power.
In this moment: Family, Impermanence and the Now
I’m in Colorado. It's Eric's 50th Birthday(!!) and the two of us taking for a mini vacation…shh…we’re playing hookey! We’re going to hike, explore new places and mostly be together…something special to be in this moment now. Yes, we're getting older, but it's all the...
My favorite 20 memoirs by women: female authors part one
My favorite memoirs by women: female authors People often ask me who my favorite female authors are. They also often ask me what my favorite memoirs are. So today, I thought I'd share my list of favorite 20 memoirs by women writers. It wasn't easy to make this list,...
Mary Oliver, Pain, Healing and Language
I woke up this morning with an old, deep ache and pain. Yesterday, I'd had a session with an energy healer. Some pain that was dislodged in the session must have come to the surface as I slept. I know the pain goes back to being very young. It goes back to a time when...
