Offering #21: New student work in Vogue/ Newsweek/ HuffPo and
What it's teaching me to witness the draft
Hi there. I post here on full and new moons, in rhythm and ritual—-and sometimes more if I have something to say.
🌕 🌕 🌕
Happy Full Moon, all! And a Hunter’s Moon at that. I don’t fully know what that “means” —ha—-but like the metaphor. What are you hunting for? What’s hunting for you?
Last week 3 students published personal essays they’d been working on in my class(es)—-one in Vogue, another in Huff Po and another in Newsweek. Over the last couple of years teaching writing all over the place (Fordham U, WritingWorkshops.com, Sackett Street Writers and my own personal writing workshops and coaching) I’ve had the honor of spending a lot of time with drafts. I’ve watched drafts ripen into books, and essays that landed in the New York Times, LA Times, and other spots. And more and more I appreciate the sacred space of the draft——where writers are working out meaning and feeling (and where those two things intersect), are dipping into memory and making connections between personal narratives and larger stories in the world. It’s an honor to question the draft and edit from my end, shape what I see and sense—-and watch stories, and writers, unfold.
(Scroll down to read their stories!)
From watching writers move from spark to draft to published pieces over and over again in the last several years, I’ve got a list of questions for you. Use them to contemplate the stories your own body holds—-and how you might share them.
OFFERING:
What haunts you?—- A lot of these essays came out of stories that haunted the writer. What’s something you’ve seen / experienced that sticks with you no matter how many years have passed, how much therapy you’ve had, no matter how much healing? If the story follows you around it might need to be told.
The writer is willing to make themselves a character—- It’s not enough to tell “what happened to you”—- You have to put yourself in the story as a character. This is often simple: don’t forget to describe what you looked like/ give your age/ consider your character motivation. How did the character of you change through the story? This kind of doubling can be odd at first—-but it can also be cathartic, allowing you to see the story from a new angle while in it.
How does your personal story intersect with the world?—- Often in personal essay there is a transcendence —-how does your personal story illustrate some larger societal moment or topic? A personal essay is at once just that—-personal—and universal. What does your story show about the world we live in?
Don’t be afraid to write hot mess drafts—you can edit later—- All of the essays I’ve seen get published (including my own) began with brainstorm drafts. Don’t let perfectionism stop you from getting something down. I’ve watched writers move from “hot mess drafts” to published pieces—-but you won’t get there if you don’t send your inner critic out for coffee so you can get something down. You can always edit later.
Let me know what you’re writing! (and, in a genre switch, if you have a poem about yoga/ meditation I’m currently curating a piece for Yoga Journal magazine—our call for submissions is below. Maybe use the above steps to consider writing a poem and send it in—-by Oct 23! INFO BELOW)
RECENT STUDENT WORK:
VOGUE: A Mentally Ill Sister and an Impossible Request, by Jennifer Cloer
NEWSWEEK: I Went to “Therapy” In Handcuffs and Placed in an Open Grave, by Natasia Pelowski
FORMER STUDENT WORK:
You can read more here— in spots from the NYTimes to LATimes—-proud of these writers!
SUBMIT A POEM:
I’m writing a piece for Yoga Journal on Yoga + poetry! (here’s a previous Yoga Journal mag piece of mine I wrote for Halloween season ;)
We want to run some original poems along with it —-here’s the call for submissions:
ONE MORE THING!
In true Autumn abundance, I’m co-teaching a class on Tarot for Writers with the great Chelsey PIppin Mizzi, author of Tarot for Creativity. It’s online, October 27th, 7-8:30 EST and we’d love to have you. We’ll explore how the tarot can help us structure stories, develop characters and unblock us. Use code OCTOBERGIFT for $10 off.
Ok, that’s all for now.
Happy Full Moon! xx.