Just found the first article I ever had published! I was paid $300 for this piece (article and photography). My father probably spent more than that to drive to Key West with me for the research! Thanks Daddy!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged architecture, autobiography, family history, florida, freelance, gingerbread, houses, karen hamilton, key west, memoir, pirates | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged answering machine, australia, high school, phone | 1 Comment »
GRAMMAR
How to Learn the Parts of Speech
How to Use an Asterisk in Grammar
Guide to English Language Grammar
How to Recognize a Sentence Fragment
How to Fix a Sentence Fragment
How to Write Compound Sentences
How to Write Complex Sentences
WRITING
Definition of Parallelism in Writing
How to Make Bibliography Cards
How to Write an Effective Conclusion for an Essay
How to Write an Effective Introduction for an Essay
How to Cite an Internet Source
Research Article Evaluation Guidelines
How to Write a Cause and Effect Paragraph
How to Write a Well-Developed Paragraph
How to Write a Book Review for School
READING
How to Summarize a Reading Assignment
How to Annotate a Reading Assignment
Posted in English Composition | Tagged english, grammar, learn, links, paragraph, practice, reading, skill, spelling, writing | Leave a Comment »
A funny read and satirical look at the book publishing industry. Go ahead….give yourself a laugh today.
http://www.rightreading.com/publishing/publishing-glossary.htm
Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged book, demand studios, ebook, editor, elance, family history, freelance, genealogy, ghostwrite, God, lifetales, manage, memoir, narrative, novel, personal, publish, story, write, writer, writing | Leave a Comment »
All New Updated Version of the Workbook for Writing your Memoirs!
The Lifetales Workbook is divided into easy to understand sections that will have you completing your memoirs in no time! Blank pages are included for you to take notes as you read. Sample chapters include: How to get Started, Finding your stories, Dealing with Painful Issues, Publishing your memoir, Memory Sparkers, and much more!
Order securely by clicking here This workbook makes a great gift for family members!
Available in print (On sale for $17.99) and as a download ($8.99)!
Posted in Book Reviews, Lifewriting | Tagged autobiography, book, demand studios, ebook, freelance, genealogy, karen hamilton, life, lifetales, memoir, narrative, personal, publish, recommend, research, review, silvestri, story, talking memories, timeline, tips, write, writer, writing | Leave a Comment »
In reading Patrick Chamoiseau’s novel, Texaco, I am struck by his attempt to create a mythology for the Caribbean people. William Bascom says in his essay, “The Forms of Folklore: Prose Narratives”, “Myths are prose narratives which, in the society in which they are told, are considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in the remote past” (Dundes 9). Chamoiseau brings the orally passed down myths and folklore to his novel. We have no way of knowing the truth behind the myths, but that is irrelevant. Trying to prove the elements in the myth as factual are contrary to the very existence of the myth.
At the heart of the matter, the creators of a myth are attempting to explain their world in a world absent of science and sophisticated tools of research. The peoples of the Caribbean do more than that; they attempt to preserve the myths of their African forebears. Like William Butler Yeats, Chamoiseau is faced with the difficult task of recording a nation’s myths, myths that have never before been recorded in any tangible form. The reader learns about sleep-women, quimboiseurs, and the Mentoh. Even the “long-one”, the snake emerges as a mythological creature similar to the Christians snake in the Garden of Eden.
In reading Texaco, the reader enters into the world of the Caribbean people; the reader enters into the myths. An important task for the reader is one of attempting to lay aside their own societal beliefs and expectations on it and enter into a world peopled with magical beings and powerful forces. This is how the listeners in Africa originally received the myth; a legacy passed from generation to generation explaining the world. This is a world that is moving through time and being lost by the wayside. Chamoiseau is brilliant in his attempt to keep that world alive.
The text Chamoiseau presents to us provides us with a picture of the cultural and sociological components of a society in transition. Myth “is not merely a story told but a reality lived” (Malinowski 198) and that is certainly true of the myths of the Caribbean people. The myths live on today in their reality, not for all, but for some – much as the Bible still remains truth – reality – for many of today’s Christians. The Greek, Irish, Finnish, Indian, Native American, and Mesopotamian myths have been recorded for the world to enjoy. Are the Caribbean myths not as important to record?
Works Cited
1. Dundes, Alan, ed. Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. LA: University of California Press, 1984.
2. Segal, Robert A. Theorizing About Myth. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.
Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged bahamas, book, caribbean, chamoiseau, folklore, haiti, jamaica, memoir, myth, narrative, novel, read, review, texaco | Leave a Comment »
This was sent to me via email – I don’t know who wrote it but I want to share it with all the women out there!
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE
enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own, even if she never wants to or needs to…
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
something perfect to wear if the employer, or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour…
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
a youth she’s content to leave behind….
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
a past juicy enough that she’s looking forward to retelling it in her old age….
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra…
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
one friend who always makes her laugh.. and one who lets her cry…
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family…
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE … eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems,
and a recipe for a meal, that will make her guests feel honored…
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE…
a feeling of control over her destiny..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to fall in love without losing herself…
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without ruining the friendship…
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
when to try harder… and WHEN TO WALK AWAY…
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
that she can’t change the length of her calves, the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
that her childhood may not have been perfect…but it’s over…..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
what she would and wouldn’t do for love or more…
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW….
how to live alone… even if she doesn’t like it…
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW..
whom she can trust, whom she can’t, and why she shouldn’t take it personally…
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
where to go… be it to her best friend’s kitchen table.. or a charming Inn in the woods…. when her soul needs soothing…
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
What she can and can’t accomplish in a day… a month…and a year…
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
GOOD FRIENDS ARE LIKE STARS. YOU DON’T ALWAYS SEE THEM, BUT YOU ALWAYS KNOW THEY ARE THERE!!!!!!
Posted in Spiritual Matters | Tagged empowerment, encouragement, memoir, personal, Poetry, recommend, relationships, silvestri, wisdom, women, writing | 2 Comments »
Putting Back Together the Broken World
“Half of what I say is meaningless but I say it as a way to reach you”
(A Beatles Song)
How often have you read a story that touched you in such a way that you found your whole outlook on life changed? Or even a tiny aspect of that outlook? Most of us grew up with stories – fairy tales, folklore, family stories, literature in school – stories surrounded us. The ceremonies and rituals of our daily lives all center around the magic of these words that we hear, that we read, that we speak. Whether we are reading, hearing, or writing the story, words have the power to transform our lives. What is it that these words do that can make a healing experience in our lives?
The Native American poet, Joy Harjo says, “Stories create us. We create ourselves with stories”. (1) Stories – the healing power of stories, the mutable nature of stories – “a world made of stories, the long ago, time immemorial stories” (2). We seek to create ourselves anew, to solidify the identity we daydream about and we do this by telling stories. Can we create and recreate ourselves with stories? Can mere words promote healing for a confused people? Is it possible for us to find inner peace by simply re-writing our story?
This concept is not new. Stories have been used throughout history to promote healing on a psychotherapeutic level as well as on a socio-political level. The Native Americans believe that the healing power of stories comes from believing that there is something else out there that can help us to heal. Reaching far back into the past, we find the stories written that today we call myths. The originators of these myths used words to describe their world, to make a meaning out the chaos around them. They made up gods and wild creatures, they made up words – whole stories – that offered them peace in a seemingly out of control world. Today, many psychotherapists believe that through metaphorical thinking we bring ourselves to a place where we can better understand our circumstances, ourselves, and the world around us.
For some time now there has been great research done on the healing and transformative power of words. Goddard University offers a Master’s degree in Transformative Art, which includes visual as well as written art. The guiding principal behind Goddard’s program is the tradition of Tikkum Olam – hebrew for “putting back together the broken world”.
In addition, The National Association of Poetry Therapy offers certification in becoming a Certified Poetry Therapist, while major universities such as Florida State offer classes in Poetry Therapy under the tutelage of Dr. John Fox. Fox has written many books on the healing power of words. So, what is it about the written word that can actually heal someone’s pain? Is this form of therapy a form of communication? With whom? Are we able to find the meaning we seek in the words we set to paper?
There is Narrative Therapy, Drama Therapy, Word Therapy, Poetry Therapy, Journaling Therapy, Memoir Therapy, and many more versions of therapy that center around the healing power of words. Even fiction is used as healing therapy – one need only look at such novels as Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony or Don DeLillo’s White Noise. Silko’s novel becomes a healing process not just for the author but for the Native American people in general. By emphasizing the importance of stories, Silko pushes toward a healing of the alienation that her people have encountered in a white world. The stories of the Native American people become an integration transformation for them – one that gives them back, in a sense, their birthright. The writing – and the reading – of such novels provide a catalyst for change – psychological, societal, and political transformation. As such, the act of reading and/or writing produces a change – not the words themselves.
Many narrative therapies utilize writing for healing. When using therapeutic writing we must reach for a much-needed communication, a relay of words that perform a healing for ourselves and possibly for those around us. Alphonso Lingis writes, “You have to say something – something that language cannot say, something that is not in the resources of common discourse to be able to say…” (3) You have to say the unsaid. The said is language that has already been spoken, written, set down for use in the common discourse. When healing is needed, this common language reaches its limit; there is no language in the common discourse that can express an individual’s pain.
Each individual must come to a place where they leave behind the said, the already spoken, and enter into their own realm of language, their own unique discourse, their own form of communication with their pain. They have to make the unsaid said by saying. The person seeking healing puts away the common discourse – the language – and enters a realm of communication with his self, a departure from the said into the saying. The sheer act of communication is a release in itself.
We can accomplish this by giving names to our pain and to our confusion, just as the ancient storytellers of mythology did when they began telling stories to explain their world. Being able to name something makes it feel real to us, appears to give that something meaning. Writing words of pain and turmoil on paper is a process of naming the pain, making us feel we are finally able to communicate the pain, releasing it.
In Poetry Therapy, many people say they don’t like poetry because they don’t get it. “What is he talking about?” they whine. I tell people that poetry is a form of expressing the inexpressible, of an attempt to give voice to the unspeakable, to give meaning to the unthinkable. Most times, they still don’t get it. People want words to mean something; they need to have words they are hearing or reading understandable to them in the common language that we call rational discourse. They bristle when they encounter words that have never been said before.
We read self-help books and see our therapists in an attempt to get to the meaning of our pain. We are forever searching for the meaning outside of ourselves. What would happen if we turned to our inner selves for meaning? This is a scary concept because when we search for meaning on the outside we have available to us outside resources for validation – “Yes, you are getting to it now”, “Good, good, you are on the right track”, or even non-validation – “You are headed in the wrong direction”, “You are reaching for the wrong meaning”. There is something in us that needs the validation of the outside commonality to verify our search for meaning. Why is it that we do not trust in the validation of our own selves?
There exists in man in innate urge to proscribe a reason for everything. This or that must have meaning, musn’t it? When no meaning can be found, we flounder around in an abyss of doubt and chaos, forever trying to find meaning for our pain. How easy it is to misconstrue the meaning of a word! And if the meaning of a word changes, then the entire story changes! You have to wonder about the “immemorial stories” that our culture is surrounded with – how many of the words have had their meaning changed, and thus the entire story changed? I emphasize here that words are not used for their meaning, but for how they perform. Every reader is going to bring a different meaning to what he reads – the words that we read or that we write are only the vehicle for the healing, their meaning is inconsequential – it is their performative function that we seek in the healing arts.
Word therapists believe that it is essential for us to find the words, any words, to validate our pain. The goal is not so much to describe the pain but to provide us with a recognizable vehicle in which to find healing for our pain. There needs to be some sort of inner validation that what we feel is not chaos, not a railing darkness of doubt, but a solid, tangible form in which to find healing. Again, this is done through the telling of stories already circulating or in the making up of our own stories. There are several forms of word therapy that seek to accomplish this goal.
In Journal Therapy we teach that healing comes from the release of the subconscious dialogue we are constantly having with ourselves. We use our journals as a dumping ground for all the inane chatter that keeps us from realizing our inner selves. This is easy for some people and quite difficult for others. Most of us have been trained to not whine, to not waste precious time complaining about our problems. But the goal of Journal therapy is to release those very words of complaint, those whining, poor me words. We release them to the white of the page and thus free our selves to move past the chitter-chatter of daily existence. We validate our own thoughts, which removes the nagging feeling that we are somehow bad.
Memoir Therapy is a form of autobiographical writing. It asks several questions – Where is our true story? Where is our true myth? Is there truth in our story at all? There are many versions of a life – all are true, all are fiction – it depends on the time in which the life is being told. As Robert Elbaz states, “Autobiography is fiction, and fiction is autobiography. Factual truth is irrelevant to autobiography.” We change our story in order to create ourselves – but is it our self we are creating or the self as a cog in the wheel of society? The memoir writer has the opportunity to re-create himself or herself.
In Memoir Therapy, the goal is to uncover the many selves that we have lived. By so doing, we are able to ferret out those selves that we allowed societal influences to create for us and move into a more authentic self. The words we bring to the page create a myth of our personal self. By definition a myth is something that was true but now is probably not. By recording our memoirs, our myths, we provide ourselves the healing power of words to transform our story. And the more we write the more healing we bring to ourselves. It is through the serial memoir that memoir approaches its true and ultimate form – an account through time of a person’s life, a story with many beginnings that does not end until the author himself reaches the end. And even then, the story continues, doesn’t it?
We gather strength from our words, from our stories. We set into motion a flood of communication that brings us healing. We listen to, we read, we write words, words, words – the meaning of the word is superfluous, it changes every time we reach for a new creation of our self. And is that all that matters in that end? That the stories themselves, not their meaning, give us the power to create ourselves?
Works Cited
1. Harjo, Joy. The Spiral of Memory. Ed. Laura Coltelli. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1996.
2. Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. NY: Penguin Books, 1977. p. 95.
3. Lingis, Alphonso. “The Murmur of the World.” The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1994. 69-105.
Posted in Lifewriting | Tagged autobiography, healing, Lifewriting, memoir, Poetry, power, review, words, write, writing | 1 Comment »
I read constantly. Here is a list of just a few of the books that I loved so much that I would read them over and over again.
.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lost Man’s River by Peter Mattiessen (This one is about my family)
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffengger
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
The House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferrѐ
Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
Hawaii by John Michener
Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged amy tan, book, book club, books, dan brown, jean rhys, julia alvarez, khaled hosseini, michener, milton, read, reading list, richard russo, toni morrison | 1 Comment »
