#there were so many emails and sea poetry and sea music shared for this one

[pythiasaint]

Mermaid Barbara Joan Gordon and Fisherman Jason Peter Todd commission by the incredible Courtney Blackburn.

[zedecksiew]

Sentimental thoughts about the OSR

OSR -- Old School Renaissance? Revival? A style of making and playing games, where the focus is on the experience of shared imagined space, not narrative plots or arcs.

A style fostered by a community.

That community was ugly. Many alt-right-leaning white dudes. It sheltered abusers, like Zak S -- a person who, to my shame, I'd been a fan of.

That community was good. Many key figures were queer / trans. More so (to my impression) than any other RPG community (even other indie groups). Non-white folks, like me.

The popular TTRPG eye remembers the OSR for its ugliness, not its inclusivity. Probably because the assholes were loud. And because the non-white / cis / het-ness of folks was rarely advertised as a community selling-point: "Look at how diverse we are!"

The latter aspect made me feel welcomed. My work -- entirely informed by my SEA context, as it's always been -- got attention based on its merit, not its topicality.

+

The OSR as I joined it was based on blogs, and on G+. When G+ was shut down, the community had a diaspora.

You hear about BOSR (British OSR), or NOSR / NuSR. You used to hear about SWORDDREAM? I think FKR (the Free Kriegsspiel Revival) is an offshoot of the old community? There are a million Discord channels. Questing Beast, on Youtube.

The blogs are still going strong.

I can't keep track of all the places folks have ended up. I do feel bad about that -- that I'm less community-oriented, that I work more in isolation, now. I squat Twitter mostly. Twitter is not a good place for a creative community.

But it is what it is.

+

An article Ewan Wilson was writing about the OSR got spiked at Polygon. I was one of the folks he emailed questions to.

Ewan's questions prompted this bout of sentimentality, I guess?

Here are bits from email I wrote him, in reply:

+

The OSR scene began on blogs? That's certainly how I discovered it. I can actually remember the specific post that hooked me:

Patrick Stuart / False Machine, reading James C Scott's "The Art Of Not Being Governed" -- a history of the Zomia region of mainland Southeast Asia, a place of fluid cultures and peoples that have traditionally resisted the settled states surrounding it -- riffing on the historical information in Scott's book, spinning them into RPG campaign ideas.

+

A facet of the OSR scene is its willingness to use popular rulesets as a shared language.

Dungeons & Dragons (tm) not as a WOTC corporate property, but D&D as a community vernacular. (And D&D is just one example.)

Folks like Emmy Allen and Luka Rejec have talked about this quite eloquently, I think?

I think the OSR prioritises making stuff for games rather than crafting the bestest, most elegantly-designed game possible. If you are stuck arguing about which language works best for poetry, you'll never get to the point where you actually start making and sharing verse.

+

I associate the OSR style with possibility, too. I'm not sure why.

Mainstream WOTC D&D is trapped in a self-referential loop, recycling its own Forgotten Realms-adjacent tropes. Then you have the vast forest of licensed RPGs: "Alien: The RPG", "Avatar: The RPG"; "[Insert Popular Nerd IP Here]: The RPG".

Many indie-RPG communities prize genre-emulation -- here's a game where you can mimic the narrative shape of a slasher film; an urban-fantasy novel; Legend of Zelda.

Not that there is anything wrong with this. But if emulation is where you start and end you doom RPGs to a secondary role -- forever in the shadow of other arts.

For sure the OSR has its pop-culture and games-media touchstones; the scene loves to riff on metal album covers and Dark Souls a lot.

But I'd argue that -- relative to other RPG subcommunities, in my experience -- OSR creators are willing to push further down the rabbit-holes of their particular obsessions more often.

So, yes: Dark Souls and metal music. But also references weirder, personal, and as-yet-untapped: Zomia, punk zines, walks in backyard forests, Birkenhead folklore, the Permian Period, Moebius, East Malaysian myth --

Composted together to the point they become game things utterly unlike anything else, and the stories / experiences you can have in those game things you can have nowhere else.

+

The blogs are still going strong.

Today I was reading this series of posts, a theory-based critique at D&D, the OSR, and games design in general:

"the goal of what we call "old-school play" is not to create a story but to traverse a fantastic space guided by desire, such that any story which emerges is incidental and retrospective (much like stories that emerge from 'real life'). edwards prescribes that the goal of play is to create a story, elevates this prescription into a truth about play as such, and then claims that players who do not play with this aim actually fail to meet this aim because they are mentally damaged. perhaps this can be remedied by playing the correct game, or maybe not, but regardless the implication is that by playing the correct game, one can avoid brain damage.

my take is to not let salespeople convince you that you must buy their products to be politically or mentally correct, and on the flip side do not entitle yourself to the enjoyment of other people."

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4. All four are worth reading.

Today I was also reading the very first OSR blogpost I ever read, about Zomia. It is still as good as it was, six years ago:

"The Lisu, aside from insisting that they kill assertive chiefs, have a radically abbreviated oral history. "Lisu forgetting, Jonsson claims, "is as active as Lua and Mien remembrance." he implies that the Lisu chose to have virtually no history and that the effect of this choice was to "leave no space for the active role of supra-household structures, such as villages or village clusters in ritual life, social organizations, or the mobilisation of peoples attention, labour or resources."

18 Radically forgetting tribes. How far can you push that? Ancestor free tribes, then further away, one-year tribes, then in the reaches of the deeps, the one-day, impossible even to understand as they remember only for one day.

Patrick's blog turned 10 this week.

The blogs are still going strong.

[faeriexqueen]

All the writing asks

What’s your favorite word?I don’t have a single favorite word - it’s too hard to pick!  I also tend to prefer combinations of words?  Like “salt-white ivory” and “tender richness.”  I do like the word “blue” though.

Have any of your dreams made it into your original work? Which ones?Ah, a few poems!  They’re pretty personal, so nothing I’ve shared publicly (yet).

Is there a book you regret buying?Nope.  

Is there a book you regret selling/donating?Mmm.  Not that comes to mind.  I gave away a lot of books (like two trash bags full) when I moved, but I honestly had used them, and many of them were books I didn’t read anymore?  They went to a good friend who adores them, so I was really happy to know they went there.

How many books do you own?About two full shelves’s worth?  Not as much as I used to own, but an okay amount.

Which book do you wish you wrote?I’m not sure if there is one I wish I wrote?  That’s already been written by someone else?  Some of the stories I love don’t quite reflect my writing style. XD

What’s your favorite aesthetic to write? (i.e. autumn, ocean, forest, crappy motel, etc)Anything with winter and the sea.

What’s the purplest prose you’ve ever written?To be honest, I’m guilty of it in a lot of things. XD  Probably some of my earlier writing way back when, and Lotus in the Snow got wordy at times. >.>

Ever tried poetry? Or, if you’re a poet, ever tried prose?Screenwriting? Songwriting?Poetry I do write, as well as prose!  Songwriting I did once, but it’s not so much my thing, as I’m not that musical.  I have done playwriting (similar to screenwriting maybe?), but it wasn’t my cup of tea. XD

Which one of your stories or ocs would you want someone to write fanfic/draw fanart for?Right now, I’d die if someone drew something for Encompassed in Glass. XD  

For the rest of your life, you can only write one of your ocs. Which do you choose?I haven’t written with too many OCs since I mostly do fan fiction, but I have one character in mind.  She’s something of a knight reincarnated, and I’d love to write her more.

How often do you back up your work?Daily.  I usually back it up on email even in case I lose my flash drive or laptop dies.

What’s the first story or oc that your current self can be proud of?Lotus in the Snow.  It’s fan fiction, but it’s the first multi-chapter fic I ever busted out, and I’m pretty damn proud of it.

Has anyone ever told you that your work made them emotional?Yes, and it made me emotional. XD

How many drafts does your work go through before you’re ready to show it to people or publish?Ah, it depends.  Sometimes one, sometimes a few.  With longer works (like Encompassed in Glass and Lotus in the Snow), I usually have several versions of the story that I play with a bit.  It just depends on how quickly it comes together.

What’s your favorite part of the writing process?Losing myself in it, and just getting into the characters’ emotions and trials?  It’s very engaging, and I absolutely live for worldbuilding.

What’s something you wish you would’ve learned earlier as a writer?To take what others say with a grain of salt.  Not everyone will like your writing, and it doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer - it just means you probably have different tastes and style preferences.

Close your eyes and try to type this sentence: I once was loved.

Do you you tend to read more articles, blogs, or books about writing for tips and tricks? Watch videos? Make it up as you go along? Something else?I usually talk to other writers!  I’ve found talking to other writers is just really helpful, and gives a lot of insight you can’t get anywhere else.

What’s your biggest dream as a writer?To just share a story that someone else can lose themselves in, and share that world and experience with them.

What’s your favorite punctuation mark?Period?  I’m boring. XD  (I like the semicolon too, AND the Oxford comma.)

When and how do you get struck with inspiration? Do you try to write the whole story/poem right away or do you just jot down ideas?In the bath.  Always in the damn bath.  I don’t know what it is, but I literally thought of like 75% of Lotus in the Snow in the bath. XD  But sometimes it literally just hits me?  I guess I have a pretty active mind, and usually the ideas play on a loop until I just write them out (I’m actually terrible at notes, and usually will use the inspiration to start writing right away.)

If you’re about to fall asleep and inspiration strikes, do you wake yourself up to write? Or do you convince yourself you’ll remember it in the morning?It depends on how restless the idea makes me - I’ve done both. XD

What’s the first piece you remember writing?When I was like 11, I wrote this short story for school.  It was about a boy who was a “freak” in a circus, but his mother’s angel came to give him support/inspiration.  It was like a page and a half, but I remember that one in particular because that was when my teacher pulled me aside and encouraged me to think about writing more stories in the future.  It was just…a really prominent moment for me?  I just remember thinking “I can’t write” but this teacher was so supportive and encouraging, and to this day I think about when she did that, and how she really played a role in me writing more.

Don’t think, don’t hesitate, just write a few lines of the first thing that comes to your mind.There are broken seashellsBeneath her feet;Crystalline glass trickle down, andInto the seaWhere she sleeps.

Writing Asks.

[valentineheaven]

The Poem Of Love (Tom Glynn-Carney x Reader)

I’m very happy to share with you my first story, which I wrote about Tom. I hope you enjoy it. If you want to send me a request, just do it. I will appreciate of your requests.

Summary: Is it true that friendship between a guy and a girl exists? They’ve been friends for seven years. Seven years together they help and protect each other. They are often mistaken for a couple, but they were both sure that they don’t love each other. Or not? How one night could change both their lives.

Song: Linus Young – Valentine

Many people say that it looks weird when a girl is friends with the guy. When they are friends, not lovers. Many are also convinced that just friendship between a guy and a girl not there, that one of those two for sure in love with his friend.

You both are best friends to each other for seven long years. With the school you together, helped each other in good and bad times, comforted each other when one of you was bad, had fun together and just enjoyed each other’s company. Tom and you are often mistaken for a couple, but they were both sure that you don’t love each other. Or not?

Always, when in your life were something incredible or just a pleasant event, you both ran to share experiences in your sanctuary of the attic in an abandoned cinema. 

And now, sitting between the boxes with the DVD’s and looking at a wall covered with posters of various movies, drinking tea, you shared your most intimate and personal, carrying yourself far away from all the chaos.

But now your attic-hideout was far away, in another city, but you are still together and still meet up to talk. You are still best friends.

He became a famous actor after he starred in the movie Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan. You went to the Art Academy to realize your dream of becoming an artist.

Today your final exams at the Academy and you not slept for three days, in the morning sits at the Academy pending the results.

Tom was sitting at home, reading his scripts, and every hour out of boredom, checking email. The TV was like background music, bright picture changed rapidly, sometimes attracting Tom’s attention. He knew that you have your finals today and  that from their results is dependent your studies at the Academy. He was worried about you no less than you are. Because of this, he didn’t even notice that he read the same script twice.

He heard a click. The door opened. Someone’s quick steps approaching him. It was you. You burst into the living room like a fresh breeze from the newly opened window. You all was shone with happiness. Quickly putting down your coffee, you hugged your friend, on Tom’s face appeared a wide smile. You’re here. You was with him. 

“What are you so happy?” - he asked when you pulled away.

“I finally graduated from the Academy! All the exams, all the work behind” - you’re still all shiny and smiling. “Tom, it’s all over, you know? I’m now free from everything and from everyone. Can draw and paint”

“I’m so happy for you,” he smiled, unable not to smile, when you are so happy.  “If you want, we can go somewhere and celebrate your successes”.

You approached him and took the hand. “You can call someone from friends,” he continued.

“I don’t want…” you said quietly with tenderness looking into the blue sea, the eyes of your friend. You slowly released his hand and sat on the edge of the sofa. “These weeks have been unbearably nervous for me. You even can’t imagine how much I tired. Even you actors not so tired, I think.”

“What do you want?” - Tom stood in front of you, waiting for a response.

“I just want something quiet and comfortable, but not all of these music howls and screams, like “Can I have another glass of whisky?” – you’re  a gesture, like calling the waiter. Tom smiled, lowering his head. “I want to stay with you tonight” - yours eyes met and you smiled at each other. “And tell you about exams, my plans after the Academy, read poetry.”

It was your favorite pastime when you were left alone and in silence. A poetry reading. Each read their favorite poems and just enjoyed the sound of the voices. Tom loved your voice, he could listen for hours as you reads poetry or just talking.

“Good” - with a smile he said.

He made cocoa with almonds for you – your favorite drink. You were sitting on the sofa in the living room, the TV still shone in the pictures, but you didn’t pay any attention to it. Inside Tom felt a tremendous joy for the fact that you preferred his company to this day.

Drinking cocoa, you told him all about today. You told everything with emotions, with gestures and with the incredible interest in your eyes. Tom liked it, and he wasn’t trying to interrupt and stop this conversation. Sat and quiet, with a rapidly beating heart, listening to you, examining your face and body. He realized that fell in love with you, fell in love, like a young boy. But you are friends and it kept his strong feelings.

Even then, four years ago in the attic of the theater, you sat quietly on the box with the DVD’s, read each other poetry, not only from books, but also your own. Tom and then read to you a lot about love, alluding to his feelings, but you thought that love is his favorite theme, so he only reads about it.

North comfortably on the couch and armed with a soft blanket, you were expecting Tom looked up in another room collections of poetry. You closed your eyes, so you was a little scared when on your knees fell the Rupi Kaur’s book – your favorite writer. He always knew what you loved to read.

He sat down opposite you, putting your feet on his knees, and put on his glasses.

“I love it when you wear your glasses. You’re so cute”

“Come on” - you both laughed. Tom was slightly embarrassed.

In his hands was a notebook, brown and leather, which was full of different pieces of paper and drawings donated by you. In addition, there he recorded his favorite poems and wrote his own.

«Among the worlds, the sparkling spheres,

The name of One Star only I repeat…

It’s not because I love Her dearly

But just because I pine with others.»

He began. You, resting your hand on your head, looked at him, watching the change in his face while he reads. He read as if he lived these verses for himself, though he is one about whom they are written. This verse is again about love, from what you smiled slightly, you loved when he read about love. Tom read on the exhale, so his voice was heard nice and he emanated such gentleness and awe.

«And when by doubt I’m troubled

I pray to Her alone for answers.

It’s not because She gives off light,

But just because with Her I don’t need light»

(poem by I.Annensky)

All this time, you looked at him, not averting your eyes. You was not wrong when you decided to stay with him this evening. The time spent with him today, gave you exactly what you wanted – peace and rest from all these crazy weeks.

«Her heart was wild, but

I didn’t want to catch it,

I wanted to run with it,

To set mine free».

(poem by Atticus)

 He continued to read, verse by verse, and you gently touched with your hand his soft red hair, Tom smiled occasionally. You always felt with him, as if you is enveloped in comfort and love, if all that was the wound was not important, he could do so you always felt good.

“Your turn” with a smile, closing his notebook and removing his glasses, Tom said.

The familiar fingers began to leaf through the familiar pages of the Rupi Kaur’s book  in search of a favorite poem. Now it’s his turn. It’s his turn to watch and enjoy you.

«Many tried

But failed to catch me

I am the ghost of ghosts

Everywhere and nowhere

Within magic within magic»

He put his hand to his chin, eyes filled with warmth and radiating tenderness, watching you, realizing how much he loves this person, how much he cares about his girl.

Your eyes quickly ran, illuminating with its light the pages of the book. You always read carefully, as if analyzing every word, but read slowly. Naughty strands of hair fell over your face, making it difficult to read. With a quick movement you removed from behind the ears, and they all fell and fell, it made Tom smile.

«None have figured out

I am a world wrapped in worlds

Folded in suns and moons

You can try but

You won’t get those hands on me»

(poem by Rupi Kaur)

He watched the movement of your lips, hoping to kiss them someday. You read quietly, but not whispering. Your voice was light and calm, enveloping all around.

«It is a blessing

To be the color of earth

Do you know how often

Flowers confuse me for me»

(poem by Rupi Kaur)

Tom lightly touched your thigh, what made you stopped reading for a second. But then continued to read. He had his hand on your skin, feeling its softness. His heart was beating faster and faster. You continued to read, but your breathing was no longer so smooth.

«But what is stronger

Than the human heart

Which shatters over and over

And lives»

(poem by Rupi Kaur)

The last poem. You closed the book and looked at the cover, hesitating to raise your eyes on Tom. His hand rose higher and higher, settling trail of tingling throughout your body. His face was opposite yours, you looked at him.

Tom looked into your eyes. It’s a blue-azure sea in his eyes engulfed you, you couldn’t shake them, couldn’t swim. His hand continued to travel over your body.

Kiss. First gentle and quick, and then strong and passionate. You have both realized that not friends anymore. This minute is proof of this. You have both long understood that love each other, but were afraid to admit, afraid of failure and ridicule. But they are not, and never will. What could be the ridicule and failure, when they are possessed by such a love.

The book has long been somewhere on the floor, the blanket enveloped you both. Your hands travelled in his hair. Between the kisses you shared each other’s breath, so warm and so hot. His hands went under your shirt, caressing your belly and rising above.

The onset of night, peppered sky blue dim bright lights – stars. The moon is big spot squeezed into this starry sky, illuminating his moonlit not only London’s streets, but also the dark windows of one of the London’s apartments. The moonlight seeping through the windows of the spacious living room, caressing your tender bodies.

All over, as you said previously. Bye friendship, the love began.

It was about 4:30 in the morning and you already awake and lying quietly for fear of waking Tom. Your hand gently stroking his chest, and he gently embraces your shoulders. He’s so handsome now, when he sleeps. So calm and carefree.

Quickly pulling the shorts and t-shirt, you grabbed a canvas and a pencil. Sitting on the windowsill, you began to quickly lead pencil. You paints. Draws him. Draws the man whom you loved without knowing it. Draws the man who cherished and loved you all these seven years.

Your pencil traveling on a canvas, drawing in every part of his body. Tom was leaning with his head on the soft pillow. His chest was open, and legs closed white blanket. He looked like a child, despite the age of twenty-two years. He is young and his body breathes the youth.

“Don’t tell me you draw me” - even with his eyes closed Tom said.

“I can’t. I’m drawing you” - looking at the canvas, you smiled.

“I love you” - opening his eyes, Tom said. “Always loved”.

[vacationsoup]

New Post has been published on https://vacationsoup.com/bristol-harbour-festival-19th-21st-july-2019/

Bristol Harbour Festival 19th - 21st July 2019

The Bristol Harbour Festival is back this weekend - Friday 19th July to Sunday 21st July.   Celebrating its 47th year, this free festival brings over 250,000 people together and is held annually to celebrate the city’s maritime heritage and the importance of Bristol’s docks and harbour.

Most of the activities are free, including live music, street performances, dance acts, interactive theatre, international circus acts, daredevil stunts and a variety of other live entertainments which are held on or near the waterfront of Bristol Harbour.

The outside venues include Queen Square, Lloyds Amphitheatre, Narrow Quay, Merchants, Quay, Hannover Quay, Millennium Square and Cathedral Walk, with seagoing vessels moored nearby. The liveliest part of the festival is quayside and the main attractions are entertainment designed to engage all the communities of Bristol, as well as entertain the thousands of visitors to the city.

Find your way around the Bristol Harbour Festival’s Performance Areas - Downloadable Map  See the program of events further down the page.

Market Locations

Narrow Quay,  Merchants Quay,  Queens Square and Hannover Quay

The City has hosted the festival since 1971, when it was started as part of an, ultimately successful, attempt to save the docks from being filled in.  In 2012, the festival attracted over 200,000 visitors, its highest ever attendance at that time, with the Irene and the Matthew being two of the tall ships in attendance that year.

The festival is held every year in July over a weekend and many of the bar and restaurants put on extra entertainment to keep visitors happy during the late evenings. In 2018 visitors were be able to watch for the first time, the Power8 rowing sprints battle it out on the water, as teams from eight cities compete to be the best.

The highlight of this year’s festival will be the arrival of three very special tall ships - The Etoile Molence, Irene and Iris.  Also Power8 Sprints will also be headlining with their 350 metre, high octane rowing action on the water.

More than 250 boats of varying shapes and sizes will be tied up at every available mooring along a four-mile stretch of the Harbourside, with familiar sights such as the SS Great Britain and the Matthew all set to appear.

There’s so much entertainment to keep you engaged, including music at the huge outdoor concert area “the Lloyds Amphitheatre”, top quality circus and street theatre acts from Circus Bijou.  Western Boat Show, showcasing all kinds of sailing boats and power boats, rowing competitions, general fun and games in the water, dedicated family areas, plus the Continental Food Market at Queens Square, a fantastic line-up from across France, Italy, Spain and Germany providing olives, cheese, crepes and more, an experience for the taste buds together with traditional gifts and crafts and lots of Harbourside fun for everyone.

Travel – Head for the City Centre, follow signs for Harbour Festival.  Further travel info Here.

Parking

There is plenty of parking and it is advised to arrive early to get as close as possible to the available Harbourside Parking.  You will also find parking within a short walking distance of the Harbour at the following places -

St Mary Redcliffe Car Park, NCP – Redcliffe Parade, NCP – Queens Charlotte Street, Trenchard Street Car Park, The Gallery Car Park, Nelson Street Car Park, College Street Car Park, Mardyke Wharf Car Park, Oldfield Place Car Park

  Program of Events

Saturday 20th July

Music - Amphitheatre – Music Stage

12.45 pm             Bristol Community Big Band

2.00 pm               The Hucklebuck – Blues Music

3.15 pm               Camo Clave – Cumbia Music

4.30 pm               Phantom Ensemble

5.45 pm               Matuki  - Afrobeat, reggae fusion

7.15 pm               Doreen Doreen – Marsh up Band

8.45 pm               Rod Smith RSD

Music - Brunel Stage at SS Great Britain

11.00 am             Framptoon Shantymen - All Male Choir

12.00 pm             Samba - Reggae drumming band

1.00 pm               Ceili - Traditional Irish/Celtic acoustic music

2.00 pm               Gentle Hooligans - Rock 'n ' roll fusion

3.00 pm               JI & The Rainbirds - Up beat feel-good folk

4.00 pm               Eden Root’s Reggae Band - Red hot Reggae

5.00 pm               The Bare Souls - Rock, blues, soul and funk fusion band

Music - Centre Stage at Cascade Steps

12.00 pm            The Great Sea Choir

12.50 pm            Rosina Keri - passionate dreamy pop

1.40 pm    ��          The Harrisons - Blues, country and americana band

2.30 pm               Barnacle Buoys - Acapella sea shanty singers

3.25 pm               Julu Irvine & Heg Brignall - Folk duo

4.20 pm               Mireille Mathlener - Vocalist

5.15 pm               Laimu - Sultry vocals

Music - Dockside Stage at the Grove

2.00 pm               Punk Rock Aerobics

3.00 pm               Richard the Fourth - Neo soul and slow funk

3.30 pm               Hush Mozey - Miz of spa, punk and garage

4.30 pm               The Rupees - Hi energy rock band

5.30 pm               Sam Brockington - Fantastic vocal talented singer

6.30 pm               Farebrother - Indie rock quartet

7.30 pm               Joe Probert - Super cool soul

8.30 pm               Katy J Pearson - Catchy melodies

Dance and Entertainment at Millenium Square

11.45 am             Bollyred Dance Company

12.15 pm            Urban Cookie: Dance Zumba Gold

1.20 pm               Performance from Gerry’s Attic Dance Company

1.55 pm               Making Tracks Youth Music

2.55 pm               2 O’clock Beauty Queens

3.15 pm               Dance Extreme BS13/Storm

3.25 pm               Bristol Salsa Ladies Styling Team

3.30 pm               Subline Dance Troupe

3.40 pm               Rise Youth Dance

5.00 pm               Hype Dance

5.20 pm               Swing Dance Bristol and Swing Riot

Entertainment, Family Fun Activities, Music and Food at The Circus Playground - Queens Square

Continental Market Food - a selection of everything you will expect will be on offer

Bubbline – Fun with bubbles

A.P.E Project CIC – Mobile Adventure Playground

Sounds Right Phonics Bristol – Music, games, movement, bubbles and poms poms for little ones

Marky Jay – Compere & Street Theatre – Jokes, Juggling and puppets

Avon Valley Wildlife Park – Interact and discover more about small animals

Bristol Taiko – Traditional Japanese Drumming

Bocadcalupa Arts – Bee Garden

Avon Valley Wildlife Trust

Baby Racing

Cirocomedia – Youth Circus Showcase and Workshops

Giddy Kipper – Sloth Time

Tiny Little Clouds Theatre – How to Build a rainbow

Don’t Drop The Beat – Live Drumming and Juggling

Above & Beyond – Mini Flying Trapeze Rig

Dragonbird Theatre – Pyjama Island

Angie Mack – The Super Hooper Jula Hooping Street Show

Korri Aulakh – World Class Aerialist performances

Rob Lewis – Cello

Kat Lyons Storytelling and Spoken Word

King Edmunds Acrobatic Club

Angie Mack – Have a go Hula Hoop Workshops

Cathedral Walk – Spoken Word, Music and Performances

11.30 am             Poetry Machine – Performance

12.00 pm            South West Showcase - Performance

1.00 pm               Yoniverse Takeover - Performance

2.00 pm               Guest Artist – Joelle Taylor - Performance

2.30 pm               Poetry Machine – Performance, Family

2.50 pm               South West Showcash – Performance, Family

4.30 pm               Guest Artists – Rebecca Tantony and Dominie Hooper – Performance & Music

Bristol Harbour Festival - Sunday 20th July

Music - Amphitheatre – Music Stage

12.00 pm             Tan Teddy - Sharing Jamaican culture through song

1.10 pm               Nuala Honan - Folk music from Bristol based Australian singer-songwriter

2:20 pm               Amdodu Diagne & Yakar - Modern blues and funk

3:30 pm               Dizaeli - Jazz-tinged band

5:00 pm               Sheelanaig - Balkan swing, celtic music

Brunels Stage at SS Great Britain

11.00 am             South Wales Clarinet Choir

12.00 pm            North Somerset Samba - Reggae drumming band

1.00 pm               Bee Bakare - Soulful pop

2.00 pm               Zyla - Soul-infused funk

3.00 pm               Sol Feo - Rock, funk, grunge, metal and folk bended band

4.00 pm               Baraka - Afro beat dance band

Centre Stage at Cascade Steps

12.00 pm            Storm Force 10 - Shanty band

12.50 pm            Jodie Mellor - Singer

1.40 pm               Bristol Sea Slugs - Shanty, folk band

2.30 pm               Charlie Limm - Vocalist

3.25 pm               Jazz the Two of us - Jazz classics with a twist

4.20 pm               Maaike Siegerist - Swinging jazz and dark folk

5.15 pm               Sounds of Harlowe - Grunge soul collective

Dockside Stage at the Grove

1.00 pm               Gabriel Templar - Indie pop

2.00 pm               Luke Marshall Black - Vocalist

4.00 pm               RVBY - Quirky pop

5.00 pm               Agata - Vocalist

6.00 pm               Imprints - Gypsy, pirate, folk-rock band

Millennium Square – Bristol Dances

11.00 am             Diddi Dance

11.45 am             Dancin Tots

12.20 pm             Afon Sistema – Brazilian Dance in Bristol

1.10 pm               Mumtaz Dance Company – Bollywood Dance

1.25 pm               Original Spinners - Dance, Performance

1.40 pm               Untold Dance Theatre - Dance

2.00 pm               Cabaret and Drag Dance Show

3.10 pm               Funk Supreme

3.20 pm               Piloexcersize - Dance

4.20 pm               The Hills School of Irish Dance Performance and Workshop

5.00 pm               Celidh Dance with Mr Medler - Dance

Cathedral Walk – Spoken Word, Music and Performances

11.30 am             Poetry Machine - Performance

12.00 pm             South West Showcase – Performance & Music

1.00 pm               Guest Artist – Dizraeli – Performance & Music

1.30 pm               Poetry Machine – Family Performance

2.00 pm               The Urban Word Collective Takeover – Performance

3.00 pm               Guest Artist – Deanna Rodger - Performance

3.30 pm               Bath Spa University Poetry Showcase - Performance

3.45pm                South West Showcase - Performance

4.30 pm               Guest Artist – Toby Thomson – Family Performance

The Circus Playground – Queens Square

Entertainment, fun for the family, food and Music all day from – 11.00 am – 4.00 pm.

Avon Wildlife Trust, Avon Valley Adventure and Wildlife Park, Bubblina – Family entertainment with bubbles, Sound right phonics Bristol, Circomedia – Circus Workshops – Great Family Fun, Traditional Japanese Drumming, A.P.E Project CIC – Mobile Adventure Playground, Marky Jay – Street Theatre, Bocadalupa Arts – Bee Garden and much more.

Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoy the content - Whilst visiting Bristol you may also find the following useful

Family Owned Italian Restaraunt Bristol

Cuban Rum Bar and Restaraunt Bristol

St Nicholas Indoor Quirky Market

21 things to do in Bristol 

Looking for accommodation in Bristol - check availability HERE or email for more information.

[celticmythpodshow]

CMP Special 25b Irish Mythological Cycle Summary Pt 2

Second half of our summary of the Irish Mythological Cycle

In this show, we finish off our summary of the Irish Mythological Cycle as we've met it so far in the first 29 story episodes. Not only is this show finishing off a whole branch of Celtic Mythology, but it also celebrates the Autumn Equinox for 2011, so we've made it a real cracker and split it into two halves. In the first half, you heard an epic poem, 4 great songs and we took a look at the Origins of the Manuscripts which these stories come from and highlight some of the the themes we've noticed in the stories.

We conclude our examination of the Irish Mythological Cycle in this Second Part of this show by looking at the main characters in the stories, finishing the epic saga of Greenwood the Bard's epic poem, and yes, another 5 great pieces of music! We also introduce you to the newest member of the team, play another Pentacle Drummers track to let you know that the deadline for competition entries is the 20th Novembers

Full Show-notes, with all credits, can be found on our main Website at http://celticmythpodshow.com/irishsummary2

Running Order:

Intro 0:44

News & Views 1:08

The Old Man & the Fairy Queen by The Bards of Mystic 2:07

The Book of Invasions Pt.3 by Greenwood the Bard 13:26

Elven Home of the Chapel Halls by David Helfand 23:10

Main Characters in the Myth Cycle 28:16

I'll Meet You in Ireland by Kray Van Kirk 39:18

The Book of Invasions Pt.4 by Greenwood the Bard 43:07

Rumblin' Thunder by The Pentacle Drummers 56:22

Competition End-date 58:02

Land of the Ever-Young by Damh the Bard 59:17

We hope you enjoy it!

Gary & Ruthie x x x

Released: 2nd Oct 2011, 1h 10m

It's always great to hear from you! Email garyandruth@celticmythpodshow.com, or leave us a message using Speakpipe

The Old Man & the Fairy Queen

by the Bards of Mystic

William Widmaier is the “Captain” of the Bards of Mystic. William is the founder and the driving force behind the Bards. He is also the writer of all the stories, and that's his voice you hear narrating.

Find out more about the Bards of Mystic on Myspace. More details will also be found on our Contributor page.

  The Book of Invasions, Pts. 3 & 4

by Greenwood the Bard

Greenwood the Bard, aka Stephen Cole, has written much wonderful poetry and we're very privileged to bring you his "Book of Invasions" epic saga that re-tells the story of the Invasions of Erin.

"After a lifelong love of myth and magic, fairytale and folklore, and brought up in a family where faith and a Godly lifestyle were more important than religion, I was named as a Bard at a Gorsedd in Glastonbury. I am deeply in love with my Creator and His Creation, I have a passion for music, poetry and storytelling, and I live to build bridges between Christian and Pagan."

That is such a wonderful quest and so sad that any bridges need to be built. Good luck, Stephen!

Check out his Facebook page for more of his wonderful poetry, the poetry pages on paganspace.net and mysticchrist.co.uk where we're waiting for his posts to start appearing.

  Elven Home of the Chapel Halls

by David Helfand

David Helfand composes and performs original and traditional music on Celtic Harp, mandocello, guitar, keyboards and percussion. Many of David's compositions were born through improvisation and drawn on the inspiration found in the power of music from many wondrous cultures.

"As I returned from my maiden voyage from the land of Britain full of awe, unspeakable joy and deep reservoirs of inspiration, slowly the music started to speak. From the high craggy cliffs where the ruins of Tintagel castle lay overlooking the dark waters off Cornwall's shore, to the ancient majestic ruins of Glastonbury Abbey and the dark mysteries of the Tower of London, the swirling maze of the city's streets and the magic of the standing stones on Salisbury Plain, I swam deep in the waters of imagination.

"Shortly after returning home and embarking on creating "At the Edge of the Cornish Sea", I soon shared with the world, dark grief and immense sadness as the two towers crumbled to the earth creating it's deep grave of shattered lives and dreams. What once seemed important became insignificant against the dark clouds of sorrow."

This wonderful track comes from his At the Edge of the Cornish Sea album. You can find out more details about David on his website or on his Contributor Page on our website.

  I'll Meet You in Ireland

by Kray Van Kirk

"I have a different approach now to writing and performing music. I no longer record CDs, as I want to reduce the waste headed to our landfills, and I don't charge money for my songs as a deliberate movement away from the bottom line that seems to govern so much of our daily lives. Every now and then someone asks me how I am ever supposed to make a living as a musician when I don't make CDs and I give my songs away, since most performers make more money on sales than concert fees. I confess: I have no idea! Footsteps in the dark. "So I keep writing my songs, and I sing them when I play a show, and I give them away to anyone who wants them. My graduate work takes me to interesting places on rather short notice sometimes, and I try to plan concerts around that travel, although the short notice can make it difficult. But if I don't make it to where you live, or even if I do, the Downloads page on my website is full of little digital penguins waiting to march their way across the world, leaving no footprints in the snow." About this track, I'll Meet You in Ireland, he says: "One of my favorite poems is Yeats' Song of Wandering Aengus. All of us get old, but inside there is a place that never changes. We may wake up in bodies long gone frail, but the person who looks out is golden-eyed, barefoot in the grass, heady with the light and smells of a Spring that is endless, and generally wondering what the hell happened."

Find our more about Kray on his website or check out his Contributor Page to find out a little more about him.

  Competition (Chatterbox Show)

We then talk about the Competition about the Pentacle Drummers we set in the Chatterbox Show SP24 and set an ending date of the 20th October 2011 for competition entries.

  Rumblin' Thunder

by the Pentacle Drummers

"The Pentacle Drummers from Eastbourne, East Sussex were a small group founded in 2001 to perform at the Lammas Festival to accompany the Eastbourne Giants, 'Herne the Hunter' and 'Andred', Saxon Goddess of the Weald. We have since grown from a small group to a troupe in excess of twenty.  The Pentacle Drummers actively support Eastbourne Bonfire Society at bonfires throughout Sussex but are happy to appear on our own or in support of other Bonfire Societies when invited!"

You can hear the thundering track Rumblin' Thunder, which is from their album Life in Tatters! You can find out more about The Drummers on their website at The Pentacle Drummers or on their Contributor Page.

  Land of the Ever-Young

by Damh the Bard

We can do no better than finish the show with Damh singing us out with his song about the realm of the Celtic Gods, the Land of the Ever-Young, Tir na nOg, from his superb album The Hills They Are Hollow.

You can find out more about Damh on his website at You can find out more about Damh on his website at Pagan Music or on our Contributor Page. You can find out more about the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids that he represents on their website at druidry.org.

  Get EXTRA content in the Celtic Myth Podshow App for iOS, Android & Windows

Contact Us: You can leave us a message by using the Speakpipe

Email us at: garyandruth@celticmythpodshow.com. Facebook fan-page http://www.facebook.com/CelticMythPodshow, Twitter (@CelticMythShow) or Snapchat (@garyandruth), Pinterest (celticmythshow) or Instagram (celticmythshow)

  Help Spread the Word:

Please also consider leaving us a rating, a review and subscribing in iTunes or 'Liking' our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/CelticMythPodshow as it helps let people discover our show - thank you :)

If you've enjoyed the show, would you mind sharing it on Twitter please? Click here to post a tweet!

Ways to subscribe to the Celtic Myth Podshow:

Click here to subscribe via iTunes

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  Special Thanks

Kevin Skinner for From the Time Before, Shaman's Night and At The Gates of Dinas Afferon from his album Fire Walk With Me. See his website for further details of check out his Contributor Page.

John Burge for his entrancing Celtic rhythms from his Echoes album. See his Contributor Page for more details.

Diane Arkenstone The Secret Garden. See her Contributor page for details.

Kim Robertson The Hangman's Noose. See her Contributor page for details.

Jigger Time Ticks Away. See her Contributor page for details.

  For our Theme Music:

The Skylark and Haghole, the brilliant Culann's Hounds. See their Contributor page for details.

  Extra Special Thanks for Unrestricted Access to Wonderful Music

(in Alphabetic order)

Anne Roos Extra Special thanks go for permission to use any of her masterful music to Anne Roos. You can find out more about Anne on her website or on her Contributor page.

Caera Extra Special thanks go for permission to any of her evocative harping and Gaelic singing to Caera. You can find out more about Caera on her website or on her Contributor Page.

Celia Extra Special Thanks go for permission to use any of her wonderful music to Celia Farran. You can find out more about Celia on her website or on her Contributor Page.

Damh the Bard Extra Special thanks go to Damh the Bard for his permission to use any of his music on the Show. You can find out more about Damh (Dave) on his website or on his Contributor page.

The Dolmen Extra Special thanks also go to The Dolmen, for their permission to use any of their fantastic Celtic Folk/Rock music on the Show. You can find out more about The Dolmen on their website or on our Contributor page.

Keltoria Extra Special thanks go for permission to use any of their inspired music to Keltoria. You can find out more about Keltoria on their website or on their Contributor page.

Kevin Skinner Extra Special thanks go for permission to use any of his superb music to Kevin Skinner. You can find out more about Kevin on his website or on his Contributor page.

Phil Thornton Extra Special Thanks go for permission to use any of his astounding ambient music to the Sonic Sorcerer himself, Phil Thornton. You can find out more about Phil on his website or on his Contributor Page.

S.J. Tucker Extra Special thanks go to Sooj for her permission to use any of her superb music. You can find out more about Sooj on her website or on her Contributor page.

Spiral Dance Extra Special thanks go for permission to use Adrienne and the band to use any of their music in the show. You can find out more about Spiral Dance on their website or on their Contributor page.

We'd like to wish you 'Hwyl fawr!', which is Welsh for Goodbye and have fun, or more literally Wishing a Good Mood on you!

Check out this episode!

[instantdeerlover]

Where To Eat Outside In Prospect Heights added to Google Docs

Where To Eat Outside In Prospect Heights

Prospect Heights makes up the area south of Crown Heights and north of Flatbush. Look at a map. It’s almost a parallelogram, and it’s filled with Thai spots, various diners, sushi places, and more. Much more, actually. But if we listed every type of food you could find in the area, it would be a long, boring list, and you’d resent us for making you read it. Read this guide instead. It has 19 places where you’ll like what you eat and have a good time outdoors.

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INFATUATION NEWSLETTER Get our newest guides & reviews first,

plus more restaurant intel you won't find anywhere else. ATL ATX BOS CHI LDN LA MIA NYC PHL SF SEA DC Subscribe Smart move. Excellent information will arrive in your inbox soon. Do you have friends and family who also eat food? Enter their emails below and we’ll make sure they’re eating well. (Don’t worry, we won’t subscribe them to our newsletter - they can do that themselves.) Help Your Friends No Thanks Well done. You’re a good person. All good. We still like you. Want to quickly find restaurants on the go? Download The Infatuation app.   THE SPOTS  Teddy Wolff Maison Yaki $ $ $ $ Japanese ,  French  in  Brooklyn ,  Prospect Heights $$$$ 626 Vanderbilt Ave

All summer long, Maison Yaki is lending its kitchen space to aspiring Black entrepreneurs, chefs, bartenders, and sommeliers who want to work on their own projects. As of August 6, Michelle Williams is serving soul food dishes like fried shrimp, crab cakes, and BBQ chicken from the restaurant’s takeout window, which you can enjoy at one of their seat-yourself sidewalk tables. If you want to know more about the other chefs in this pop-up series, check out the full story.

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INFATUATION NEWSLETTER Get our newest guides & reviews first,

plus more restaurant intel you won't find anywhere else. ATL ATX BOS CHI LDN LA MIA NYC PHL SF SEA DC Subscribe Smart move. Excellent information will arrive in your inbox soon. Do you have friends and family who also eat food? Enter their emails below and we’ll make sure they’re eating well. (Don’t worry, we won’t subscribe them to our newsletter - they can do that themselves.) Help Your Friends No Thanks Well done. You’re a good person. All good. We still like you. Want to quickly find restaurants on the go? Download The Infatuation app.    Teddy Wolff MeMe's Diner $ $ $ $ American ,  Diner  in  Prospect Heights $$$$ 657 Washington Avenue

You could come to MeMe’s Diner for any of the following reasons: a brunch date with the person who regularly forgets to refill your Brita, a boozy brunch with a few of the people in your favorite group chat, or a plate of chile-oil fried eggs outside by yourself. But, while you won’t be able to do any of these things inside of a restaurant that looks like a furniture showroom turned disco party, you’re free to use any of the restaurant’s seat yourself outdoor tables. MeMe’s is open from 10am to 4pm on weekends only, and even if you don’t live in the neighborhood, this spot is worth traveling for.

 James James $ $ $ $ American  in  Brooklyn ,  Prospect Heights $$$$ 605 Carlton Ave.

A few months ago, James in Prospect Heights pivoted to offer groceries and provisions, as well as takeout cocktails and snacks. They now have a takeout window where you can pick up things like popcorn with ramp salt, little gem salads, and one of our absolute favorite burgers in the city. Take a look at their menu or order ahead through their website here.

Read more about why James’ founder, Deborah Williamson, decided to use this takeout model.

 Noah Devereaux Look by Plant Love House $ $ $ $ Thai  in  Brooklyn ,  Prospect Heights $$$$ 622 Washington Ave

Two good rules to keep in mind when you’re in Prospect Heights: 1) there’s live music at the Boathouse in Prospect Park every night at 6pm 2) you should eat at Look By Plant Love House whenever it’s warmer than 75 degrees. This Thai spot has one of the absolute best backyards in the neighborhood, and food that you’ll likely end up daydreaming about. Make sure to get the pork and crab noodles and the giant papaya salad tray that comes with Isan sausage and chicken wings.

 Noah Devereaux Cheryl's Global Soul $ $ $ $ American  in  Prospect Heights $$$$ 236 Underhill Ave

From tonkatsu to bacon cheeseburgers, Cheryl’s Global Soul offers comfort food from around the world. So if you’re looking for a place to eat with people who all want different things, keep this Prospect Heights spot in mind. And since they have a spacious garden patio and some new curbside seating out front, you probably won’t have to wait for a table these days (even for weekend brunch).

 Noah Devereaux Morgan's BBQ $$$$ 267 Flatbush Ave.

Great BBQ and great outdoor space aren’t things NYC has in great abundance, so you should take advantage when they’re both available at the same time. You can do exactly that by heading to Morgan’s BBQ in Prospect Heights. Get some brisket, or try their new wasabi wings, until 10:30pm during the week and 11pm on weekends.

 Noah Devereaux Olmsted $ $ $ $ American  in  Prospect Heights $$$$ 659 Vanderbilt Ave

This Prospect Heights American spot has transformed its backyard into “Olmsted Summer Camp”. As you might expect from one of our favorite restaurants in the city, their take on camp food is a far cry from the sloppy joes and mostly-defrosted chicken nuggets you may have had as a kid. They’re serving things like wagyu beef corn dogs, dill pickled fried chicken, and corn on the cob with yuzu kosho butter - all of which is available on a first come first served basis Wednesday through Sunday from 5-10pm.

Bierwax $ $ $ $ Bar Food  in  Prospect Heights $$$$ 556 Vanderbilt Ave

No matter how many types of hops you can rattle off the top of your head, or how old you were when you memorized “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots,” you’re going to come across beer and music at Bierwax that you’ve never tasted or heard before. This Prospect Heights beer bar has more than 5,000 vinyl records, and a huge selection of beers that you can order by the can or from the tap. Stop by any day between 4-11pm (1-11pm on weekends), and learn about some new beers and music at one of the first come first served tables in their backyard.

 Gen $ $ $ $ Sushi  in  Brooklyn ,  Prospect Heights $$$$ 659 Washington Ave

The sidewalk seating area at this Prospect Heights spot is open between Tuesday and Sunday from 5-10pm. They have a bunch of different rolls like broiled eel with shrimp tempura, and you can grab a sushi set for $25. Check out their menu, or place your order for pick-up or delivery directly through their website here. You could always escort your sushi set to a shady spot in Prospect Park.

Ciao, Gloria $$$$ 550 Vanderbilt Ave

If you’re looking for a breakfast sandwich good enough to inspire a new poetry section in your diary, head to Ciao Gloria in Prospect Heights. Their PEC (prosciutto, egg, and cheese) comes on a brioche bun with pesto and arugula, and it’s one of the reasons we get out of bed on Saturday mornings. They also have toast options with things like ricotta and avocado on top, plus a large selection of baked goods. You can order at the counter to-go, but you might as well sit on their new curbside patio and stare curiously at sweaty people walking down Vanderbilt Avenue.

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 Noah Devereaux Ode to Babel $ $ $ $ Prospect Heights $$$$ 772 Dean St

Ode to Babel is a Prospect Heights cocktail bar that feels more like a neighborhood clubhouse. They usually host events here that involve live music, and when you stop by for a drink there might be a DJ. The new curbside patio here is huge, so stop by whenever you need some shaved ice, a slushy, or a summery cocktail. Ode To Babel is open from 4 to 11pm, Thursday through Sunday.

The Bakery on Bergen $$$$ 740 Bergen St

For sweets like red velvet cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies with smoked sea salt, try The Bakery on Bergen in Prospect Heights. It’s a Black-owned spot that’s been making sculptural birthday cakes and rainbow brownies in the area for years. Their curbside patio is open from 12 to 11pm daily, but you can also take your order to-go and find a shady spot in Prospect Park.

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 Noah Devereaux LaLou $ $ $ $ Wine Bar ,  Italian  in  Brooklyn ,  Prospect Heights $$$$ 581 Vanderbilt Ave

The wine list at Lalou includes some Eastern European varietals your wine store clerk has probably never heard of, as well as plenty of familiar options from famous regions in France and Italy. In other words, this Prospect Heights wine bar has one of the best natural wine programs in the city. Just grab a seat on their new street patio or in their backyard, and someone from their very friendly staff will help you find something you’ll like. There’s also a straightforward food menu, including things like a cheeseburger on a brioche bun and roast chicken you can try.

 Faun Faun $ $ $ $ American ,  Italian  in  Prospect Heights $$$$ 606 Vanderbilt Ave

Faun is an Italian place, but you won’t find red-sauce classics on the menu here. Instead, expect things like crab ravioli, mezze maniche with pork ragu, and snapper crudo. They’ve also collaborated with a local butcher to serve organic meats that you can enjoy on their garden patio or in the comfort of your own apartment. So if you’re ever in the mood for pork ribs or a nice piece of fish, this is where you’ll find them.

 Teddy Wolff Oxalis $ $ $ $ American ,  Experimental  in  Prospect Heights $$$$ 791 Washington Ave

You’ll come across dishes like smoked skate wings and tomato tart served with whey fudge at this experimental restaurant in Prospect Heights, but you won’t feel like you’re at a fine-dining restaurant. That’s due, in part, to the fact that this is a casual neighborhood spot where you might hear R&B on the speakers and drink a glass of natural wine from Canada. But it’s also because they’ve moved the restaurant to a secluded courtyard right behind their white-walled dining room on Washington Avenue.

 Teddy Wolff Lowerline $ $ $ $ American ,  Southern  in  Prospect Heights $$$$ 794 Washington Ave

There aren’t many places in NYC where you can find incredible New Orleans-style food like seafood étouffée or a perfectly crunchy po boy. But Lowerline is one, and Prospect Heights is extremely lucky to have it. If you’re looking to eat something that’ll make you feel a little better about living in a city where you’re more likely to enjoy your neighborhood than the apartment you spend most of your time in, order their muffuletta sandwich. And since there are only a few sidewalk seats here, be prepared to take it to-go and find a park bench where you can eat in peace.

Ogliastro Pizza Bar $ $ $ $ Pizza ,  Italian  in  Brooklyn ,  Prospect Heights $$$$ 784 Washington Ave

Every neighborhood needs a place where you can take your early-in-the-game quarantine dates, pretend you’ve never been before, and act surprised by the secret patio with string lights and always-available tables. In Prospect Heights, that’s Ogliastro, a neighborhood pizza place with candlelit marble tables and very good margherita pies.

Sofreh $ $ $ $ Persian  in  Prospect Heights $$$$ 75 Saint Marks Ave

Sofreh is a Persian restaurant a few blocks south of Barclays Center that’s nice, but not too fancy. The food is reliably delicious - especially the big tender lamb shank and the various dips that come with housemade bread. They’ve also spaced out the tables on their huge front patio covered in string lights, which makes this the perfect spot to celebrate the success of your new woodworking podcast or turning 30 in quarantine.

 Noah Devereaux Alta Calidad $ $ $ $ Mexican  in  Brooklyn ,  Prospect Heights $$$$ 552 Vanderbilt Ave

Alta Calidad is the best Mexican option in the neighborhood. The spacious outdoor patio tends to reach full capacity on weekends, when they offer an all-day brunch menu. But whenever you find yourself here, remember that you can’t go wrong with a couple of steak or fish tacos and a side of queso loaded with chorizo.

via The Infatuation Feed https://www.theinfatuation.com/new-york/guides/where-to-eat-outside-in-prospect-heights-nyc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://trello.com/userhuongsen

Created August 7, 2020 at 05:42AM /huong sen View Google Doc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xa6sRugRZk4MDSyctcqusGYBv1lXYkrF

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Christine Sloan Stoddard

is a Salvadoran-American author, artist, and the founder of Quail Bell Magazine. Her books include Belladonna Magic: Spells In The Form of Poetry And Photography (Shanti Arts), Water for the Cactus Woman (Spuyten Duyvil), Hispanic and Latino Heritage in Virginia (The History Press), and other titles. Her art and writing have appeared in Ms. Magazine, The Feminist Wire, Bustle, Cosmopolitan, Native Peoples Magazine, Yes! Magazine, Teen Vogue, The Social Justice Review, Marie Claire, and elsewhere. A graduate of VCUarts and The City College of New York-CUNY, Stoddard lives in Brooklyn with her husband and a dead cactus.

Her website is https://WorldOfChristineStoddard.com.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

It came out of an impulse and, now a habit, to share and tell stories. I have two younger siblings and grew up telling them stories. I wrote mini books and magazines, from storybooks to comics to fashion catalogs, and sold them to the little Stoddards for a dime, maybe a quarter for a real tome. Clearly, capitalism had already taken root—though even tiny me had no illusions about getting rich from poetry. Today I continue to write across genres and forms, but poetry is my heart’s song.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My mother. She was the first one to champion reading and introduce all kinds of books to me, including collections of children’s poetry. Shel Silverstein was a beloved poet in my home; I think many people of my generation (and others!) can relate to that. My mother, who is originally from El Salvador and speaks English as a second language, loves British fairy tales and American folklore, so my siblings and I read a lot of poetry in that vein. Apart from her interest in the content, I’m sure my mother was just excited to learn about Anglophone cultures. Her enthusiasm was contagious. I remember her taking U.S. citizenship classes when I was little and reading books with me to practice her English. A collection I still adore from that period is The Real Mother Goose by Blanche Fisher Wright. After all, nursery rhymes are poems! But as much as I credit my mother for infecting me with the reading bug, it was my kindergarten teacher who first encouraged me to write a poem. She sat at the computer and typed up whatever I dictated. I was hooked. Thank you, Mrs. Doud, wherever you are now.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I didn’t think of them as dominating or intimidating. I thought of them as inspiring, even magical. I knew from a young age that I wanted to possess the same spell-binding powers they had. That doesn’t mean I always maintain full confidence in my abilities. I still doubt myself, but I never underestimate the importance of hard work. Elbow grease, baby!

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I write everyday, though it’d be farfetched to call my practice a routine. My process changes day by day, depending upon what else I have to do and where I need to be. I write in various notebooks, on two different computers (not to mention public ones at libraries and wherever else), and even on my phone. As much as I like the idea of forming a ritual, I’m suspicious of cultivating one. I’m afraid it would hinder me from actually writing. My current lifestyle doesn’t allow really allow for a precious routine and I’m fine with that. AmeriCorps and journalism experience taught me to get things done. Deadlines aren’t often discussed in the poetry world, but I do make them a habit in my practice, no matter how many times I have to renegotiate and extend them. I’m always most productive during residencies, when I have “a room of my own,” but that is to be expected. Yet I don’t let less than ideal circumstances prevent me from writing at home. Otherwise, I’d spend very little time actually writing. And I want to write. Truly.

5. What motivates you to write?

This question has always been difficult to answer. Quite simply, it makes me happy, even when it causes me anguish. Trust me, I’m aware of the contradiction. I just have an unstoppable urge to reflect and imagine and express myself. I know that it brings my loved ones a certain amount of pride; those closest to me are amazingly supportive, even when my work puzzles them. And, sure, I’ve earned some recognition and money from my work, too. But my loved ones’ encouragement, awards, social media mentions, press write-ups, and checks are not why I do this. They simply sweeten my circumstances a bit. I’d still do it without any of those perks. This is the folly of every artist.

6. What is your work ethic?

I’ve been told I have an incredible work ethic, at least for when I want to finish my own creative projects. I’m deeply motivated to realize my vision and get my work out into the world. But like many writers, I’m never quite satisfied. So I keep writing and writing, as if there’s any hope of getting closer to the end of the rainbow.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

E.B. White, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Roald Dahl, Marissa Moss, Arnold Lobel, Francine Pascal (and the many Sweet Valley Twins ghostwriters!!)—I owe all of you and so many other children’s and YA authors so much. The writers I read then instilled in me the value of reading and valuing my imagination. I still think back to books I read as a child and teen, no doubt.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Julia Alvarez, Joan Didion, Jamaica Kincaid, and the dearly departed Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou are some of my favorites. Though, truth be told, I’m more of a case-by-case book fan than I am an overall author fan. I admire all of these writers for their commitment to beautiful language and telling women’s stories. I also have to give a shout-out to the Quail Bell Magazine (http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/) family. I started Quail Bell in college and am floored at the community that’s grown from it. This group of artists and writers fires me up! Even textbook introverts like me need community.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I write, but I also make films and visual art. I do some performance-based work, too. I’ve presented my work at the New York Transit Museum, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Annmarie Sculpture Garden-Smithsonian affiliate, the Queens Museum, the Waveland Ground Zero Hurricane Museum, and many other venues. Often, I merge my writing and my non-writing, whatever form that may take. No matter what, it’s all done in service to stories. You can learn more about my other work at http://www.worldofchristinestoddard.com/

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Read. Write. Repeat. Getting published is part of the process of getting read, but it’s not what makes you a writer. Dreaming, thinking, and then putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard is what makes you a writer. It also helps to have a sense of humor. There are going to be rough days, so learn to crack a smile once in a while.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I had two books come out this year! It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, but as publishing schedules changed, it became inevitable. The first book is Belladonna Magic: Spells in the Form of Poetry and Photography from Shanti Arts (https://www.shantiarts.co/uploads/files/stu/STODDARD_BELLADONNA.html) and the second is Desert Fox by the Sea (http://hootnwaddle.com/desertfox/) from Hoot ’n’ Waddle. Belladonna Magic is a collection of poetry and photography first featured in Ms. Magazine, so that alone should clue you in on the feminist nature of the collection. (Though depending upon your perception of feminist art, it will probably challenge any preconceived notions.) The other book, Desert Fox by the Sea, is a collection of short stories and poems that won a fiction competition held by Four Chambers Press in Phoenix, Arizona. Hoot ’n’ Waddle, which was started by a former Four Chambers Press editor, picked up the manuscript when Four Chambers went on hiatus. I first read from the collection at the New York City Poetry Festival in July, the same month Desert Fox by the Sea came out and I’m thrilled to have two celebrations for the book in September. The first celebration will be a reading with guest writers, followed by a meditative journaling session inspired by the works read. That will take place on September 12th at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn (https://www.pw.org/literary_events/desert_fox_by_the_sea_book_launch_meditative_journaling). The second celebration will be a reading with musical and photo accompaniment at on September 22nd (https://www.pw.org/literary_events/desert_fox_by_the_sea_book_celebration_projection_music_show) at Quimby’s Books, also in Brooklyn (because that’s where I live.)

In other news, I’m honored to have my 2018 chapbook The Tale of the Clam Ear (AngelHousePress) (https://www.angelhousepress.com/index.php?Chapbooks) reviewed in the summer 2019 issue of Arc Poetry, the poetry magazine of Canada. I really wasn’t expecting that. It’s a feel-good reminder that people still read chapbooks. My next full-length book due out is Heaven Is A Photograph, thanks to the rad folks at CLASH Books (https://www.clashbooks.com/) It’s a poetry and photography book with one continuous narrative about a young art student’s hesitation to pursue photography and how she overcomes her fears. Heaven Is A Photograph will be available for pre-order at the end of the year and come out in early 2020.

As for what I’m actually writing now? My new policy is that if it isn’t just about out the gate, it’s top-secret. Publishing is an unpredictable business and you never know which press is going to go on hiatus or fold. It’s happened to me more than once before! You can learn about smaller projects as they’re released by following Quail Bell Magazine on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/quailbellmagazine/) I’m constantly publishing pieces there, including this recent poetry film, “Jaguar in the Cotton Field,” (https://vimeo.com/354442971) featuring a poem from my chapbook by the same title.(You can order the chapbook from Another New Calligraphy. http://www.anothernewcalligraphy.com/anc047.html)

2020 is going to be a hoot. I’m damn lucky but I also work damn hard, and I’ll be a writer until I head to the grave. I might even find a way to write from six feet under.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Christine Sloan Stoddard Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

[spamzineglasgow]

Volatile Warmth: An Interview with Pratyusha

Pratyusha’s pamphlet Night Waters recently came out with Zarf editions. Following double launches in London (with The 87 Press event at The Roebuck SE) and Edinburgh (with Zarf at Typewronger Books), SPAM editor Maria Sledmere caught up with Pratyusha to find out more about her work around poetry, translation, geography, memory, lyric voice and influence.

What influenced you (texts, songs, events or otherwise) when you were writing this pamphlet?

There are several influences in the book: Octavio Paz, Parveen Shakir, Barbara Jane Reyes, Gulzar, T. S. Eliot, Anne Michaels, Agha Shahid Ali, Louise Glück, Adonis, A. K. Ramanujan, Etel Adnan, and of course, Mirza Ghalib. Lots of songs as well: Beirut, the ghazals, songs in specific ragas, and M. S. Subbulakshmi’s rendition of the Tamil devotional song குறை ஒன்றும் இல்லை which I grew up listening to. There are too many intercrossings to list.

Several of these poems work with translation: whether in the use of single words or lines across a poem (for instance in ‘bananamap’ and ‘Raga Megha Malhar’), or with Ghalib line translations in ‘nighttime ghalib’. Have you translated much before? What kinds of interpretative surprises occur in the process, does it prompt certain intimacies with the original text that you hadn’t expected?

I've been translating informally for about ten years now, but just haven't sent my work out anywhere because on the rare occasion I do, I always have trouble finding homes for it. It's not as easy to contact a remote subcontinental poet as it is to contact poets here (I translate a lot of Gulzar, and it's impossible to reach him); and well, Ghalib is dead. Most places won't accept poetry without official permission for the translation to be published, and generally I can't even establish contact, let alone obtain permission. It's rather a Eurocentric demand to expect everyone to be contactable over email. And poets in the subcontinent pay tribute to each others' work all the time without pre-established contact (but unequivocal acknowledgement, of course).

Translation is a naturally intimate process, a transcorporeal one. It's an act of osmosis: the language barriers are porous, and they invite fluidity, exchange, interpretation. There is a process, too, of refiguring: I want to find a space between a literal translation and a strong (re-)/(mis-)interpretation. Some words lend themselves more easily to this process than others. Ghazals are difficult to translate because one wants to preserve the beautiful, miniature form of the ghazal, too (accurately keep the radif, qafiya, etc). But I have had to let that go, because keeping the form of a translation can often end up looking farcical in the destination language.

Can you talk a bit about parenthesis in these poems, the way they work as echos, asides, a kind of dialogue? I’m excited by this idea of the ‘echo-poem’ which we spoke of over email, and was wondering if this is something you’d seen in poetry elsewhere before.

I cannot recall specific echo-poems of the sort that I write, although of course, there have always been asides, brackets, afterthoughts in poetry: it's my decision to stage these prominently. In my poems, these echoes are as important as the lines before them. They challenge, bewilder, change... It's not as deliberate a separation as two different speakers engaging, but it hints at a separate dialogic entity within the self, one that's always ready to speak back, one that runs a secondary internal commentary -- of rebuking, mocking, provoking, questioning, suggesting. 

Night Waters is rich with manifestations of process and change: the weather, the monsoon rains, the movement of clouds, the turn of a sunset, the ‘winter greens’. How do the seasons, or other markers of the year (for instance, months, meteorological trends or the astrological calendar) influence your affective orientations towards memory and space/place, and in turn your writing process? Do you, for instance, write better at certain times of year?

Growing up in the countryside and spending a lot of time out of doors, I have always been keen and aware of the changing of seasons: the slightest shift in the air, birds' migrations (and auguries), the skies before a thunderstorm... but of course there are the seasons of inherited memory too, the memories of my grandparents talking about summer (veyil)[1], monsoons (saawan)[2]. I haven't tracked when I write better, or whether that corresponds to the weather. 

Can you talk about some of the choices you made in terms of spacing in the poem ‘Navigation’?

The choices were not deliberate. Some words tumbled together in one word. Others didn't: they pulled distances apart, drifted into spaces, slept in the gaps.

There seems to be a general turn towards the occult across poetry right now, with for instance Rebecca Tamás and So Mayer’s recent anthology, Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry. What are your thoughts on these trends? Do you see your own poetry in any sort of ritual, gift or spiritual tradition? I’m interested in, for example, the way that you use certain forms of lyric address and dedication, but also motifs such as scent, spice and colour.

I'm not sure how to approach occult, because it's not a tradition that I see myself as being part of, and there's not much I know about it. My poetry is embedded in ritual and spirituality, but those come from deeply intimate memories, experiences and traditions that are not part of what I understand as Western occult traditions. I come from a very mixed South Asian/subcontinental heritage and have grown up with an amalgamation of rituals important to different parts of my family, as well as traditions that I have absorbed living in other places. As for scent, spice, and colour – these are simply part of everyday life and figure in my sensory/tactile approach to my writing.

I love this idea of poetry as a kind of ‘warmth’, in terms of expression, community, voice, image. When reading these poems or hearing you performing them, I experience this warmth, this sensory generosity that invites a mutual liveliness. And the way there are these softer, more conversational lines: ‘Didn’t mean to play Beirut again’. Does this idea of warmth or even comfort resonate with your experience in writing itself?

Aloofness in poetry is an interesting trait, but sometimes I wonder if it covers or restricts volatility. For me, the volatility is what makes poetry compelling: it should be like lava, with scattered fragments of tephra, stilling to igneous rock. These flows and stoppages are what carve the landscapes of poetry: these inclusions, fragments, both the gentle softness of certain lines and the heat-current of memories. These come from an instinctive trust, and a place of warmth. The poetry is not confessional, and nor do I intend it to be -- but the lyric voice is one of warmth, of address, of a compelling invitation to share a space. I think that's why lyric draws me in particularly. It is a voice that doesn't shut you out, a voice that insists on building an open landscape and on a visceral level, perhaps as an immigrant, perhaps as a racialised subject, that warmth is very important to me. 

There is such intricacy to this collection: whether you are referencing the miniatures in a visual history of Shah Jahan’s reign, or types of Hindustani classical raga. Do you see lyric poetry as ideally poised to negotiate and even curate different media and cultural histories within the sensory realm of voice? Would you say the forms you are generally interested in reflect this eclecticism?

The lyric voice is intuitively a indication of other times, other tides; I write in the tradition of many others before me. Lyric poetry naturally weaves in references and suggestions of other histories, in art and music, and sometimes those of trauma and memory – Claudia Rankine’s Citizen is perhaps an obvious example that comes to mind; her referencing of both the lynching photographs and of Serena Williams’ matches shows the versatility and embodiment of lyric poetry. The open field of lyric poetry gives us a chance to address and recall histories, to invoke muses that reside elsewhere, or deep within a heritage. Formally, this eclecticism allows for the poetic voice to gain a sort of expansion that assists in remembering, retelling, and reforming.

Could you say a little about the title?

The title comes from my dreams, in which rivers, seas, oceans recur, but often at night, often both inviting and illusory, both impenetrable and protective. In these dreams, as in this book, I traverse journeys: this book becomes a canoe, these words become a river. The waters of my life: the Hooghly River, the Mahim Bay, the Rhine River, making their crossings. 

Finally, I was wondering if you could shout out to any other poetry pamphlets you’ve read and loved that were published this year?

I really liked Callie Gardner’s Naturally It Is Not, which is a full-length book, and Dominic Hale’s Time Zone, Imogen Cassels’ Arcades, Maria Sledmere’s Existential Stationary; I look forward to reading Nina Mingya’s Field Notes on a Downpour.

~

You can purchase a copy of Night Waters from Zarf editions here. 

[1] In Tamil

[2] In Hindi

[richardlowejr]

How Has Writing Changed Your Life? [Roundup]

Writing has changed my life dramatically. It’s given me a purpose for living and let me fulfill my passion while making an income.

I wondered how writing has affected other people, so I asked a few of them:

How has writing changed your life?

Here are their unedited responses.

Click on a photo to go directly to the author’s Facebook page.

Kyle Waller

Writing changed my life because it saved it from a knife dancing too close to my throat in my own hand. Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, I mean every word. No, I won’t redact it because it’s the truth. I should not be alive to write this, my Depression should’ve been the end of the story back in 2009 when I was thirteen. Writing is one of the things, one of my core passions, that kept me going. The days were dark, but the nights of solace by a candle and a dimly lit computer, creating my universes, my characters and fashioning a world from nothing- it was serenity in a sea of entropy- my one saving grace. I shouldn’t be here to tell you about my novels coming out that bring Mental Illness into the spotlight, but here I am. I share this all freely because we lose people every, single, day, that we don’t need to. Everyone knows someone who battles with Mental Illness… I will tell my story, the world will hear it, and if it saves but one life, then all the effort is worth it. In short: I write because I do not have a choice.

Facebook: Kyle Waller

Clare Flynn

Unexpectedly it has provided me with the income I’d been hoping my pension would bring. So I’ve not needed to draw my pension. I realise this is unusual and I’m very grateful. I wake up each morning happy and raring to go. I love writing and telling stories. I particularly love getting emails from readers telling me how my books have affected them. Sometimes I wish I’d started this long ago – but I have no regrets and I loved my previous professional life. But I don’t have time to do all the painting I planned!

Website: Clare Flynn

Chris N Jerri Schlenker

I started writing in retirement. It has grounded me and given me purpose in that I hope my writing is touching lives in a positive way. I strive for my writing to be inspirational. One of the best compliments I ever received was from a lady telling me they were reading my book Sally to a bedridden relative and it was giving her such pleasure. She was recounting her own past to them. Writing about Sally was one of my main reasons for beginning my writing journey. Sally lived from 1858 to 1969, born into slavery. I met her when I was 8 in 1961.

  Bonnie Dillabough

This is an interesting question, since from my standpoint I can hardly remember a time when I wasn’t writing. So has writing changed my life? I do know this. That I can’t imagine a life without it and my imagination is pretty active.

When I was 8 years old I wrote a 28 line rhyming poem entitled, The Christmas Alphabet, which I then performed for the church Christmas party. I was particularly fascinated by poetry and music, so it seemed a natural thing to write songs. I was never the one to count the number of words in my assigned stories in school, since my stories always exceeded the minimum number of words.

In high school I was named the Poet Laureate of the school in my freshman year. My winning poem was featued in a yearly publication called “The Albatross”. In my senior year I wrote a musical play based on the stories of Dr. Seuss.

Over the years I have written newspaper articles, stories, plays, songs, blogs as well as many reports and whitepapers.

How has writing changed my life? From a young child it enabled me to indulge my creative flights of fancy. It allows me to express things that I can do in no other way. It allows me to organize my thoughts and draw the pictures that my lack of artistic talent wouldn’t allow otherwise.

It gives me great satisfaction to see my words on paper and makes me happy when my words have a positive impact on someone. It allows me to keep a record for my children and grandchildren.

And, now that I am finally writing a novel, it allows me to hopefully give others the joy I feel when reading books by the authors I love.

Website

Jo-Anne Blanco

Writing has always been a part of my life, one way or another. As a young child, teenager, student, then as an English language teacher and university tutor travelling and working around the world, I had always written stories, essays, and diaries of my travels, although I never published anything until last year. Writing is part of my being, part of myself; the epic historical fantasy series I am currently writing has been over a decade in the making. My father’s illness and having to give up my teaching career to become a full-time carer led to me taking a correspondence course in creative writing, which in turn gave me the courage to embark upon the novel writing I always wanted to do. The greatest way in which writing has changed my life is that it has helped me develop this new courage to put my work and myself out into the world like never before.

Before I published my first novel, I had no internet presence, no social media accounts. I never posted on internet forums or the like. I was never afraid to travel the world, to go backpacking in the remotest areas, or to live and work in countries where I knew no one and didn’t speak the language. Yet I was still chronically shy, deeply insecure, and lacked confidence in myself and my abilities. Writing and publishing, networking and making contacts, and gradually reaching readers and reviewers who like my work is helping me overcome my insecurities to become a more confident and complete person. I am now acquiring new computer and tech skills of which I was previously unaware or which I believed I would be unable to master. I love my work, I love my book series, I love my protagonist and her supporting characters, and I love that the new-found confidence writing and publishing has given me is finally allowing me to share them with the world.

Website: jo-anneblanco.com

Bjørn Larssen

Writing saved my life. I used to work as a blacksmith until spine injuries ended my career. The pain was so excruciating that despite maximum doses of painkillers I could still only sit in one position…which luckily allowed me to use the laptop. I started working on my first novel on January 1st, 2017. Since then the pain has largely disappeared, but I will never be able to forge again. If it weren’t for the writing, I don’t know whether I would be around. It allowed me to escape my body and immerse myself in stories.

It doesn’t end there. When the pain allowed me to get on a plane, I visited Iceland for research for a few days. I did not expect to fall in love with the country to the point where I spent all of April 2018 there, made friends, saw as much as I could, and became determined to move there one day. Because there is so much left to be seen. Writing gave me a reason to live, and then showed me how fantastic life still can be despite the fact I can’t work at the forge anymore. What was my plan B became a huge part of my life. I am finishing the first novel, drafting the second, outlining the third. Two years ago I thought this was it for me. Now? I have to go on living, I am busy, there are so many more stories I’ve got to write!

Blog: www.bjornlarssen.com

Stephen Schneider

So far, writing hasn’t changed it much other than keeping me busy and a lot of free time being taken up with writing, I haven’t published yet but am close

Website: sa-schneider.com

Christopher Kaufman

That’s a difficult question to answer. I have been writing and composing music all of my life. It is what my life is. The question might be, how would ‘not’ having been a creative artist changed my life? However, I would then have no answer because it would not have been my life at all!

Website: soundartus.com

  Robin Leemann Donovan

I’ve always been a control freak, working hard to maintain a tight reign on as many aspects of my life as possible. When I started writing my first novel, I designed a process and built a timeline, allowing myself little leeway. As the writing progressed it became evident that I was not controlling the process, rather the process was controlling me. I would often find myself at points in the plot where I didn’t know what would happen next, yet I kept writing. I would often look back and be surprised at what had been written, sometimes an event that didn’t exist a few minutes earlier, and sometimes a memory from deep within my brain that found its way out and onto the page. That is probably why writing novels is one of the most relaxing things I do. I let myself go and let my subconscious take over – and I love the freedom it gives me.

Website

Donna Leigh Mysteries

Facebook

Paty Jager

I don’t worry as much anymore. I know that sounds strange, but early in my marriage my husband was a truck driver. Every time he’d be gone for several days, I’d have accident scenarios running through my head all day long. If family were coming to visit, I’d have visions of bad things happening to them. When I started writing, all of that went away because I had an outlet for my imagination.

Website Blog Facebook Page Amazon Pinterest Twitter Goodreads

Lionel Snell

I was quite good at writing stories at school – until I went for maths and higher maths at A level. My writing went to pot, because I had been drilled in a system of communication where every statement can only be a logical deduction from the previous one. Different from science – where the initial statement has to be one that is objectively ‘true’ and the final story also has to ‘prove’ itself by producing results under laboratory conditions.

In writing there is much less logical constraint and, in fiction writing, the initial statements do not even have to be objectively true. In that sense, maths is more like fiction, because you often begin with a statement that is pure fantasy, such as ‘consider a perfect circle’ – where the atomic structure of matter says that there can never be such a thing as a perfect circle. But writing, like science, does need to ‘prove’ itself – not under laboratory conditions but in the reader’s mind or life.

So if I write: “Let us create a garden as they did in Findhorn, by consulting the local devas” then I am starting like a mathematician, not like a scientist (who would require proof that devas ‘exist’). But, unlike a mathematician, the final test would be whether the reader liked what I wrote and, above all, whether following my idea and acting ‘as if’ devas existed resulted in a really super garden.

That is the way I learned to write, and how it changed my life.

Website

Wendy Jones

For me writing was a lifesaver, or at least saved me from dying of boredom. Terminal boredom. I took early retirement on health grounds. For someone who worked every hour God sent, this was a bit of a shock. I started writing a book and my life changed completely. The first book was a step on my future journey. Little did I know just where that journey would take me.

In the past four years I have published nine books, edited two and have another coming out in the next two weeks. I have written books for adults, young adults and children, spoken at national and international conferences, started my own crime conference, Crime at the Castle, and present a radio show. I am also the President of the Scottish Association of Writers, secretary of the Society of Authors in Scotland, webmaster for the Association of Christian Writers and Scottish convenor of the Crime Writers Association. I have made friends too numerous to mention and I can honestly say I am no longer bored.

Website

Amazon Author Page

Twitter 

Facebook

Roz Morris

To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve always written, so you might as well ask what I did before I breathed. When I was at school, I wrote, but nobody else did so I thought I was peculiar for enjoying it. Later there was a phase when I wrote but thought I wasn’t doing it ‘properly’ because I did not have the means to become an author. And then, reader, I married an author. Suddenly every new person I met had a book they were writing. That was what I needed.

So I don’t think writing changed my life. I think my life gradually caught up with the writing.

Where to find me – Twitter @Roz_Morris

Website Book

Sydney Segen

As I drove to work one morning in Southern California, time suddenly stood still. An ultra-bright image of dazzling skies flashed in front of my eyes, and a compelling idea popped into my brain: I would start writing children’s novels. Weird? Yes. But it did happen, and I did quit my day job, and I did become a writer.

My career careened among fascinating clients: Zondervan Publishing House, San Diego Zoo, American History Museum, Scholastic, Aneuser-Busch, Inc., The White House, and more. I’m still having so much fun that it’s hard to believe people actually pay me to have a good time. Of course, there were times with no work; I took a ten-year hiatus to work at the University of California; life happened, and I wrote my way through it. Writing not only changed my life, it became my life. And now that I’m old, I just won’t quit.

Facebook: Hope After Trauma and PTSD; Truth Be Told Website: SydneySegen.com

Blog: http://sydneysegen.com/blog/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1984917153/

Helen Prochazka

There are so many ways that writing has changed my life. I love that being an indie author has:

Enabled me to start a new career that can be a global one… in a job that has no retiring age.

Taught me patience and persistence… especially when dealing with software and technology.

Given me the intense pleasure of achieving a long term goal… then realising the work doesn’t stop when the book is published.

Shown me that the days of being an introverted quiet achiever are over… I need to put myself out there to succeed.

Allowed me to discover that I could write poetry… The Mathematics Book contains 14 mathematical poems.

Taught me to be humble in the true sense of the word… and learn to accept compliments graciously.

Given me the opportunity to fulfil my childhood dream of working as a graphic designer… albeit an unpaid one.

Let me interact with indie booksellers… and finding that they are passionate big dreamers just like indie authors.

Exposed me to new people and ideas, even when home alone… it’s akin to travelling.

Provided me with a chance to make a difference… particularly to maths phobic adults!

Facebook Website

Brenda Haire

Writing has changed me and my life in so many ways. My book, Save the Butter Tubs!: Discover Your Worth in a Disposable World is a very personal journey of discovering my worth through writing my grandmother’s story. I absolutely feel I am doing what I was called to do. My goal is to help others discover their worth and transform their lives and legacy.

There was a significant time in my life where I felt absolutely worthless. I still have days, moments where I have to remind myself of whose I am and that He has called me to something bigger than myself. My worth isn’t determined by what I do, it is determined by my Creator. Just like the value of a Van Gogh painting isn’t determined by whose house it hangs in, but by the creator.

I believe that our gifts are the way our soul expresses itself and I am thankful to be able to fully express myself through my writing, speaking, and coaching. For the first time, I feel fully alive! I am doing things I once only dreamed about!

Brenda Speaker, Coach, Author of Save the Butter Tubs: Discover Your Worth in a Disposable World

http://www.BrendaHaire.com http://www.facebook.com/brendaahaire http://www.instagram.com/brendaahaire http://www.twitter.com/brendahaire http://www.pinterest.com/brendaahaire

Walter Boomsma

Writing has changed my life by making me a clearer thinker and a better communicator. But I also think it works both ways. Good thinkers and communicators are destined to write. Good writers are destined to become better thinkers and communicators.

http://wboomsma.com

      James Lawless

It has made me more sedentary and sometimes gives the feeling that while you are analyzing life, you are not always living it.

Website

        Erin McIntyre

Writing has added a new dimension to my life and reinvigorated my childhood imagination. It may take away most (okay, all) free time when not at the day job, but it’s certainly worth every moment. Knowing I’ve built a world for others to lose themselves in is the greatest reward and fills me with a true sense of accomplishment.

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  Bronwen Griffiths

Writing has given me a purpose in life and even though I often write about difficult social issues such as war and refugees, writing has made me a happier person. Perhaps it’s because writing enables me to immerse myself in the subject and find resolution – which sometimes cannot be found in ‘real’ life.

My website is at: www.bronwengriff.co.uk

Here you can find my blog posts, flash fiction and poems.

  Dixie Maria Carlton

How has writing changed my life? This is a question I ponder from time to time. Usually when I’m talking with others about the difference between being a professional speaker or thought leader, and a professional writer. As a writer, I’m able to locate what’s really in the deeper recesses of my mind and bring those thoughts and ideas to the front, and either share them or refine them.

Writing affords me the opportunity to explore topics of non-fiction and to develop my story telling skills in fiction. I get to get things out of my head and into something tangible what ever it is that I’m writing at any time and for any reason. When you consider the popular idea of doing that which you love and would do without reward because it is an integral part of who you are, for me, I realise that quite simply, I am a writer.

Now, I’m blessed to work in a way that helps other writers to bring their words to life, for the benefit of others. To explore their stories and how best to share them. What a privilige, what a joy that is!

www.authorityauthors.com.au

  Carol Cooper

For a start, I have a notebook to hand at all times, even by my bed, in case an idea pops into my head. However, the most significant changes have been in my working routine.

As a writer, I’m able to work for myself and pick my hours, deadlines permitting. I can choose my workplace too. All I need is a bit of quiet and comfort. Writing is the ultimate portable occupation, especially if, like me, you use pencil and paper for the first draft.

But it’s not all lounging about on a comfy sofa waiting for inspiration to strike. Writing is, as the saying goes, ten per cent inspiration and ninety per cent perspiration, and I believe in working at it just as in any other job.

There’s also been an effect on those around me. As a doctor, I’m used to complete strangers describing their symptoms. Now that I’m also a writer, people seem compelled to share their life story, begging me to include at least some of it in my next book. I haven’t yet, but maybe one day I will…

facebook author page (fiction) Carol Cooper’s London novels https://www.facebook.com/onenightatthejacaranda/ instagram https://www.instagram.com/drcarolcooper/ website www.drcarolcooper.com blog Pills and Pillow-Talk twitter @DrCarolCooper

Author information

Richard Lowe Jr

Owner and Senior Writing at The Writing King

Richard is the Owner and Senior Writer for The Writing King, a bestselling author, and ghostwriter. He's written and published 63 books, ghostwritten 20+ books, as well as hundreds of blog articles.

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[firsttimesinceaugust]

Bob’s Boots Released – Free and Live Streaming

Well, it took some doing, but I have finally released Bob’s Boots, a collection of studio outtakes, demos and live recordings from the 1980s, a kind of official bootleg, hence the title.  I had planned to release it commercially but in the end, I decided to make it a free download.  I have all this material kicking around and I just want to get it out there, give it new life.  Some of the production values are quite good, others not so much, in true bootleg form.

You can listen to Bob’s Boots here for free

You can also download the entire album onto you hard drive, gratis.

As I put the project together, I made notes on each track and have also written a bit about those times, when I was out there trying to make it as a folksinger.  All of that information follows, below.  Thanks for listening.

Notes on Bob’s Boots

In 1984 I released an LP called First Time Since August and moved first to Toronto, then Alberta and finally Ottawa as I tried to make my mark as a folk singer. I finally realized that a real sustaining career for me as a musician was not in the cards, and gave up that little dream in the late 1980s.  Looking back now I have no regrets for pursuing it, but the same can be said for giving it up.  Musicians need to travel constantly, and I never would have been able to be away from my kids when they were growing up.  I also lost the desire to perform, so for me, the decision was a good one. (The truth is, I always suffered from stage fright, and there was never a time I felt comfortable up there.) Incidentally, it has been about 25 years since I picked up the guitar.  I simply have no desire to do so, and these days my creative outlet is writing poetry and also recording spoken word versions of it.

However, while I was working as a musician, I continued to write and also to record.  All these years later, I find that I have a lot of unreleased recorded material, including live stuff, demos, studio outtakes and material I had begun to compile for a second LP.  Over the past year or so, I have been thinking about releasing some of it, as a kind of official bootleg, hence the title, Bob’s Boots.  I am referring to it as such as most of the material has decent production values but it is not up to snuff for an official release, certainly by today’s standards. A couple of the tracks are a bit rough, but I felt the material was good enough to use them anyway.  

My career, if I can call it that, was a pretty minor one. I did play a few festivals, but for the most part I performed mostly in bars and coffee houses in Alberta, Ontario and the Maritimes.  Some of the clubs were pretty rough.  I recall a huge fight in a bar in Edmonton one night while I was playing, and I just kept singing.  Actually, I think that that was less distracting than the TV was during hockey playoff season.  I also played a bar in small-town Saskatchewan that was so rough I worried every night that someone would come up on stage and attack me.  There was another gig where I shared the stage with a middle eastern group and belly dancer at a restaurant called 1001 Nights. I would do a set, and then the belly dancer and her band would do one.  We rotated. The strangest gig I was ever offered was performing at some kind of underground sex club when I was in San Francisco.  I turned it down, not so much because of the nature of the venue, as because I didn’t think I could pull it off with my brand of music in that kind of environment.

One of the gigs I remember most fondly was during my hobo days.  There was a little health food restaurant in Whitehorse, Yukon called Annabelle’s, run by a very nice couple.  I had the house gig there.  The terms were that I would play at supper every night, with no sound system, and my payment was $25.00 per show, plus supper and the use of their barn for my crash pad.  And so I lived in a barn and had supper covered and some spending money.  It was just the greatest.  I did play other gigs around Whitehouse as well, including the fabled Kopper King that Stan Rogers wrote about, and a place called Foxy’s.  I also worked at the Taku Restaurant with a cook who later murdered a patron because he insulted the food, one of the town’s now-legendary murders.  I used to argue with the guy all the time.  Little did I know.

Some of the gigs were raucous, colourful, to say the least. I recall playing the Cameron House in Toronto back in the days when it was still a punk rock bar.  That was character building.  There was also a gig I had in Sackville, New Brunswick where I would get so drunk I couldn’t remember the last set I had performed when I’d wake up the next morning.  Some of the places I played are still there, like the Cock & Bull pub in Montreal, The Cameron House and Café on the Park in Toronto and a one hundred-plus year-old tavern in New Brunswick that is currently called George’s Roadhouse.

I also busked all over the place, from Alaska to San Francisco and New York City; Saint Louis, Toronto, Montreal, and many other towns and cities, and that was where a lot of my material came from, i.e. the experience of emulating my hero, Woody Guthrie.  It was all a bit of an adventure, especially hitch hiking around the US.  There were a few times when I feared for my life.

What follows are some comments on each of the tracks on this recording should anyone be interested.  I do not see myself ever performing live music again, although I did perform my spoken word poetry at a festival in England in August of 2018 and have been invited back.  Other offers are coming in and I can see myself continuing to do this. Thank you for listening.

Bob Jensen

Prince Edward Island, October 5th,, 2018

 1.      Mary Mack – This track is a traditional song I learned many years ago from an old John Allan Cameron record, and which appears on First Time Since August.  This version was recorded at the Bonaventure Lodge in New Mills, New Brunswick in the spring of 1984.  It was a great night.  The place was packed to the rafters and they sold every last bottle of beer and wine in the joint and gave us a nice bonus at the end of the night.

 2.      Nova Scotia Breeze – Recorded at Rasputin’s Café in Ottawa on August 13th, 1987 by CBC Radio.  While the song is called Nova Scotia Breeze, the imagery is actually from Charlo, New Brunswick, and I am not quite sure if they eat fiddle heads in Cape Breton.  I am accompanied by Tim O’Ray on harmonica and Gerry Pizzarella on fiddle.  I don’t know whatever became of Tim.  Gerry was a Cape Breton fiddler who died a few years back.

 3.      The Coast of Peru – A stunning whaling ballad from England that I learned from an old Chris Foster LP from the 1970s called Traces, which to this day of probably the finest recording of English trad I have ever heard. Live from Rasputin’s.

 4.      The Ritz Café – The Ritz was a real place and the words tell the story, such as it is.  This also appeared originally on First Time Since August.  The Canadian folk singer Valdy used to perform this song in concert and threatened for years to record it, but alas, never did.  From Rasputin’s.

 5.      William Casey And Jackie the Liar – My one and only murder ballad.  The imagery comes from what I observed while traveling and working out west and up north. Rasputin’s.

 6.      Your Deep Blue Eyes and the Sea – First recorded for First Time Since August, this live version is also from Rasputin’s. I always felt that this was one of my better songs and I like this version more than I do the studio one did for the LP. The imagery comes from my hoboing days in San Francisco and Tampa, Florida.

 7.      Christmas Song – Another Rasputin’s version of a song from First Time Since August.  The song has since been recorded by Zimbabwe’s Black Umfolosi and that version is set to be released on a Christmas recording I am planning that will feature poetry, stories and a little music.

 8.      First Time Since August – From Rasputin’s.  I wrote this when I was 18, thinking back to my first big hitchhiking odyssey, a 10,000 mile trek across Canada the previous summer.

 9.      Fiddle Tunes – Also from Rasputin’s, Gerry lets loose on this one and I try to keep up on the guitar.  I tried to find out the names of these tunes but was unsuccessful.

 10.   Marilyn – This was recorded by Peter Perkins in Dalhousie, NB in 1983 or 84 on a Tascam 4-track studio.  I played rhythm guitar and peter played lead, bass and sang backup. The cheesy drums were programmed. While the production values are a bit rough on this, I really like the way it came out.  Marilyn was a prostitute I came to know in Edmonton.  She used to work the streets near one of the clubs I played frequently, and she and her colleagues would come in to warm up and listen to me.  I wonder whatever became of her.

 11.   Lazy Bob’s Lament with band – The vocal track for this was recorded for First Time Since August.  An old friend of mine from junior high school, Rejean Arsenault, took the vinyl and rerecorded the track and then proceeded to record all the other instruments around it.  He then emailed it to me out of the blue a couple of years ago.  I was absolutely delighted.  I never even considered that this song could be anything other than a cappella, so I was completely surprised by his treatment of it.  That was a very kind thing he did, and was much appreciated.

 12.   Haulin’ For Logs – was recorded at Happy Rock Studios in Ottawa in the late 1980s for a second LP that I never did end up making. I grew up in a mill town, Dalhousie, NB, and when we were kids there were always tugs on the harbour pulling and collecting pulpwood.  I believe I wrote this back in the late 80s while I was visiting home.  The mill is gone now, and all the tugs with it.

 13.   Illegitimate Love Song – I wrote this in San Francisco, a bitter song about being hurt by love, also from Happy Rock in Ottawa.

 14.   Thunder Bay Blues – The third song from Happy Rock Studios in Ottawa.  Sandy was my blood brother.  One night when were kids, drinking, we actually cut our thumbs and pressed them together, something you don’t hear much about in modern times.  Sandy and I went through a lot together, including some hard traveling.  He died of an overdose in his early twenties.  He was an intense and a beautiful guy, but he had some demons I could never figure out.  

 15.   Drunken Sailor – Another song recorded at the Bonaventure Lodge in northern New Brunswick in 1984, with my old friends Kevin Tremblay on bass and Kirk Guitard on the whistle.  

 16.   Daddy’s Little Boy – I didn’t know how to fit this one in, so I’m calling it a bonus track.  When my first child was born, I would rock him and sing to him.  Over time, I made up this little song, which I ended up singing to all three of my kids.  It was recorded on a $200.00 ZOOM H2N mic in my office in 2018.  It is nothing like anything else I ever wrote, but because of what it is and how it came to be, I think it is, in a way, music in its purest form, an expression of love for a child, created to comfort him. Music doesn’t get any more real than that.

 Recording Information

 Tracks 1 and track 15 were recorded live on a Tascam 4-track studio at the Bonaventure Lodge in New Mills, NB in the spring of 1984 by Peter Perkins.  Track 15 features Kevin Trembly on bass and Kirk Guitard on whistle.

Tracks 2 through 9 were recorded live at Rasputin’s Café in Ottawa on August 13th, 1987 by CBC Radio and used under license and with kind permission.  

Track 10 was recorded on a Tascam 4-track studio by Peter Perkins in Dalhousie, NB 1983.  Bass guitar, lead solo and backing vocals by Peter Perkins.

Track 11 was originally recorded a cappella for the LP, First Time Since August, which was released in 1984.  Rejean Arsenault produced this version of the track and played all the instruments on it as well, in Quebec in 2015.  Original a cappella vocal track was recorded at Son Art Studio in Campbellton, NB in 1983 by Daniel Beaulieu.

Tracks 12, 13 and 14 were recorded at Happy Rock Studios in Ottawa by Ross Murray in the mid to late 1980s

Track 16 was recorded by Bob Jensen on a ZOOM H2N Handy Recorder digital mic in 2018

All tracks written and copyright by Bob Jensen except for tracks 1, 3, 9 and 15, all of which are traditional and in the public domain.

Bob Jensen’s music is published by SGO in Salisbury, UK. The SGO catalogue is represented globally by BMG. For more information please call +44 (0)1747 871563 or email sgomusic@sgomusic.com

Cover designed by Bob Jensen and Jon Weaver

Special thanks to Jon Weaver, a trusted colleague and a valued friend

First Time Since August is distributed by CD Baby and Amazon.com

Copyright 2018 

[char27martin]

For the Love of Writing: 25 Wordsmiths Explain Why They Write

[Can you impress us in 1500 words or fewer? Enter the Short Short Story Competition today! Deadline January 15, 2018]

Last month, we called for our readers to share the motivations behind their wondrous words and reasons behind their love of writing—via Facebook, the hashtag #WhyWeWrite on Twitter, and via a writing prompt. From hundreds of heartfelt responses, we sprinkled some throughout the February 2018 issue of Writer’s Digest—but saved even more to share here!

Note: The names associated with each response are usernames from the respective platforms on which our readers responded. If you recognize your work and would like to see this article updated with your real name or linked to your website, please let us know in the comments on this post.

Arianna Rostron

I am my characters and my characters are me, but we are very different versions of each other. I am not so brave as my detectives and elvish warriors, nor am I as witty and sly and beautiful as my cheerleaders and renegades. I write to become those versions of myself. I write to sink into those souls and skins and be reborn under a different, unfortunately fictional, sun. A sun that promises brighter fates and futures. I write to be reborn into my fictitious realms and universes, which hold adventure and magic and everything else that I lack.

I am an angsty teen with extravagant ideas that I condense and place onto a page. I realize my poems are dark and painfully real. I realize my stories are wild and far-fetched and very unrealistic, but these are the things that develop my style. Reality is cold and unforgiving. Writing, however, is anything you want it to be. Writing is freedom, love, bravery. Writing is death, pain and sorrow. Whatever direction you want your stories to go in. Writing is a way of forming thoughts into deep, magical words that pierce the human psyche.

I’ve always been obsessed with stories and how they are written and rewritten. I have considered myself a writer for a very long time. In elementary school, I was told by multiple teachers that I “have a gift.” Many of them thought I had been helped by my parents when we would receive writing assignments.

I remember in third grade, we were writing short stories that were maybe a hundred words long. It was the first story I’d written. Mine was about an undercover superhero named “Dead-man” and his dog, Mutton Chop. I was so proud when my teacher asked me to display it for all the parents to see at the open house. By the next year, I was writing up to four hundred words and by the time I was “graduating” from my elementary school in sixth grade, I was already planning to write a novel.

That first attempt at a novel, obviously, fizzled out quickly and I began leaning more towards poetry. Towards the end of seventh grade I ended up with one of my poems published in a book.

Writing is a way of escape. To break away from the suffocating and dreary world around me, or sometimes, to forever encase my sorrows amongst many others in a notebook or journal or diary. Writing, for me, is like the emergency exit of living. I write because I know that even when nobody will listen to me and hear my voice, the paper will never reject my pen.

When I write, my words can’t get twisted into something they are not. My words belong to me and, of course, anyone who wishes to read them. But they are still my words. I am an artist. I am a storyteller. I am a poet. I am an author. I am a writer.

Cosi van Tutte

Why do I write?

I write with the hope that my words and characters will make other people laugh and cry and cheer and hope and dream.

I write because the “All I Ask Of You” reprise from the Phantom of the Opera musical made me think “I want to write something emotional like this.” And I am always striving towards that goal.

I write for the sheer joy and fun of it. It is my way to relax at the end of every day. I write because if I don’t write, my stories will never be told. My characters’ voices will never be heard. And my worlds will remain unexplored.

Audratheauthor

I am a child of the 1970s who grew up in a blue-collar section of a New Jersey suburb. I clearly recall the first time I realized that the world saw me as different, as less than, because of the color of my skin. I remember how that one comment snatched me viciously out of my childhood bubble. I remember questioning my worth, even though my parents told me over and over again that nothing anyone says changes my worth, unless I let it. I didn’t know how to process this. I had so many emotions. So I sat down and wrote as fast as my little 8-year-old hands would let me. I remember how my rage poured out onto the page. I threw the paper aside and cried. Then I went outside to play. A few days later I happened to read what I wrote and I couldn’t believe those words came from me. That’s when I realized that there is this well of love and wisdom and acceptance deep inside me that knows exactly what to say to me when I am hurting or sad or just can’t seem to make sense of what is going on, but I can only hear what it wants to tell me when I write. So, I write to share my well with the world.

Gamingtheblues

The heart and soul of a writer lives in the words on the page, regardless of subject, intent, style or theme.

This has been my mantra, my understanding, of reading and writing for many years now. I believe that writing will tell you more about the writer than any words that ever come out of their mouths, whether the author wills it or no.

Writing like all forms of art, is ultimately about expression. The expression of thoughts, ideas, and emotion. Through reading and writing, we as humans can connect on a deeper level than what can be accomplished through almost any other means. Regardless of time, space, circumstance or any other typical barrier to empathy and understanding, there is truth on the page. You can feel my heart, see inside and understand the essential “me.” And I you …

A.B. Funkhauser

I came to writing later in life and only after a big-ticket moment that knocked everything into place. Suddenly, I had a lot to say and couldn’t stop saying it. All wonderful, because I’m a gonzo at heart, and gonzo characters can get away with so much more than I can in “real life.”

A.J. Kidding

I write, because I want to reach the end of my imagination and then break through it. Writing helps me lose or find myself, depending on what I need to feel, and when I need to feel it … it gives me the chance to live thousands of lives in thousands of realities, exploring every possible scenario no matter how grandiose or minuscule it might be. Through the order I put my words on paper, I can create everything and look from the eyes of it all.

To me, writing is a superpower like no other; it can be art, it can be a simple instruction or it can be a weapon. I write not because it gives me the power of a god, but because it makes me feel human. I write because I should, I write because I can, because I must. I have tried not writing on purpose, and I didn’t last long; writing is an itch that can be scratched only by itself. It’s a question and an answer at the same time. I write, because it helps me live, not simply exist. I love it. I hate it. I am disappointed in it, and I am also proud of it. Writing is a mental mirror, an extension of yourself that helps you communicate with the pure reflection of what your soul is.

I think, therefore I write.

Anonymous

Writing is fun. I love the challenge and excitement of sitting down at my computer (the panster writer in me) and allowing my imagination free rein to spill out a story. Isn’t imagination a wonderful thing? It’s also a great way to relive pieces of my life and weave them into a nonfiction or fiction story. I enjoy the adventure of panster writing, but I’m learning that plotter writing can be incredibly freeing as well.

Douglas E. Baker

I write because that is when I am most myself and least myself. I pick the subject from my mind and heart, I gather the words from my mind and ear, but I write from a stream that flows from beyond me or deep within me. I may hate to begin writing, I may love to have written, but I definitely live in the space between the two.

[6 Fiction Writing Exercises to Try When You’re Traveling]

Wassim Drissi

I write to discover myself. The words I put down tell the tale my speech can never seem to capture.

Tysheena Jackson

I think Victor Hugo summed up my writing experience when he said this: “A writer is a world trapped inside a person.”

Kerry Charlton

A bitter January wind swept across a cemetery just East of Weatherford, Texas.

My wife and four daughters walked a grassy knoll to Leslie‘s burial site. My fourth

daughter’s casket lowered quietly to a freshly dug grave. Tears came of course along with Leslie’s message which pounded my mind, “Dad, write about your life, we know so little about you. Please do it for me. Don’t worry, I’ll be safe with Jesus.”

I had written reports, business letters and memos for 40 years. I started, five

days later, to write about my childhood summers at Avalon, on the Jersey coast.

My writer’s voice, awkward and clumsy, described a young boy’s wonderment of a summer’s vacation.

Through my tears, I allowed a small smile as I felt the sea breeze brush across my face, the smell of the ocean and the touch of damp sand as it worked it’s way between my toes. 60 years of my life vanished as if it never existed.

In the still of a morning bathed in first light, a vow I made.

Abufas

Why do I love writing?

In a way, that is a complicated question. Why? Because I haven’t been writing all that much. Sure, I’ve written in one form or another over the years. There is the painfully boring technical writing that has been a part of my career. But I wouldn’t call that creative in any sense, and I certainly don’t love it. And then of course there is the agonizing over an unsent email or text message to my ex. Did I word it adequately? Are there any unintentional triggers in there that will result in a couple hundred more dollars going my lawyer’s direction?

Lord knows that writing needs to be creative, but again I don’t love it.

So I guess that is why, here in the middle of my life, I am exploring new paths for my writing. But I am just getting started back up again, and have not done much at all. I have simply committed to do it, or at least committed to try.

Do I love writing? If I were honest I would say, I don’t know yet. But I can say with confidence that I love the idea of writing.

JRSimmang

Once upon a time …

People can’t fly.

We can’t disappear with a puff of electric grey smoke.

We can’t slay dragons, we can’t teleport, we can’t be brought back from the brink of death with a kiss, and we certainly can’t call on a fairy godmother when our true love turns out to be a toad.

So sat I, adolescent and full of hormonal strife and teenage angst, on my bed with the lights turned off and the windows open. I ripped a piece of paper from my science notebook and penned a letter to the universe. I confessed my anger and asked why it was that my arms were too long and face too oily and that when I spoke sometimes the wrong words came out but I didn’t dare say I did anything wrong because it would mean that some part of me hurt someone else and that I sometimes fantasized about walking through the walls and into the forest that ran alongside the football field and finding a hole and becoming a mole person and learning how to see things in the dark so that I wouldn’t have to trouble anyone anymore and the more I wrote, the more I realized that my friends had said the same things.

And we laughed about it at lunch. And, my mom and dad assured me that maybe a kiss can’t bring us back from the dead, but it can certainly make us feel alive, and I saw the words on the page as a beginning.

And today, with my adolescent awkwardness pinned to my lapel, I am still beginning. I write because I know somewhere there’s someone else who needs to hear my words because they are stuck—glued to the pavement and they need to hear that people can take to the skies. I write because I slayed a dragon. I write because fairy tales and warp drive can be as real as the air we breathe. Our words are our echoes, and I write because I can only shout so loud with my voice.

Writer’s Digest Digital Archive Collection: Iconic Women Writers

For nearly 100 years, Writer’s Digest magazine has been the leading authority for writers of all genres and career levels. And now, for the first time ever, we’ve digitized decades of issues from our prestigious archives to share with the world. In this, the first of our series of archive collections, discover exclusive historic interviews with classic women authors including Maya Angelou, Pearl S. Buck, Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates and Joan Didion—and much, much more. Featuring five stunning issues spanning more than 60 years, this collection is perfect for writers, literary enthusiasts, educators and historians. Explore what’s inside.

Destinymoore

My entire life people have always asked my why I write. I never really know what reason to tell them, besides the fact I simply just enjoy it. When growing up you would always see me with a pen and paper, just jotting down little things. It was sixth grade when I had decided to take up writing. We had just found out that my grandfather had cancer and I didn’t take the news so well. My counselor suggested I start keeping a journal, so I could write how I felt at every giving moment. Since that moment writing just stuck with me. I took journalism in high school and I haven’t stopped writing since. It’s my way to escape to my own world.

@JaniceFDyer

When I talk, awkward garbage spills out. When I write (and rewrite!) I’m elegant and precise.

@lylenaestabine

When I write, truths that aren’t usually heard are given a place, a face and a purpose.

@kaufmannskrimis

I can’t compose music & my dancing career is over, but I can compose and choreograph words on pages. When it’s good, the words dance & sing.

@EidolonRowe

I love writing because, after I write, I can then read the story that I want to read.

@KatieRoseWrite

It forces me to condense my thoughts and document things most meaningful to me.

@LauraPerri13

I write not only to prove I was here, but so I can look back and see a book in my life.

Anne Wagonseller B

The post For the Love of Writing: 25 Wordsmiths Explain Why They Write appeared first on WritersDigest.com.

from Writing Editor Blogs – WritersDigest.com http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/fun/for-the-love-of-writing-25-wordsmiths-explain-why-they-write

[yes-dal456]

Kin By Mania: The Bond I Feel With Other Bipolar People Is Inexplicable

She moved like me. That’s what I noticed first. Her eyes and hands darted as she talked — playful, acerbic, digressive.

We talked on past 2 a.m., her speech breathless, crackling with opinion. She took another hit from the joint and passed it back to me on the dorm suite couch, as my brother fell asleep on my knee.

Siblings separated at birth must feel this way when meeting as adults: seeing part of yourself in someone else. This woman I’ll call Ella had my mannerisms, giddiness, and fury, so much so that I felt we were related. That we must share common genes.

Our talk went everywhere. From hip-hop to Foucault, Lil Wayne, to prison reform, Ella’s ideas branched. Her words were torrential. She loved arguments and picked them for fun, like I do. In a dark room, if lights were tied to her limbs, they’d dance. So did she, around the suite she shared with my brother, and later, on a pole in the taproom of a campus club.

When bipolar people meet, we find an immigrant intimacy, a solidarity. We share a suffering and a thrill.

My brother’s roommate gave me pause about myself. I found Ella exhilarating, but exhausting — bright but reckless, possessed. I wondered, feared, if this is how people felt about me. Some of Ella’s opinions seemed hyperbolic, her actions extreme, like dancing naked on the college green or flicking off cop cars. Still, you could count on her to engage. To react.

She had an opinion, or at least a feeling, about everything. She read voraciously and was fearlessly herself. She was magnetic. I was struck that my brother with his laidback, practical, frat-bro spirit, got along so well with Ella, who was excitable, artsy, and absentminded.

None of us knew it that night I met Ella in Princeton, but within two years she and I would share something else: a stay in a mental hospital, meds, and a diagnosis we’d keep for life.

Alone, together

The mentally ill are refugees. Far from home, hearing your mother tongue is a relief. When bipolar people meet, we find an immigrant intimacy, a solidarity. We share a suffering and a thrill. Ella knows the restless fire that is my home.

We charm people, or we offend them. That’s the manic-depressive way. Our personality traits, like exuberance, drive, and openness, attract and alienate at once. Some are inspired by our curiosity, our risk-taking nature. Others are repelled by the energy, the ego, or the debates that can ruin dinner parties. We are intoxicating, and we are insufferable.

So we have a common loneliness: the struggle to get past ourselves. The shame of having to try.

Bipolar people kill themselves 30 times more often than healthy people. I don’t think this is just because of mood swings, but because manic types often wreck their lives. If you treat people badly, they won’t want to be near you. We can repel with our inflexible focus, our impatient tempers, or our enthusiasm, that egocentric positivity. Manic euphoria is no less isolating than depression. If you believe that your most charismatic self is a dangerous mirage, it’s easy to doubt that love exists. Ours is a special loneliness.

Yet some people — like my brother, who has several bipolar friends, and the women I’ve dated — don’t mind bipolarity. This type of person is drawn to the chattiness, the energy, the intimacy that’s as intuitive to a bipolar person as it is beyond her control. Our uninhibited nature helps some reserved people open up. We stir some mellow types, and they calm us in return.

These people are good for each other, like anglerfish and the bacteria that keep them aglow. The manic half gets things moving, sparks debate, agitates. The calmer, more practical half keeps plans grounded in the real world, outside the Technicolor insides of a bipolar person’s skull.

The story I’m telling

After college, I spent years in the rural countryside of Japan teaching elementary school. Nearly a decade later in New York, a brunch with a friend changed how I saw those days.

The guy, I’ll call him Jim, worked the same job in Japan before me, teaching at the same schools. Sempai, I’d call him in Japanese, meaning older brother. The students, teachers, and townspeople told stories about Jim everywhere I went. He was a legend: the rock concert he performed, his recess games, the time he dressed as Harry Potter for Halloween.

Jim was the future me I wanted to become. Before meeting me, he’d lived this monk’s life in rural Japan. He’d filled notebooks with practice kanji — row after patient row of characters. He’d kept a daily vocabulary list on an index card in his pocket. Jim and I both liked fiction and music. We had some interest in anime. We both learned Japanese from scratch, among the rice paddies, with help from our students. In the countryside of Okayama, we both fell in love and had our hearts broken by girls who grew up faster than we did.

We were also a bit intense, Jim and I. Capable of fierce loyalty, we could also be detached, steely, and cerebral in a way that chilled our relationships. When we were engaged, we were very engaged. But when we were in our heads, we were on a distant planet, unreachable.

We are good for each other, like deep sea fish and the bacteria that keep them aglow. The manic half gets things moving, sparks debate, agitates.

At brunch that morning in New York, Jim kept asking about my master’s thesis. I told him I was writing about lithium, the drug that treats mania. I said lithium is a salt, dug from mines in Bolivia, yet it works more reliably than any mood-stabilizing drug. I told him how manic depression is fascinating: a severe, chronic mood disorder that is episodic, recurrent, but also, uniquely, treatable. People with the mental illness at the highest risk of suicide, when they take lithium, often don’t relapse for years.

Jim, now a screenwriter, kept pushing. “What’s the story?” he asked. “What’s the narrative?”

“Well,” I said, “I’ve got some mood disorder in my family … “

“So whose story are you using?”

“Let’s pay the bill,” I said, “I’ll tell you while we walk.”

The upside

Science has begun to look at bipolar through the lens of personality. Twin and family studies show that manic depression is roughly 85 percent heritable. But no single mutation is known to code for the disorder. So recent genetic studies often focus instead on personality traits: talkativeness, openness, impulsivity.

These traits often appear in first-degree relatives of people with bipolar disorder. They’re hints as to why the “risk genes” for the condition run in families, and were not weeded out by natural selection. In moderate doses, traits like drive, high energy, and divergent thinking are useful.

This doesn’t mean that mania brings genius. What mania inspires is chaos: delusional confidence, not insight.

Writers at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, like Kurt Vonnegut, had higher rates of mood disorder than the general population, one classic study found. Bebop jazz musicians, most famously Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, and Charles Mingus, also have high rates of mood disorder, often bipolar. (Parker’s song “Relaxin’ at the Camarillo” is about his stay at a mental asylum in California. Monk and Mingus were both hospitalized, too.) The book “Touched with Fire” by psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison retrospectively diagnosed many artists, poets, writers, and musicians with bipolar disorder. Her new biography, “Robert Lowell: Setting the River On Fire,” describes art and illness in the life of the poet, who was hospitalized for mania many times, and taught poetry at Harvard.

This doesn’t mean that mania brings genius. What mania inspires is chaos: delusional confidence, not insight. The ramble is often prolific, but disorganized. Creative work produced while manic, in my experience, is mostly narcissistic, with distorted self-importance and a careless sense of audience. It’s rarely salvageable from the mess.

What research does suggest is that some of the so-called “positive traits” of bipolar disorder — drive, assertiveness, openness — persist in bipolar people when they are well and on medication. They appear also in relatives who inherit some of the genes fueling manic temperament, but not enough to cause the ragged, swerve-y moods, the sleepless energy, or the giddy restlessness that defines manic depression itself.

Brother

“You’re kidding me,” Jim said, laughing nervously, as he bought me a coffee that day in New York. When I’d mentioned earlier how many creative people have mood disorders, he’d hinted — with a sideways smirk — that he could tell me plenty about that from his experience. I hadn’t asked what he meant. But as we walked up the nearly 30 blocks to Penn Station from Bond Street, he told me about his rocky past year.

First, there were the hookups with female colleagues. Then the shoes he filled his closet with: dozens of new pairs, expensive sneakers. Then the sports car. And the drinking. And the car crash. And now, the past few months, depression: a flat-line anhedonia that sounded familiar enough to chill my spine. He’d seen a shrink. She wanted him to take meds, said he was bipolar. He’d been rejecting the label. This was also familiar: I’d avoided lithium for two years. I tried to tell him he’d be OK.

She wanted him to take meds, said he was bipolar. He’d been rejecting the label. This was also familiar: I’d avoided lithium for two years.

Years later, a new TV project brought Jim to New York. He asked me to a baseball game. We watched the Mets, kind of, over hotdogs and beers and constant talk. I knew that at his fifteenth college reunion, Jim had reconnected with a former classmate. Before long, they were dating. He didn’t tell her at first that he was buried under depression. She learned soon enough, and he feared she’d leave. I’d written emails to Jim during that period, urging him not to worry. “She understands,” I insisted, “They always love us for how we are, not despite.”

Jim gave me the news at the game: the ring, the yes. I pictured a honeymoon in Japan. And hoped, in this too, that sempai had given me a glimpse of my future.

The family madness

Seeing yourself in someone else is common enough. If you’re bipolar, this sense can be all the more uncanny, as some traits you see can match you like a fingerprint.

Your personality is largely inherited, like bone structure and height. The strengths and faults it’s laced with are often two sides of one coin: ambition bound to anxiety, a sensitivity that comes with insecurity. You, like us, are complex, with hidden vulnerabilities.

Theirs is a family I’m proud to be part of: curious, driven people, chasing hard, caring intensely.

What runs in bipolar blood is not a curse but a personality. Families with high rates of mood or psychotic disorder, often, are families of high achieving, creative people. People with pure bipolar disorder often have a higher IQ than the general population. This is not to deny the suffering and suicides still caused by the disorder in people who don’t respond to lithium, or those with comorbidities, who fare worse. Nor to minimize the struggle still faced by the lucky, like me, in remission for now. But it is to point out that mental illness, very often, seems to be a byproduct of extreme personality traits that are often positive.

The more of us I meet, the less I feel like a mutant. In the way my friends think, talk, and act, I see myself. They are not bored. Not complacent. They engage. Theirs is a family I’m proud to be part of: curious, driven, chasing hard, caring intensely.

Taylor Beck is a writer based in Brooklyn. Before journalism, he worked in labs studying memory, sleep, dreaming, and aging. Contact him at @taylorbeck216.

The original article appeared on Healthline.com

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from http://ift.tt/2qG2c0U from Blogger http://ift.tt/2qGvkoL

[imreviewblog]

Kin By Mania: The Bond I Feel With Other Bipolar People Is Inexplicable

She moved like me. That’s what I noticed first. Her eyes and hands darted as she talked — playful, acerbic, digressive.

We talked on past 2 a.m., her speech breathless, crackling with opinion. She took another hit from the joint and passed it back to me on the dorm suite couch, as my brother fell asleep on my knee.

Siblings separated at birth must feel this way when meeting as adults: seeing part of yourself in someone else. This woman I’ll call Ella had my mannerisms, giddiness, and fury, so much so that I felt we were related. That we must share common genes.

Our talk went everywhere. From hip-hop to Foucault, Lil Wayne, to prison reform, Ella’s ideas branched. Her words were torrential. She loved arguments and picked them for fun, like I do. In a dark room, if lights were tied to her limbs, they’d dance. So did she, around the suite she shared with my brother, and later, on a pole in the taproom of a campus club.

When bipolar people meet, we find an immigrant intimacy, a solidarity. We share a suffering and a thrill.

My brother’s roommate gave me pause about myself. I found Ella exhilarating, but exhausting — bright but reckless, possessed. I wondered, feared, if this is how people felt about me. Some of Ella’s opinions seemed hyperbolic, her actions extreme, like dancing naked on the college green or flicking off cop cars. Still, you could count on her to engage. To react.

She had an opinion, or at least a feeling, about everything. She read voraciously and was fearlessly herself. She was magnetic. I was struck that my brother with his laidback, practical, frat-bro spirit, got along so well with Ella, who was excitable, artsy, and absentminded.

None of us knew it that night I met Ella in Princeton, but within two years she and I would share something else: a stay in a mental hospital, meds, and a diagnosis we’d keep for life.

Alone, together

The mentally ill are refugees. Far from home, hearing your mother tongue is a relief. When bipolar people meet, we find an immigrant intimacy, a solidarity. We share a suffering and a thrill. Ella knows the restless fire that is my home.

We charm people, or we offend them. That’s the manic-depressive way. Our personality traits, like exuberance, drive, and openness, attract and alienate at once. Some are inspired by our curiosity, our risk-taking nature. Others are repelled by the energy, the ego, or the debates that can ruin dinner parties. We are intoxicating, and we are insufferable.

So we have a common loneliness: the struggle to get past ourselves. The shame of having to try.

Bipolar people kill themselves 30 times more often than healthy people. I don’t think this is just because of mood swings, but because manic types often wreck their lives. If you treat people badly, they won’t want to be near you. We can repel with our inflexible focus, our impatient tempers, or our enthusiasm, that egocentric positivity. Manic euphoria is no less isolating than depression. If you believe that your most charismatic self is a dangerous mirage, it’s easy to doubt that love exists. Ours is a special loneliness.

Yet some people — like my brother, who has several bipolar friends, and the women I’ve dated — don’t mind bipolarity. This type of person is drawn to the chattiness, the energy, the intimacy that’s as intuitive to a bipolar person as it is beyond her control. Our uninhibited nature helps some reserved people open up. We stir some mellow types, and they calm us in return.

These people are good for each other, like anglerfish and the bacteria that keep them aglow. The manic half gets things moving, sparks debate, agitates. The calmer, more practical half keeps plans grounded in the real world, outside the Technicolor insides of a bipolar person’s skull.

The story I’m telling

After college, I spent years in the rural countryside of Japan teaching elementary school. Nearly a decade later in New York, a brunch with a friend changed how I saw those days.

The guy, I’ll call him Jim, worked the same job in Japan before me, teaching at the same schools. Sempai, I’d call him in Japanese, meaning older brother. The students, teachers, and townspeople told stories about Jim everywhere I went. He was a legend: the rock concert he performed, his recess games, the time he dressed as Harry Potter for Halloween.

Jim was the future me I wanted to become. Before meeting me, he’d lived this monk’s life in rural Japan. He’d filled notebooks with practice kanji — row after patient row of characters. He’d kept a daily vocabulary list on an index card in his pocket. Jim and I both liked fiction and music. We had some interest in anime. We both learned Japanese from scratch, among the rice paddies, with help from our students. In the countryside of Okayama, we both fell in love and had our hearts broken by girls who grew up faster than we did.

We were also a bit intense, Jim and I. Capable of fierce loyalty, we could also be detached, steely, and cerebral in a way that chilled our relationships. When we were engaged, we were very engaged. But when we were in our heads, we were on a distant planet, unreachable.

We are good for each other, like deep sea fish and the bacteria that keep them aglow. The manic half gets things moving, sparks debate, agitates.

At brunch that morning in New York, Jim kept asking about my master’s thesis. I told him I was writing about lithium, the drug that treats mania. I said lithium is a salt, dug from mines in Bolivia, yet it works more reliably than any mood-stabilizing drug. I told him how manic depression is fascinating: a severe, chronic mood disorder that is episodic, recurrent, but also, uniquely, treatable. People with the mental illness at the highest risk of suicide, when they take lithium, often don’t relapse for years.

Jim, now a screenwriter, kept pushing. “What’s the story?” he asked. “What’s the narrative?”

“Well,” I said, “I’ve got some mood disorder in my family … “

“So whose story are you using?”

“Let’s pay the bill,” I said, “I’ll tell you while we walk.”

The upside

Science has begun to look at bipolar through the lens of personality. Twin and family studies show that manic depression is roughly 85 percent heritable. But no single mutation is known to code for the disorder. So recent genetic studies often focus instead on personality traits: talkativeness, openness, impulsivity.

These traits often appear in first-degree relatives of people with bipolar disorder. They’re hints as to why the “risk genes” for the condition run in families, and were not weeded out by natural selection. In moderate doses, traits like drive, high energy, and divergent thinking are useful.

This doesn’t mean that mania brings genius. What mania inspires is chaos: delusional confidence, not insight.

Writers at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, like Kurt Vonnegut, had higher rates of mood disorder than the general population, one classic study found. Bebop jazz musicians, most famously Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, and Charles Mingus, also have high rates of mood disorder, often bipolar. (Parker’s song “Relaxin’ at the Camarillo” is about his stay at a mental asylum in California. Monk and Mingus were both hospitalized, too.) The book “Touched with Fire” by psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison retrospectively diagnosed many artists, poets, writers, and musicians with bipolar disorder. Her new biography, “Robert Lowell: Setting the River On Fire,” describes art and illness in the life of the poet, who was hospitalized for mania many times, and taught poetry at Harvard.

This doesn’t mean that mania brings genius. What mania inspires is chaos: delusional confidence, not insight. The ramble is often prolific, but disorganized. Creative work produced while manic, in my experience, is mostly narcissistic, with distorted self-importance and a careless sense of audience. It’s rarely salvageable from the mess.

What research does suggest is that some of the so-called “positive traits” of bipolar disorder — drive, assertiveness, openness — persist in bipolar people when they are well and on medication. They appear also in relatives who inherit some of the genes fueling manic temperament, but not enough to cause the ragged, swerve-y moods, the sleepless energy, or the giddy restlessness that defines manic depression itself.

Brother

“You’re kidding me,” Jim said, laughing nervously, as he bought me a coffee that day in New York. When I’d mentioned earlier how many creative people have mood disorders, he’d hinted — with a sideways smirk — that he could tell me plenty about that from his experience. I hadn’t asked what he meant. But as we walked up the nearly 30 blocks to Penn Station from Bond Street, he told me about his rocky past year.

First, there were the hookups with female colleagues. Then the shoes he filled his closet with: dozens of new pairs, expensive sneakers. Then the sports car. And the drinking. And the car crash. And now, the past few months, depression: a flat-line anhedonia that sounded familiar enough to chill my spine. He’d seen a shrink. She wanted him to take meds, said he was bipolar. He’d been rejecting the label. This was also familiar: I’d avoided lithium for two years. I tried to tell him he’d be OK.

She wanted him to take meds, said he was bipolar. He’d been rejecting the label. This was also familiar: I’d avoided lithium for two years.

Years later, a new TV project brought Jim to New York. He asked me to a baseball game. We watched the Mets, kind of, over hotdogs and beers and constant talk. I knew that at his fifteenth college reunion, Jim had reconnected with a former classmate. Before long, they were dating. He didn’t tell her at first that he was buried under depression. She learned soon enough, and he feared she’d leave. I’d written emails to Jim during that period, urging him not to worry. “She understands,” I insisted, “They always love us for how we are, not despite.”

Jim gave me the news at the game: the ring, the yes. I pictured a honeymoon in Japan. And hoped, in this too, that sempai had given me a glimpse of my future.

The family madness

Seeing yourself in someone else is common enough. If you’re bipolar, this sense can be all the more uncanny, as some traits you see can match you like a fingerprint.

Your personality is largely inherited, like bone structure and height. The strengths and faults it’s laced with are often two sides of one coin: ambition bound to anxiety, a sensitivity that comes with insecurity. You, like us, are complex, with hidden vulnerabilities.

Theirs is a family I’m proud to be part of: curious, driven people, chasing hard, caring intensely.

What runs in bipolar blood is not a curse but a personality. Families with high rates of mood or psychotic disorder, often, are families of high achieving, creative people. People with pure bipolar disorder often have a higher IQ than the general population. This is not to deny the suffering and suicides still caused by the disorder in people who don’t respond to lithium, or those with comorbidities, who fare worse. Nor to minimize the struggle still faced by the lucky, like me, in remission for now. But it is to point out that mental illness, very often, seems to be a byproduct of extreme personality traits that are often positive.

The more of us I meet, the less I feel like a mutant. In the way my friends think, talk, and act, I see myself. They are not bored. Not complacent. They engage. Theirs is a family I’m proud to be part of: curious, driven, chasing hard, caring intensely.

Taylor Beck is a writer based in Brooklyn. Before journalism, he worked in labs studying memory, sleep, dreaming, and aging. Contact him at @taylorbeck216.

The original article appeared on Healthline.com

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://bit.ly/2rbtU9q

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

 According  to Bill Shute at Kendra Steiner Editions:

“Los Angeles poet Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozabal, widely published in the alternative poetry world, is one of the most respected American poets among his peers, the quiet shaman of contemporary poetry, a man who speaks clearly and precisely and beautifully on the page, whose work radiates beauty and wisdom, but who has no need to raise his voice or to indulge in cheap shock effects and theatrics.

Between 2007 and 2016, Luis published six chapbooks with KSE—-MAKE THE LIGHT MINE (KSE #364), DIGGING A GRAVE (KSE #174), OVERCOME (KSE #141), WITHOUT PEACE (KSE #59), KEEPERS OF SILENCE (KSE #82), GARDEN OF ROCKS (KSE #103)—-as well as doing a duo chapbook with Ronald Baatz, NEXT EXIT: SEVEN (KSE #100), and appearing in two KSE multiple poet collections….LAST POEMS (KSE #115) and POLYMORPHOUS URBAN: POEMS FOR LOU REED (KSE #272).”

The Interview

What inspired you to write poetry?

In High School I had an English class where I was introduced to American Poetry. I read Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Frost, Carl Sandberg, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, e e cummings, and other writers. Edgar Allan Poe was perhaps my favorite, because I also liked his short stories. As the years have gone on, I find myself drawn to international poets, Spanish language poets, and song writing poets, such as Dylan. I started off writing songs to and for someone I loved in my late teens. Since there was no music to these words, I was told they seemed more like poems.

Life, mundane things, social issues, almost anything I find worth writing about inspires me to write poems.

Who introduced you to poetry?

Indirectly, it was probably my father who introduced me to poetry. Our house was a house of books; too many books for someone who might hate books. My father had books from some of the best Mexican poets and Spanish language poets. He had books by Octavio Paz, Sor Juana de La Cruz, and Nahuatl poetry. I would go to the bookshelves and read whatever I wanted. He also introduced me to Mexican singer, Agustin Lara, whose words were poetry. There were books by Shakespeare and ancient poets, such as Horace, on the shelves as well. I did not get into Shakespeare until the end of High School and College.

How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I have been aware of the older poets since the beginning. It seems like the poets I like best are no longer with us. This is nothing against living poets. Throughout my life I have read so many poets and I have so many favorite poets in no definitive order. The list is endless: Federico Garcia Lorca, Cesar Vallejo, Miguel Hernandez, Pablo Neruda, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Fernando Pessoa, Julio Cortazar, Rainer Maria Rilke, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Robinson Jeffers, Charles Bukowski, Alfonsina Storni, Henri Michaux, Jorge Luis Borges, Du Fu, Li Po, Basho, Czeslaw Milosz, Nicanor Parra, Nazim Hikmet, Luis Omar Salinas, Leonard Cirino, and Alejandra Pizarnik. There are so many others. We can learn so much from the past and words of those who have come before us.

What is your daily writing routine?

I write every day. There is no real routine. I write whenever I find the time. I usually write when there is complete quiet in the house and everyone is asleep. Sometimes I write with music playing. It could be classic rock, alternative rock jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, however I am feeling. I try to read a lot more than I write.

What motivates you to write?

I write to get things off my chest. Reading the poetry of poets I admire, motivates me to write. Social issues, what is going on in the wold, motivates me to write.

What is your work ethic?

I probably write too much. I do not edit my work as much as I should. If I write something I do not like, I write something new and try to improve what I wrote before.

How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I found that the language of poetry has been a great influence. I quiet enjoy the surrealism and nature in poetry, the way Edgar Allan Poe writes of the sea, the way Walt Whitman wrote of nature, the way Cesar Vallejo wrote of the human condition, the way Garcia Lorca wrote of the moon and rivers; the colors in the landscape. I am learning more now than when I was young. Poetry is ever evolving and reading something written long ago now is like discovering something new. I wish there were more translators in the world to make the work of poets from all over the world more accessible. When I was in college I read the poetry of the Beat Generation, the prose and poetry Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg, the work of William Burroughs. I was influenced by the stream of consciousness method of writing. If I was more disciplined and more patient, perhaps I would try and write novels. However, I prefer to write poetry.

Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

One of today’s writers I greatly admire is Robert Edwards from the state of Washington. His poems on social issues are excellent. He uses surreal language, striking images, and speaks through the voice of working people in the struggle of the working class. Glenn Cooper from Australia is another poet I admire. His poetry could be funny, sad, and clever. His prose poetry books, Emancipator and Hum the Song of the Dead Grass are quite original. He observes what he sees and puts observations down on the page in surprising juxtapositions and word-play.

Why do you write?

I write because I enjoy it. Through writing I can unleash any tension I have inside. I let my fear, my pain, my anger, my joy, everything I feel inside— out.

What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I would tell them anyone can become a writer. I would tell them to get themselves a library card and start checking out some books. I would tell them to read voraciously.

Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I have no current projects at this moment. I am writing all the time. I probably have enough material for a chapbook or two, but I have no offers and I have not solicited my work to any press. My last chapbook was over 2 years ago. If it was not for the kindness of Bill Shute at Kendra Steiner Editions, I probably would have less work available. He has published at least 7 of my chapbooks, including one that was co-written with Ronald Baatz. I had stopped submitting work for the past few years. I had been submitting to only about 6 to 8 journals for the past several years. This summer I was diagnosed with cancer and had to have surgery. The surgery was successful. I am currently cancer free. The surgery and scare kicked my butt. I have been writing more often and submitting more frequently to different journals. I figure if I might kick the bucket sooner than I planned, I might as well do the thing I love, and that is to write, and to share my words with readers and other writers. In the past three months I have submitted poetry to over 50 journals I have never sent work to before. I have lucked out with getting acceptances in about 10 new places. I have also sent out work to journals that have been kind enough to publish my poetry over the years.

  Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.