Magical Memoir Moments
Playing and Working: Launching a Book while Helping to Launch Children
If what you love to do most is learn, then your work can always be play. And if the book you make is about childhood, what better way to learn and work than to play with children? That’s what Stuart and I have been doing this week. Here are our two teachers and playmates. Meet…
Were Every Stalk on Earth a Quill: Hymn Singing As Transcendence
Did you grow up singing hymns in church? For me, almost nothing stirs my soul like a hymn, especially those sung in four parts with other singers who are listening carefully to each other. This love of music started early in my life. I wrote about learning to sing a cappella music in my memoir…
Halfway Home: Adding a New Prize to the 100 Day Challenge
Thanks to one of my most creative and generous online friends, Kathleen Foster Friesen, I can offer you a new icon for this journey we are taking together toward the launch of Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World. Here’s the news on the 100 Day Challenge. To celebrate the half-way mark, the Bird-in-Hand…
Praising Herald Press: A Birthday Guest Post for Jane Friedman
I’m on my way out the door on my birthday. I’m celebrating in two locations today. First, there was breakfast at the Prince Street Cafe in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Then I discovered that I had a guest post over on Jane Friedman’s blog. So that was another reason to celebrate, and to share with you here….
It Takes a Village to Write a Memoir: Returning to Lititz, Pennsylvania, Cool Small Town
I grew up on a farm, but I come from a village. This village, commemorated on a plate that rests in my dining room: Today I write in praise of Lititz, Pennsylvania. I attended Warwick High School, worked at Stauffer’s Market, and attended Lititz Mennonite Church. Most of the drama of my teenage years…
Getting Ready for Half Time: Taking a Time Out in the 100 Day Challenge
I can’t believe that we are almost fifty days away from the launch of Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World You’ve been wondering whether I would keep blogging daily for 100 Days, haven’t you? Me too. I want to give you a break and myself a break. And I want to prepare to…
Eileen R. Kinch: Quiet Poet with a Strong Voice
Is your life out of control? Do you want to simplify? Take Eileen Kinch as your teacher. I met Eileen at the Mennonite(s) Writing VI conference last spring, 2012. She struck me as wise beyond her years and willing to stand for something contrary and beautiful in this hectic world. Of course, those of you…
If I Should Die Before I Wake: Why I Wrote A Mennonite Memoir
When I think of dying, I think of Henry David Thoreau who famously said that he went to the woods to avoid dying without living. He had a pessimistic assessment of how many other people managed to avoid that fate: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. I’ve known my share of quiet…
Connecting Through the Power of Love and Forgiveness: Two Mennonites at Breakfast
I invited Jim Smucker to breakfast at Mr. J’s Bagels, within walking distance of both our houses, this morning. I wanted to say thanks to him for agreeing to sponsor the Sweet and Sour food collection as a prize to the person who wins the 100 Day Challenge. Jim has recently moved to Virginia and…