Magical Memoir Moments
Living in a State of Grace: What I've Learned from Maya Angelou
When you read this, I will be in the air on my way home to Virginia. So this will be a very short post. I loved this interview with Maya Angelou posted by my author friend Carolyn Butts and posted on her blog several weeks ago. Here’s how it starts: Living In A State of…
Storytellers: Memoir Encounters at the Grand Canyon
When you come to Phoenix in July, it’s wise to to what the natives do. Get out of town. Go north. My two “sabbath” days from this blog were spent in the amazing desert/canyon/mountain country of Northern Arizona. Saturday was Sedona and Sunday was the Grand Canyon. Sedona The red rocks rose right up out…
Good-Bye Phoenix: Signing Out For a Few Days
As another Mennonite Convention ends, I am saying goodnight to the excitement of five days spent in worship, meetings, reunions, and conversation. In times past I have attended the convention as a representative of Goshen College. This time I just moved around the halls as the spirit led me, meeting relatives, former students and colleagues, …
Making New Friends at the Mennonite Church-USA Convention: Lakota and Choctaw Women
Yesterday, Independence Day, I felt an inward nudge to visit the Native Mennonite American Ministries booth here at the Mennonite gathering in Phoenix. I wanted to know more about Mennonites who are also Native Americans. Writing my memoir Blush has brought more awareness about the long history of this great land. Six generations of my…
Happy Independence Day: Memoir Photo, Report, and Check-In
Every memoir includes some things and leaves some things out. The picture above didn’t make it into Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets the Glittering World, so I’m sharing it now. My family will be gathering tonight with my sister Doris on top of the hill of what used to be called The Home Place to…
An Inspiring Gift Leads Me to Ask for Your Memoir Help
Today’s New Beginning just happened to me. And I did nothing to ask for it. It was like grace. Unmerited and free. Did you know that when you pre-order a book on Amazon you can share the news on Facebook and Twitter? Today one of my Facebook friends, Renee Nofzinger Quistorf, did that. Then she…
Tobacco: An Unlikely Mennonite Crop and a Source of a Memoir Excerpt
“Stop,” I cried. “I need to take a picture of that.” My dear husband turned the car around and allowed me to jump out long enough to take the photo above. It brought back some vivid memories. One of the earliest stories I wrote when I started my memoir concerned my early career as a…
Mennonite Dancing! It Ain't Pretty, But that's Okay
Mennonite prohibitions included dancing, television, and movies. When my gym teacher taught a class unit on dancing, I had to turn in a note sent by my mother excusing me for religious reasons. Those classes spent with one other lonely Mennonite classmate on the wooden bleachers were some of the longest fifty minutes in high…
A Lancaster County Wedding: Celebration of Faith, Family, Friendship, and Farming
Our niece Valerie, the youngest of my mother’s grandchildren, married her sweetheart Nate yesterday. The whole family labored for months to restore an old mill to a usable space, mow the grass, pump out the overflow from the creek, pick the flowers for centerpieces, put up and take down chairs, tent, and then get dressed…