Writers
The Censorship Issue
Freedom of expression. It’s a basic human right guaranteed to each and every one of us by the United Nations. But does this freedom in reality truly exist?
Read MoreThe Primordial Dreams of Aron Wiesenfeld
Many artists enter the dream world, but few can so inhabit it as to give us not only its semblance but the meaning of the dream. Wiesenfeld’s genius lies both in the interiority of his figures and in the exteriority of his dreamscapes.
Read MoreThe Stories We Tell And The Ones We Don’t
I write selfishly. I comfort myself with my own words so that I don’t have to wait for someone else to ask me how I am feeling or what I am thinking. I don’t write so that after I am gone, people will remember me. I write so that I can remember me while I’m still here.
Read MoreIs Writing Poetry Akin to Taking a Shamanic Journey? Interview with Ruth L. Schwartz, Ph.D.
“After having personally practiced shamanism, shamanic healing, and shamanic journeying for more than half a century, I can say that there is nothing I have encountered in reports of the spiritual experiences of saints, prophets, psychedelic drug experimenters, near death survivors, avatars and other mystics that is not commonly experienced when following classic journey methods using a drum.”
—Michael Harner, The Foundation for Shamnic Studies
Lauren Berry: The Lifting Dress
As award-winning poet Lauren Berry takes us through the after-effects of the sexual trauma experienced by her young narrator, the reader is chilled by the depth of the girl’s vulnerability. But then there is another layer which the author weaves in with equally potency: the growing sense that here is a girl who, despite everything, remains the narrator of her own self-identity. Colorful and eccentric and steeped in lush, figurative language, this story, however difficult, is unmistakably her own.
Read MoreWhen You’re Stuck in the Middle of the Muddy Muddy Puddle
When it comes to learning how to tune down the inner critic, the affects can be far-reaching: Not only can you free yourself up to be more spontaneous and adventurous with the project you’re working on, but, as Krug points out, the benefits can often extend to other areas of your life as well.
Read MoreNovelist Heidi Durrow: The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
I think all of us in some way or another are unknown to ourselves. We know parts of who we are but there as other aspects of ourselves that are constantly still being revealed. The book is about how events and people in our lives help create us and make us the story of who we are.
Read MoreA Poet Talks About Fatherhood
It happened quite naturally. I liked to quote lines of poetry for them. Once when we were visiting the Atlantic coast and watching the waves crash and the sea spray spouting up, I quoted a favorite line from Hart Crane’s poem, “The Dance”: “what laughing chains the waters wove and threw.” My children never forgot that. Several years later when looking at another wild body of water, they would remind me of that same line.
Read MoreHal Sirowitz, poet: You Can Thank His Dad for That Dry Wit
“I do think Americans take themselves too seriously. Just turn on the TV and count how many programs are contests – cooking, sports, singing and dancing, finding a house, a spouse. I suggest that once a year the major networks televise a sports game where both sides don’t keep score. Or broadcast a cooking show where the cooks make one big meal instead of competing against themselves to see who can make the better individual meal.”
Read MoreThe Lies We’re Told, The Lies We Tell Ourselves, and the Hopeful Truth
“If only I had parented differently, if only I had been a better child, if only I had been more desirable, then the addict would never have chosen their addiction over me. The truth is that addiction is a complicated process that no other person can be responsible for, only the addict. To believe otherwise is at the heart of codependency.”
~Andrew Nargolwala, psychotherapist
Writer Jonna Ivin talks about hitting bottom, then finding her way back
“I was always watching my mother for signs of what mood she was in, so I became a very quiet child. You develop a good ear for dialog when you’re always monitoring what’s going on around you. You also get really good at hearing not only what’s been said, but also the undertones.”
~Jonna Ivin, author of the ebook memoir, Will Love for Crumbs
Deborah Jiang Stein, a Woman Born in Prison
“Children need their mothers. I feel lucky I lived a year with my birth mother in prison. We bonded and I know this helped better prepare me for life. The down side, the trauma of our separation, after that year together, took its toll. She had a long sentence ahead of her.”
~writer, Deborah Jiang Stein