One for me, Two for You: Writing Community and Paying it Forward (and Sideways, and ...)

What does it mean to be part of a literary or writing "community"? At every level: it means the world. To have writer friends and acquaintances who have your best interest at heart? Alliances built on the idea of mutually assisting one another as we blunder, write, and make and break our way through this life. My own literary community delivers gifts to me every day. Two very recent examples:

1. The play's the thing: Deborah Lerner Duane and I have been friends for 22 years. She's had a successful corporate, then solo PR career (during which we often collaborated when I too was running a small PR agency), then went on to complete a master's program in a totally unrelated field. Now, she will soon also be a produced playwright,( not once but twice!). Deborah and I have met for breakfast once a month, every month, for many years, a kind of two-person board of directors; we're there to encourage (often push!) one another, cook up strategies, check in on goals, set deadlines, vet plans; keeping each other honest when we say we're going to do something. Over the years, she's helped me get over many self-imposed hurdles, urged me to seek bigger opportunities, agree to do something challenging, and achieve goals. 

Last fall I challenged her to begin entering play festival script contests. We set deadlines. She wrote, entered, won. I am so proud of her, and reminded again of the power of two friends seriously committed to each another's goals. 

Did I mention that I only knew of the existence of 10-minute play competitions because a student of mine in a workshop at The Writers Circle last year was a fledgling playwright who had entered and won a particular competition, and that's how I could recommend it to Deborah – with a link at the ready – that first time we talked about her moving from writing to submitting?

2. From her to me to you, etc.: Last month, Alyssa Martino, a writer completing an MFA at University of New Hampshire, mentioned she was moving to Brooklyn, and maybe we could have a cup of coffee in Manhattan? I asked if she'd be at the ASJA conference (American Society of Journalists and Authors), and sent her the link to the ASJA Education Foundation's annual conference scholarship. You know the rest. She won, and we'll be having that coffee at ASJA next month where I'm on a panel because Candy Schulman, who I met on Facebook through our mutual writing friend Liane Kupferberg Carter, invited me. 

Did I mention I won the first ASJA conference scholarship in 2011, and only because my writing friend Erika Dreifus clued me in?  That I attended my first ASJA-sponsored event 30-odd years ago, because Bill Glavin, my college magazine professor, took the time to recommend it? And at that panel, a freelance writer named Arky Gonzalez, gave me his card and when I moved to Southern California two years later, met me for lunch and shared editorial contacts? Did I mention Alyssa was once a private student of mine? That I was so pleased to write her a letter of recommendation for UNH, where she would study with Meredith Hall, who once lectured at my Stonecoast MFA program? And who took the time to let me interview her the next year?

I have dozens of other such stories. This may sound like I'm tooting my own horn – look at me, I'm such a good literary citizen; but in each case, I was only able to do what I did because another writer had done what he or she did.

Many other people have similarly helped me in small and large ways. When I tweeted about Alyssa, she noted "writers pay it forward."

My goal is to always be paying, and not as often looking to see who pays me. Because sometimes, though only occasionally, that reciprocal payment is withheld. And it stings.

Sometimes, though happily only very occasionally, people I've assumed are part of what I'd thought of as a mutually supportive literary community have let me down. Behaved badly. Just a couple of weeks ago, in fact. When it happened, I briefly considered (hell, I wrote), a rant of a post about it. 

Then, semi-smart 50-plus-year-old human and writer I am, I put that messy, needy draft aside for a while. Yes, it hurt like hell. Then, the moment passed (okay, it took two weeks), and I deleted the draft of that whiny rant. Decided the better approach was to write this post – the one about how much I love helping other writers, and how much I appreciate when another writer helps me.

Onward.

Images: Stage: Flickr/Creative Commons-Justin S. Campbell; Hand: Flickr/Creative Commons-GrowWear; ASJA Conference: ASJA.

A Circle of Writing Mentors and Students and More

I love a circle. 

During my time in the Stonecoast MFA program, I was lucky to meet Meredith Hall, whose essays I had read in Creative Nonfiction. She gave a rousing guest lecture that stirred up strong feelings for many of us, about thinking bigger, about being generous with our stories, and bringing everything to the page, not holding back.  

Mostly what I remember is this advice:  Be audacious in what you go after -- and go after a lot. Age doesn't matter! Apply for grants! Seek residencies! Enter contests! Be bold! Why not you?

I went home, bought her memoir, Without A Map, read it in one afternoon. We exchanged friendly emails. I reread her book again slowly, and realized she'd grown up in the same New Hampshire town as my husband's cousin. A few quick emails confirmed that they were once good friends, and Meredith also remembered my sister-in-law, a frequent New Hampshire visitor during their childhoods. I was able to put them all back in touch, and that felt wonderful. 

It would be enough if the circle ended there.  But there's more.

After hearing Meredith at Stonecoast, I began submitting my work more often, and entered my first contest with an essay about visiting my father in the hospital in Las Vegas. It placed second in the Charles Simic Graduate Student Writing Contest, and with the honor came a bit of cash and publication in Barnstorm, the journal edited by the MFA program at University of New Hampshire.

Though energies and enthusiasm sometimes flag, I've kept entering, submitting, applying, and often while doing so, I think of Meredith. I interviewed her for my research thesis, and for an anthology of craft and publishing advice. 

The circle widens.

After I began teaching and coaching writers, I got an email from someone I would get to know as a lovely writer and delightful person. I remember Alyssa Martino's first email because at the moment it arrived, I was waiting for another flight in the Las Vegas airport, where I'd been visiting my ill mother. I was glad for a distraction from my sadness.

Alyssa signed up for an online classes, then to continue working on essays and memoir pieces, and finally to shape and polish her portfolio to accompany applications to MFA programs.

Where does she land but at University of New Hampshire, and in whose class does she find herself? Meredith Hall's. I've had such fun hearing from Alyssa periodically, about how much she's learned from Meredith, and the deep satisfaction she's experiencing developing her writing craft. Tell Meredith hello! I've often written back. Meredith says hi! she's replied.

When I send a newsletter about something I've accomplished, a reply invariably arrives from Meredith:  thinking of you...congratulations...delighted and not surprised...such lovely news. When I look back at craft notes taken during the MFA, she's there too.

Now, Alyssa is working toward graduation, building her own teaching skills, and working on the editorial staff of...Barnstorm. One of her responsibilities is to interview writers for a section called The Writer's Hot Seat. A few months ago, she asked to interview me. 

I'm so pleased the interview is now up at Barnstorm.

I'm tempted to say the circle now feels complete.  

But I know better.

Gold in Them Notebooks, Part 11. Meredith Hall on What's Missing

Not counting my own writing, I filled eight notebooks over two years while completing an MFA program. They are crammed with great writing tips and insights gleaned from faculty seminars, workshops, graduating student presentations, and visiting writer talks. Feeling nostalgic, I've been wandering through them at random, and posting parts here.

What is not on the page weighs as much, counts as much, matters as, as what is on the page. What you don't include is so important. You can see this very clearly in a segmented (also called a montage or collage) essay, where white space divides and acts as a buffer, and allows you to move between narrative, reflection, and scenes, in the same way as looking through a photo album. There is time to pause and consider before moving on. It seems to me a very organic form for the writer and a very intuitive form for the reader. The key is: no transitions. You can move between times and places, from memory to present, from image to introspection to metaphor. -- Meredith Hall, author of Without A Map, and Memoirist-in-Residence at University of New Hampshire

The first ten posts in the MFA Notebooks series are here.

Let's Get Lost

Meredith Hall's memoir, Without A Map, which I read over the past weekend, is lovely. It is a beautifully written reflection on what it means to love, to lose the love of those you trust most and those who are kept from your love, about abandonment and guilt, and ultimately about living a loving life anyway.