Featured Writers 

Amy McElroy: About Daphne Rose Kingma

When I picked up Daphne Rose Kingma’s latest book, The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart: An Emotional and Spiritual Handbook, I never expected it to speak to me. Kingma’s book, which lists a practical series of steps to take when life presents a major crisis, asserts that deep trauma itself calls us to dramatic change. Even though I wouldn’t describe my problems as catastrophic, Kingma’s emotional, psychological and spiritual explanations for why we need to take time to cry, live more simply, and recognize our own strengths and weaknesses called out to me.

In an interview at the at the New World of Publishing Conference in Santa Cruz, California, sponsored by Laura Davis and Janet Goldstein, Kingma said to me of Ten Things, “It’s a great title and a horrible title. It’s great for someone whose world is falling apart.”  But for someone with less cataclysmic problems, Kingma agreed that her book just as easily might be called, “A Handbook for Life.” As she explained, “People who are suffering are always looking for ways to have more ease and grace about their lives.”

Kingma’s own ability to glide through experiences with grace renders her an ideal person to write a book about moving through life-changing traumas. After a morning of practical and sobering presentations about the current status of the publishing industry, Kingma’s soothing, ethereal presence as the keynote speaker re-inspired the audience as humans and as writers. The air moves through her voice as if the shimmering impermanence of another world travels with her. Yet her extensive background in psychology, including a master’s degree, and more than twenty years experience counseling people individually, and in their relationships, provides a strong underlying backbone for her book.  Now the author of more than a dozen publications, Kingma has appeared on Oprah’s television show numerous times, done countless radio interviews, and spoken all over the world about her unique vision of love, life, and relationships.

Nancy Hofmann: The Feather

Nancy Hofmann is a member of the Wednesday morning writing practice group. She often writes in the early morning hours when the house is quiet and the day is new. Her writing has moved from focusing on poetry to gliding easily into prose. Here is one of her recent pieces in response to the prompt, "Tell me about an object that you associate with another person.”

All her life, my husband’s mother wore a feather in her hair. She had a crock on her bedroom dresser, a tall glass vase on the antique desk that sat in the living room, and another bowl in the kitchen – all filled with birds’ feathers – gifts from beach-walking friends of sea gull feathers, the long brown-striped quills from pheasants, the brilliant green-and-blue fringed tail plumage with their mysterious “eyes” from large peacocks, the soft darkened blue from the breasts of bold marauding male blue-jays in her garden, the whole white wing of a snowy owl that lay open on her window sill.

From all these, daily, her morning ritual toilette always ended with choosing the “feather-du-jour”, and then, and only then, did she feel finished and completely dressed for the events of that day.

She loved birds of every kind (except caged ones, of course ), and her art work displayed sea gulls in mid-catch or a flock of geese over dark blue waters. She collected abandoned and discarded nests of all kinds and the eggs that filled them were of all types of materials: cold eggs carved in smooth white and pale green jade and  deep-hued malachite, beaded eggs with the face of Jesus embedded in colorful lines, finely hand- painted eggs from Russia, and shiny lacquered eggs from China. She loved the soft pastels of the green Aracauna eggs from my chickens in Texas, the mauve and tan eggs from the organic, free-range fed chickens from the local grocery store that sat in a ceramic bowl in her refridgerator, the tiny blue quail eggs available only during certain times of the year, and the huge thick ostrich eggshell I brought her back from my travels in Australia one year.

Susan Dorf: How to Paint Fearlessly

Close the door, turn off the phones, and take a few deep breaths.

Squeeze out generous blobs of paint onto your palette and feel yourself getting excited about the colors.

Deep ultramarine blue, buttery Cadmium yellow, juicy Alizarin Crimson.

Line up your brushes and palette knives, adjust your easel and face the blank canvas.

Ignore the voices that say you are not good enough, and the ones that say you are wasting your time. If they persist, open the door and kick them out of the room.

Breathe.

Pick up a brush, scoop up some paint and put it on the canvas.

Beverly Boyd: Keep It Simple, Please

The Friday morning feedback class had the great pleasure of Beverly Boyd's company through the fall of this past year. She wrote this piece in response to a prompt that began, "I prefer." 

I prefer simple things.  I like food you can taste: food that's not cluttered up with the latest exotic flavor idea.  It may be delicious and I enjoy it, but that happened to plain?

It's hard to find plain potato chips anymore amid the barbecue, sour cream and chives, cheddar cheese, vinegar and salt, and honey Dijon varieties.  You know, sometimes I want to be able to taste the dip!

And then there's crinkle cut, old fashioned, and triangle; corn chips, carrot chips, beet chips, mixed vegetable chips, taro chips --- all in four different brands!  Finally somewhere in the middle of the fifty-foot long aisle, there it is --- good old comfy Lay's plain chips --- not baked, or unsalted --- just plain thin-cut, fried in oil potato chips.

Once in a while I want a plain rice cake, one I can taste the hummus on, without tiny seeds that stick between my teeth.