Monthly Archives: October 2011

the souls have their day

graffiti of three decorated skulls, honoring the Day of the DeadGood morning, foghorns, tall candle, sleeping puppy. Good morning, quiet music, strong tea, warm toes. Good morning. How’s the morning feel where you are?

(This feels like a conversation — like when I ask that question, somewhere you’re answering.)

Today is Halloween. All hollow’s eve, the day we bring the old pagan ritual of harvest, of releasing summer and releasing/honoring spirits and ancestors,  of masking and revelation into the public sphere. We take these days to honor who we’ve lost, to think about all the different selves we are, have been and could be, too.

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Tomales, Report Two

Got to bed closer to my right time last night, but still waking up early was hard today — in my bedroom, we got lots of serenading from the snoozed alarm. How’s the morning where you are? Still quiet? Deep blue? Opening?

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Remember: Next month, I get to spend a bunch of good time up in the Davis/Sacramento area — come and join me! Over the second weekend, I’ll be facilitating two day-long workshops, Reclaiming Our Erotic Story and Write Whole: Survivors Write, both hosted by AWA Sacramento/Sutterwriters (visit their site for more info and to register). On November 15, 4pm, I get to talk about erotic writing as liberatory practice at UC Davis as a part of their Conversations with Writers series.

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Tomales, report one

Van Gogh's starry night as graffiti

Oakland, I’m holding you in my heart and bones this morning.

Good mornin’ good mornin’ — the foghorns are going where I am; the streetcleaners, no, the garbagefolks are just coming around to collect the recycling. Those are the noises outside my window just now, that metallic sound of mash into maw, that long and hollow bassoony note. What’s it sound like where you are?

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Tomales Bay

graffiti typewriterToday I head out to the Tomales Bay Writing Workshops, head out for  a five-day writing workshop with Dorothy Allison and deep writing community in a place that I love, and it’s thanks, completely, to you.

Thank you.

A few months ago, I applied for a fellowship to this workshop, and then didn’t receive it. I had told myself, initially, well, if I don’t get the fellowship, then fine, I just won’t go. But I got the letter informing me that I’d been placed in Dorothy Allison’s workshop and they hoped I could join them just the same, even though they had given the fellowships to other folks. Something in me said, the writer part said, we have to go anyway. I couldn’t afford it, not without help. We had sudden bills that were coming due, family business that needed dealing with, low enrollment in workshops — still: we have to go anyway, the part in me said. Just ask for help.

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what’s erotic writing good for?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/3922015993/

Good Monday to you (morning or afternoon or evening, depending on where you are!).

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un-practicing procrastination

graffiti: big red heart with the words "love yourself!" in cursive, written underneathGood morning good morning!

I’ve just had to go replenish my tea — moroccan mint (green with some mint) and nettle and tulsi and anise and cardamom. Today I needed a little bit of everything, I’m throwing in all the bombs, trying to figure out what will land, what will stick, what will help.

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let it into the light

National Coming Out Day logo: Keith Haring image of a figure emerging, jubilant, from a closet doorGood morning good morning — is it Tuesday where you are? Here, it’s a Tuesday, quiet so far, dark. I’m having green tea with tulsi and mint, and there’s a candle lit in a tall jar — the flame is popping in the wax as air bubbles emerge, I think, and it feels like the flame is talking to me.

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Sent out the writing ourselves whole October newsletter yesterday — there are a whole lot of new writing opportunities coming up in the new year! We’re launching Bayview Writers, a general-topic writing workshop for Marin — women’s group on Tuesday mornings in Tiburon, and an open group on Wednesday evenings in San Rafael. Also coming in January: Dive Deep, an advanced workshop for folks who are ready to dive deep into a writing project. Please let me know if you’d like to learn more about any of the writing opportunities coming up!

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thoughts for a Monday

graffiti of stars painted on a brick wall; the painting also shows the silhouette of a person holding a spray can, creating the art.Something from this weekend:

Living on the edge means recognizing those places and experiences that do not offer me easy answers, those fierce edges of life where things are not as clear-cut as I hope for them to be. There is beauty in the border spaces, those places of ambiguity and mystery.

– Border Spaces, by Christine Valters Paintner

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bring that beat back

graffiti of a turntable, painted onto the side of a grey concrete building ornamentationGood morning — how is this morning treating you so far? Here it’s rainy and it took me a long, long time to wake up; I think I hit snooze about 20 times.

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What’s going on this morning? I can’t remember my dreams — in the dream I wish I’d had, my grandmother, one of them, or maybe both, came to me. we were sitting in a city park, on a dry bench, and they were holding hands. They looked like I remembered them, washed grey permanents, slightly bent bodies, deeply kind faces, my father’s mother’s face a little more open than my mother’s mother’s face, but still both so very much there. They pat the space between them, want me to sit down there. They tell me things I need to hear, they tell me about the time when I was gone, the time when their families were missing two grandchildren — this is what the holidays were like, they say, this is what it felt like to miss you and your sister. The space didn’t fill in around you, they say, there was just a hole. We didn’t talk about it much, but we all knew it was there.The wind blew against our faces, gentle, and somehow they were sitting next to each other and also around me.The air was blue, fresh, the sky was open. There were other people, far away, walking. My grandmothers explained about their lives, they told me how to go forward in my own. They opened their hands and let me put mine there, they let me see how our hands are so much the same. You see, they said to me, look at our hands. You belong to us. You’re home here.

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Sex Still Spoken Here – A Call for Submissions for the ERC Anthology!

(So excited about this project! If you have participated in the Erotic Reading Circle since it’s re-start in 2006, please consider submitting your work! -xo, Jen)

Center for Sex and Culture LogoCall For Submissions
Sex Still Spoken Here: More from the Erotic Reading Circle

Editors: Carol Queen, Jen Cross, Amy Butcher
Publisher: tbd
Deadline:  extended to Dec 1 (original deadline: Nov 1, 2011)
Compensation: TBD (at minimum, each author receives a copy of the finished collection and we will be sharing profits with contributors)

Editors Carol Queen, Jen Cross and Amy Butcher are collecting submissions for a second anthology of hot writings from the latest incarnation of the Erotic Reading Circle. Have you attended the Reading Circle in the last five years? We want your stories, poems, novel or memoir excerpts. All sexual orientation, sexualities, and gender orientations welcome: we want to showcase the diversity and power of writing that has been shared at the Circle. That being said, please do not submit stories featuring sex with children. Submissions welcome and invited from anyone who has shared their work at the ERC since 2006; we will read and consider all submission, though we will prioritize work that has been read/shared at the Circle. Reprints will be considered as long as you retain the rights to the work.

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