JOYFUL WELCOME TO SPRING 2023!
For many, no other season elicits as much joyful anticipation as does Spring! The erupting of green leaves and colorful buds on trees and the vibrancy of daffodils and tulips defying all odds as they stick their delicate stems through winter’s lingering cold. We join all of nature in welcoming spring with singing and dancing because we made it through the immensity of winter, often cold and punishing; or, here in Hawaii, rainy, windy and with tropical storms. Find a group or celebrate on your own the joy of the Spring Solstice on March 20.
Springtime by Claude Monet, 1892
DOES STORYTELLING “MIMIC” THE DIVINE IMAGINATION?
Times of uncertainty call for stories of great imagination to inspire and motivate us not to give up or give in; it calls us to recognize that as one story ends another begins; so what do we imagine the new story to be? Recently, in writing groups & retreats I’ve been asking writers to imagine a different story for our future other than one showing a dystopian,apocalyptic end time. We are a storied species, it’s in our DNA you could say, and I’ve come to think that the Hermetic principle “as above, so below” could be interpreted to mean that the same urge that propels us to tell stories, also propels our Creator.
String Theory Image
I can imagine that an Infinite Creator might have created our universe using the template of storytelling, stringing its infinite parts together, like luminous pearls, into beautiful necklaces, telling the stories of what we call the multiverse (aka String Theory).
Dr.Michio Kaku, co-founder of String Field Theory, is one of the most widely recognized scientist in the world today and he seems to agree. To expand your mind a bit, enjoy this 4-minute video by Kaku called “The Universe is a Symphony of Vibrating Strings.”
ANNOUNCING TWO NEW WRITING CLASSES
BEGINNING MEMOIR CLASS
Want to write your personal story but not sure where to start? Maybe you’ve written a lot of stories but are having trouble with structure and what to include? Maybe you’re afraid your family and friends won’t agree or won’t like what you’ve written? These questions and more will be covered in this Beginning Memoir Class. You’ll come away with a knowledge of what to include in your story; what is a scene and how to write one; and basic memoir structure. Each participant will have the opportunity to be work-shopped once, meaning you’ll leave the class with several short pieces of writing that’s been critiqued by your peers and myself.
DATES: Six Sundays on Zoom: APRIL 2, 9, 16, (skip 2 weeks) then APRIL 30, MAY 7 and 14.
CLASS SIZE: Limited to 6 participants
COST: $325 payable via PayPal
EARLY BIRD SPECIAL: Pay only $225 & Save $100 when you Register on or before March 20!
BOOKS YOU’LL NEED: Journey of Memoir by Linda Joy Myers; Writing through the Seasons of Your Life by Marjorie St.Clair; Wild by Cheryl Strayed. (Amazon)
Painting by Lynn Carol Henderson
PERSONAL ESSAYS & HYBRID MEMOIRS CLASS
Writing a memoir can mean mixing it up these days. Being dubbed a hybrid memoir, meaning a literary collage or mosaic, writers are using a combination of personal essays that can double as cultural criticism; poems; artistic collages, photography and illustrations as well as research and data, integrating them all to create a scaffolding for your story that is layered & gives a multi-faceted perspective from both the personal to the universal.
This 8-week Zoom class will help memoirists to mix it up & make their stories more imaginative by shifting the narrative between past and present experiences while including some of the above ideas. We’ll experiment with how personal narrative can double as cultural criticism; practice using research and data to create a layered narrative while also developing thematic through-lines to help structure your personal narrative and story.
Personal Essays & Hybrid Memoirs class will begin by focusing on what we can learn from good writing by published authors who’ve written a hybrid memoir. Specifically, we’ll do close readings of certain parts of the following books, exploring how they structured their tale, how they used diverse storytelling methods to weave their memoir- collage and how they can serve as inspiration for your own writing whether you decide to write a hybrid memoir or not. You’ll also leave the class with 20 pages of your writing, either several short pieces or a longer one, that’s been critiqued by your peers and myself.
Here are the four books we’ll be reading & discussing for their craft:
(1) H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald. A review by the Washington Post said: An elegantly written amalgam of nature writing, personal memoir, literary portrait & an examination of bereavement…
(2) Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women,” by Annabel Abbs. Her book traces D.H. Lawrence’s long-suffering wife Frieda. Part travelogue, biography, memoir and feminist call to arms, this book follows in the actual footsteps of five women celebrated by the world for many things but never their walking. For example, Simone de Beauvoir who hiked miles in the French countryside wearing only espadrilles because outdoor footwear wasn’t yet available!
(3) Happily: A Personal History-With Fairy Tales by Sabrina Orah Mark. “A beautifully written memoir-in-essays on fairy tales and their surprising relevance to modern life from a Jewish woman raising black children in the American South … based on her acclaimed Paris Review column…” from a review by Rebecca Solnit.
(4) My memoir, A Southern Belle in Paris. Blends factual events with personal history as well as reflections on culture, feminism, relationships and transformation.
This workshop is for practicing writers working on first-person essays and memoir who are in need of feedback and a supportive writing community to dive deeper into their texts. This class will support you to develop a firm grasp of your project’s structure & how writing a hybrid memoir may be the way to go. The goal of this class is to deepen your writing practice, hone your work on the page, and to come away with the strongest versions of the stories you’re working to tell.
EARLY BIRD SPECIAL: SAVE $100 NOW!
Pay only $325 for the entire class if you Register by MAY 10TH!
DATES: 8 Sundays: Sept 10, 17, 24, Oct. 1, skip 2 weeks then Oct 15, 22, 29 and Nov. 5
CLASS SIZE: Limited to SIX participants
COST: $425 total—DEPOSIT: $100 due by July 10th to hold your space.
$325 remainder to be paid after July 10 and before first class on Sept. 10, 2023
MARJORIE’S NEW BOOK LAUNCH WAS A SUCCESS!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, here’s the recording of the zoom book launch for my new book, a memoir,
A Southern Belle in Paris on Sunday, February 19th. Click here to listen to the zoom recording, all coordinated & hosted by the marvelous JULES NYQUIST of Poetry Playhouse in New Mexico and JOHN ROCHE … both amazing poets, writers and teachers who have helped numerous poets nationwide share their work at regular Zoom readings.
With Aloha from Maui!
Marjorie St.Clair
If you can’t get to Maui to go on a Whale Watch, prepare to be awed when you watch this amazing video.