McSweeney's List

McSweeney's Internet Tendency has just published my fun, short piece,  The Ten Commandments of Pointless Office Meetings. McSweeney's runs some hilarious "lists" and I'm excited to be part of it.

4. Thou shalt read thy PowerPoint verbatim and thou shalt include clipart in thy PowerPoint that is totally unrelated to the content of thy presentation and thy clipart shall be animated with sound effects.

Inspiring Young Writers

As part of receiving funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board, grant recipients must "give back" to the community in some way to demonstrate where the money from the Legacy Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund is going. Today I visited first and second graders at Armatage Montessori in Minneapolis to talk about writing and writers.

I took the opportunity to read aloud from a new work in progress, a children's book. It was so rewarding to read a children's story to real, live children (they laughed in all the right places). Then I asked them to write a story of their own and they were full of ideas! There was a story about a dog going to outer space and one about a brother and sister going to Egypt. There were stories about talking dogs and teachers who turned into cats.

A colleague told me that when she was in first grade, her teacher pulled a manuscript out of a manila envelope. It was the first time this little girl (a future writer) had ever realized that this was where books begin, that this was what writers do--they write, one sentence after another, one page after another. I hope that by exposing young children to the nuts and bolts of the life of a writer, I may inspire future writers. After all, that's what the Legacy funds are for.

Happy Birthday Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft (April 27, 1759-September 10, 1797) was an eighteenth century writer and original feminist. Her book, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, was published in 1792 as the first commentary on women's rights. She is also well-known as the mother of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.

I didn't know any of this until I was invited to Faith Sullivan's Mary Wollstonecraft's birthday party today. Faith is a fabulous author and champion of women writers. Minnesota is lucky to have her as a "mother writer." I was also fortunate to meet many women writers including Sarah Stonich, Kathryn Kysar, Connie Szarke, Cheri Register, and others.

Happy birthday, Mary!

Facilitating Author Event

As a librarian, I have the pleasure of bringing writer Jonathan Odell to St. Catherine University on Monday, April 16 at 6pm. Odell is most recently the author of The Healing, the coming-of-age story of a pre-Civil War slave girl and her encounters with a slave healer/midwife. This riveting book is garnering national attention and is being used in the nursing department at the university. The event is free and open to the public; RSVP is requested.

Tiny Tweets

Creative Nonfiction's daily challenge to write essays in 140 characters is irresistible. Here are a few of mine that have been "favorited":

Food for Thought

One of the stories in my project is about my mother's job as an educator for the University of Minnesota's Extension Service in the early 1980s. She used to teach poor single mothers about food and healthy eating, about choosing vegetables and cooking them. I used to tag along with her as she visited these women's homes, telling them about the virtues of dried beans and the benefits of wheat germ. Today the Extension Service continues to work toward healthy lifestyles for poor families as detailed in this story from MPR: Cooking Class for Low-Income Minnesotans. The stories of brown rice and canola oil brought the memories flooding back.

Bakeless Literary Prize

I usually rush to the phone each evening to check to messages, hoping that one of these days good news will come via the antiquated answering machine. Today I didn't even notice there was a message. But there was: my memoir manuscript, Magical Realism for Non-Believers, is a finalist for the 2012 Bakeless Literary Prize. I am honored and pleasantly shocked.