Give the Gift of Zora

For most of us writers, literature has made a huge difference in our lives. Let's share the joy!

A wonderful friend of mine from grad school teaches at a high school in Baltimore and wants to give this experience to her students. She's currently running a Go Fund Me page so that she can purchase new Zora Neale Hurston books so that each 11th-grade student can have his/her own brand-new book and a highlighter. Right now, they only have enough copies so that multiple students will have to share and not take the books from the classroom. 

Please consider stopping by her page to read more about her fantastic work and her awesome students and consider a donation if you feel so led.

Many thanks for your consideration and kindness. These new books will make a huge impact in the lives of her students and will be much appreciated. Let's not stop until there are 50 new books and smiling students aplenty! :)

Best,
Melanie

The Power of the Prompt: A Craft Article

My article about prompts was just published this week at Women on Writing (WOW!). Hope it inspires. Enjoy! 

The Power of the Prompt

By Melanie Faith

Marathoners have running shoes and dancers have footwear of the tap or ballet variety. Cyclists have bikes, equestriennes have horses, racers have zoomy cars. What do writers have that motivates and facilitates our writing practice? I introduce, my friends, the prompt. Or perhaps you're already well-acquainted.

 

What is a writing prompt? What is the purpose of it? 

 

A writing prompt is a short statement or series of pithy statements meant to trigger words on a page or screen. Prompts may be as simple as a famous quotation that you reply to, either directly or indirectly. Sometimes they ask a question directly, such as whether you agree or disagree with an idea. They may be themed. They may have a tone in mind--humor or seriousness or sappy love--or they may be general enough that a writer could give the resulting writing many possible tones. They may be focused on one genre, say poetry or fiction, or meant for multi-genres of writing (or even other forms of art). 

 

Most writers first encounter prompts in middle or high school English classes and university creative writing classes. Other authors get hooked on prompts in workshops and writing seminars, where they often either open or cap the day's discussion of writing skills the group is practicing. Speaking of which, that's another benefit of prompts--you can use them alone, in pairs (literary lunch, anyone?), or in groups however small or large. Prompts can be shared or kept private. Often, authors employ them like pianists and vocalists practice scales--to warm up for the writing of another, unrelated project. I've also had many students who were uninspired to write or unsure of what to write next take a prompt for a spin and then continue to develop that prompt long after, which is another excellent use of prompts. However one chooses to use prompts, their aim is creation, pure and simple.

 

Where can I find prompts to use in my writing practice? How do I choose a prompt? 

Great question! Classes, seminars, and workshops abound with them, but you can also seek out your own prompts. There are prompt collections for genre writers and themed prompts. You might do a search online for prompts that relate to a specific type of writing you'd like to practice by entering key phrases, such as "seasonal poetry prompts" or "mystery and horror writing prompts." There are whole books of prompts written by genre, such as journaling, as well as wonderful websites that list prompt resources, such as Create Write Now with Mari. If you're interested in a series of inspiring prompts you can use again and again, I've designed a deck just for writers.

Yet, what if you don't have a certain project or even genre in mind? You just want to write, dang it! No worries--there are whole collections of general prompts for just this purpose, such as 1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts by Ryan Andrew Kinder at online book retailers. In a general collection of prompts, you can either do a quick perusal of the table of contents (they are often organized by theme, genre, or style of writing) or, as I often do, let serendipity reign--thumb through the book and let the pages open where they may.

Whichever prompt you choose, the content isn't as important as the way of thinking it encourages. Prompts have a marvelous way of freeing ideas like soap bubbles from the depths of our memories, coaxing sentence after sentence to the surface where you'll be off and running.

Try this prompt!
You (or your protagonist) have been asked to showcase a little-known, unusual talent at a community fair's talent contest. Begin on stage and show not only the performer but also the crowd's reaction to this talent unveiling. Go!

I will be teaching a prompt-based course that is sure to be lots of fun, beginning November 1st. Here's the scoop and skinny: Prompted 

76 Rabbits out of a Top Hat

"76 Rabbits out of a Top Hat, or: The Quirky Tale of How One Poem became a Whole Book"

Ever notice how some things just multiply. From one to many, seemingly of their own accord. Take weeds in a garden. Ants in the cupboard. Emails in an inbox. Pounds on a despicable scale.

Or poems in a collection.

Yesterday was release day for my poetry book. This Passing Fever is a collection set in 1918, the last year of WWI. It was also the year of the horrendous influenza epidemic that took myriad lives the world over and tore some families apart while it brought others in communities closer.

I say poems—plural—now, but it didn’t start out that way. Originally, I wrote a single poem that I divided into three sections during the second draft. The poem was two-pages long and included three characters that, at that time, didn’t have names.

image by: Gary Bendig, Unsplash.com

So, what happened that I expanded the poem into a whole series of historical poems? Here was my thought process and creative arc:

·        Stay open to surprises. While fact-checking a detail in my initial poem before submitting it to a journal, I stumbled upon a jump-rope rhyme that kids used to sing on the playground in 1918. It was such an authentic detail that I immediately took it for a spin, exploring a question that jumped into my head and out through my pen: What would be the life story of a girl singing this rhyme?

That new poem launched not only my main character, Alma Donovan-Smith, but a whole new impetus: If Alma had a story to tell, what about other children in her school? What about the teacher? What about the students’ parents? What about other people in the town, like the shopkeeper, the clergy, neighbors and friends?   

·        Just because the work starts in one format or genre and length, no need to stay locked into place. I ended up taking apart the initial poem and writing more poems about the villagers in a two-week period. It felt like they were individually introducing themselves to me. Of course, once I knew Alma, I wanted to learn more of her story, and she didn’t disappoint. Four or five poems in, the idea hit me to flash forward and have Alma herself tell some of her own story, as part of an oral-history interview project with her grandson in 1958.

If I had remained stubbornly determined that what I’d written was just one poem, what a loss it would have been to the narrative and to me. I learned a lot about handling multiple POVs and story strands while dividing the pieces and omitting some that didn’t work.

Ultimately, feel free to take apart your draft, even after the very last edit (as Walt Whitman did with numerous editions of his literary masterpiece Leaves of Grass). Add new details. Explore details you stumble across either while researching or that seem to find you as a gentle thought.

·        Go organic. Let the work inform your writing and editing decisions. When I wrote the initial poem, I didn’t move back and forth through time from 1918. Yet, as I wrote more and more individual pieces and delved into both personal and cultural details of the town, I began to feel that a more compelling way to present the narrative in verse was to fast forward through several time periods.

Sometimes when we start a project, we have just the outermost glimmer of what the piece will become, and that’s not only fine but magical. Each piece will have its own innate format and logic. Stay aware and curious about the material as you write and edit. Respond as you go to how the piece moves and (re)shapes itself.

So, instead of one poem, I have 76-pages worth…and a richer, more evocative exploration of my initial subject than if I’d stopped with the first poem.

Try this prompt!  Poems and flash pieces are short by nature, but linked works have the potential to be greatly expanded in details, characters, settings, and more. Pull up a piece you thought was a one-off and examine it with new eyes. Ask yourself: Where are there possibilities to expand this narrative? What might another character say or do about the initial piece? Try flashing forward or backward in time period or setting. Take 20 minutes to write a companion piece, without stopping.

You might just find, like rabbits out of a hat or chips from a bag, one leads to another and another and…

Image by Victor Larracuente, unsplash.com

Published: This Passing Fever

Thrilled to announce my historical poetry volume, set in 1918, This Passing Fever. It's been published today, in both Kindle/e-reader and paperback versions, by the fine folks at FutureCycle Press.

To order your Kindle copy, please visit my publisher, FutureCycle Press .

For a signed paperback copy, feel free to contact me at writer@pa.net with your address. I accept Paypal.

The synopsis: The time: 1918. The U.S. is both prosperous and at war. An influenza epidemic, often known by the misnomer Spanish Flu or La Grippe, is spreading throughout the world. The 1918 flu is different in that it tends to strike down otherwise-healthy adults in their prime, ages 18-40, compared to later outbreaks that target children and the elderly. The poems in This Passing Fever explore how everyday people within small-town America meet sweeping, unexpected illness with hope, fear, charity, and grief. Incorporating details both fictional and fact, including a historically-accurate jump-rope rhyme within the first poem in this collection, "Rope," protagonists such as Alma Donovan-Smith depict the fears, joys, and trials of familial, personal, and community life during a time of crisis. Much like Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, these poems will encourage those interested in the history of the time period and the potential of character development within poetry.

Please add my book to your Goodreads list.

Also available at Amazon .

On Pear Photography and Seasonal Poetry

“I praise the fall: it is the human season.” –Archibald MacLeish, “Immortal Autumn”

It’s that time of year again: I spent twenty minutes this afternoon photographing pears. First I snapped one solitary and sumptuous fruit and its reflection against mottled stone, then groupings of three and four, then noticing nearby lacy reflections from a wispy, bug-eaten rose-bush branch, I experimented with combining leaf-reflections and fruit.

Each pear, dappled with freckles and speckles, is utterly unique as a fingerprint. In tones from golden tan to celery green, with pinprick mottles in tans, taupes, and sepias, whether they have stems or not is beside the point as are the variations of shape—each is magnificent as is, even with indentations and dings from hail or rain. The heft of one in the palm is a spherical softball but daintier. The taste of the Bartletts once ripe is soft yet fragrant as an eau de cologne. They are symbols of anticipation and early-harvest fulfillment.

Their mid-to-late August appearance on the table means another milestone of seasonal change is right around the corner: the fall semester. And with it, another favorite of mine: stationery-shopping season.

Oh, the enticements of new notebooks with their blue-ruled pristine pages carrying the whiff of ideas-to-come, the colorful and clickable pencils and pens awaiting the desk cup, the staples seeking the click-click-click of recently-churned drafts in all of their glorious and hopeful imperfections! It’s a wonder I make it out of the store without buying the whole aisle.

In fashion-speak, this is a transitional time for our minds and closets with women’s magazines suggesting how to cling longer to short-sleeved dresses and skirts by introducing fall separates like multicolored tights in shades of oxblood and goldenrod and draping the infamously cute cardigan over bare shoulders.

Just three more weeks until Labor Day, that final, slightly-sad-tinged final picnic hoorah where we bid bye-bye to sweet summer sunlight here in seasonal climates.

Poets have long been concerned with savoring each step of the season we’re in as well as looking to those moments of transitioning into the next phrase. The overlapping of weather conditions (external signs of the season) with accompanying internal changes is a particularly effective way to express time’s passage in a meaningful way.

One of my favorite seasonal poems is Jane Hirshfield’s “The Heat of Autumn,” which she opens by comparing the heat of fall to that of its predecessor. But sometimes, just describing the weather isn’t enough (there’s the Weather Channel and Alexa for that, after all). She then deepens the poem by exploring a new personal-life season for a man with cancer. 

Then there’s Archibald MacLeish’s poem, quoted in the epigraph, which gives a coy yet experienced nod to Keats’ poem, “The Human Seasons,” taking the reader through all four seasons in the span of a jaunty, metrical sonnet.

“The Human Seasons”

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of man:

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high

Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings

He furleth close; contented so to look

On mists in idleness—to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,

Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

But why should fall get all the glory? There are poems aplenty for the bluster and brittle sojourn trudging through winter, classic cavortings through flowers, robins, and all things lovey-dovey in works such as fanciful all-over-the-page popper [in Just-] by e.e.cummings , “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” for my fellow Whitman-aholics, and Claude McKay’s “After the Winter.” 

And let’s not forget a profusion of perfectly bite-size haiku, tanka, and haibun (haiku/prose combos) in celebration of all seasons, such as this playful favorite by Issa:

Face of the spring moon--
about twelve years old,
I'd say.

When does the new year begin for you? What are the signs and harbingers of a new season set to begin in your world? As a lifelong student and teacher for almost twenty years, my internal clock is set to turn over on the first day of class each fall.

Try this prompt: Read a few of these seasonal poems or research some on your own. Pick a season and write an allusion in your poem to one of the poems you read, as MacLeish does. Your poem should take place and/or be about the season, yes, but (as with the above examples) it should also explore something deeper and more personal about the human condition, time’s passage, and intimates. Go!

Welcome and Super-Cool Announcement :)

Greetings, and welcome to my website! I've been putting off having my own website with portfolios of my writing and photography for ages and ages; I'm quite pleased that this summer I (finally!) decided to stop the procrastination and just jump in already. 

Please have a look around-- I have links to a sampling of my published poetry, stories, and writing-about-writing. Need inspiration to get your own Muse in a healthy run? Check out my shop-- where I've discounted my Writing Prompt and Affirmation Card sets for a limited time and also get the scoop and skinny on fall online classes I'll be teaching.

I also am available for freelance hiring to write artist statements and to organize or edit manuscripts of poetry and other art forms as well as to provide cover photography-- contact moi with the deets for rates.

Peruse my photography portfolio, one of my favorite parts of this website--made possible by the creative wizardry of my web guru, Ashlee Mays (and shout out to the talented Holly Helscher for the invaluable tips and introduction to Ashlee).   

Along the way, I'll also post writing tips, articles, photography samplings from new series I've been developing, and prompts in this lovely blog as well as updates on work I have in pre-publication right now. Keep coming back for literary goodies and updates, ya'll.

Oh, and how could I forget? My announcement: one of my still-life photos won an art competition through Brain Mill Press and will be featured on a poetry book this fall. Très excited. Check it out.