My Photos Published in Burgundy Balloon :)
Pleased to announce that I have some photos (including this one, called “Next Steps”) published today in Burgundy Balloon.
Check out all of the images and some stellar creative writing, too (and consider submitting your own work) at: https://burgundyballoon.org/ .
Poetry in a Time of Pandemic
It’s my honor to have a poem published in the St. Charles Arts Council’s project, Poetry in a Time of Pandemic. My poem, “Quarantine III,” was just published. May these poems bring comfort, insight, and hope to us all as we wait out this terrible virus.
“Quarantine III”
I cracked open a window, to be touched
by chilled arms: shrill April winds better
than nothing. Sister says she’s started
having nightmares about social distancing.
She wandered through a hall, body shaking,
shaking a fist at duos in sweaters carelessly
entwined in chaste hugs. Last night, I dreamt
of an anniversary party in a giant ballroom.
I asked at every festooned food table for
pretzel rods. I was that specific; they weren’t
just pretzels. The punch was Hawaiian red but
all I could scoop into my cup was pale pink,
square ice pellets that tasted of run-off and
blankness. Not even water could quench
as it vanished. I took more anyway.
Photo Published in Aji Magazine
My black-and-white photo was recently published at Aji Magazine on page 102.
Check out the whole awesome issue, with work by over 50 artists and writers, here. They are also currently reading submissions for their fall issue, for anyone interested.
My Article Published: "4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing"
Great news! My article was published today. If you like writing & photography, then this one’s for you. Enjoy the writing exercise at the end.
“4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing”
By: Melanie Faith
Last week, I shot my first roll of film in over a decade.
Up to this point my photos, like a lot of my writing drafts, were entirely digital and screen-manipulated. This analog film process was nothing like that computerized process, refreshingly; it shook up the way I thought about crafting my work.
That first roll of film last week was also a lot of other firsts: first roll of black-and- white film, first time loading 120 film (I used to shoot 110 and 35 mm), first time shooting medium-format square negatives, first time using a cute, plastic Diana F+ camera.
120 film has just 12 negatives per roll. Unheard of in the digital world of endless do-overs and deletes. I still love digital, but practicing image-making on film is teaching me to approach my making creatively.
What can photography lend to our writing process?
• Renew your beginner’s mind.
I’ve been photographing since I was a teen, and yet here I was, trying several new photographic styles that were entirely fresh to me.
Many of us have been writing creatively for years, yet we, too, can capture that beginner’s mind and use it to create innovative drafts.
If you normally write prose, give poetry a shot. If you often write novels, try a short story or two.
Or pick a genre you’ve never practiced: perhaps flash memoir or writing a graphic novel or jokes for a stand-up routine.
Or switching POV from your standby third-person to first-person or second-person.
Or it could be as simple as writing a first draft longhand.
These changes won’t necessarily be permanent; they will, however, bring out new ideas and imagery that will surprise and motivate.
• Add a few restrictions to your art and watch it flourish.
In both photography and writing, sometimes if you put obstacles or limitations in your path, you can create something remarkable.
I know: paradoxical.
When shooting with film, I had just 12 clicks of the shutter. I also couldn’t preview it after taking the shots; the Diana F+ camera has a tiny viewfinder, but it’s not entirely accurate to what the lens will capture—it’s more like playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey than aiming at a dartboard. It’s a machine made for teaching how to approach and then let go of expectations.
I had my film for four days before I took that first roll for a spin; four days of narrowing down possible subject matter “worthy” of my twelve little compositions. Seven turned out well enough to submit to a literary magazine. I certainly don’t approach my digital photography that way.
• Approach your writing with more of your full attention.
Because the camera and the shutter-release (on the side of the plastic lens!) and pretty much everything else about the camera was new to me, I had to slow down… and then slow down again… and then a third time. I watched a YouTube tutorial on loading the film about 12 times; no joke.
I quickly learned to trust my instincts more and to rule out certain subject matter in favor of other options, because I knew that I was paying $7.50 for the roll of film and almost $20 for developing.
Even though the cost isn’t exorbitant to practice film photography (especially getting third-hand cameras at an auction site like I did), that it COST me something made each shot precious.
What does your writing cost you? Sleeping in? Time out with family or friends? We value our art more when we sacrifice something for it.
• Think thematically.
Just like writers begin a novel, short story collection, poetry manuscript, or series of essays that surround the same theme or characters, photographers often challenge themselves to create a series based on the same subject, setting, or motif.
The other day, I took a twenty-minute walk with my new camera and then found, in storage, two lawn chairs that had almost been thrown out several times—their worn green webbing and silver metal bases redolent of my parents’ youth and endless picnics and fireworks displays. Yet they’d been stored away.
Gleefully, I dug them out from behind the staircase and arranged them in various configurations on the lawn. Six of out my twelve shots became a mini-series about the chairs.
If I’d had limitless shots would I have found the chairs as compelling, especially for a series? Maybe. But probably not.
It’s very common for writers, like photographers, to take part in creativity challenges that encourage such project-based thinking. Practicing your art with a group of like-minded people for consecutive days will more likely yield workable results.
We writers have NaNoWriMo in November and NaPoWriMo each April. Photographers have challenges like the 365 Project and monthly challenges, such as at Instagram where photographers post themed lists of ideas.
These challenges are often informal but incredibly liberating.
Both writing and photography rely on intuition and self-exploration. A mixture of knowing some things and making up the rest. Both arts often include elements of self-doubt or curiosity that are assuaged with practicing your craft on a regular basis.
Try this exercise: Make a list of five themes you could explore as a series in prose or photography.
Want to learn more? Try my May 2020 online Imagery Power: Photography for Writers class.
Take a perusal of Photography for Writers, my exercise-packed, creativity-fueling book. Signed copies also available at my Etsy: WritePathProductions.
Courtesy of Women on Writing https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/classroom/MelanieFaith_Photography.php
National Poetry Month <3
Break out your pens! Happy National Poetry Month!
Here are a few ideas for sharing, writing, reading, and enjoying poetry while quarantining.
Let’s make bunches of verse this month!
Image courtesy of Nicole Honeywill at unsplash.com
Backchannels
It’s been a terribly difficult, tiring, anxious, confusing time, hasn’t it? Feels like we went to sleep at the end of February, and woke up in a stark dystopian novel in March.
My emotions are a snarl of quicksilver uncertainties and kindnesses and fears and back again. I feel so inarticulate, because even this attempt at description doesn’t come anywhere near close enough to the realities we’re living in.
We’ve been self-quarantining for three weeks here on the East Coast, and the governor has just issued a stay-at-home warning through April 30th; I know many states and communities have already been stay-at-home quarantining. May this keep us safe and save many, many lives. <3
As we all try to adjust to unprecedented circumstances that COVID-19 has triggered, sending you my best.
A special shout out to medical personnel, emergency crews, store clerks and other necessary-business personnel, my fellow teachers, and parents at this time— your compassion and bravery make a difference.
I’ve been making art, pondering and reflecting, walking into rooms only to stare into space with perplexity, sharing with students and friends and family, trying to listen more than I usually do, grateful for work online, and attempting to get rest whenever it’s possible (sometimes, it’s just not been possible, as we all know).
How are you coping, dear ones?
I’ve waited to blog until I had GOOD NEWS. Can’t we all use some good news right about now? One of my poems was just published at Backchannels.
Please feel free to share your good news and gratefulness, no matter how big or small, to uplift us in the barrage of near-constant virus coverage.
Sending big virtual hugs (I so miss hugging) and much love and health to you all.
By Ron Smith on Unsplash
Want to Teach Online? I've Got You: Craft Article Published Today at WOW!
“3 Exercises for Launching an Online Writing Class for Profit and Enjoyment”
By Melanie Faith
The Timing has Never Been Better to Teach Creative Writing!
The field of teaching creative writing online has flourished in the past decade. When I started teaching online classes, most universities and colleges didn’t offer any online courses and I didn’t know a single freelance writer who did, either.
Happily, in 2020, the tide has turned and opportunities abound for educators who are passionate about their love for writing.
By the way: it’s not a requirement to have taught English for years offline in public schools or to have published a book before sharing what you know with eager learners.
If you’re organized and communicative, enthusiastic about self-expression, and motivated both in your own writing practice and to direct other writers in theirs, there is sure to be a program to fit your teaching goals (or you’ll create one!) and students keen to study with you. Read on!
Why Teach Online?
The vast majority of my teaching is now as a freelancer online instructor and professor, and I love it! Let’s look at cool pros to teaching online.
A highly-flexible schedule. As a freelance teacher, I am free to go to lunch with a friend or to grade at 2 in the morning without waking at 7 am to report to a brick-and-mortar classroom.
Most classes are asynchronous, meaning that students and teachers literally can pop by any time of day and night to leave and answer messages and download/upload content, so teachers and students can communicate at 4 am in their pjs if they want.
Many online programs, including Women on Writing, offer great instructor freedom to choose texts, a class topic, and to develop a course and hand-pick or write handouts of our own choosing. This support for unique and individualistic course content inspires instructors as well as student writers.
Community building with fellow writers. I regularly make friends with creative writers from all across the world who share many of my same writing and life goals, including keeping my writing and publishing life active and lively.
The pleasure of making another writer’s path more-informed and supported. Much of what I learned about writing and publishing during my first ten years as a creative writer was through my own slow process of blunders. It’s very rewarding to offer fellow writers advice, and then to see them and their writing make their own pathways to editors and readers.
Motivation for my own work. Nothing keeps me engaged in my own writing process like encouraging others in theirs. As I often tell my students and clients: “We’re all writers in this writing journey together.”
Get Started Today! 3 Helpful Exercises
As you begin to consider writing topics you might teach, here are three thematic questions to get your wheels turning about the kind of class you might offer and the unique skills you will bring to an online classroom. Consider answering each question as a free-write, setting a timer for at least fifteen or twenty minutes for each question.
1. What genres have you written in the past five years? What style or genre of writing has most
inspired you recently? List any books (such as craft books about writing, novels, poetry collections, essay anthologies, etc.) as well as writing websites that might be fun to share.
2. What excites you most about the opportunity to teach online? List as much as you’d like. Pinpointing the qualities that encourage you will integrate this zest into your online classroom preparations, creating an environment where writers flourish.
3. Write a paragraph to introduce yourself to your ideal student. Describe what brought you to teach this class online and something about your writing journey. Feel free to share a dream for your own writing. Then, ask your delightful ideal student two or three questions you’d like to know about them.
This exercise is one I wrote and offered to a client who was considering teaching online, and he found it very insightful to his writing process and to picturing his targeted class audience.
Over the course of a few days, your answers will point you in exciting directions for your genre, class topic/theme, and potential texts for a future course.
