AuTHor Thursday: Linda Sand

Linda Sand has graciously shared part of her writing world with the Red River Valley Writing Project blog.

Thus, without further adieu, welcome Linda to the blog!

An Introduction to her Writing World

Linda Lee Sand

I have always written, but it’s only been in the last few years that I’ve dared to call myself “a writer.” I have a political science degree from MSUM and a master’s in Communication from Marquette University. I was a Junior Great Books leader and drama coach for many years. I was thrilled to be a winner in the Writer’s Digest poetry awards, and I’m currently writing for children. I’ve published the tall-tale “Melodious” in Cricket magazine, and it’s featured in audio version on their campfire stories website. And I have a poem in this month’s issue (April 2016) of Babybug.

Why do you write?

I recently heard an author on the radio say that when you’re younger you strive to write something beautiful, but as you get older you write to get at the truth. I’m at the point where I’m trying to get at the truth. It’s grand, though, when the truth is beautiful!

AuTHor Thursday: Madelyn Camrud

Greetings Readers,

Today, meet Madelyn Camrud. She is a poet. She graciously answered some questions for the Red

River Valley Writing Project and in turn gave us some questions to answer as well.

She highlights the idea that those who craft with words do not journey alone. Although the image of a writer isolated with a writing instrument is oft engrained in brains, writing is a shared journey filled with other people’s words, whether in classes, writing groups, face-to-face conversations, or shared words on a page.

Why do you write?

When in graduate school at UND, Professor Sheridan said one reason we write is to discover.  That thought and W.C. William’s lines about poems: men die for lack of what is found there, sent me along the path to discovery and becoming a poet.  I learned to look for whatever the poem will give me. Sometimes it takes a long time. Sometimes I never find it. However, delight comes in words and sounds along the way: in how words look on a page, how a line breaks, and how meaning changes in the way words come together. One good line in a poem (usually near or at the end) is the discovery that gives me joy. Finally, the most important discoveries are the truths I might have disguised or never found in myself were it not for the poem.

Who encouraged you to be a poet?

Many people encouraged me and I thank them: my mother; a therapist; poetry teachers in classes and workshops: Robert King, Sharon Dubiago, Nancy Willard, Thom Tammaro, Mark Vinz to name a few. Main among them was Jay Meek. In his The Art of Writing class, I wrote and wrote to try and figure out what a poem really is. He encouraged me to continue my studies to earn a master’s degree with a creative thesis. Two years later, I was encouraged that New Rivers Press published my first collection of poems This House is Filled with Cracks. After graduation, I was encouraged by a Writers Group of five or six women.  A loyal friend from the group, Barbara Crow, has been my single most encouraging poet friend ever since.  Later still, Susan Meyers read and helped shape my second full-collection, Oddly Beautiful, which was terrifically helpful.

Who do you read to inspire you?

Poems by Sharon Olds I admire for the flow of her words moving down the page. I believe she says what she wants to say. There is no holding back. The Living and The Dead, her first book, is my favorite.  Christian Wiman survived a terminal disease and wrote Every Riven Thing, a powerfully spiritual book of poems. I opened the book and couldn’t help but read all the poems, straight through, aloud. His book of prose, Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet is a wonderful resource for all poets. Susan Meyers’ excellent crafting of poems in My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass made me want to write as did Carol Muskie-Dukes when I heard her read from Twin Cities at the UND Writer’s Conference. I read and reread Louise Gluck’s poems in Ararat. Today, The Genome Rhapsodies Anna Meek, Jay’s daughter, arrived and I am terribly excited to read it!

What is my advice if you want to be a poet?

Poets learn to write poems by reading good poems and writing, writing, writing. Robert Bly suggested budding poets go into a cabin in the woods for a winter, no footprints in or out. That might be a good start but poetry for me is not that simple. It’s a long process. Currently, I’m mostly revising, sifting through stacks of hard copy and computer files for a new collection, On the Way to Moon Island. Having found lines in stacks from 1992 that became the title poem for Oddly Beautiful, my second collection, I believe in hard copy.  I also believe in hand-written first drafts. I’m old fashioned.

Finally, I want to ask some questions. Doesn’t being a poet have as much to do with how you view the world as with it does with writing poetry? Isn’t it possible you’ve always been a poet though you might not have written poems?  Do you think you’re too busy to write poems? Isn’t poetry a place to go early mornings, at bedtime, and on Sundays?  Will there ever be enough time to live the introspective life you crave? Meanwhile, isn’t it enough to look in and out the windows of your life, to look forward and backward in your mind? Symphonic music in the background, birds, trees, and flowers in season, aren’t those lovely human faces and hearts, family and a few close friends, all you need to write poems?

Thank you Madelyn for sharing your poetry world, journey, and especially your questions.

AuTHor Thursday: Brady Bergeson

Greetings Readers!

Today, on AuTHor Thursday, meet Brady Bergeson.

Bio

Brady Bergeson teaches writing at NDSU. He was a principal writer and performer for The Electric Arc Radio Show, a staged, episodic radio series that ran for three years in Minneapolis at the Ritz Theatre and the Assembly Theatre at the Woman’s Club of Minneapolis. Episodes were also staged in New York and Chicago, and aired on Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current 89.3 in Minneapolis. His work has appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Opium Magazine, among others. A found poem he created from a transcript of a Republican Presidential Debate is currently on display at the Rourke Art Museum in Moorhead as part of the Albino Buffalo exhibit. His short story, “The Girl, the Boy, the Goat, and Heidegger,” was published on a series of stickers last year by Albino Buffalo, an art collective that sells stickers designed by local artists through vending machines.

Q & A with Brady

Who currently inspires you?

I’ve always been inspired by the short story writer George Saunders. His stories are exciting and address what it means to be alive in our current world. Even when his stories are satirical, they are still grounded in characters that are authentic. Everything he does is approached with a great deal of humanity. It’s a good way to be a writer, and it’s a good way to live your life. Here’s a short video of him talking about story.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve been reading some Scandinavian mysteries. I read Henning Mankell’s series of Inspector Wallander books years ago, and I just recently started reading Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series.

I’m constantly going back to the short stories of Aimee Bender. The Girl in the Flammable Skirt is a fantastic collection. And I seem to always be reading something by Louise Erdrich because I inevitably have her in the readings for whatever class I’m teaching.

I’ve also been reading two new short story collections: Steven Millhauser’s Voices in the Night, and Adam Johnson’s Fortune Smiles, which won the National Book Award.

And I just started reading The Odyssey with my son. It should be fun as he’s been obsessed with mythology and is currently more up on it than I am.

What advice do you have for writing teachers?

Be kind. Be honest. Be supportive. It’s easy to get caught up in marking areas for improvement, but remember to find the positive in a student’s work. Even the students who may be struggling the most have something to say. Help them see where they have opportunities, and they’ll start to see their strength and power. Every writer has room for improvement and growth, but if the hill looks too big they won’t take the first step. Encourage the first step.

I see a lot of students who are good writers, but they don’t think of themselves as good writers. They don’t see that they have strengths. So a lot of it is just about confidence. I didn’t have a lot of confidence as a creative writer in college. I remember walking down a hall with a professor and he sort of offhandedly mentioned something he thought was strong in my writing. And I was shocked. And he was shocked that I was shocked. It was the first time I felt this was something I could do.

Also, remember that mechanics are important, but a lot of students who struggle with mechanics are often the ones who have the most interesting ideas. So make sure to honor that part of their writing. 

Thank you Brady for graciously sharing your writing world with us.

AuTHor Thursday: Elizabeth Raum

Greetings RRVWP Blog Readers, 

Meet Elizabeth Raum. She has graciously shared part of her writing world with us. 

Elizabeth Raum has written over 100 books for young readers including picture books, nonfiction, and middle-grade novels. She spent several years as a teacher and librarian in New Jersey and North Dakota. She taught at Mapleton High School in Mapleton, North Dakota, in the 1970s, and worked as a librarian at Concordia College from 1992-2003, in Moorhead, Minnesota. She has been writing fulltime since 2003. She has lived in six states, but claims North Dakota as home. She is a teaching artist with the North Dakota Council on the Arts and the Regional Advisor of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Her website is www.elizabethraum.net.

Why do you write?

Every life is a story, and the lives of others (both true and imaginary) nourish us. I write to tell these stories.

Who currently inspires you?

My Fargo writing group is a source of inspiration. They work at their craft, constantly revising to make their work sing. And like all of us writers, they don’t let rejection defeat them. They continue to produce amazing work, even though they seldom get the recognition they deserve.

Who encouraged you to be a writer?

Two of my teachers played a special role in my life. Mrs. Brown, my third grade teacher, assigned the class to write a poem. Mine was about snowflakes, and when Mrs. Brown read it, she told me that I would be a writer someday. Of course, I didn’t believe her. Later, in 9^th grade, my history teacher, Mr. O’Brien, encouraged me through his supportive comments on my papers. My Mom always read to my brothers and me, and my Dad was a great storyteller. He saw every incident as fuel for stories. No wonder I do, too.

AuTHor Thursday: Heidi Czerwiec

Meet Heidi Czerwiec.

She is a poet, essayist, translator, and critic who teaches at the University of North Dakota, where she is the poetry editor of North Dakota Quarterly. She is the author of two recent poetry collections – Self-Portrait as Bettie Page and A Is For A-ké, The Chinese Monster – and the forthcoming lyric essay sequence Sweet/Crude: A Bakken Boom Cycle, and the editor of North Dakota Is Everywhere: An Anthology of Contemporary North Dakota Poets.

She graciously shared some writing insights with the Red River Valley Writing Project. 

Why do you write?

To figure out what I think about something. It’s how I try to make sense of the world, to create some momentary sense of order. And because it gives me pleasure!

Who currently inspires you?

The work of Maggie Nelson – the writing in Bluets is gorgeous, but the ideas she pursues in The Argonauts blew my mind every few pages. Also how Lee Ann Roripaugh manages to constantly reinvent her work, pushing new boundaries – her Dandarians is exquisite.

What are you currently reading?

I just finished Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Mothers, Tell Your Daughters – she writes such perfect short stories, but in this collection, she includes some great flash fiction. I keep rereading Sara Eliza Johnson’s debut poetry book Teratology. And I have a stack of poetry chapbooks and books by women that I’m reviewing.

What advice do you have for writing teachers?

I think that, in addition to teaching good writing, we need to teach good writing habits – getting your butt in the seat and writing regularly, creating and supporting a writing community by attending readings, buying books, and sharing your own writing.

What genres do you write? Which is your favorite? Why?

I write poetry and nonfiction and all the hybrids on the spectrum between the two. My favorite is whatever I’m not writing at the moment!

Thank you Heidi for sharing a part of your writing world with us!

AuTHor Thursday: Sophie Glessner in Scholastic's The Best Teen Writing of 2015

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are a way to celebrate student artists and writers.  Last year, West Fargo student Sophie Glessner wrote a short story that won its way into Scholastic's The Best Teen Writing of 2015.

Sophie's "That's How Summer Passed" can be read online here.

In classrooms across the state, there are talented artists and writers. Scholastic provides an opportunity for them to be honored and also to share their work.

January 1st is the deadline for the award submissions, so make sure to encourage your students to upload their work PRIOR to winter break.

They will have to create an account here: http://www.artandwriting.org/
upload their documents or photos of their art, print a a registration form, and mail it with their $5 fee (or fee waiver form) to Olivia Edwardson Dept 2320, PO Box 6050, Fargo, ND 58108-6050.

AuTHor Thursday: Ryan Christiansen

Greetings Readers of the Red River Valley Writing Project Blog,

Meet Ryan Christiansen, today's local author feature. 

Ryan graciously shared part of his writing world with us.

Ryan Christiansen has worked in a variety of writing disciplines, including journalism, technical writing, and creative writing. He is the author of Boy Wanted, a new "flash novel" published by the North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies Press at North Dakota State University. Ryan has also self-published a collection of poems titled Wolverton Road, as well as a collection of short-short stories titled The Guard House and Other Stories, which he wrote as the artist-in-residence at Fort Stevenson State Park, North Dakota, in 2011, for the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department and the North Dakota Council on the Arts. His short stories and poems have appeared in Red Weather, San Antonio Current, Big City Lit, RELEVANT, Minnesota Technolog, and in the code {poems} anthology. A professor of English, he has taught a variety of English composition courses at both two-year and four-year universities.


Why do you write?

I write because my life depends on it; if I go a day without creating something new, I get anxious and crabby. And I love shaping the world through language, whether that means writing fiction, writing an opinion, or telling someone else's story in a magazine article.

Who currently inspires you?

I'm newly inspired by young adult writers, and I'm re-reading the books that I read as a youth. I'm currently enthralled by the writing of Ursula K. Le Guin and her series of books that begins with A Wizard of Earthsea. I'm also inspired by Viking Age culture, and I'm seeking something important within that milieu, but I'm not sure what yet.

Who encouraged you to be a writer?

My teachers encouraged me, of course, but so did many artists through their works, and many musicians. I consider Steve Jobs to be an artist who encouraged me: when I purchased my first Macintosh computer in 1989, there was something about the design of that object that inspired me to fill it up with words. And my first typewriter inspired me to hammer out prose in much the same way a slab of marble might inspire a sculptor to begin chiseling. There's something very encouraging about having good tools to work with.

What are you currently reading?

Like I mentioned before, I'm reading Le Guin, but I'm also reading comic books, not for the stories (because many of the stories are terribly constructed) but for the visual language. I'm also reading rules and adventures for role-playing games because I like making connections between how an author constructs a story and how people play out a story in games.

What advice do you have for writing teachers?

My main piece of advice is that, yes, creative writing can be taught. I think because creative writing is so hard for most of us, we tend to buy into the myth that creative writers are born, not made.

What advice do you have for writers?

When telling a story, use the very best nouns and verbs in the active voice while suppressing adjectives and eliminating adverbs to tell how a character’s desire overcomes conflict to attain a goal. If you can do that while actually writing instead of talking about writing, you'll do well.

What genres do you write? What is your favorite? Why?

When I write creatively I prefer writing in short genres. I aspire to write flash fiction and flash nonfiction, and I like writing in simple poetic forms like the American cinquain. I have to admit, though, that my favorite genre is the human interest story. I absolutely love interviewing someone and then telling their story, using their own words and my words together to shape their presence on the page. The human interest story is the form of art I first fell in love with, probably because I used to read a lot of Rolling Stone articles and biographies about musicians. When I was a journalist, I poured my heart into human interest stories.

Thank you, Ryan, for your writing insight! 

AuTHor Thursday--debut YAL author Paul Greci

Paul Greci, with Massimo (L) and Kelly (R), signing copies of his first YAL novel, Surviving Bear Island (2015) in Minneapolis for the ALAN workshop

At the ALAN (Adolescent Literature Assembly of NCTE) workshop last week in Minneapolis, one of the panels was comprised of debut YAL authors. One of the authors on the panel was Alaskan author Paul Greci. I was happy to see Paul because 1) I miss Alaska, where I lived for 20 years and 2) Paul's wife, Dana, and my husband, Enrico, were in the same MFA program in creative writing at the University of Alaska in the 90s, and we enjoyed catching up with them.

Past President of ALAN Walter Mayes leading the panel of debut YAL authors.

Paul has taught in alternative education schools in Alaska for decades. He has also worked with students who didn't fit in alternative schools and were placed in an alternative alternative school. His expertise in working with reluctant readers fueled his desire to write the kind of high-interest, compelling adventure book that he has just published. Paul is the real deal--an experienced outdoorsperson, kayaker and wilderness adventurer. He draws from these experiences in the book.

Teen reader Massimo Sassi gives the book a thumbs up thus far. Could this be Alaska's answer to Gary Paulsen?

Paul has an excellent blog which can be accessed here: https://paulgreci.wordpress.com/

by Kelly Sassi

AuTHor Thursday: Meet Cindy Nichols

Welcome to AuThor Thursday.

Meet Cindy Nichols, a local author who also teaches in the NDSU English Department.

Cindy graciously gave us some insight into her writing world. 

Bio

I hail from Southern California originally, received my MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, then headed north and have lived in Fargo for more years than I care to mention! My poems have appeared in a variety of national journals, including The Kenyon Review, Mid-American Review, Cimarron Review, and Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics.  I like coffee. A lot.  Also Affenpinschers, the Tetons, and sport/show kites. I own a very weird number of kites.

Recent interests include affinities between the creative process—poetry in particular—and contemplative practices, new and ancient.  I recently spent a week at Brown University talking with people who are spearheading the use of these practices in education, and I also ran a residential two-day creative writing/meditation workshop with Humanities Council funding.

Genres

I write plenty of “normal” poems, but I also do a somewhat wacky range of stuff, including mixed-genre and mixed-media pieces: scholarly essays which include animation, poetry, and various interactive gizmos, for example; and scholarly essay/personal essay hybrids. I have a piece in Enculturation which experiments in this way, called “Responding in Kind: Down in the Body in the Undergraduate Poetry Course )Thoughts on Bakhtin, Hypertext, and Cheap Wigs(.” Another is a letter-essay on the place of Creative Writing in English Studies which appeared in New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing  (it is actually a letter written to a class taught by Amy Taggart). And another is an anthologized piece which explores labor issues in English Studies: “Uppity Subalterns and Brazen Compositionists.”

I also have a piece in Dr. Verena Theile’s recent anthology, New Formalisms and Literary Theory, called  “Punk Bodies, Jorie Graham, and ‘The Draft Itself’: Notes Toward a Lyric Formalism.”

Why do I write?

This is antiquated process stuff, but, honestly, I write “to see where it will go.” I think my muse is a semi-crazy hippy piper whose sound makes me giddy and, well, stupid. He doesn’t know where he’s going either.

My interest in bending genres comes I think comes in part from what Wallace Stevens had in mind: “poetry is the mind in the act of finding itself.”  Hybrid and constantly varying forms are a “natural” consequence of trying to say something that won’t stay still—if nothing else, just how it feels, right down to our nerve endings, to be trapped in time and strange bodies.

I think I write too as a simple way to cope with lost car keys, marital arguments, the bumper-car ride of working in an English department, endlessly [expletive] icy sidewalks, and a prairie landscape so beautiful it makes me drool.

Inspiration

The stuff that most turns me on is experimental lyricism.  I love love lyrical poetry, and I also love weird and challenging poetry. My primary inspiration has to be Jorie Graham (the weird side) and James Galvin (the lyrical side). They were married and sort of my mom and dad in grad school.  And man, they fought a lot.

Graham is an insanely strong personality and she remains one of my favorite contemporary writers.  Galvin too. I also love Fanny Howe, Anne Carson, Tony Hoagland, Lisa Lewis, and, well, it goes on. I always go back to a lot of dead white guys: Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, Hopkins, Keats, Yeats, Blake, Wordsworth, WHITMAN, and pretty much all of the modernists. And Dickinson. Lately reading Mary Oliver and a variety of poets whose work is “contemplative” but not explicitly Buddhist. And I really love Neruda.  And Dean Young, a semi-young writer who is sublimely nuts.

Rodney Jones’ thick, intense, Southern, hyper-detailed and hyper-jaded poems. Are wonderful.
 

What advice do you have for writing teachers?

1.  Always be actively writing yourself.
and

2.     Always be actively writing yourself.

AuTHor Thursday: NaNoWriMo Madness and Resources

As the calendar turned to November, novel writing madness began. While not all of you reading this may feel inspired to write a 50,000 word story (which is really "only" 1,667 words per day), the writing resources available via National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) could prove valuable for you as a writer and for the writers in your classes.

The National Novel Writing Month website offers encouragement, including a "pep talks" page found here. They have a pep talks archive, linking to writing pep talks from authors ranging from Lemony Snicket to Sue Grafton to Kate DiCamillo and beyond!  There are also helpful forums where one can obtain help from naming characters to research questions to "adopting" a character or title.

The Young Writer's Program NaNoWriMo website offers free downloadable "Young Novelist Workbooks" for elementary, middle, and high school levels. The Dare Machine on the homepage can also be good for generating writing challenges from "Introduce a character raised by animals" to "Give one of your characters a bizarre injury."

So. Even if you do not see yourself entering into the NaNoWriMo madness, consider checking out all the writing resources to inspire and support writing. Who knows, maybe one day you might take November's writing challenge! (Or maybe you already have.) Until then, keep writing and encouraging others to write!

AuTHor Thursday: Denise Lajimodiere

Meet Denise Lajimodiere.

She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Pembina Chippewa, a poet, and Assistant Professor in Educational Leadership at North Dakota State University.

In the introduction to Denise's poetry collection entitled Dragonfly Dance, Louise Erdrich writes:

If healing is partly the resurrection and acknowledgement of pain, then Denise Lajimodiere is a healer through her poetry. If healing is partly laughter, then Denise's poetry can laugh through tears. If healing is a mysterious process, Denise shows that it also begins in everyday kindness.

Some of her poetry has recently been included in North Dakota is Everywhere: An Anthology of Contemporary North Dakota Poets edited by Heidi Czerwiec.

Denise has brought her writing expertise to the Red River Valley Writing Project in her role as Writer in Residence. She participated in a writing workshop with Native students at the Circle of Nations Boarding School in Wahpeton. Also, this past summer, she was part of the Turtle Mountain Teen Art and Writing Workshop. This workshop was recently featured on the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards blog.

Denise graciously shared some insight into her writing world, answering the following questions for the RRVWP blog.

Why do you write?
I can't not write. I have to write, it's like an itch in the back of my brain that can only be soothed by writing. I keep journals in my purse; I keep a dream diary by my bedside to always jot down thoughts and observations that are seeds to poems.

What genres do you write? Which is your favorite? Why?

Poetry is the only genre I write in. I love the challenge of editing out every superfluous word, of making the poem tight and having inner rhyme and chime, assonance, consonance, yet have deep meaning and be beautiful to hear when read out loud. 

Who encouraged you to be a writer?
 My Junior high school creative writing teacher, Mrs. Avshlomov, took me aside and said, ‘you can be a writer.’ At that time, mid 60s there were no Native writers that I knew of and I thought, ‘poor Mrs. A, she doesn’t know that Indians can’t write.’ I immediately stopped writing for nearly ten years, just kept notes on scraps of paper and put them in a shoebox. In 1984 I held a book in my hands titled Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich. I was stunned to see that not only can Indians write but someone from my own tribe had written an award winning novel!  I started writing poetry again from those shoebox scraps. Louise and Heid Erdrich began doing writing workshops on the Turtle Mountain reservation where I was living. I gave Louise my poems. The next day she took me out by an oak tree by a lake, looked me in the eyes and said ‘You are a writer.’ This time I believed it and have been writing ever since. I have now completed my second poetry book manuscript; it's ready to send to out to publishing houses. 

              

What are you currently reading?

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. By Charles C. Mann. A stunning historical book of life before and after Columbus for the Indigenous people of the ‘Americas.’

Denise, miigwich (thank you) for sharing your writing insights with the RRVWP blog.

AuTHor THursday: Jill Kandel

Author Jill Kandel

Meet Jill Kandel, a local author. She specializes in creative nonfiction and has had essays published in a variety of literary journals, including The Missouri Review, Gettysburg Review, River Teeth, Pinch, Image, and Brevity.  Her book So Many Africas: Six Years in a Zambian Village won the Autumn House Press Creative Nonfiction Award in 2014. 

You can find Jill online at www.jillkandel.com. She regularly blogs about her writing life, which included participating in the Red River Valley Writing Project's Pens and Pints Writing Crawl this past August. 

For more insight into her writing process and literary life, she graciously answered a few questions for the RRVWP.  

Why do you write?

Initially, I began writing after living for six years in a very remote village in Zambia, Africa. When I came home I couldn't talk about those years. I didn't understand a lot of my own life. Zambia became a large silence in the narrative of my life. So I wrote to understand and to articulate what those years had been. Writing gave me a voice.

I am curious about the world and about life. I love to research and writing clarifies my ideas. As William Zinsser said, "Writing is thinking on paper." Writing both excites and calms me. It gratifies my curiosity and is also a tool which takes thoughts out of my mind and releases them.

What are you reading?

I have a book in every room! Here's a few that are open right now:

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

Best American Essay 2015

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, by Ann Patchett

Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better, by Maya Schenwar

The Beautiful Mystery, by Louise Penny

Small Victories, by Anne Lamott

Advice for writers?

I have two very favorite quotes which affect my writing every day. Steven King said, “If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Dan Poynter said, "If you wait for inspiration to write: you're not a writer, you're a waiter."

To be a good writer you have to be a great reader. You also have to sit down in the chair and do the work. You learn to write by reading; you learn to write by writing.

Other than reading and writing, one of the best things a writer can do is to find other writers and form working friendships. Becoming comfortable with other people critiquing your work is essential. Opening up your writing to a writing group, or workshop, or writing friend will make your writing stronger. This back and forth helps a writer let go of the work in a good way. When I first started writing, I thought somehow since the words were written down they were almost sacrosanct. This is a beginner's mistake. It is not easy to have your work critiqued. But when a writer friend tells me a paragraph or page isn't working for them, I have the opportunity to make it better. Having another writer read my writing in progress is a real gift.