Backwards Blogging

Pondering some realities of journal and blog. Recently I read through my physical journals. Again. Every year or so I get the urge, and usually I begin with the first journal I started since I haven't stopped. My initial post was on March 3, 1989. A Friday afternoon. We rented a house in the countryside, where log trucks woke us mornings and deer spied us from the lawn after dinner. My daughter was three, and my son wasn't quite yet conceived.

Nowadays it takes two or three weeks to finish my journals from '89 to the present. I tend to journal about reading them along the way. Always new insights shine from the book(s) about my years raising children (and a dog, cats, rats, snakes, and mice, plus one mallard duck). I wrote discouragement and joy. I penned creative ditties. I jotted a gazillion ideas, a few of which became published articles and essays.

Sometimes reading through I'm impatient with my entries on writing. Blah, blah, blah, waiting for an editor, blah, blah, this title's a winner!, blah, that rejection hurt, blah, I never expected such a nice response...

Other times I truly relish recalling the writerly process. I think it reflects the rest of my life journey well. Always the unexpected. New turns. Wow, I've really been through all that and lived to tell it.

I keep my journals in a metal file cabinet, and I imagine people reading them when I'm gone. In fact, I write with that in mind and don't share just everything (a girl's got to have some secrets). Rarely do I scratch things out. My basic post is one side of one page, and they aren't super regular. Consistently, though, they're there year to year.

After I started blogging nearly five years ago, my journal entries became fewer. Still, there have been weeks and months of needing only the grittier tools of expression: pen, ink, and welcoming blank pages.

I've enjoyed the similar yet different sensation of blogging, but I don't know how long I'll keep up my individual blog. With vague structure to my system, I find the best part of the experience reading other "journals" on the web when mine's in play. Many good words are out there.

What bugs me about blogging is the nature of review. Blogs were made to be current, newsy. Their top-down, last-first nature makes it difficult to read somebody's story from beginning to now. This may not bother anyone younger than 40. And I'm all for getting a sense of today's happenings. But I don't and won't own an I-Phone. I live without a laptop, even. Instead I stick with my journal and my even more portable Moleskine. I carry books. Blogs could give me that booky connection to other author-type people, if they were accessible from first post to last without archive manipulation. (Maybe there's an easy way to read a blog consecutively that I don't know of...? Would love to hear it.)

You're likely thinking, old woman, don't fret over the way things have become. We read the immediate, we update each other's thoughts all day, and what's wrong with that?

You're right, I'm sure. It's a preference. After all, in his day Plato complained about the new technology involving writing things down, because it would take away the experience of remembering long passages. It would make our brains lazy.

I consider, however, taking my lazy brain off the Internet, though I like the other minds I connect with. I just want to read stories from the beginning. I'd like the chance to see where some bloggers were years ago, follow the flow of their journey, and see the contrast with who they're becoming, to review and reflect on collections of the other me's I'm reading.

Deanna Hershiser’s essays have appeared in Runner’s World, BackHome Magazine, Relief, and other places. She lives with her husband in Oregon and blogs at deannahershiser.com.

Women Who I Love

Stephen Swanson finally admits to loving women.  Surprise!

With this being near V-Day and the midst of the "Love Relief" campaign, I felt the need to write about something more pleasant than my anger with legislatures, both state and federal, or what's happening on the Bachelor.

I need to think positive, and you should too. Therefore, I want to write about my love for women. No, not THAT kind of love. Sure, I could talk about my wife or mom. I could write about my sisters. I could write about the wonderful, strong, and intelligent women who are my colleagues, both online and IRL.

However, there's a group of women that I respect more than any other at the moment: my students.

This is not to say that I do not have wonderful male students, friends, and colleagues. I do. They're great!

But, unfortunately for them this semester, I have some women in my classes that are not only dedicated, sharp students who make teaching fun and interesting on a daily basis but who have also overcome considerable obstacles to be there.

Take, for example, on of the students in my afternoon class. She is what we would call a non-traditional student, meaning that she is not 18-23, and I had the pleasure of teaching her in the prerequisite course. At the beginning of that term that I first had her, she struggled with everything. Not only was she frustrated with her own lack of experience with computers and word processors, she had a strong sense of self-criticism, that she just wasn't a very good writer.

This week, she not only led a discussion on her own but also takes time before class to help other students get their work formatted on the computer. She, like the rest of us, still struggles with self-doubt, but she does not let it stop her cold like it had.

I have a whole set of women with whom it is my pleasure to work as part of the dual-credit program which teaches high school students so that they get both high school and college credit for their work. They are not only smart, funny, and hardworking, but they have begun to take pride in the very value of intellectual pursuit in an environment where little value is placed, especially within their gender sub-culture, on thinking and consideration.

Now, I can only take a very small part of the credit for their evolution as students, but I can own the pride and affection that I have in them and a society where they can be what they are and become even better.

Therefore, in a new spirit of "Valentines", I urge you all to express your pride, encouragement, and...yes, love, to one another, as least for a few days in February.  We all need it.

Stephen Swanson teaches as an assistant professor of English at McLennan Community College. Aside from guiding students through the pitfalls of college writing and literature, he spends most of his time trying to remain aware of popular culture, cooking, and enjoying time with his wife and son. He holds degrees in Communications (Calvin College), Film Studies (Central Michigan University), and Media and American Culture Studies (Bowling Green State University). In addition to editing a collection, Battleground States: Scholarship in Contemporary America, he has forthcoming projects on Johnny Cash and approaches to analyzing detective narratives in terms of ethical responsibility.

Relief News Tuesday 2.15.11

Relief 5.1 Editor's Choice Winners

Issue 5.1 is currently steaming down the line toward the first printing. This is going to be an issue to be remembered, and well worth the long wait. As promised, here is a list of our three Editor's Choice winners:

Editor's Choice for Fiction

"Catholics," by Margot Patterson

Editor's Choice for Creative Nonfiction

"Like a Spread-Eagled Cat Suspended," by Samuel Thomas Martin

Editor's Choice for Poetry

"Doubt," by David Holper

At the risk of sounding like doting parents, we are really proud of all the authors we're featuring in this issue. But a special congratulations is due to Margot, Samuel, and David. Leave a comment and make them feel extra special!

Don't Forget to Show Relief a Little Love

The LoveRelief support raising campaign kicked off yesterday, and we've had a lot of people peeking in here and on our Facebook and Twitter as a result. Unfortunately, though, we can't run a journal on website traffic alone. So please click on the "Chip In" widget to the right and help us fund Relief for Issue 5.2 and beyond!

Luci Shaw's Spiritual Erotics

A propos of our Love Relief campaign, Relief's Poetry Editor considers what it means to look with love at something while reviewing Luci Shaw's What the Light Was Like (Wordfarm, 2006). As a point of order, he wishes to say that he began this post well before Valentine's Day, but while it's become a propos of the occasion, it is notably about Shaw's "spiritual erotics" rather than, say, the canned greetings you'll get today from e-cards.

...To find some kind of essence-- the soul within the structure, taking my body in their eyes and fingers in a kind of lovemaking. I the love object.

As I read the above lines from "Life Drawing" in Luci Shaw's What the Light Was Like, I was struck by how they fly in the face of a line of postmodern thinking that is vexed by the power of the gaze. After all, seeing is almost the same as knowing in Western thought; we tend to act like seeing gives us essential information about people and things, when in fact we often see what we expect or desire to see - think of racism or sexism, but think also of your attitudes towards the elderly, or children, or liberals or conservatives. The gaze can be an extension of a mind anxious to avoid the surprises and risks of dealing with individual persons, a mind looking to see only iterations of what it already knows. The clichés of Valentine's Day come from the fossilization of our concept of love, from our inert and idealized notions of romance.

One might fault Shaw for being too complacent about her own looking in this book. One could accuse this gaze as being just as domineering and male ("They'd work to get beyond surfaces / to penetrate what lives / inside" [emphasis added]) as so many that have come before. But that would be to miss the point. As the book's title indicates, these poems are not about finding the same light everywhere she looks - about casting her gaze like a spotlight that turns all things one color - but describing "what the light was like" in specific places and persons. Shaw no doubt looks with an expectation of finding beauty, but it is a looking that at least tries to be open to the looked upon.

Thus she speaks of her looking as "loving," as "witness." These words put her looking in relationship to people and things rather than guarantee her authorial distance. In "Life Drawing," she puts herself in the object's place, imagining herself as a nude model in a drawing class. She calls the students' looking "a kind of lovemaking," and she, though naked and exposed to the ostensibly male gaze, is not merely object, nor sexual object, but "love object."

The challenge for a Christian reader and writer is to look with and bare oneself to this love. As Shaw models it, it is to believe that this love will discover the light without trying to trap it or own it.

At the same time, the co-creative capacities of art play a role in transforming the love object. In "The Redress," the speaker compares the other's gestures to a "too-large shirt" given her by someone else merely to cover her nakedness. Then she imagines undressing and redressing the other, performing a kind of makeover. But this makeover seeks to realize the fullness of the other, to provide her with "a silky second skin / that will keep growing as you grow."

If you've noticed the amount of sex and nudity, you'll appreciate my reference to a "spiritual erotics." Shaw's sexuality in these poems is as innocent and liberated as in Milton's Eden. Baptized by love, erotism becomes an electrifying pulse between and amongst people and things, truly part of our shared lives together. Its purity consists in its generosity; this love celebrates the other and seeks first to give of itself or to give honor and praise, rather than seeking sexual possession.

On this day when the word love is spoken with the casualness of a curse word, it's lovely and good to read Shaw as she luxuriates in her daughter-in-law's hospitality:

"I love the crisp word apple, with its hard and soft sounds, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the way light offers itself without measure, the way Christa reverses the Fall, slicing herself out to us-- her own tart sweetness--without reserve.

---

Brad Fruhauff is Poetry Editor with Relief. He holds a PhD in English from Loyola University Chicago and is currently an adjunct instructor in the Chicago area where he lives with his wife and 2-year old son. He has published fiction in The Ankeny Briefcase, poetry in Relief, Salt, and *catapult, and reviews in Burnside Writers’ Collective and The Englewood Review of Books.

Love Relief

<---love is... a want

We want to keep bringing you Relief Journal. In print. eBook. Hopefully in other eReader formats soon.

We want to keep publishing phenomenal new writers and fabulous established authors.

We want to remain on the radar of literary journals (with a Christian worldview.)

We want to keep offering an outlet for stories that paint a complete picture of Christ and life –- real, gritty, painful, wonderful, this-side-of-heaven life.

but

we have

a need...

Money.

We're not in (the negative.) We're thinking in proactive terms and anticipating financial needs for 2011.

We don't need a lot. Our goal is $1500.

...a want and a need brought together.

Love is--->

all about communication

If we could wildly spend unlimited amounts of cash, we'd be doing all dreamy things.

But the reality is we only have so much and it only goes so far. We are dedicated to being good stewards of the blessings we've received thus far. We're an all volunteer staff. No one gets rewarded with cash. We're rewarded with heavenly crowns. We do this because we LoveRelief. The mission, the people, and the hard work. From Valentine's Day to Tax Day, you'll be hearing from our volunteers. They'll tell you why they work so hard for so little.

The $1500 we're asking for will help to pay our printer. The US Post Office for shipping and the cost of our PO Box. Office Depot for shipping supplies. It will help pay for our web presence. Our e-junkie account so we can sell you copies online. Our bank fees. It will help pay our yearly fees to the government.

It will help us start 2011 in confidence. Knowing that we'll have fundage in the bank allows our staff to focus on what we consider the important thing: Excellent stories.

We're communicating our need.

We're hoping you LoveRelief enough give a little so that we can continue giving you what we love--this journal.

*Please use the Chip In widget above to show your support.

Sunrise, Sunset

This is the third in a series of thoughts on how place shapes and is shaped by the stories we tell. The first two can be found here and here.

According to George Washington Carver, “nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise.”

As much as I love peanut butter, I have to disagree. Not completely. In an earlier blog, I concluded that sunrise is most beautiful in the mountains, but sunset is more beautiful over the ocean. Being back in San Diego, however, has reminded me of one of life’s true-isms: in a wrestling match, sunset on the Pacific beats sunrise anywhere over the head with a steel chair every time.

Don’t agree? Here are three reasons you should.

1. You don’t have to get early up to see it.

This isn’t a morning person/night person binary. It’s just common sense. I mean, seriously, early risers get everything – the worm, a quiet house, the best waves, an unfounded reputation for being go-getters. They also get a sense of ownership over the beauty of the moment, that self-serving pride that says “I deserve to see this because I set my alarm clock and didn’t ignore it when it went off.”

Slackers need a prize, and that prize is the most beautiful part of the day. We know we don’t deserve it. We know we’re unable to lay claim to having a hand in the experience. Maybe we just have a better understanding of grace because we have a much harder time convincing ourselves we should be given any based on our actions.

2. The death of color is always more vibrant than its birth.

Apologies to Robert Frost (and Pony Boy), but nature’s first green isn’t gold. (Irony alert: Microsoft Word’s grammar check identifies this version of his famous line as grammatically problematic. Guess humans are still better than machines at a few things even if one of those things is not winning Jeopardy). No, nature’s last gold is gold. Just before they die, greens give way to the deepest, richest colors. And so it goes with the sunset. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve watched the light of the sun coming up and thought “those colors are amazing.” I can count the same number of times I’ve uttered those words as the Big Orange dropped into the ocean in the last ten days.

3. The Green Flash.

If you don’t know what that is, it’s probably because you either haven’t spent much time in Southern California or you’ve followed the age old of wisdom of not looking directly into the sun. But out here, we do it anytime the day is clear and the water is calm on the off chance we’ll get to see fingers of green light splay out across the water just as the sun dips below the horizon. It’s a rare event, but when it happens, you know you’ve been given a gift (unless you were also up to see the sunrise that same morning, in which case you assume you’ve earned a bonus for working overtime).

I’m sure some of you disagree. Please do, in the comments section below. While you do, I’ll be outside watching the sunset.

Michael Dean Clark is the fiction editor at Relief, as well as an author of fiction and nonfiction and an Assistant Professor of Writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. He lives in San Diego with his wife and three children.

Relief Spreads the Love: Sarah Wells's "Cascade Valley"

Here's a lovely little poem from a former Relief author, Sarah Wells, called "Cascade Valley." Congrats, Sarah, and thanks for sharing your poem.

Hope Springs Eternal (from the Superficial)

Stephen Swanson relishes this time of year: a time of awards, good intentions, and hope.  He believes that shows, like the Golden Globes, the Miss America Pageant, and the Bachelor not only fill our time but also our lives.

Amid controversy about Ricky Gervais' hosting of The Golden Globes, the possibly worst set of "talents" ever displayed on the Miss America Pageant, resulting in the crowning of the youngest Miss America ever, and perhaps the dumbest Bachelor ever (or are they the dumbest Bachelorettes?), it would be easy to give up on things.

If I add to this the new book out showing that I might be devoting my life to a complete waste of time, as students learn mostly nothing at college, then it might be even easier to just say...pooh!

But I can't.  I just can't.  I know that this season of American Idol will be a complete debacle without anyone Simon-ish to reign in the Hollywood dream factory, but I want to watch the train steadily ignoring the "Bridge Out Ahead" signage.

What's my secret?  Well, there are a couple of things.  First, there is a hope built into this sort of cycle.  There is a realization that sometimes things can surprise you.  Steven Tyler might come out tonight and tell contestants to stop dreaming and grow up.  I doubt it, but it'd be cool if he did.

The hope comes from two main sources.  First, hope comes from the succession of exciting things coming up.  We've got the playoffs in the NFL, Valentines, the Oscars, March Madness, Easter, opening day of baseball, mid-terms, and a new dedication to trying to at least work out twice a week.

There is not time to give up.  One can shift from hope to hope like when video gamers desperately lean to try to get Mario over the gap that he jumped just a pixel or two too early.  We can lean a long way before we collapse around July.  We can keep moving forward in an effort to maintain momentum.  And, sometimes it works!

Secondly, and perhaps more powerfully in the long-term, there is the comraderie of watching the oncoming, impending doom.  You can turn to the person beside you and give a look that says, "This is REALLY happening!"  The look also says, "Thank goodness we're not on that train."  And, for a second before the horror hits, we find comfort together.

I do not, obviously, mean to imply that Miss America or The Bachelor is like a train going off a cliff.  It's nothing like that at all, but it takes so much more time to explain to students and people around you about what's going on in Haiti or Tunisia than why Brad does not deserve to "win" anyone, even these women who've asked for it.  It's so much easier to give the context of Hollywood wheeling and dealing around the yearly awards than to discuss the federal budget, healthcare, or education.

Therefore, I take momentary hope and relief from the grind towards the lowest common denominators of disorganization, incivility, and violence to just complain about the sparkly, red rose on Natalie Portman's dress and gossip about how it could be that we didn't know she was pregnant. It's just easier to keep with the flow and to hit only the most recent and superficial of information, to go with the "gut".  The brain and logic only get in the way of fun and living.

Stephen Swanson teaches as an assistant professor of English at McLennan Community College. Aside from guiding students through the pitfalls of college writing and literature, he spends most of his time trying to remain  aware of popular culture, cooking, and enjoying time with his wife and son. He holds degrees in Communications (Calvin College), Film Studies (Central Michigan University), and Media and American Culture Studies (Bowling Green State University. In addition to editing a collection, Battleground States: Scholarship in Contemporary America, he has forthcoming projects on Johnny Cash and approaches to analyzing detective narratives in terms of ethical responsibility.

Poetry Games

Can poetry be fun? Um... you do read Relief, right? Check out this post about Tweet Speak Poetry from the Books & Culture online newsletter.

New Developments (And Needs) at Relief

The Relief staff and I are happy to announce that we will soon be opening presales for our much anticipated and long awaited next issue. This issue features some wonderful new voices, as well as a few returning Relief authors, and I am truly thrilled to see it all finally coming together.

This one has been particularly challenging to bring to print, in part because we have a number of vacancies in our editorial and production staff, and it’s been something of a vicious cycle trying to fill those roles in the middle of a production phase: we’ve been working so hard to pick up the slack and keep things running that we haven’t had much time to train the new volunteers we so desperately need in those roles.

After the new issue’s release in the coming weeks, I expect to have a brief, but much needed lull, and at the top of my list of priorities for that time is to make sure Relief is fully staffed for the year 2011.

Think you might be interested in helping with Relief? Below are just a few of the positions we’re looking to fill.

Assistant Editor—will work with the Editor-in-Chief to develop production schedules and coordinate with other staff to ensure that deadlines are being met. The Assistant Editor will also have creative input on content, design, author promotion and networking, etc.

Copy Editor—edits all content for spelling, grammar, and to ensure that it is consistent with our house style guide before sending to the Layout Editor.

Relief Blog Manager—works with the Web Editor to set the weekly blog posting schedule and coordinates with Blog Contributors to ensure that deadlines are met. The Blog Manager may also be expected to write occasional blog posts and assist with building and maintaining our presence on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Blog Contributor (several openings)—writes on timely, writing-related topics, especially pertaining to the intersection of faith and art. Blog Contributors must be willing and able to post on a regular schedule (either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly).

Please note that these are not paid positions. We're looking for people who are passionate about Relief's mission and the literary culture in general. If any of these positions look interesting to you, send a brief 1-page resume or cover letter in .doc, .rtf, or PDF format to jobs@reliefjournal.com, and we’ll be happy to give it a look.

Note: We also will soon need to fill some positions with our sister publication, The Midnight Diner, and the growth of Relief is always opening new and unexpected needs for talented and committed volunteers. So check back here from time to time to see if new openings have been announced.

I’ve Been Here, Right?

 

This is the second in a series of thoughts on how place shapes and is shaped by the stories we tell. The first can be found here.

I spent a year writing a novel about my hometown because I was pretty convinced I’d never get back there again (other than on vacations). Then I moved onto another novel and another class to take and then another and then a degree. I applied to some schools wondering not where I would end up, but if I’d even get a callback.

And then I got a job offer in San Diego, a short drive south on the Coast Highway from where my novel/childhood took place. Not surprisingly, from the time I accepted the job (which happened on a day when Milwaukee’s high temperature was 32 degrees) to the moment I pulled into Ocean Beach, my mental slideshow of home was strangely blank.

Now that I’m back, however, I keep ending up in my book. I swing past the Self-Realization center at the Swami’s surf beach and I’m walking the reflection path with my character Shandy. I buy a Big Gulp at the D Street 7-Eleven and keep waiting for Marley Bob to walk in wearing his diaper and Birkenstocks. I go out of my way to wind up the hill past the park where Tommy Mac and Troy-boy meet before heading to the beach.

This doubling of life and writing only gets weird every time it happens. The field full of greenhouses in my mind and history is now empty awaiting tracts of homes that died off when the recession hit. Moonlight Beach now has an enormous plastic playground for little kids and paved footpaths down the sandstone hill from the parking lot. The bars on the 101 have updated their facades. There is a ridiculous statue of a “surfer” that wasn’t there before.

Mind you, I didn’t expect North County San Diego to remain unchanged while I was gone. But somehow, that first attempt to write this place cemented images in my mind that I’m now having a hard time letting go of those pictures. I guess I like the warm glow of nostalgia a bit more than I thought.

Michael Dean Clark is an author of fiction and nonfiction and an Assistant Professor of Writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. He lives in San Diego with his wife and 2.9 children.

Don Miller on the Church's Effect on Literature

Don Miller has a great post up this week called "Is Church Life Stifling Your Creativity?"  Here at Relief, we've often had to carefully straddle the line between offending our Christian audience (people who keep Relief alive while asking many of the questions that Miller lists) and offending our sense of craft and Relief's mission to bring the authentic to light. So check out his post and let us know what you think--we're eager to hear.

http://donmilleris.com/2011/01/05/is-church-life-stifling-your-creativity/

Mad

Ian David Philpot shares a few things he found on StumbleUpon.

If you haven't discovered StumbleUpon, then let me give you a summary of how it works: 1) go to StumbleUpon.com, 2) signup or login, 3) hit the "Stumble" button on the top left, 4) wave goodbye to the next two hours. It basically sends you to random websites. You can setup your interests and it will send you to websites that fall into those categories.

So I found out about StumbleUpon almost a year ago, and there are a few things I've found that are interesting. One of those is oneword.com. It gives you one word and you write about it for sixty seconds. It's pretty awesome. There's also a cool graphic I found that explains the sleep levels in the movie Inception. Totally helped.

But on Monday, I found a cool blog post from Max Andrew Dubinsky's website, makeitmad.com. The post, "A Gentleman’s Guide to Staying Cool in the 21st Century," and it rocked my socks off. And as of yesterday, Max added a post titled "A Gentleman's Guide to the Holidays." Another winner, but it gets bonus points for being seasonal.

So, while I'm just copping out from writing a real blog by ungentlemaningly gushing about some guy whose blog I just started reading, seriously check him out. It's like my mom has told me since I was 12, "Good writers read good writers."

A Time of Year For...

The cycle of a student or a teacher is a tough one to break. There is the excitement of the new term with new classes and books. There are new faces and routines. This time there will not be any grammar errors in my syllabi, or the teacher will not be super mean but rather fun and interesting.

Unfortunately, I find myself at the end of that cycle right in the middle of Advent. It seems unfair. Someone needs to move Christmas to September or maybe February. It is hard to look at the faces of the shining kids, decked out in their best shirt or dress, and not to interrupt them in their "pitchy" rendition of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear".

I do not want to be the Grinch, but at the end of term, that is what I am. All the potential has been spent, and it is the end of the line. I must become the Dream-Crusher. I know that it is an oversimplification. My students get what they earned.

So, it is hard to not run up the aisle and say, "Stop! Stop being so hopeful. most of you will struggle your entire lives. Yes, toys are fun, but you will grow up and lose the excitement and curiosity (or have it tested or drugged out of you). You will become bored and sad."

But then that frustration and inclination relies on a misunderstanding. Unlike what I hear on the radio and TV, and often from a variety of pulpits, my faith is not a matter of making everything ok, at least not yet. The promise of the Messiah includes with the "Joy to the World" and "Gloooorrrrria"'s a promise of the suffering and victory of Good Friday and Easter.

So, just as my terms carry with them a certain amount of sadness, nativity scenes always carry a good deal of grief in my heart as well. I used to drive by a church with a Nativity creche right in front of the building, and right behind that small, plastic baby Jesus, with his entourage, was a looking cross the size of a building.

While I can find joy and excitement at the promise of the season, the reality of the life ahead of that small baby humbles me nearly to tears. Within the cries for food and warmth at his beginning on earth were the tears of "Jesus wept.". Those small hands and feet would be pierce with nails and left to hang as he struggled for breath on the cross. Those eyes, still bleary from birth, would greet Mary in the Garden on the morning of his resurrection and be surprised that she did not know him.

That is real potential, and I wish that I could give my students just a small fraction of that.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Stephen Swanson teaches as an assistant professor of English at McLennan Community College. Aside from guiding students through the pitfalls of college writing and literature, he spends most of his time trying to remain  aware of popular culture, cooking, and enjoying time with his wife and son. He holds degrees in Communications (Calvin College), Film Studies (Central Michigan University), and Media and American Culture Studies (Bowling Green State University. In addition to editing a collection, Battleground States: Scholarship in Contemporary America, he has forthcoming projects on Johnny Cash and depiction of ethics in detective narratives.

Cold Comfort

This is the first in a series of thoughts on how place shapes and is shaped by the stories we tell.

In 1993, I left  Encinitas, California – a suburb of San Diego roughly 25 miles north of the city – for what I thought would be a quick four years of college in L.A. Then four years became 17 and I accepted the fact that my hometown would be merely a conversation point for the rest of my life.

In the process, I devised a way to keep San Diego present in my life - by writing about it. The concept came to me in the middle of my first Midwestern winter (which looked a little like the one they’re having now). I can almost pinpoint the moment I decided to make the Southern of Southern California my geographical muse.

It happened on a day when they cancelled school in Milwaukee. Because it was cold. Not a snow day. A cold day.

Coming from a place where I never once had to shovel the sunshine off my driveway, this was frightening to me. They actually shut down school because there was a strong possibility of children getting frostbite while waiting for the bus.

I’d never felt homesickness as actual nausea before. Actually, it was more like creative morning sickness (at least, it seemed to feel like my wife’s descriptions of the actual, baby-induced morning sickness she was having at the time). I found myself thinking about the beach, random snapshots of winter mornings with no clouds or snow, wearing shorts when I went Christmas caroling.

At first, these memories were anti-nostalgia. They mocked me with their warm breezes and complete disconnection from my reality. A quick visit to the coast during the Christmas break only made the feelings worse when I settled into the next three months of outdoor icebox conditions.

The memories continued with the cold and it wasn’t until a friend of mine inadvertently suggested a solution that I found productive use for them. Craig and I were in a writing workshop together and I told him a story about a guy who wore nothing but an adult diaper and Birkenstocks while sitting next to the convenience shop I frequented as a kid. Craig asked why I hadn’t written a story about him and, with no good answer, I set out to do so.

But to tell diaper guy’s story I had to tell a dozen others. And with each, the winter grew a bit shorter and the reason for my being there a bit clearer. By April, the snow had melted and left behind the shape of what would become my first book-length manuscript.

It seemed odd to me at the time that a story contained in a five-mile stretch of the Coast Highway in San Diego was the product of a Wisconsin winter. Now that I’ve moved back to the West Coast (something that seems more dreamlike than less the longer I am here), it feels only natural.

I left San Diego to find it; to discover how deeply ingrained this place is in me and how strongly I feel about sharing it with others. Living here again with that new perspective only makes that more apparent.  I don’t know if I’ll ever sell that first book, but maybe that wasn’t the point.     

Michael Dean Clark is an author of fiction and nonfiction and an Assistant Professor of Writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. He lives in San Diego with his wife and 2.8 children. 

Personal Note

A few thoughts on writing very personal essays.

My own view is that, if anything, what is wrong with most memoirs and autobiographical poems is that they don't go far enough in their confessions; they myopically fudge the details, the close nitty-gritty of self-observation. ~ Phillip Lopate, Getting Personal

My essay "Memorial Day" first appeared in Relief Issue 2.3. Recently it was reprinted in the anthology Saying Goodbye, released by Dream of Things. It's a story that no doubt has confused some people -- the writing is likely fine, having been edited capably by Lisa Ohlen Harris, but I tend to get a certain reaction. "You are so brave," I will hear. Which translates in my mind to the unasked, "Why put this out there?" Or something closer to, "Could I, should I, share my greatest failures with the world?"

"Memorial Day" contains my tale of hurting my husband, Tim, in the worst way more than 25 years ago. The story of our near divorce is woven within a weekend of remembering in 2006, when Tim and I returned to the coastal town where our disaster had happened.

For better or worse I'm someone who tells these certain things -- not all of my life's private details, not even very many -- but the intense bits I believe I have learned from. Usually in person it's after I've known you a while. Doing so in writing is a long process; often it feels like bushwhacking a rough trail between my emotion-filled memories and the sense and sensibilities of readers' minds. As creative nonfiction expert Dinty W. Moore says in his book Crafting the Personal Essay, "The private essay hides the author. The personal essay reveals." I don't wish to blather about private issues no one can relate to. Rather, I want to reveal something of the deepest truths that have invaded my being.

The eyes of the me telling my "Memorial" story now view life with a spiritual appreciation that the early-1980s me could only spot as a glimmer. Part of my continuing closure became releasing the setting of my great drama, letting it sink, so to speak, into the ocean. But there's also a part of my ongoing way of life bound up in lessons from this past event. I'm a person of faith. For me that has come to mean putting together all the evidence I can regarding truth and seeing what it adds up to. Before I royally blew it that time in my twenties, I didn't understand what mercy might look like. While I could see others' need for forgiveness, I couldn't grasp my deficit. I was basically good; I made mistakes. But bring push to shove, and, hey, sure -- it's me, remember? -- I always chose the right path, the godly way. Until, of course, I didn't. Excuses no longer held up in my own mind for my actions. I reached a clear fork in the road and to go forward with belief meant accepting that I needed something more.

Would I recommend this form of writing for very many? Not really. I should likely say run from the awkwardness. Turn to fiction; find some creative alternative. It's certainly not a mandate for Christians. The style of "confessional" writing I'm striving to do isn't bound to particular theological perspectives. Though it tends to be about finding wisdom and truth, its focus is individual, existential.

If you can go there, and if you have to, then read and write the very personal. You may find yourself involved in what the amazing nonfictionist Phillip Lopate speaks of when he says, "I am endlessly interested in the wormy thoughts and regrets and excuses and explanations that people have for their behavior. 'Confessional' is, to me, a descriptive term, not a derogatory one....Honesty has been, for me, the one lodestar to which I never stop aspiring in print. I don't say I attain 'honesty,' but the very fact that I try to reach it gives my work, at least to my own eyes, a formal thrust, a dynamic, a topography."

Deanna Hershiser’s essays have appeared in Runner’s World, BackHome Magazine, Relief, and other places. She lives with her husband in Oregon and blogs at deannahershiser.com/stories-glimmer.

Winter Reading

While it's not officially winter yet, December is a winter month, so it's time to consider Winter Reading. Usually I set very lofty goals for myself that I rarely achieve, but I think my winter reading is much more attainable than my 2009 Summer Reading list. It may help that I've already started reading both.

Love Without Agenda: My Journey Out of Consumer Christianity by Jimmy Spencer Jr. Some of you may remember that I mentioned Love Without Agenda (LWA) twice before--once about a wedding and once announcing that Jimmy Spencer had just released the first chapter of his LWA book online for free. Well, not the whole thing is available in eBook form. For free.

It's not just free though. It's honest. The first creative words that Spencer gets on the page, even before the preface, are, "I didn't write this book to prove to you that I'm right. I wrote this book to share with you that...you are valuable and beautiful just as you are." Immediately after that, Spencer introduces himself and the book very matter-of-factly. You know what you're getting into before the first chapter. I like that.

Oh, and it's interactive. The eBook has links to discussions, videos, and other websites. It's truly a book for the 21st century.

To download it for free, go to ebook.lovewithoutagenda.com.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger Everyone talked about this book when the movie came out. I did see the movie and thought it was good, but there was a close friend who kept urging me to read the book. And so I started it last week. And it's incredible.

What's been surprising so far is the amount of conversation about God. I'm less than 100 pages in, but there has been a lot of discussion between the main characters about free will and the role that God plays in the universe. Niffenegger seems as if these are all thoughts she's had in the past, and it reads as if she really has no answer for any of the questions that arise, only a series of steps that allow the reader to make his or her own conclusion.

Follow Up Be sure to expect a follow up blog when I've completed my reading. With my Winter Reading list so much shorter than usual, I will also see if there is more I can do with the books I have read. So expect to see a Relief Recommends in the near future along with a possible interview with one of the authors. (And by "one of the authors" I mean Jimmy Spencer.)

So what books are on your Winter Reading list?

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Ian David Philpot is the Web Editor for ccPublishing and the Web Content Developer for Willow Creek Community Church. He recently receive his Bachelor's in English at Northern Illinois University and spent one year in Columbia College Chicago’s Fiction Writing program. He writes fiction, poetry, and music. Ian prefers black to white, vanilla to chocolate, and only eats yellow cake.

Diner Recommends: Kevin Lucia

The revamped Diner blog is not quite ready for the public yet, so until then, I'll continue to post Diner related content here! * * *

The Diner recommends: Diner alumni Kevin Lucia's novel Hiram Grange and The Chosen One: The Scandalous Misadventures of Hiram Grange.

I'll admit. I didn't understand Hiram Grange at first. The fact is, he's a super cool dude with a bunch of flaws who doesn't necessarily want to do the right thing, but is kind of forced into it. (and which one of us doesn't understand that?!)  Each novel in the series is a stand-alone and Kevin's is a great (and sometimes gross) read. A little bit Lovecraft, a little bit allegory, and a lot of tension, the payoff at the end is superb.

Hiram Grange doesn't believe in fate. He makes his own destiny. That's a good thing, because Queen Mab of Faerie has foreseen the destruction of the world, and as usual... it's all Hiram's fault. He must choose: kill an innocent girl and save the universe... or rescue her and watch all else burn. Just another day on the job for Hiram Grange.

Kevin is giving a copy away here or you can purchase a copy here.

CNF in the Making

Relief reader Deanna Hershiser talks about the creative nonfiction coming in issue 4.2. One of my favorite parts of reading submissions is being swept along. Writing that lifts me is writing with a view to a room of my heart's experience, even when (as is usually the case) I haven't been through what the author is describing. I'm drawn to reading and writing essays for the joy of absorbing works made by wordy tools and lyrical recipes.

I was pleased this go-round that Relief's editors chose pieces I really like. They're stories of building boats and baking bread and attempting rehab. Seemingly insignificant facets of days -- a morning walk, an evening on the beach -- carry me into meaning, because they were recorded with patience and skill. Repeated returns to the work must have happened for each essay to become finished, ready. Such is the nature of our task. The same is true in "The Art of Work," where A. S. Peterson's craft-ful description reminds me that early in a process "it is easy to think the work nearly done. This is a deception."

As with the best writing anywhere, "finished" doesn't mean everything's tied up with a bow by the end. These essays retain questions. Their problems are ancient ones: What is art? Why strive in light of painful separations? What does perfection taste like? They give fodder for our processes, for the spiritual work each of us does to find meaning in our own little spaces and times.

I'll finish this post with a Cyber Monday notice, fitting because Leslie Leyland Field's essay for 4.2, "Making the Perfect Loaf of Bread," is already available in the artful anthology, The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God. Leslie is the book's editor, as well, and she has gathered delectables (each essay includes a recipe) from the likes of Wendell Berry, Luci Shaw, and Nancy J. Nordenson.

Here's to making our way through Monday and into a month of attempts at meaning.

Deanna Hershiser’s essays have appeared in Runner’s World, BackHome Magazine, Relief , and other places. She lives with her husband in Oregon and blogs at deannahershiser.com/stories-glimmer.

Your Life Story in Six Words

A tenative tweeter takes a new look at condensed modes of communication after discovering SMITH Magazine's Six-Word Memoir Project.

As a freelance book publicist, I spend a lot of time using social media to get the word out about new titles, but I have to say: I am not a fan of Twitter.  I'm the kind of person who loves thick novels like Jane Eyre, excuses run-on sentences, and had to be taught the meaning of "succinct" by my 9th grade English teacher. So 140 character "tweets" are just not my thing.

Twitter offers a wealth of information for those who wish to seek it out, but to me it feels like an overwhelming sea of data, a roar of white noise. I also can't help but feel like it's a "short-cut", a way to cut creative corners and at the same time cater to our distracted attention spans.  140 characters is just long enough to snag our interest and just short enough to amuse us but not commit us.

But this past week I discovered a project in succinctness that impressed me.  Instead of 140 characters, try six words! The Six-Word Memoir, an initiative of SMITH Magazine, challenges writers to publish their abbreviated life story on their website.  Inspired by the belief that everyone has a story and deserves a forum in which to tell it, SMITH editors created the Six-Word Memoir Project to give people that opportunity.  With a click, anyone can publish their memoir on the website.  I found myself fascinated with some of their entries...

"Never really finished anything, expect cake." -Carletta Perkins

"I still make coffee for two." -Zak Nelson

"Asked to quiet down, spoke louder." -Wendy Lee

In just six words, people all over the world are telling stories with their own unique voice.  I spent half an hour reading through these memoirs and was amazed that such creativity could be condensed into so small a space.  Some are profound, some humorous, some confessional or bittersweet, but all of them possess a genre and a plot of their own as intricate as any novel.

It takes enough skill to be able to articulate your life story, drawing out significant themes and symbols, but to boil it down to six words and still give the reader a lasting impression? It seems to me that is a craft in its own right.  Perhaps Twitter, a cousin endeavor in brevity, is a higher art than I imagined.

Stephanie S. Smith graduated from Moody Bible Institute with a degree in Communications and Women’s Ministry, which she now puts to work freelancing as a book publicist and writer through her business, (In)dialogue Communications, at www.stephaniessmith.com.  After living in Chicago for four years, traveling to Amsterdam for a spell, and then moving back home to Baltimore to plan a wedding, she now lives with her husband in Upstate New York where they make novice attempts at home renovation in their 1930s bungalow.  She is a member of the Young Professionals of the Southern Tier and blogs for Moody Publishers at www.moodyfiction.com.