Posted on by Laura Lee

Submitted Nonfiction Today

img_3954I submitted a piece of nonfiction today; it felt very scary. No hiding behind poetic license. It was an essay about grief, something we all know about as we get older.

But even though submitting nonfiction was very scary to me, I was able to enter this essay title and information on the excel sheet I created after learning from another writer; I followed his suggestions for creating a submissions excel tracking sheet. I added color coding for Rejected, Accepted (that’s in green), Pending, Withdrawn, and Unknown. Too many unknowns, it seems!   I am learning to sort by these categories as well.

I am having fun working with this!

I don’t think I will become a nonfiction writer now, for I really need that poetic license and I do tend to look at the world through a poet’s eyes.

But I am still trying to grow as a writer.

Thanks for reading.

Posted on by Laura Lee

Nature and Grief

(From my phone)  And I’m here, still.

...I’m trying hard to keep it together. My husband is pulling me off the ceiling sometimes, as I’m finding I’m having chest pains and horrible urges to sob loudly.

When I see her, I will be cheerful and not dwell on the fact that she is most likely dying and going to die an awful death. But in my alone moments, I don’t handle things so well.

Took a short nature walk today and it really helped. Saw a flying squirrel and an ornate box turtle. The poor turtle was stuck between a rock and a hard place, literally, but got free. The flying squirrel froze when it saw a human. I tried to be still, to disturb it as little as possible.

The walking paths were snow-covered, which is surprising since it is still autumn.

Sitting at home, done with grading, waiting for night to fall. Flashes of red from outside. Three male and three female cardinals picking seeds up from the bush in back of the house. Those brief flashes of red are so beautiful and so life affirming somehow.

I stand up to look outside, and they fly away. They must have been able to sense my presence, perhaps see my shadow.

And it helps. And the sunset helps. And the trees and the birds and friends and loved ones help.

But it is impossible to inoculate yourself from grief. At least I think so, if you are a loving person, the loss of a loved one will hurt greatly.

About 13 to 14 years ago, my family and I suffered the loss of many. Some died from a freak set of accidents, some from cancer, some from old age, etc. But it was so many in a short period of time that I was truly overwhelmed and didn’t get a chance to really mourn the loss of most of them individually.

Of these nine losses, the loss of my best friend, Susan, my godmother, and my mother hurt the most. The others I feel bad that I have not mourned them individually; it was like a collective grief.

So I know I’m going to face a lot of pain, and if you love someone, that’s to be expected.

But not something to be looked forward to.

It’s the price of loving people and getting older, surely.

The cardinals have returned, cautiously picking out seeds from the bush behind the house.

 

And I’m here, still.

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Posted on by Laura Lee

35 submissions this summer—and the rejections roll in…

blog word cloud       Since late spring, I’ve made 35 plus submissions just using Submittable.com.  I love using this vehicle since it helps me keep track of my submissions in one convenient location.  I’ve also made email and US mail submissions.

My goal in submitting work is yes, to be published, but also to encourage me to improve my writing and to feel a part  of a writing community.  I am not a great writer, but I can be a good one if I work at it!

It’s obvious there are more poets than poetical publishing opportunities.  I am receiving a number of rejections after an early spring run of four acceptances, and so yes, I am feeling the sting a bit, even while the editors are quite kind in their notes.  Just doesn’t fit, not right now, etc.  No one has said I should seek solace on another planet.  Yet.

Poets, you know this is mostly unpaid publication anyway, and it’s the joy of being published that urges us onward.

While I’ve submitted mostly poetry, I’ve always worked on some mini-dialogue experiments and one short story.

In the meantime, I am enjoying revising my writing, and submitting more.

I am glad I am not trying to support myself with my writing, but I am also glad I write.  It’s been a part of who I am since I was an angsty pre-teen, writing my wretched “woe is me” type broken-hearted poetry.

Now it’s time to get back to work; I have a lot of writing to do.

Thanks for reading!

Posted on by Laura Lee

Of Broken Hearts…a Moment of reality in the doctor’s office and more…

broken heart syndrome       I don’t know why more people don’t die of broken hearts.

I was in a doctor’s office today and heard an infant crying.  An INFANT.  I looked at my doctor and asked, Do you hear that?  At first, he kept his professional persona, as I know he needed to do, and then he said, I thought I could be a pediatrician until my wife and I had children…I could not…could not…

A moment of connection with the medical provider and me—neither of us wanted to hear an infant crying in a medical provider’s office….

I could not tell a parent, he started to say.

And I knew what he meant.

I don’t need to see this doctor for a year or so, so I was a safe patient to be real with… but we both looked at each other and wondered–how do people cope?

All the news about children and parents being separated at the border.  How do people survive?

I worked with someone whose infant was born with a stomach tumor as large as the infant himself…and his insurance company denied his claim as a PRE-EXISTING condition.

How does one survive this heart-breaking, life-breaking fact, that a BABY would be denied coverage? That this child was born with a life-threatening disease?

I have often wondered how anyone survives a war; I doubt I could, as I am very sensitive and I do not make quick decisions. I ponder, ponder, fret and consider, while the world has moved on.

In any case, I found an article from the American Heart Association about Broken Heart Syndrome.

This doesn’t answer the question of HOW do people survive? I don’t know. I really don’t know… how people survive war, catastrophes,  etc.  I admire anyone who does.

And I think we REALLY need to be kind to others, since we don’t know what people are trying to deal with.

Be nice.  Try to put yourself in their shoes.  Life isn’t easy at times; life can be so complicated.

But I think most people want to survive, protect those they love, and have a purpose in life.

With all of this in common, can we find a way to get along?

I hope so.

Thanks for reading, and wishing you peace and empathy.

Laura Lee

 

PS I wonder how many people *do* die of broken hearts, but it is called something else?  BE NICE.  Try to understand others.  Try to extend compassion.

 

Posted on by Laura Lee

Two Great American writers: Alcott and Cather

 

Yesterday I images once upon a timewrote about Willa  Cather, a  great American writer. Links to her most popular novel can be found here: Full Text My Antonia Willa Cather.

And more information about this novel’s 100 year anniversary can be found here: My Antonia 100 year anniversary.

I believe I should re-read My Antonia next in tribute! It’s a precious novel to me, with characters I understand, from the plucky Antonia to the depressed and ultimately suicidal father who laments the harshness of the prairie life, missing his urban life back in Europe.

But we also have to have a look at Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women.  Full text of the novel can be found here: Full text of Little Women.

Like Cather, Alcott felt her life was limited by being born female. Alcott saw her mother working day and night while her father was speaking to Emerson, Thoreau, and at times even Nathaniel Hawthorne; imagine those three greats as your neighbors.

I underestimated Alcott until I read more about her and saw PBS’s biopic, which may be found here: Alcott on American Masters PBS.

I regret I underestimated Alcott as a writer, being influenced by the rather young adult/ juvenile novels she wrote. She wrote so much more!  She supported her family of four sisters AND her parents (mom and all the sisters worked at whatever “respectable” women could do, while it seems the father was educated but not particularly inclined to work after his school failed)  with her writing of dark gothic stories and then these wildly popular “little women” type novels.  Of the latter, she disliked writing them but to quote Fantine from Les Miserables?  “It pays a bill.”

I would encourage watching this program and getting to know more about Alcott.

Of the three female writers I have written about so far, Anne Frank, Louisa May Alcott, and Willa Cather, both Alcott and Cather did feel constrained by being female.  Anne Frank did not live long enough to learn what the world would do with her, a female writer, after World War II.  I don’t want to limit them by saying they are “just” women writers–they were good writers, period. Their gender, for Alcott and Cather, did limit their careers they felt.

Worth looking into further, this idea of how gender can partially become destiny.  All three were good writers, however, and I cannot help but wonder what they could have written if they were born male.

I believe the Bronte sisters in England, (Bronte sisters) published using male names, and I believe they also supported an intellectual father who, if I remember correctly, didn’t bring in much money to support the family. I will look into this further.

I am not a literary scholar not an academic; I am a caring writer myself who is in awe of anyone talented in writing.  I like to spotlight and give tribute to the greats as I can in my own small way.  In a way, it’s good I’m not a scholar but just an interested reader and writer myself, since that way I can be wrong and admit it if I am.

***Another issue to consider later on is social class; Cather, Alcott, and even Anne Frank came from families that might be considered middle class today.  I wonder if that is whey they could even dream of being WRITERS.

Anyone else have a favorite female writer? I’d love to hear about her!

Posted on by Laura Lee

One Hundred Years of My Antonia

I love the novels, short stories, and poetry of American writer Willa Cather.  She may  be best known for her beloved novel of the prairie, My Antonia

One hundred years have passed since the publication of this lovingly and well-written novel.  The Willa Cather Foundation  is remembering the novel with memories of the real life woman who partly inspired Cather to write about Antonia.

Only a book nerd would love this, and I love this.  Cather’s fiction is not flashy or trashy or shocking; they are loving but realistic looks into the beauty and the desperation of life.

Highly recommended.

Posted on by Laura Lee

Educators: Diane Ravitch’s websites

Website            If you are an educator in America or follow education issues, you probably know about Dr. Ravitch’s websites. I highly recommend her websites, as Dr. Ravitch dares to challenge the status quo.

As she writes on her blog:

Diane Ravitch’s website

A bit about her background, from her website:

My website is dianeravitch.com.
I am a historian of education and Research Professor of Education at New York University.
I was born in Houston, Texas, attended the Houston public schools from kindergarten through high school, and graduated from Wellesley College in 1960. I received my Ph.D. in the history of American education in 1975.

Posted on by Laura Lee

Writing to and in the voices of fictional characters

writing to characters

       I’ve written to fictional characters for many years; sometimes, I get replies.  When very young, I used to write to Anne Frank to offer comfort, to seek comfort, to wish she had lived.  Imagine what she could have written, what she could have become as an adult. I wrote to her when I was very young, before I really understood her history.  I wrote to her as if she were a character in a book, and I just loved her.

I have written in characters’ voices to other characters, in the form of ekphrastic poems.

I have written poetry in the voices of Levin from Anna Karenina, of Macduff from Macbeth, of Simon from Lord of the Flies.  I have written in the voice of Lucy Gayheart in Willa Cather’s fine novel of the same name.  To characters in the novels of Thomas Wolfe–o, lost!  To characters in the amazing novels of John Steinbeck.  To characters in those many young adult novels I read when a teen–I wanted to tell them I understood.

Do many others do this?  It seems such an incredible thing to me when a writer creates characters that truly speak to me; they help me grow as a person.  They help me empathize, see things from other points of views.

From one mind to another, across the years and the miles? That’s such an amazing gift of literacy.  Literacy means we don’t have to be confined to one place and time, and that is a priceless gift.

Posted on by Laura Lee

Creativity and compassion should walk together.

teach                     Creativity and compassion should walk together–what does that even mean? Thank you, students.

I had no business entering teaching later on in life, and certainly had no business teaching where I did for my first full-time teaching job. I’d come out of business, gone to graduate school, and entered teaching in my middle years.

Prepared, but totally UNPREPARED for the great needs of the kids. My kids. Yes, I found teachers tend to refer to our students as OUR KIDS, MY KIDS. We love them.

My kids taught me so much, and among the many lessons learned is that it is better to be compassionate than talented.  Does the world need another poet? Maybe, although I love poetry and would argue how important poetry is to the ever changing world. But does the world need better teachers? Oh, yes. (Poets don’t hate me. I love poetry! We need great poets of social justice and to keep poetry alive!)

I found my talents were challenged daily, hourly, even every minute I taught.  I grew so much as a person in patience, humor, and love.  Yes, love. Can we even use that word?

I found my talent for researching resources and creating lessons to engage even the most reluctant learners were challenged every day.

Some time I will write about what I lost by teaching where I did for so long, but for now I want to acknowledge something that has changed my life for the better:

Kiddos, my Kids, all the students even my college students–you’ve helped me become a better person. I had no idea the heart could grow so much. (Can we say heart?)  I had no idea how much my talents that lay dormant when I worked in business would be needed as a teacher.

I know I am a much better teacher than I am a writer, and I am okay with that.  What I’ve gained through teaching is immeasurable, even shocking.  I had not expected that!  I promise I will continue to improve as a teacher, even in retirement years.

Thank you, students past and present–I so hope you are doing well.  Thank you.

Posted on by Laura Lee

Train to No One

        trains black and white

From a year ago… places and memories…

I hold back, reluctant to get on the train. The train—a practical method of transportation. Leave the driving to us. Quick, mostly reliable. I can read during a train ride. I can daydream, as long as don’t fall asleep. Easy way to get to the new doctor’s office.

But the hold of place, the memory in the body of place.

This is where I used to get off the train and meet Earl, walk and walk and talk and talk away the day. We’d discuss teaching, life, family, everything and nothing. We’d talk about Ruth, his dearest friend for decades—how they loved one another but could not live together. We would go book shopping and I’d meet yet another member of his huge extended family. To meet Earl was to meet many wonderful people.

This is where I used to get off the train and meet Ruth, walk and walk and talk and talk away the day. We’d discuss teaching, life, family, everything and nothing. I helped edit her book, helped teach her about computers. We’d talk about Earl, her dearest friend for decades—how they loved one another but could not live together.

They are both gone now.

And I feel it in my body, this grief. And I get off the train to what—to no one.

I walk towards the doctor’s office, hoping he is busy and running late. I pass no bookstores on the way.

Train to no one.