Memoirous

Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.  – Mary Oliver My writer friend has told me I have a week to wallow in self-pity. My daughter has told me NOT to wallow, but instead get up and get going. A critique partner has given me an assignment: massive revisions of the manuscript PLUS a re-write of a short story. My write...

I recently had new work published at a small online journal called Rejected Manuscripts. I'd only just started circulating Examples of Synchronicity, and while at Calvin College and the Festival of Faith & Writing I received a rejection. This in and of itself is no big deal. In fact I barely ever emotionally register a rejection. Mainly because I'm ALWAYS sending things out. I know the odds are I'll eventually get an acceptance. But it was WHY it was rejected that baffled me. The editor said dismissively--this seems like a bunch of random coincidences. And, I thought--well? yes--that was the point. It's sort of the meaning of synchronicity and the basis of the piece, a series of small flashes that detailed examples of synchronicity. I sort of thought that was evident, self-explanatory. I sat in on a session with the famous short story writer Joy Williams, who has her own book out containing what I might describe as flash essays/fiction/synchronicity/...