It’s 9 o’clock my time barely three for you but it’s no matter we’re decades apart — not hours — only ghosts here in the library where I race to find the book I need you to read before the alarm goes off and I wake to the day where it’s just a fine gold thread that connects us now.
I pass long tall stacks of coffee table books and the bust of Blackstone in the halls of recorded memory — yours and mine — and you seem not to notice the immediacy of the moment when I approach with insistence, your retired posture almost welcome were it not for the clock ticking next to me in the bed we used to share,
but by then the words have disappeared from the pages in your lap and in exchange, a collage of nonsensical images fall to the ground at your feet rendering me speechless in that dreamworld way, paralyzed by all I have left to say, gasping for moonlit breaths.
In the dark you whisper your worst fears made manifest by explosive lights and sounds you conjure in the woods outside our room, specters stretched tall along walls the shadow of what comes, but I am not afraid of your ghosts nor you of mine — we’ve never been — it is why we find ourselves here again partners in crimes of comfort and concoctions; I leave my dreams to curl into yours, stroke the broad arm of your embrace, lie in the darkness of silent understanding, this midnight love come round, the long wide bed, moonlight and stars our afterlife dreams.
Resisting the urge (for the seventh or eighth time in two days) to hoist the parking lot flag back up to full mast in some alter-ego Fuck Donald Trump ninja subterfuge, I remind myself to breathe in the gorgeous late summer afternoon there in the shadow of Ikea — monument of consumerism — gorgeous, except for the Spotted Lanternfly that crosses my path begging me to squash its red polka-dotted guts out; more death on these days of infinite death I cannot bear; it might be feast for the songbird trapped in the cafeteria throwing itself again and again and again against the ceiling-high windows, their pretense of sky; it does not stop seeking what it remembers, the poor thing, but is that Futility or Hope I wonder as I read signs about food waste and recycling, the 3,920 solar panels on the roof above my head, feast on Swedish meatballs covered in slick red jam.
You are legend suddenly made flesh but no comparison to the mythology I have constructed for you. its scaffolding felled akimbo by your presence, poetry strewn in incomplete sentences across the timeline; mere mortals are not made for this; we fail by our very nature, destroy the sacred altars of memory, light fires to its sweetness, and burn down walls of forgetfulness; best put you back in the box, close the lid tightly before even Hope escapes the happy ending I wrote on our behalf
Maybe it was the full moon or just the occurrence of these days of ending things crashing around us the long slow molting I want you to know I tell him in case I die… but I am no longer sure if that was real or something I said to a ghost
They all come to visit lately by happenstance or dream by the cosmic dust that connects all of us or through airwaves as cluttered as our atmosphere
Last night I walked with one — a ghost — along a woods road up into a wide field of apple trees and goldenrod laughing like old friends
And it was so good to see him again that I burrowed back into sleep in case he was still there waiting
Sometimes when they hover like this converge in dream spaces whisper in dark corners I think I must be dying And this is our mea culpa our chance to set things right finally or again
At 6:15 this morning I had the thought I should drive to Pennsylvania. Sit at my father’s graveside for a while. Talk about all of the things that have changed in the 30 years since we buried him there, the all of us still in shock about the accident, the sudden death, the things we’d left unsaid.
Thirty years is a long time — almost half my life now — there would be a lot to say.
I hadn’t thought of a cemetery visit, made a plan. The grief is so subtle now, with no demands for place and time. It comes as it will come, whether I am sitting there among rows of stones, or sitting in the woods communing with the spirit of everything.
So that was my choice — the spirit of everything in the woods early this morning, and I was happy for the solitude, the Sunday morning quiet.
While I hoped for a sign — he often appears as Hawk — or a voice on the wind, what I found was gratitude.
A deep and unyielding gratitude for how very well he raised me, how strong he taught me to be; for his laugh and the stick-with-it, positive way he approached life; for his encouragement to dream big and love big.
My favorite story about my Dad was the time he took me sledding when I was about four-and-a-half. He set me up on the sled at the top of a rather large hill and reminded me to steer left when I got to the tree. But I got my left and right mixed up and hit the tree straight on — requiring a race to the emergency room and ten stitches. A few weeks later, he brought me back to that hill and told me to open the glove compartment. Inside was the bloody rag he’d held to my forehead — it was a no-pain-no-gain moment. Then he made get on the sled and go back down the hill because…“When you fall off the horse, you get right back on.”
These days we call that tenacity, perseverance, courage, strength, resilience — all of the things that got 29-year-old me standing graveside to this version of me now. I like to think he’d be really proud.
I stayed too long in dreams so much the day seems flat and one dimension; in my mind, the sander still polishes the leg of the man who said “the body always feels pain” as sawdust coats my throat too much for words; a crystal-blue rain falls with wicked gold lightening against the wide horizon somewhere along I-90 in South Dakota, an angel floating in the back seat laughs at what we forgot to say, urges me to Drive! Drive! Drive! as if I am escaping something; all the while my mind ticks, like a clock pacing time, thinking how to slip you a note handwritten that says 808.81 and nothing more, you’re the Sherlock Holmes, you figure it out; all these years, the conversations in my head and you, deaf and blind or just resigned to dreams like me, this morning, wasting days away before the knives cut out pieces of me again, remember? Like the last time you were here, the both of us relieved to hear “she made it.”
The friend who found me after I lost you died and so I lost her, too
there’s a long list of others lost for various reasons since then
by default by accident by misfortune or miscalculation or by the eventuality that all things change and nothing is certain
certainly not love I’ve lost that, too, too many times
so many times I’ve stopped counting one, two, three… out loud anyway
do you ever wonder why we find them again? in hallways of dreams, in lobbies of random buildings doors opening and closing and time passing on all sides everywhere except where you stand momentarily lost and found and lost again
there will always be more to say a one thing I didn’t mention a question I needed to ask a reassurance or gratitude or words I never, ever spoke out loud a messy, beautiful bouquet things I’ve gathered for the next time we meet by chance or happenstance petals dropping even as I walk away a meadow of words at my feet forget-me-not nor I you, ever
His smile was Errol Flynn from the get-go, and he made no apologies for the affect — the tight jeans and cowboy boots, the crisp white t-shirt sleeves rolled, suntanned arms, the hair done up and over, the cologne as alluring as the charm he used to catch your attention. And once he had it, he’d reel you in slow and steady, until you would agree to anything everything and never look back, not even now, all these years later, where he remains as legendary as he was those first early days when you rode the high seas together, stared up at the wild stars and knew you would never ever forget.
Last week, in one of those wonderful moments of happenstance, I met a local woman who — we discovered while discussing her photography work — was raised in the same town as my mom and dad. We got to talking about what it was like growing up there, how you really are made up of where you come from, and how the language of the place filters into conversations like ours and defines things without elaboration.
I wasn’t born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania — but my entire family was — my mom’s family and all of Dad’s, uncles and aunts, cousins. My parents, decades after moving to Connecticut, still called it Home, and for me, sometimes, it feels that way, too. As a child, we spent holidays and summers in Bethlehem, attended family weddings and funerals. Still, today, I can drive around the city without getting lost, find my way back to my grandparents’ houses, the cemeteries, the church where I was baptized and my parents were married.
So I knew, immediately, the location of the photographs in this local woman’s portfolio. The view from the Southside that Walker Evans immortalized (above), the Kraken-like spires of the steel mill rising from the shore of the Lehigh River, the stories-high windows through which I used to watch molten steel flicker and pour as we drove through town.
Like my client, I have always been fascinated by the steel mill. It holds its place in my mind as the beating heart of the city, with its pulsing engines and machines. It was the center through which everything moved: the trains that woke me up at night, my grandfathers working night shifts, my grandmothers keeping house in the shadows of industry, the smell of iron ore on their skin.
If you have been there or lived there, you know that smell. You know the feel of Steel City, its rough-around-the-edges energy and patchwork culture of blue collar workers, religious sects, and immigrants. You know the hills of Southside, the porch-lit Moravian Stars, and you can see the famous steel stacks along the skyline. You see them, even now, as ghosts keeping watch over the casinos and concert venues, the museum dedicated to the long-gone industry that made its city famous.
The woman I met, Linda Cummings, is an artist-photographer with an incredible catalog of work. You can see her collection of Bethlehem, PA images on her website. They’re part of a larger collection of work called Slippages that will be featured in her new book of the same name.
There’s this photo in which he stares at the camera and I remember we’d already begun by then; made plans, talked for hours, fallen in love, even by the look on his face; I remember that day, our chairs pushed together, sharing our lunches, scribbling notes to each other like school kids; but we were hardly that, hardly so fresh to all of it; I wish my camera had focused more, had adjusted its exposure to show the shadows, the rough edges and hidden details, to find the nuances in the full picture I see so clearly, now.
Thoreau, she tells me, was tended to by women. Meals and laundry — a side of the story I’d missed, hadn’t even thought to think about; his cabin in the woods? his solitude and simplicity? my dream! my escape! my alternate ending! and who considers practicalities when we’re having a transcendental crisis? I am disheartened and disappointed and then…delighted! The solitude of the woods? The simplicity of sojourn? And a community of women to soothe and support? Life Goals times one hundred!
It’s the robin’s trill that most often calls him to mind deep from the arbor of spring azalea and its cotton candy blooms, the privet hedge shoulder high then two stories up in an instant of memory, a wooden screen door slam bees and clover and Pappy lifting me to the sky whiskey on a breeze, the rough chafe of whiskers, “chirp chirp” he says as a kiss against my cheek then sets me on the ground to tangle in the blossoms one more time before we leave for home.
“Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and — of course — poets, marking poetry’s important place in our lives.”
My favorite way to celebrate is to join with the thousands of poets participating in NaPoWriMo — NATIONAL POETRY WRITING MONTH —in which we write a poem a day for the month of April.
While NaPoWriMo is celebrating 22 years this year, I’m happy to say this will be my 11th year attempting to write 30 poems in 30 days! Here we go!
twice today we passed each other and twice today that friction of energy and chemistry and memory tugged at the the solid yellow line like the force between silver magnets so we each turned bullet-time freeze frame slow motion twice today a sideswipe glance the closest we’ve been in years
Today, I talk with Kaecey McCormick at Some Thoughts: Everything Creativity, who writes: “I’m thrilled to bring author Jen Payne to the blog today in an interview to discuss life, writing, and her new book, Sleeping with Ghosts. Earlier this month, I hosted a Community Poetry & Prose Night with the theme “The Ghosts We Carry,” and Jen’s book is a wonderful example of how we can be “haunted” by so much and how these “ghosts” show up in our writing.
Kaecey: Jen, welcome! I’m thrilled to chat about your new book, SleepingwithGhosts. The way you blend genres in this collection is fascinating. Sleeping with Ghosts is described as a ‘time-traveling memoir’ into the heart and mind of a poet. What inspired you to choose this format, and what challenges did you face in crafting such a unique narrative?
Jen: Hi Kaecey. Thanks for being part of the Sleeping with Ghosts blog tour!
Like you, I’m not only a writer and poet, I’m also a blogger. I’ve been writing and creating at Random Acts of Writing (randomactsofwriting.net) since 2010. That name, it turns out, was spot-on! My creative work shifts from poetry and flash nonfiction, to essay and photo essay.
As readers will find in Sleeping with Ghosts, I also write a lot of memoir pieces.
The poems in the book have been written over the past 10-15 years, but they cover a time span of 40! From that perspective, time traveling becomes a natural consequence! (It helps that I’m also a closet Trekkie and a bit of a sci-fi nerd.)
I find I have an acute memory for what I call “defining moments” — those places in time when something shifts or changes, times that you bookmark to remember. I am easily able to slip back into those moments and recall the feelings, the conversations, my surroundings. And then I write!
As happened in my previous books of poetry, Evidence of Flossing and Waiting Out the Storm, the poems in Sleeping with Ghosts gathered themselves quite naturally. As soon as I set the intention to create this book, the poems and chapters, and their organization was very clear. The biggest challenge, I suppose, was making sure that the ghosts each got their own say, and that their stories were told to completion.
Kaecey: I can imagine that covering a time span of 40 years meant some “ghostly” challenges! You did a wonderful job making sure each voice was heard. Much of your writing in this collection reflects on past relationships or experiences. I’m wondering, was there a defining memory or experience that sparked the creation of Sleeping with Ghosts? How did it start and how did the concept evolve from that initial inspiration?
Jen: Indirectly, yes.
I’ve been a writer all my life: journalist, copy editor, freelance writer, marketing wordsmith. I started my own graphic design and marketing business, Words by Jen, when I was 27, and spent a great deal of time writing for other people.
But the year I turned 40, I reconnected with someone I had been deeply, crazy in love with. We hadn’t spoken in 15 years, and our reconnection felt monumental and…karmic.
When it didn’t work out (again), everything broke wide open for me. I had to find a way to write from that place, from that broken-hearted, emotional, vulnerable place. That’s really when I began writing the good stuff!
(Actually, you can read about the whole experience in my book Water Under the Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story.)
Kaecey: It’s amazing how those difficult experiences can spark our creativity. And speaking of difficult, your work often explores themes of memory, creativity, and loss. How do you navigate writing about such personal experiences while still making them resonate universally? What advice do you have for poets and other writers who are tackling big themes like grief?
Jen: I think I write about my own experiences because I have to — it’s how I process things, how I connect with the world. Not to be cliche, but writing is my love language.
I’m a bit of an introvert, so writing and storytelling are my way of sharing, of having a conversation, of participating.
I’m not sure I intentionally try to make my work resonate universally, so much as the stories are universal. We all experience these moments —right? The broken heart, the unrequited love, the death of a friend, the relationship we need to leave.
But not everyone has the courage to talk about their experiences. It’s hard work talking about disappointment, broken hearts, loss, and grief.
What inspired me most to write from the heart, to be brave about it, was Brené Brown’s book Rising Strong. In it, she writes, “When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.”
So my advice to writers tackling the big life themes would be a) read Brené’sbook, and then b) be brave and write!
Kaecey: Love that. I’m a Brené Brown fan! So yes! And I appreciate what you just said about our stories as universal human experiences. You’ve also written about our connection to the natural world, and in previous interviews, you mentioned the “alchemy” of emotions, nature, and creativity. I’m hoping you can elaborate on how this idea informs your writing, whether that’s in the language and imagery itself or as part of your process, particularly in this new book, Sleeping with Ghosts?
Jen: There is a certain kind of magic that happens when we can step out of our day-to-day and let new information come in. For me, that very often happens when I walk in the woods or on the beach. For others, the magic happens in meditation or after physical activity.
We’re all so busy these days. And when we’re not busy with actual work — job, house, family, life — we’re regularly seduced by technology and our scrolling, binging culture. Creativity requires us to get away from all of that. How can we hear our Muses when everything else is demanding our attention?
I think it’s important for writers and artists to find those things that let them reconnect with their creative voice. One poet I know recently went on a week-long silent mediation, and when I marveled at that to his wife, she said “That’s him. I prefer moving meditation, like tai chi or yoga.”
For me, being in nature is a critical component of my writing. Whether it’s a regular walk at my favorite nature preserve or a week-long writing retreat by the water — I need that time away to process through the stories and the things I want to say.
And yes, very often there is an overlap of my connection with nature and the imagery and language in my writing, including Sleeping with Ghosts. Of course!
My book Waiting Out the Storm was a very personal tribute to a dear friend who died suddenly. I found the most comfort being in nature, and witnessing how life and death and rebirth play out all around us. Nature was my solace.
That’s what I mean by alchemy — we are part of a much larger universe than our day-to-day. If we can be open to that, give ourselves time and space to come back to our awareness of that, it can infuse our writing and our sense of self in pretty amazing ways!
Kaecey: Beautifully put, Jen. And so helpful for other writers to read about that part of the process. Speaking of process, I feel like, as writers, we’re often surprised by something in our work or in the process itself. Maybe you start a poem about the lipstick case you lost and end up writing about the death of your cat. Maybe you want to write about the sunlight and you end up writing about your toddler’s whining. (Or maybe that’s just me!) In looking back at your journey with Sleeping with Ghosts, what has been the most surprising or rewarding aspect of creating this collection and sharing it with others?
Jen: This is a great question. Our writing can come as a surprise sometimes, can’t it?
One of the most surprising things about Sleeping with Ghosts for me has been how these poems assume their own personality, and almost innately tell the story of each particular ghost…despite the fact that they were written at different times over the past 15 years.
The ghost in I Am a Rock/I Am an Island is unrequited loved no matter when I write about it — in the moment or 10 years later. The ghost in Seeing Red is angry all the time — then and even now.
The other surprising thing — and probably my favorite part about writing this book — is that the ghosts found ways to speak to me. They often showed up to remind me about a moment or a conversation that should be included. Sometimes they needed a final say — and they would chime in while I was on a walk or they’d show up in a dream. “Sleeping in Truro” was one ghost’s final say-so, and “Dear Jenny” was a ghost who appeared just months before the book went to press. When I asked the ghosts to give me a final poem for the book, they sent my Dad who asked, “Did you love?”
I did, I have…and now I get to share that with my readers!
Kaecey: “Did you love?” What a beautiful question and how wonderful to be able to answer in the way that you did! Jen, thank you so much for being here with me today. It’s be a joy to talk to you about writing, life, and your inspiration!
Jen: Kaecey, thank you for these thoughtful questions and the chance to dig a little deeper into the inspiration and ghosts in Sleeping with Ghosts! I appreciate it!
I started my business, Words by Jen, in 1993. It was a part-time effort at first, offering writing and “desktop publishing” services to a small-but-growing list of local businesses, artists, and non-profits. By 1996, I had moved my office from the second bedroom of an apartment to commercial office space and was ready to leave my job at a local print shop to dedicate my time to my own work.
Back then — pre-Google and social media— one of the best ways to market a business was to have a listing in the phone book. Phone books, for those of you who might not know, were kept in every household and included all of the landline phone numbers in your town. There was a white pages section for home phone numbers and a yellow pages section for business phone numbers and advertising.
In the fall of 1995, I placed a yellow page ad in a phone book that would be in every home within 20 miles of my office.
The very first phone call I received was from a woman named Dale Carlson. Dale was a well-known New York City author who had moved to a shoreline town here in Connecticut and started her own, small publishing company, Bick Publishing House.
We met over coffee at a local breakfast spot, and had a very long conversation about how we might work together. She was as curious about me and Words by Jen as I was about the strong force of a woman sitting across the table from me.
Dale was 60 years old when we met, with an impressive resume of writing and publishing experience. She’d written more than two dozen books at the time, had been published by Atheneum Books, Doubleday, and Simon & Schuster, and was the winner of both an ALA Notable Book Award and the Christopher Award.
She had traveled all over the world, practiced yoga and meditation, was an advocate for folks with mental illness and addiction, read voraciously, and had recently become a licensed wildlife rehabilitator.
I, on the other hand, was barely 30 and just starting out in my career…and my life. I must have seemed so young and naïve to her. Still, something clicked for both of us and we agreed to draw up a contract for “book design and marketing services.”
From that first meeting, Dale and I went on to create more than 30 books, from her first series of wildlife rehabilitation manuals in the late 1990s to her final book OUT OF ORDER: Young Adult Manual of Mental Illness and Recovery. We started on that journey together before independent publishing was a thing, before print-on-demand and Amazon and self-publishing. Dale had taken us out to the leading edge of this new industry, and it was an amazing ride!
She knew, for example, Jan Nathan — the founder of Publishers Marketing Association (PMA) which became the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Her books were edited by Ann Maurer, who had a long history of editing for well-known publishers, and our team included Jean Karl from Atheneum and award-winning artists like cover designer Greg Sammons and illustrator Carol Nicklaus.
During our time together, I gathered a set of design and publishing tools that still serve me well today, including a well-worn copy of The Chicago Manual of Style that Dale gave me all those years ago. From her, I learned about book industry standards for design,how to edit and organize content professionally, what makes for a good cover design and effective back cover content, how to position a book properly for booksellers and libraries, and so much more.
Ask me what inspired me to write books and how I came to start my own publishing company — Three Chairs Publishing — and I will tell you about the 25+ years that Dale and I worked together: the long hours of editing around her kitchen table, selecting art and cover designs, developing a house style, and promoting her books.
The skills I learned from her then I apply now to my own books, and to the growing list of self-published authors I get to work with as Words by Jen. All total, I have had the privilege of shepherding well over 150 books out into the world, from Dale’s books and my own, to a long list of poetry, art, history, fiction, and non-fiction titles.
And to think it all started with that yellow page ad, all so many years ago!
Photo: Jen and her mentor, Dale Carlson, at the launch of Jen’s first book, Look Up! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, in 2014. Sleeping with Ghosts is her fifth book under the imprint of Three Chairs Publishing.
For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him… — Plato
Ghosts, Muses, Inspiration, Universe, God. Call it what you will — there is another layer of this world that we live in, and if you can quiet your mind, sometimes, you can hear it and be inspired by it!
As I was finishing up the manuscript for Sleeping with Ghosts, my editor and I both agreed something was missing. While I loved the final poem “Missing Banksy,” its alluded message about impermanence wasn’t quite strong enough to hold up the end of the book. But what would? I had no idea!
When I get stuck like that and can’t find answers — about my writing or about life in general — I like to walk in the woods. It’s where I can settle my mind, slow down the busy-ness, and sometimes…sometimes…hear ghosts.
On this particular walk, I started out at the trailhead by asking the Universe to help me find a final poem, a final message for the book. Often, I can entice Inspiration with a request like that, and this time, it responded in the voice of my Dad.
It’s not the first time my Dad’s ghost has spoken to me. He told me to PAY ATTENTION on I-95 once and saved me from a pretty awful accident; he often shows up unexpectedly as a hawk with a call of I AM HERE; and he responded to my poem query with a series of questions that became the poem “The Final Ghost.”
But connecting with our ghosts can be challenging! There is so much noise in the world today — we’re busier than ever, more distracted by things, more seduced by technologies. There are so many things demanding our attention, how can we possibly hear Ghosts, listen to Muses, or tune into our Inspiration?
One of my all-time favorite movies is Contact with Jodi Foster. The scene I think about often is when she is in the portal pod that’s been reconfigured with an anchored chair and seat belt — things to keep her rooted in place as she travels across space through wormholes. But as she starts her journey, the chair and seat belt cause more harm than good. She may be OK to Go, but they keep her too firmly in place. It’s only when she releases what holds her down that she projects openly forward.
In the same way, listening to your Ghosts requires that you release what’s holding you back.
For Jodi Foster’s character Ellie Arroway, what was holding her back was physically obvious. For me, I know that my biggest obstacle is technology and how it eats up my time and siphons my attention span.
So, what gets in the way of listening to your Ghosts?
Just this weekend, I talked with a woman who told me in a whispered voice how she stopped listening to her Ghosts because it seemed a little scary. And I have a friend who is a phenomenal painter, but she often ignores her Inspiration because it feels too powerful, almost possibly un-godlike.
But the idea of listening to Ghosts or Inspiration or Muses reaches far back into human history.
Did you know that “the word inspiration ultimately derives from the Greek for ‘God-breathed’ or ‘divinely breathed into.’ In Greek myth, inspiration is a gift of the muses, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory).”
Similarly, “the Oxford English Dictionary defines inspiration as “a breathing in or infusion of some idea, purpose, etc. into the mind; the suggestion, awakening, or creation of some feeling or impulse, especially of an exalted kind.”
In his article “How to Find Inspiration, the Psychology and Philosophy of Inspiration,” writer and philosopher Neel Burton offers seven 7 simple strategies to encourage inspiration:
1. Wake up when your body tells you to. 2. Complete your dreams. 3. Eliminate distractions, especially the tedious ones. 4. Don’t try to rush or force things. 5. Be curious. 6. Break the routine. 7. Make a start.
Because I know too much you look like her, so instead of blaring my horn I stop and smile and let you pull out into the crowded lot in front of me
You’re sweet and apologetic in gestures, so I smile even more and nod because I know too much, and I owe you — or her — a thousand kindnesses in place of apologies that have long since gathered dust in the corner of both our stories
Because I know too much about your suspicions and my jealousies, your patience and mine, I think this gesture now in this parking lot with this stranger might be atonement, might be appreciation — or love — a precious light in the shadows of our shared secret
I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things…
We all have ghosts — those lingering memories that resurface when a song comes on, when a certain scent fills the air, or when we wander in our dreams. Those are the kinds of ghosts that appear in Sleeping with Ghosts — the memories of moments and people who have wandered into my own life, the lovers and soulmates and muses to whom the book is dedicated.
As I was gathering the poems for this book, I kept hearing the phrase “I am a part of all that I have met.” It’s a line from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses,” in which the protagonist reflects on his life and sees the fabric that is woven between him and his experiences. That is the essence of Sleeping with Ghosts, we are all connected — by memory, by story, by experience. To emphasize that, readers will find common phrases, themes, and symbols repeated throughout the chapters and stories in the book — a weaving of love, hope, and loss. (Humor, too.)
In total, there are 14 chapters in the book, including seven primary ghosts about whom I’ve written most frequently. These are the stories that captured my attention (and my heart) and left a shadow of memory long enough for me to step into now and then, to revisit and repurpose them into poems. The seven ghosts include a first love, the last love, secret encounters, and those defining moments that come from living life with an open heart.
There are two chapters dedicated to my muses — the people who have inspired my life in a variety of ways, including life-long friends and cherished mentors — and a chapter that narrates the Ephemera of life’s encounters.
My favorite section of the book is called Dreamwork. It’s a collection of 12 poems presented like an inquiry or analysis with dated entries that note the particular ghosts as they reappear in dream form. These dream-ghosts are the wistful spirits of What If or Might Have Been, Ulysses’ “untravell’d world whose margin fades.” I truly believe that dreams offer all of us an opportunity to reconnect with our memories, heal old wounds, and reinterpret moments in new and helpful ways.
I hope this book, as a whole, offers readers a chance to see things in new ways. That in the shadowy corners of their own memories, they might conjure up the “something more, A bringer of new things…” for themselves.
Remember, we all have ghosts. Give them a direct line to your Muse, and you never know what will happen!
My mother, who is easily insulted, often remembers the time a therapist called her a storyteller. Mom recounts the comment as one might an injustice, and she twists and elongates the word “storyteller” to make it sound as painful as it felt for her.
What’s the old saying? The truth hurts.
That’s the funny thing about my mother’s story — she IS a storyteller. Long before neurodivergent was a word, my mother was making her way through life with the only tools she had, and one of those was storytelling. Often and on repeat. It’s how she relates to the world and people around her.
I have a friend whose mother was also a storyteller. She had a degree in drama, was in numerous theatrical productions, taught children how to act and perform, and went on to start a successful annual storytelling festival. She also found connection in telling stories.
The act of storytelling is as diverse as these two examples and includes four primary forms: oral, visual, written, and digital. Within each of those forms, there are a myriad of vehicles: books and magazines, visual arts, stage, radio, film, television, video, internet.
Consider all of the ways storytelling comes into your own life! It’s part of the fabric of who we are. Think about it! What would we be without our fairytales, folktales, fables, religions, and mythologies? We are built on story!
And quite literally. This is what social scientist Brené Brown, says about storytelling in her book Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.
“We are wired for story. In a culture of scarcity and perfectionism, there’s a surprisingly simple reason we want to own, integrate, and share our stories….We do this because we feel the most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories — it’s in our biology. The idea of storytelling has become ubiquitous. It’s a platform for everything from creative movements to marketing strategies. But the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zack has found that hearing a story — a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end — causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.”
Like my mother, I’m also a storyteller. I frequently use analogy and story not only to talk about my own experiences, but to say, “I understand yours, too. Let’s talk about it.” It was Brené Brown who gave me the courage to tell those stories on paper, and who inspired several of my books, including my new collection of poems, Sleeping with Ghosts.
That book, Rising Strong, still sits on my coffee table — dogeared and well-worn — as a reminder to be brave, to show up, and to keep telling my stories. The book ends with her “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted,” which I’ll share with you here as inspiration for you to tell your own stories because what you have to say — no matter how you say it — is important!
Photo by Kool Shooters/Pexels.Brown, Brené. Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. United States: Random House Publishing Group, 2017.
People often comment about the visual nature of my creative work, and how my writing is usually accompanied by photography or artwork.
As a graphic designer, artist, and writer, I firmly believe that partnering visuals and words layers the intentions of my work and makes the communication more palpable.
Two of my previous books, Look Up! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness and Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, were as much about the color photographs as they were about the essays and poems. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of the poems in Evidence of Flossing was inspired by a series of photographs I took showing discarded dental flossers in random places.
Odd, I know, but they spoke to the message — our disrespect of nature — in a necessary and immediate way. Sometimes writing takes a while to be absorbed, while images have a speedy hook!
LOOK: THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU! (Read More)
I love that the cover of my new book, Sleeping with Ghosts, does exactly that: it grabs your attention!
The cover photograph is by Polish artist Malgorzata Maj, who I connected with online back in 2015. (Yes, I’ve known the book’s title and have had that photo saved for nine years!)
Małgorzata is a contemporary painter and photographer known for her symbolic nighttime landscapes and ethereal portraits exploring the world of the Unknown. She graduated in 2004 (Olsztyn/Poland) with the title of Master in Arts. Influenced by 19th-century symbolism, her photographic works feature a bold painterly approach to the compositions she depicts. She has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and Europe, and published her works on numerous book covers and magazines. Today she mostly focuses on traditional media such as oil painting and continues to explore themes and ideas less accessible for photographic medium.
In a bit of happenstance, on her website, Malgorzata says she “explores haunted places, past memories, and hidden feelings and symbols,” which really is the essence of Sleeping with Ghosts.
“Photography has this unique quality of something real and intangible,” she says, “…something that I find difficult to speak about. It is the language of ghosts.”
For the cover, I accented Malgorzata’s photograph with a cluster of stardust that appears in several places within the book. It’s from a series of images in a Lunar Calendar collection by Lana Elanor that includes stars, moons, and constellations.
Elanor is an independent artist from Ukraine who now lives in Tulum, Mexico. She is “a meditative person passionate about art, travel, and the study of the conscious and unconscious mind.”
About her work she says, “I’ve loved creating art for as long as I can remember myself. Only beauty itself is a catalyst for the awakening of this world, so I’m totally in love with the concept to make this place more beautiful than it was when we got here.”
The illustrations that introduce each chapter, and entice the reader from the Table of Contents, are by Ukrainian artist Michael Rayback. I connected with Michael about his art in 2022, and we were both excited to include his work in my book. But Michael lives in Kyiv, and our last correspondence was several months after Russia invaded Ukraine.
I check his social media from time to time, to see if he is back online, but unfortunately, we have not reconnected. When I think of him, I remember this quote I saw on one of his sites:
“Art is self-expression, therefore all that you see here is a part of me. I know many languages of self-expression. I like drawing, I love photo art, cinema is one of the main parts of my life, I like cooking tasty and healthy food. I wake up at five in the morning to be alone and tune in for a new day, and the sun tells me that I’m doing everything right and inspires me to new creativity. I do yoga and meditate. All this helps me to explore myself, I learn something new every day, and every day I try to be a little better.”
Something we can all aspire to, right?
I do hope you appreciate the collaborative nature of Sleeping with Ghosts. Please visit these artists online and discover more of their work!
Did you know that Picasso created more than 50,000 works of art, but only about 100 of those are considered masterpieces? That’s less than 1% of his work!
I think about that little fact every April, when I attempt to write a poem a month for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). There aren’t a lot of masterpieces, for sure, but a few have been published. So there’s that.
Of course, lots of folks will point out the averages — ONE percent?!? And you’ll never be at a loss for angsty advice about being a writer. Ernest Hemingway said “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Robert DeNiro considers a writer on a good day to be “isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination, consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing, and soul-crushing inadequacy.”
Oh my. Does it have to be that painful?
I’ve been privy to lots of conversations about writing lately. I don’t have time, they say, or my work isn’t good enough, I can’t stop editing, what will people think?
I like what writing guru Natalie Goldberg advises: “Say what you want to say. Don’t worry if it’s correct, polite, appropriate. Just let it rip.”
That’s the approach I go by every April — just write. I suppose it’s the approach I take all year long. Just do it, like Nike says.
Author Neil Gaiman suggests, “This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”
Exactly, it’s that easy and that hard. I think it’s kind of like the lottery slogan: you can’t win if you don’t play. How are you ever going to write a masterpiece if you’re not writing all along?
What inspired this new book and its focus on past relationships? Good question. I have always had an acute ability to recall moments in time — I call them “defining moments.” You know, the point in time when something shifts or that you bookmark to remember later? As a writer, those “defining moments” are a pretty fertile source of inspiration for all of my work, most especially when it comes to writing memoir and poetry.
I think it’s called autobiographical memory — like photographic memory, but related to people, conversations, emotions, and interactions. I can easily find and settle down into memories and re- experience them in order to write about them. Sometimes I consciously rummage around to find something interesting, but often, the memories just show up — like ghosts — and ask to be written about.
I’m also a storyteller by nature. I frequently use analogy and story not only to talk about my own experiences, but to say, “I understand yours, too. Let’s talk about it.”
WOW:This book of poetry if so personal. Have you ever found it difficult to write about relationships featured in your poetry?
JEN: Some of these poems were definitely a challenge to write. There’s often sadness or grief knotted up in a memory. So when I untangle it to tell the story, those emotions resurface. But it’s more cathartic than difficult.
Other poems come more easily, welcoming the chance to reconnect with a love story, or remember moments with a dear friend, or find counsel from cherished mentors.
Have you read Brené Brown’s book Rising Strong? It’s one of my most dogeared books. She talks about being brave, showing up, telling our stories. It ends with her “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted”:
We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings.
We craft love from heartbreak, compassion from shame, grace from disappointment, courage from failure.
Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and broken hearted. We are rising strong.
I love that!
I have to tell you…a side story…that the process of revisiting the ghosts in this book was fascinating. I had two amazing editors who read and critiqued every chapter, poem by poem. I spent hours with each of them, reviewing and reconsidering. It gave me the chance to dive deep into those past stories and live with the ghosts again for a while. That was an incredible experience — to be steeped in memory like that — it was visceral. Heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.
The insights and time from these two women were a true gift. The book is enormously more powerful as a result.
WOW:I am in awe of poets because I simply don’t have that lyrical talent. Tell us a little about how a poem is born. Does it come out in a rush of words or do you have to fight to create each line?
JEN: I know that some poets anguish over poems for weeks and months. To be honest? I don’t have that kind of patience. On the rare occasion when I do anguish, I end up with an over-kneaded poem that’s too tough and lost its original flavor.
I always say the poems “show up,” which is what it really feels like. Something will trigger a memory or offer up the first line…and whoosh…there’s the poem!
Ok, it’s not that quick of a process. I probably spend at least an hour or two on a poem — write, rework, read it out loud a few times, rework some more, repeat. Sometimes I go back later and edit, but not much and not often.
The poem that took the longest to write in Sleeping with Ghosts was probably “Under His Spell.” That took a few days, mostly because it’s a rhyming poem, and I don’t often rhyme. (In general, I resist writing to [poetic] form…though I’ve been challenged recently to give it a try.)
“Dear Jenny,” one of my favorites, took almost no time at all. That one showed up as if I was channeling the ghost himself and just transcribing his words. Like magic!
Poetry always kind of feels like magic to me.
WOW:A magic that is out of reach for so many of us. So tell us, how do you curate a poetry book? Do you select a topic and write poems, do you look at poems you’ve already written and perceive a common thread or is it some combination of the two?
JEN: Would you believe I’ve had the title of this book in my mind for more than 10 years? I even saved the cover art and artist’s name in a file for safekeeping!
The poems span about 20 years of work. The curating of them was fairly straightforward when it came to the ghost chapters — the seven ghosts are seven of those defining moments for me, with plenty of poems written over the years. But there were other poems — like the small pieces of stories you find in the Ephemera chapter, or the ghosts that reappear in Dreamwork — that needed to be included.
My favorite chapter to put together was Muses — these are the women who have shaped and continue to shape my life. It felt important to include them.
Most of the poems were already written, but about a dozen of them are new, written specifically for the book or because of the book. The very last poem I wrote for Ghosts is called “The Poet at Midnight,” which describes, in a sense, what the curating often feels like — a wandering through old memories and the discovery of which ones we hold onto.
WOW:Fascinating! I love the idea that you saved that image, knowing that someday there would be a book to go with it. Let’s take a peek at your life beyond poetry.In addition to a poetry and prose writer, you are also an artist, photographer, graphic designer (let me know if I’ve forgotten anything). Do you have a favorite creative outlet?
JEN: Writer, artist, photographer, graphic designer, yes. Also blogger and zinester…business owner (Words by Jen) and publisher (Three Chairs Publishing).
I don’t think I see them as individual roles, so much as tools I use for my Creativity. And I don’t have a favorite, really. Sometimes I love poetry — like in April when I write a poem a day for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), and sometimes I’m all about creating the next zine. It’s more like whichever burner is fired up is the one I’m cooking on today — LOL!
I need to create. It’s my raison d’être — who I am and how I move around in this world.
I’m just lucky that I get to participate in the creative process all day long, either for my clients or with my own various ideas and projects.
WOW:What a lovely life to lead. You mentioned being a zinester. Could you tell us a little more about MANIFEST (zine)?
JEN: The zine is like storytelling lite!
I had always dreamed of doing installation art — in my “spare time.” LOL! — like large spaces filled with words and visuals that visitors could walk through and experience. As an alternative, I came up with the idea of doing a zine that could hold the same ideas on a much smaller scale.
I had published another zine back in the early 90s, so I was familiar with the format and the (fabulous) zine community. It just felt like the perfect venue for my essays and poetry, and my other creative pursuits, like collage and photography.
MANIFEST comes out quarterly with a different theme for each issue. It has covered topics like change and transition, solitude, the pandemic, time and time travel — sometimes politics, like gun control and women’s rights. I just mailed issue #15 called Write, about finding inspiration.
WOW: So where are you finding inspiration? What are you working on now?
JEN:Mostly, right now, I’m working on shepherding Sleeping with Ghosts out into the world. So there’s a lot of publicity work and events to prepare for, including my blog tour with you!
But I also have the next issue of MANIFEST (zine) in process, and I’m trying to decide if I should resurrect an old manuscript or start fresh with a new project of essays and poems. Maybe also a podcast?
I guess we’ll have to wait to find out, right? Folks can follow along on my blog and social media for all of the latest HERE.
Thank you for your time, Jodi. It’s been great to talk with you!
WOW:And you. I’ll let you get back to your being creative and your WOW blog tour with Sleeping with Ghosts.
“If one… is blessed with the gift, of the most perfect balloon,… one must make all accommodations to hold fast… else that perfect thing might slip from a grasp….”
Payne’s latest collection of poems, musings, and artwork is a bouquet of balloons—lovers, friends, and moments she could let slip away but that she keeps close through her writing about them. Grouped around seven (plus a final) ghost and a few intermediary themes, the poems are arranged and curated. Each section features a title page with artwork that spills over into the succeeding pages, creating both distinct moodscapes and an overarching synthesis. The poems are of a variety of lengths and styles. Few rhyme, some are one-hundred-word prose poems, and one about a necklace aptly curves down the page. Along with the whimsical illustrations, the song lyrics that several poems reference set an overall lively tone.
Although many poems are dedicated to someone specific, the people in the poems are unnamed. The subject matter of stars, ghosts, and dreams set the poems on an abstract plane, but they remain concrete by being located specifically in cities, bedrooms, houses, woods, and shared books. The poems give voice to letters never sent, connect people when in-person communication was lacking during the pandemic, and put words to elusive feelings hard to name in any clinical way.
In many of the ghost poems, lovers’ rendezvous are clandestine or fleeting. Likewise, the poems let readers into a delicate and secret balance between worlds. Like one poem about a dream lingering into wake-time, the collection is liminal, linking opposites: definite and indefinite, reality and fantasy, timeless and time-specific, and indescribable and descriptive. The final poem, dedicated to Payne’s father, crystallizes the collection’s intimate and loving atmosphere. She looks at her child self—hopeful, aspiring, tender—through her father’s eyes. So, too, the poems reflect back childlike wonder that enlivens and inspires.
Some of my all-time favorite books on writing are classics, like Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, Poemcrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge, or Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. Those were the must-read books when I was coming of age as a writer.
I’ll be dating myself even further when I say that I much prefer Goldberg’s Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life to her popular Writing Down the Bones. I remember reading Wild Mind while sitting in an airport and feeling compelled — literally dragged to my feet — to go buy a notebook and pen so I could write right there.
That’s some powerful how-to magic.
That’s the kind of book you want in your TBR pile if you’re a writer in need of writerly guidance. Something that feels like magic!
One of my most dog-eared books is Brené Brown’s Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, which isn’t a how-to-write book at all. It’s a spellbinding get-out-of-your-comfort-zone-and-tell-your-story kind of book.
For a quick dose of that kind of brave magic, read any of The Moth compilations: Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible, A Point of Beauty: True Stories of Holding On and Letting Go, or All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown. Talk about how to tell a story. Wow!
For those of you having a hard time finding inspiration? You gotta shake it up!
Do you know Keri Smith? She’s most well-known for her book Wreck This Journal. But she has a whole, delicious series of books that make you look at the world in curious new ways. Try The Wander Society or How to Be an Explorer of the World, and you’ll see what I mean.
For me, the key to writing is seeing the world with fresh eyes — which is what Smith’s books help you do. But there are other ways to do this.
Lots of writers write books about writing, right? Who better to know how to do it than a Stephen King (On Writing) or a Margaret Atwood (On Writers & Writing)?
But I find I am more inspired to write my own stories when I can get lost in one of theirs, like Atwood’s MaddAddam series, or Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series.
Some of my favorite more recent get-lost books — the ones that help me shake up day-to-day — include The Book of Form and Emptiness, Ruth Ozeki, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr, The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern, and The Watchmaker of Filigree Street series by Natasha Pulley.
Of course, you have to find your own favorite authors and genres, but don’t be afraid to mix it up! I spent one winter in a back-to-back foray of historical fiction books about World War II, while just this spring I devoured Tony DiTerlizzi’s young adult sci-fi series The Wondla Trilogy!
These might seem a little off-track from the topic of “How to Read Like a Writer,” but as Steve King himself says:
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut… If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.”
Today, I talk with more Charity Howard at Chit Chat with Charity. You might remember her from the “Power of Writing Through Poetry, Memories” review she did of Sleeping with Ghosts. Today, we chat interview-style. Check it out!
JEN: Hi Charity.
Thank you for being part of the WOW! Women on Writing blog tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts, and for taking the time to ask some good questions!
What is your favorite part of your book and why?
JEN: I love that Sleeping with Ghosts is not just a book of poetry or a memoir, but it’s also a visual experience. The stunning cover photo, by Polish artist Malgorzata Maj, captures the mood of the book so perfectly. The artwork by Michael Rayback and Lana Elanor illustrates the themes of the individual chapters and adds a bit of whimsy to the pages.
And while I love all of the poems, I think my favorite part is the Table of Contents and how it tells the story of the book at a glance. I like how it’s not just a block of text with page numbers, but a cipher for how to read the book. It feels like one of those maps you find at the beginning of adventure books or a legend that tells you how to travel forward.
What is your biggest inspiration for this poetry and musings book? Or perhaps the poem that stands out the most for you?
JEN: First and foremost, I am a storyteller. It’s how I relate to the world, how I communicate experience and understanding. I talk in story…remember the time?
Many of the poems and musings in this book are stories that live inside me already. But it’s not like I am thinking about, or “dwelling on” things, all the time. The stories just get primed to come to the surface sometimes.
It’s like when you hear an old song on the radio or smell a certain perfume in the air, and it reminds you of a memory? As a writer, I am able to follow those memories and pull out a poem or a short story.
A good example of this, and one of my favorite poems in the book, is called “Chester, 1 a.m.” I was driving down the highway when the Jethro Tull song Bourée came on the radio, and I was immediately transported back many, many years to this short, sweet memory…
CHESTER, 1:00 A.M. You will always be blue flannel, a plaid hard crush against skin, Bourée on a flute in the dark, and the taste of unseen spirits. Your sudden kiss, the punch-drunk dance against kitchen counter — what did you want from me in that brief romance? I still wonder.
That’s how inspiration works for me. My muse shows up in many forms with suggestions for which way to take my writing next. And I follow.
What is your advice for poets as they write their inspired work?
JEN: Listen to your Muses, not your Critics!
Your Critics are going to tell you how to write and what to write. They’ll tell you what’s good and bad, correct and incorrect. They’ll be rather black-and-white about things.
Your Muses, on the other hand, are creative and wild, and they love to color outside of the lines. Play with that and with them, and just follow your heart.
Be brave enough to tell your story the way you want to tell it!
What do you feel is the most important part of your writing process?
JEN: Making time for it. Period.
We’re all so busy with so many things that need to get done in a day. But that creative process, the process of expression, is so important to our well-being. As important as movement or rest or nourishment.
And just like those things, you have to make time for your creative work.
I am a notoriously early riser, and I will often spend the first few hours of my day writing. I love the quiet of the early morning before everything is awake and noisy again.
A 3 a.m. start works really well for me, but you have to find what works for you. Maybe it’s the other side of the clock midnight-writing, or an hour at a coffee shop with your laptop.
Remember, your creativity is a gift, and it’s important that you give it time to exist and prosper.
What would you say to describe your book to help entice readers to pick it up?
JEN: One of my readers — who is also a ghost in the book — once said my writing is “funny, sad, sexy, maddening.”
Sleeping with Ghosts is a time-traveling memoir that introduces readers to some charming characters — star-crossed teenagers, secret lovers, and long-term loves. It’s about romance, heartbreak, dreams, found love and lost love, memories. It’s also a book filled with story, inspiration, creativity, and pages and pages of beautiful muses without whom this book (and I) might not exist.
Guilford Art Center is excited to welcome local author Jen Payne to its AUTHORS IN THE SHOP series hosted by Three Chairs Publishing. For four Saturdays in November, authors will be in The Shop signing books and talking with Holiday Expo shoppers from 12:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 16 Learn about the ghosts in Jen Payne’s new book Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings, an intimate exploration of memory and meaning.
Known for her meditations and musings about our outside world, Connecticut writer Jen Payne takes readers inside this time…into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams. Those ghosts — her lovers, soulmates, and muses — reveal themselves slowly, one at a time, in this wistfully reflective, time-traveling memoir.
AUTHORS IN THE SHOP is a great opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with local authors and to get a head start on your holiday shopping. (Signed books make awesome gifts!) Refreshments will be served. (Click here for more information.)
Out and about for Shoreline Arts Trail? Be sure to make time to explore Holiday Expo 2024! The Shop and Gallery at Guilford Art Center are filled with holiday gifts from local and American artists, makers and designers; craft categories include accessories, candles, cards, ceramics, clothing, fiber art, glass, homewares, jewelry, leather, Christmas ornaments, soaps, specialty foods, stationery…as well as signed books from our guest authors.
Authors in The Shop at Guilford Art Center and Holiday Expo are free and open to the public. Guilford Art Center is located at 411 Church Street, Guilford, off I-95, exit 58. The Shop is open 7 days a week, Monday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sunday 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. For more information, visit www.guilfordartcenter.org.
Today’s WOW! Blog Tour finds me over at Erin Al-Mehairi’s blog HOOK OF A BOOK! as a Guest Writer. There’s also a poem preview and some reading recommendations. Check it out!
People often comment about the visual nature of my creative work, and how my writing is usually accompanied by photography or artwork.
As a graphic designer, artist, and writer, I firmly believe that partnering visuals and words layers the intentions of my work and makes the communication more palpable.
Two of my previous books, Look Up! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness and Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, were as much about the color photographs as they were about the essays and poems. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of the poems in Evidence of Flossing was inspired by a series of photographs I took showing discarded dental flossers in random places.
Odd, I know, but they spoke to the message — our disrespect of nature — in a necessary and immediate way. Sometimes writing takes a while to be absorbed, while images have a speedy hook!
LOOK: THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU! (Read More)
I love that the cover of my new book, Sleeping with Ghosts, does exactly that: it grabs your attention!
The cover photograph is by Polish artist Malgorzata Maj, who I connected with online back in 2015. (Yes, I’ve known the book’s title and have had that photo saved for nine years!)
Małgorzata is a contemporary painter and photographer known for her symbolic nighttime landscapes and ethereal portraits exploring the world of the Unknown. She graduated in 2004 (Olsztyn/Poland) with the title of Master in Arts. Influenced by 19th-century symbolism, her photographic works feature a bold painterly approach to the compositions she depicts. She has exhibited in galleries across the U.S. and Europe, and published her works on numerous book covers and magazines. Today she mostly focuses on traditional media such as oil painting and continues to explore themes and ideas less accessible for photographic medium.
In a bit of happenstance, on her website, Malgorzata says she “explores haunted places, past memories, and hidden feelings and symbols,” which really is the essence of Sleeping with Ghosts.
“Photography has this unique quality of something real and intangible,” she says, “…something that I find difficult to speak about. It is the language of ghosts.”
For the cover, I accented Malgorzata’s photograph with a cluster of stardust that appears in several places within the book. It’s from a series of images in a Lunar Calendar collection by Lana Elanor that includes stars, moons, and constellations.
Elanor is an independent artist from Ukraine who now lives in Tulum, Mexico. She is “a meditative person passionate about art, travel, and the study of the conscious and unconscious mind.”
About her work she says, “I’ve loved creating art for as long as I can remember myself. Only beauty itself is a catalyst for the awakening of this world, so I’m totally in love with the concept to make this place more beautiful than it was when we got here.”
The illustrations that introduce each chapter, and entice the reader from the Table of Contents, are by Ukrainian artist Michael Rayback. I connected with Michael about his art in 2022, and we were both excited to include his work in my book. But Michael lives in Kyiv, and our last correspondence was several months after Russia invaded Ukraine.
I check his social media from time to time, to see if he is back online, but unfortunately, we have not reconnected. When I think of him, I remember this quote I saw on one of his sites:
“Art is self-expression, therefore all that you see here is a part of me. I know many languages of self-expression. I like drawing, I love photo art, cinema is one of the main parts of my life, I like cooking tasty and healthy food. I wake up at five in the morning to be alone and tune in for a new day, and the sun tells me that I’m doing everything right and inspires me to new creativity. I do yoga and meditate. All this helps me to explore myself, I learn something new every day, and every day I try to be a little better.”
Something we can all aspire to, right?
I do hope you appreciate the collaborative nature of Sleeping with Ghosts. Please visit these artists online and discover more of their work!
My mother, who is easily insulted, often remembers the time a therapist called her a storyteller. Mom recounts the comment as one might an injustice, and she twists and elongates the word “storyteller” to make it sound as painful as it felt for her.
What’s the old saying? The truth hurts.
That’s the funny thing about my mother’s story — she IS a storyteller. Long before neurodivergent was a word, my mother was making her way through life with the only tools she had, and one of those was storytelling. Often and on repeat. It’s how she relates to the world and people around her.
I have a friend whose mother was also a storyteller. She had a degree in drama, was in numerous theatrical productions, taught children how to act and perform, and went on to start a successful annual storytelling festival. She also found connection in telling stories.
The act of storytelling is as diverse as these two examples and includes four primary forms: oral, visual, written, and digital. Within each of those forms, there are a myriad of vehicles: books and magazines, visual arts, stage, radio, film, television, video, internet.
Consider all of the ways storytelling comes into your own life! It’s part of the fabric of who we are. Think about it! What would we be without our fairytales, folktales, fables, religions, and mythologies? We are built on story!
And quite literally. This is what social scientist Brené Brown, says about storytelling in her book Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.
“We are wired for story. In a culture of scarcity and perfectionism, there’s a surprisingly simple reason we want to own, integrate, and share our stories….We do this because we feel the most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories — it’s in our biology. The idea of storytelling has become ubiquitous. It’s a platform for everything from creative movements to marketing strategies. But the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zack has found that hearing a story — a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end — causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.”
Like my mother, I’m also a storyteller. I frequently use analogy and story not only to talk about my own experiences, but to say, “I understand yours, too. Let’s talk about it.” It was Brené Brown who gave me the courage to tell those stories on paper, and who inspired several of my books, including my new collection of poems, Sleeping with Ghosts.
That book, Rising Strong, still sits on my coffee table — dogeared and well-worn — as a reminder to be brave, to show up, and to keep telling my stories. The book ends with her “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted,” which I’ll share with you here as inspiration for you to tell your own stories because what you have to say — no matter how you say it — is important!
Photo by Kool Shooters/Pexels.Brown, Brené. Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. United States: Random House Publishing Group, 2017.
Today, the Sleeping with Ghosts WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour stop features a really thoughtful BOOK REVIEW by Kaecey McCormick:
If you’re ready to take a thoughtful, heartfelt stroll through memory and meaning, Sleeping with Ghosts is absolutely worth your time. Jen’s gentle but honest voice will stay with you long after the last page is turned.
For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him… — Plato
Ghosts, Muses, Inspiration, Universe, God. Call it what you will — there is another layer of this world that we live in, and if you can quiet your mind, sometimes, you can hear it and be inspired by it!
As I was finishing up the manuscript for Sleeping with Ghosts, my editor and I both agreed something was missing. While I loved the final poem “Missing Banksy,” its alluded message about impermanence wasn’t quite strong enough to hold up the end of the book. But what would? I had no idea!
When I get stuck like that and can’t find answers — about my writing or about life in general — I like to walk in the woods. It’s where I can settle my mind, slow down the busy-ness, and sometimes…sometimes…hear ghosts.
On this particular walk, I started out at the trailhead by asking the Universe to help me find a final poem, a final message for the book. Often, I can entice Inspiration with a request like that, and this time, it responded in the voice of my Dad.
It’s not the first time my Dad’s ghost has spoken to me. He told me to PAY ATTENTION on I-95 once and saved me from a pretty awful accident; he often shows up unexpectedly as a hawk with a call of I AM HERE; and he responded to my poem query with a series of questions that became the poem “The Final Ghost.”
But connecting with our ghosts can be challenging! There is so much noise in the world today — we’re busier than ever, more distracted by things, more seduced by technologies. There are so many things demanding our attention, how can we possibly hear Ghosts, listen to Muses, or tune into our Inspiration?
One of my all-time favorite movies is Contact with Jodi Foster. The scene I think about often is when she is in the portal pod that’s been reconfigured with an anchored chair and seat belt — things to keep her rooted in place as she travels across space through wormholes. But as she starts her journey, the chair and seat belt cause more harm than good. She may be OK to Go, but they keep her too firmly in place. It’s only when she releases what holds her down that she projects openly forward.
In the same way, listening to your Ghosts requires that you release what’s holding you back.
For Jodi Foster’s character Ellie Arroway, what was holding her back was physically obvious. For me, I know that my biggest obstacle is technology and how it eats up my time and siphons my attention span.
So, what gets in the way of listening to your Ghosts?
Just this weekend, I talked with a woman who told me in a whispered voice how she stopped listening to her Ghosts because it seemed a little scary. And I have a friend who is a phenomenal painter, but she often ignores her Inspiration because it feels too powerful, almost possibly un-godlike.
But the idea of listening to Ghosts or Inspiration or Muses reaches far back into human history.
Did you know that “the word inspiration ultimately derives from the Greek for ‘God-breathed’ or ‘divinely breathed into.’ In Greek myth, inspiration is a gift of the muses, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory).”
Similarly, “the Oxford English Dictionary defines inspiration as “a breathing in or infusion of some idea, purpose, etc. into the mind; the suggestion, awakening, or creation of some feeling or impulse, especially of an exalted kind.”
In his article “How to Find Inspiration, the Psychology and Philosophy of Inspiration,” writer and philosopher Neel Burton offers seven 7 simple strategies to encourage inspiration:
1. Wake up when your body tells you to. 2. Complete your dreams. 3. Eliminate distractions, especially the tedious ones. 4. Don’t try to rush or force things. 5. Be curious. 6. Break the routine. 7. Make a start.
Today, the Sleeping with Ghosts WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour stop features a BOOK REVIEW by Beverley A Baird:
I would highly recommend Payne’s poetry memoir. Love fills its pages, and the words conjure intriguing images. There are so many special poems that I’m sure you will fall in love with, just as I did. So many lines as well, that you will remember and come back to.
I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things…
We all have ghosts — those lingering memories that resurface when a song comes on, when a certain scent fills the air, or when we wander in our dreams. Those are the kinds of ghosts that appear in Sleeping with Ghosts — the memories of moments and people who have wandered into my own life, the lovers and soulmates and muses to whom the book is dedicated.
As I was gathering the poems for this book, I kept hearing the phrase “I am a part of all that I have met.” It’s a line from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses,” in which the protagonist reflects on his life and sees the fabric that is woven between him and his experiences. That is the essence of Sleeping with Ghosts, we are all connected — by memory, by story, by experience. To emphasize that, readers will find common phrases, themes, and symbols repeated throughout the chapters and stories in the book — a weaving of love, hope, and loss. (Humor, too.)
In total, there are 14 chapters in the book, including seven primary ghosts about whom I’ve written most frequently. These are the stories that captured my attention (and my heart) and left a shadow of memory long enough for me to step into now and then, to revisit and repurpose them into poems. The seven ghosts include a first love, the last love, secret encounters, and those defining moments that come from living life with an open heart.
There are two chapters dedicated to my muses — the people who have inspired my life in a variety of ways, including life-long friends and cherished mentors — and a chapter that narrates the Ephemera of life’s encounters.
My favorite section of the book is called Dreamwork. It’s a collection of 12 poems presented like an inquiry or analysis with dated entries that note the particular ghosts as they reappear in dream form. These dream-ghosts are the wistful spirits of What If or Might Have Been, Ulysses’ “untravell’d world whose margin fades.” I truly believe that dreams offer all of us an opportunity to reconnect with our memories, heal old wounds, and reinterpret moments in new and helpful ways.
I hope this book, as a whole, offers readers a chance to see things in new ways. That in the shadowy corners of their own memories, they might conjure up the “something more, A bringer of new things…” for themselves.
Remember, we all have ghosts. Give them a direct line to your Muse, and you never know what will happen!
Today’s WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour stop features a BOOK REVIEW by Shoe’s Seeds & Stories:
These are poems to savor, even when they are heartbreaking, whether Payne is writing about New Hampshire in 1992 (I can picture the hidden meadow of lupines, the strawberry moon, the breathtaking stars), a terminal romance in “The Wrong Impression”, or baking a cake in “Real Plums, Imaginary Cake” (the title is a nod to novelist Mary McCarthy’s quote about writing: “I am putting real plums in an imaginary cake.’) I appreciate that Payne not only writes about lovers but also about friendship, such as in the poems “When the Mania Collapses in On Itself Again” and “Love They Neighbor as Thyself”. I enjoyed meeting the ghosts Payne introduces in the memoir, and I think you will too.
Today, I talk with more Charity Howard at Chit Chat with Charity. You might remember her from the “Power of Writing Through Poetry, Memories” review she did of Sleeping with Ghosts last week. Today, we chat interview-style. Check it out!
JEN: Hi Charity.
Thank you for being part of the WOW! Women on Writing blog tour for my book Sleeping with Ghosts, and for taking the time to ask some good questions!
What is your favorite part of your book and why?
JEN: I love that Sleeping with Ghosts is not just a book of poetry or a memoir, but it’s also a visual experience. The stunning cover photo, by Polish artist Malgorzata Maj, captures the mood of the book so perfectly. The artwork by Michael Rayback and Lana Elanor illustrates the themes of the individual chapters and adds a bit of whimsy to the pages.
And while I love all of the poems, I think my favorite part is the Table of Contents and how it tells the story of the book at a glance. I like how it’s not just a block of text with page numbers, but a cipher for how to read the book. It feels like one of those maps you find at the beginning of adventure books or a legend that tells you how to travel forward.
What is your biggest inspiration for this poetry and musings book? Or perhaps the poem that stands out the most for you?
JEN: First and foremost, I am a storyteller. It’s how I relate to the world, how I communicate experience and understanding. I talk in story…remember the time?
Many of the poems and musings in this book are stories that live inside me already. But it’s not like I am thinking about, or “dwelling on” things, all the time. The stories just get primed to come to the surface sometimes.
It’s like when you hear an old song on the radio or smell a certain perfume in the air, and it reminds you of a memory? As a writer, I am able to follow those memories and pull out a poem or a short story.
A good example of this, and one of my favorite poems in the book, is called “Chester, 1 a.m.” I was driving down the highway when the Jethro Tull song Bourée came on the radio, and I was immediately transported back many, many years to this short, sweet memory…
CHESTER, 1:00 A.M. You will always be blue flannel, a plaid hard crush against skin, Bourée on a flute in the dark, and the taste of unseen spirits. Your sudden kiss, the punch-drunk dance against kitchen counter — what did you want from me in that brief romance? I still wonder.
That’s how inspiration works for me. My muse shows up in many forms with suggestions for which way to take my writing next. And I follow.
What is your advice for poets as they write their inspired work?
JEN: Listen to your Muses, not your Critics!
Your Critics are going to tell you how to write and what to write. They’ll tell you what’s good and bad, correct and incorrect. They’ll be rather black-and-white about things.
Your Muses, on the other hand, are creative and wild, and they love to color outside of the lines. Play with that and with them, and just follow your heart.
Be brave enough to tell your story the way you want to tell it!
What do you feel is the most important part of your writing process?
JEN: Making time for it. Period.
We’re all so busy with so many things that need to get done in a day. But that creative process, the process of expression, is so important to our well-being. As important as movement or rest or nourishment.
And just like those things, you have to make time for your creative work.
I am a notoriously early riser, and I will often spend the first few hours of my day writing. I love the quiet of the early morning before everything is awake and noisy again.
A 3 a.m. start works really well for me, but you have to find what works for you. Maybe it’s the other side of the clock midnight-writing, or an hour at a coffee shop with your laptop.
Remember, your creativity is a gift, and it’s important that you give it time to exist and prosper.
What would you say to describe your book to help entice readers to pick it up?
JEN: One of my readers — who is also a ghost in the book — once said my writing is “funny, sad, sexy, maddening.”
Sleeping with Ghosts is a time-traveling memoir that introduces readers to some charming characters — star-crossed teenagers, secret lovers, and long-term loves. It’s about romance, heartbreak, dreams, found love and lost love, memories. It’s also a book filled with story, inspiration, creativity, and pages and pages of beautiful muses without whom this book (and I) might not exist.
Today, I talk with Kaecey McCormick at Some Thoughts: Everything Creativity, who writes: “I’m thrilled to bring author Jen Payne to the blog today in an interview to discuss life, writing, and her new book, Sleeping with Ghosts. Earlier this month, I hosted a Community Poetry & Prose Night with the theme “The Ghosts We Carry,” and Jen’s book is a wonderful example of how we can be “haunted” by so much and how these “ghosts” show up in our writing.
Kaecey: Jen, welcome! I’m thrilled to chat about your new book, SleepingwithGhosts. The way you blend genres in this collection is fascinating. Sleeping with Ghosts is described as a ‘time-traveling memoir’ into the heart and mind of a poet. What inspired you to choose this format, and what challenges did you face in crafting such a unique narrative?
Jen: Hi Kaecey. Thanks for being part of the Sleeping with Ghosts blog tour!
Like you, I’m not only a writer and poet, I’m also a blogger. I’ve been writing and creating at Random Acts of Writing (randomactsofwriting.net) since 2010. That name, it turns out, was spot-on! My creative work shifts from poetry and flash nonfiction, to essay and photo essay.
As readers will find in Sleeping with Ghosts, I also write a lot of memoir pieces.
The poems in the book have been written over the past 10-15 years, but they cover a time span of 40! From that perspective, time traveling becomes a natural consequence! (It helps that I’m also a closet Trekkie and a bit of a sci-fi nerd.)
I find I have an acute memory for what I call “defining moments” — those places in time when something shifts or changes, times that you bookmark to remember. I am easily able to slip back into those moments and recall the feelings, the conversations, my surroundings. And then I write!
As happened in my previous books of poetry, Evidence of Flossing and Waiting Out the Storm, the poems in Sleeping with Ghosts gathered themselves quite naturally. As soon as I set the intention to create this book, the poems and chapters, and their organization was very clear. The biggest challenge, I suppose, was making sure that the ghosts each got their own say, and that their stories were told to completion.
Kaecey: I can imagine that covering a time span of 40 years meant some “ghostly” challenges! You did a wonderful job making sure each voice was heard. Much of your writing in this collection reflects on past relationships or experiences. I’m wondering, was there a defining memory or experience that sparked the creation of Sleeping with Ghosts? How did it start and how did the concept evolve from that initial inspiration?
Jen: Indirectly, yes.
I’ve been a writer all my life: journalist, copy editor, freelance writer, marketing wordsmith. I started my own graphic design and marketing business, Words by Jen, when I was 27, and spent a great deal of time writing for other people.
But the year I turned 40, I reconnected with someone I had been deeply, crazy in love with. We hadn’t spoken in 15 years, and our reconnection felt monumental and…karmic.
When it didn’t work out (again), everything broke wide open for me. I had to find a way to write from that place, from that broken-hearted, emotional, vulnerable place. That’s really when I began writing the good stuff!
(Actually, you can read about the whole experience in my book Water Under the Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story.)
Kaecey: It’s amazing how those difficult experiences can spark our creativity. And speaking of difficult, your work often explores themes of memory, creativity, and loss. How do you navigate writing about such personal experiences while still making them resonate universally? What advice do you have for poets and other writers who are tackling big themes like grief?
Jen: I think I write about my own experiences because I have to — it’s how I process things, how I connect with the world. Not to be cliche, but writing is my love language.
I’m a bit of an introvert, so writing and storytelling are my way of sharing, of having a conversation, of participating.
I’m not sure I intentionally try to make my work resonate universally, so much as the stories are universal. We all experience these moments —right? The broken heart, the unrequited love, the death of a friend, the relationship we need to leave.
But not everyone has the courage to talk about their experiences. It’s hard work talking about disappointment, broken hearts, loss, and grief.
What inspired me most to write from the heart, to be brave about it, was Brené Brown’s book Rising Strong. In it, she writes, “When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.”
So my advice to writers tackling the big life themes would be a) read Brené’sbook, and then b) be brave and write!
Kaecey: Love that. I’m a Brené Brown fan! So yes! And I appreciate what you just said about our stories as universal human experiences. You’ve also written about our connection to the natural world, and in previous interviews, you mentioned the “alchemy” of emotions, nature, and creativity. I’m hoping you can elaborate on how this idea informs your writing, whether that’s in the language and imagery itself or as part of your process, particularly in this new book, Sleeping with Ghosts?
Jen: There is a certain kind of magic that happens when we can step out of our day-to-day and let new information come in. For me, that very often happens when I walk in the woods or on the beach. For others, the magic happens in meditation or after physical activity.
We’re all so busy these days. And when we’re not busy with actual work — job, house, family, life — we’re regularly seduced by technology and our scrolling, binging culture. Creativity requires us to get away from all of that. How can we hear our Muses when everything else is demanding our attention?
I think it’s important for writers and artists to find those things that let them reconnect with their creative voice. One poet I know recently went on a week-long silent mediation, and when I marveled at that to his wife, she said “That’s him. I prefer moving meditation, like tai chi or yoga.”
For me, being in nature is a critical component of my writing. Whether it’s a regular walk at my favorite nature preserve or a week-long writing retreat by the water — I need that time away to process through the stories and the things I want to say.
And yes, very often there is an overlap of my connection with nature and the imagery and language in my writing, including Sleeping with Ghosts. Of course!
My book Waiting Out the Storm was a very personal tribute to a dear friend who died suddenly. I found the most comfort being in nature, and witnessing how life and death and rebirth play out all around us. Nature was my solace.
That’s what I mean by alchemy — we are part of a much larger universe than our day-to-day. If we can be open to that, give ourselves time and space to come back to our awareness of that, it can infuse our writing and our sense of self in pretty amazing ways!
Kaecey: Beautifully put, Jen. And so helpful for other writers to read about that part of the process. Speaking of process, I feel like, as writers, we’re often surprised by something in our work or in the process itself. Maybe you start a poem about the lipstick case you lost and end up writing about the death of your cat. Maybe you want to write about the sunlight and you end up writing about your toddler’s whining. (Or maybe that’s just me!) In looking back at your journey with Sleeping with Ghosts, what has been the most surprising or rewarding aspect of creating this collection and sharing it with others?
Jen: This is a great question. Our writing can come as a surprise sometimes, can’t it?
One of the most surprising things about Sleeping with Ghosts for me has been how these poems assume their own personality, and almost innately tell the story of each particular ghost…despite the fact that they were written at different times over the past 15 years.
The ghost in I Am a Rock/I Am an Island is unrequited loved no matter when I write about it — in the moment or 10 years later. The ghost in Seeing Red is angry all the time — then and even now.
The other surprising thing — and probably my favorite part about writing this book — is that the ghosts found ways to speak to me. They often showed up to remind me about a moment or a conversation that should be included. Sometimes they needed a final say — and they would chime in while I was on a walk or they’d show up in a dream. “Sleeping in Truro” was one ghost’s final say-so, and “Dear Jenny” was a ghost who appeared just months before the book went to press. When I asked the ghosts to give me a final poem for the book, they sent my Dad who asked, “Did you love?”
I did, I have…and now I get to share that with my readers!
Kaecey: “Did you love?” What a beautiful question and how wonderful to be able to answer in the way that you did! Jen, thank you so much for being here with me today. It’s be a joy to talk to you about writing, life, and your inspiration!
Jen: Kaecey, thank you for these thoughtful questions and the chance to dig a little deeper into the inspiration and ghosts in Sleeping with Ghosts! I appreciate it!
I started my business, Words by Jen, in 1993. It was a part-time effort at first, offering writing and “desktop publishing” services to a small-but-growing list of local businesses, artists, and non-profits. By 1996, I had moved my office from the second bedroom of an apartment to commercial office space and was ready to leave my job at a local print shop to dedicate my time to my own work.
Back then — pre-Google and social media— one of the best ways to market a business was to have a listing in the phone book. Phone books, for those of you who might not know, were kept in every household and included all of the landline phone numbers in your town. There was a white pages section for home phone numbers and a yellow pages section for business phone numbers and advertising.
In the fall of 1995, I placed a yellow page ad in a phone book that would be in every home within 20 miles of my office.
The very first phone call I received was from a woman named Dale Carlson. Dale was a well-known New York City author who had moved to a shoreline town here in Connecticut and started her own, small publishing company, Bick Publishing House.
We met over coffee at a local breakfast spot, and had a very long conversation about how we might work together. She was as curious about me and Words by Jen as I was about the strong force of a woman sitting across the table from me.
Dale was 60 years old when we met, with an impressive resume of writing and publishing experience. She’d written more than two dozen books at the time, had been published by Atheneum Books, Doubleday, and Simon & Schuster, and was the winner of both an ALA Notable Book Award and the Christopher Award.
She had traveled all over the world, practiced yoga and meditation, was an advocate for folks with mental illness and addiction, read voraciously, and had recently become a licensed wildlife rehabilitator.
I, on the other hand, was barely 30 and just starting out in my career…and my life. I must have seemed so young and naïve to her. Still, something clicked for both of us and we agreed to draw up a contract for “book design and marketing services.”
From that first meeting, Dale and I went on to create more than 30 books, from her first series of wildlife rehabilitation manuals in the late 1990s to her final book OUT OF ORDER: Young Adult Manual of Mental Illness and Recovery. We started on that journey together before independent publishing was a thing, before print-on-demand and Amazon and self-publishing. Dale had taken us out to the leading edge of this new industry, and it was an amazing ride!
She knew, for example, Jan Nathan — the founder of Publishers Marketing Association (PMA) which became the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Her books were edited by Ann Maurer, who had a long history of editing for well-known publishers, and our team included Jean Karl from Atheneum and award-winning artists like cover designer Greg Sammons and illustrator Carol Nicklaus.
During our time together, I gathered a set of design and publishing tools that still serve me well today, including a well-worn copy of The Chicago Manual of Style that Dale gave me all those years ago. From her, I learned about book industry standards for design,how to edit and organize content professionally, what makes for a good cover design and effective back cover content, how to position a book properly for booksellers and libraries, and so much more.
Ask me what inspired me to write books and how I came to start my own publishing company — Three Chairs Publishing — and I will tell you about the 25+ years that Dale and I worked together: the long hours of editing around her kitchen table, selecting art and cover designs, developing a house style, and promoting her books.
The skills I learned from her then I apply now to my own books, and to the growing list of self-published authors I get to work with as Words by Jen. All total, I have had the privilege of shepherding well over 150 books out into the world, from Dale’s books and my own, to a long list of poetry, art, history, fiction, and non-fiction titles.
And to think it all started with that yellow page ad, all so many years ago!
Photo: Jen and her mentor, Dale Carlson, at the launch of Jen’s first book, Look Up! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, in 2014. Sleeping with Ghosts is her fifth book under the imprint of Three Chairs Publishing.
“Power of Writing Through Poetry, Memories” BOOK REVIEW by Charity Howard
“If you enjoy poetry I recommend picking up this book. If you are not sure of your joy of poetry this still is an interesting read. She brings chapter after chapter of her thoughts and symbolism to us. The titles of each chapter are also a real delight. A major thing I love about this poetry book is at the end of the book where the author added some special elements. She gives us some added information or insight into the poems. This divine information adds greatly to the energy and dynamic of this book. It is perfect allowing for an even better reading experience.”
“It feels both extremely personal and universal. Despite the poems drawing on Payne’s experiences, many times I felt as if she had looked through a magic lens at my past relationships and emotions.”
Thanks goes out to Jodi Webb for this sweet review of Sleeping with Ghosts on Words by Webb. Jodi’s review is part of the month-long WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour.
What inspired this new book and its focus on past relationships? Good question. I have always had an acute ability to recall moments in time — I call them “defining moments.” You know, the point in time when something shifts or that you bookmark to remember later? As a writer, those “defining moments” are a pretty fertile source of inspiration for all of my work, most especially when it comes to writing memoir and poetry.
I think it’s called autobiographical memory — like photographic memory, but related to people, conversations, emotions, and interactions. I can easily find and settle down into memories and re- experience them in order to write about them. Sometimes I consciously rummage around to find something interesting, but often, the memories just show up — like ghosts — and ask to be written about.
I’m also a storyteller by nature. I frequently use analogy and story not only to talk about my own experiences, but to say, “I understand yours, too. Let’s talk about it.”
WOW:This book of poetry if so personal. Have you ever found it difficult to write about relationships featured in your poetry?
JEN: Some of these poems were definitely a challenge to write. There’s often sadness or grief knotted up in a memory. So when I untangle it to tell the story, those emotions resurface. But it’s more cathartic than difficult.
Other poems come more easily, welcoming the chance to reconnect with a love story, or remember moments with a dear friend, or find counsel from cherished mentors.
Have you read Brené Brown’s book Rising Strong? It’s one of my most dogeared books. She talks about being brave, showing up, telling our stories. It ends with her “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted”:
We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings.
We craft love from heartbreak, compassion from shame, grace from disappointment, courage from failure.
Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and broken hearted. We are rising strong.
I love that!
I have to tell you…a side story…that the process of revisiting the ghosts in this book was fascinating. I had two amazing editors who read and critiqued every chapter, poem by poem. I spent hours with each of them, reviewing and reconsidering. It gave me the chance to dive deep into those past stories and live with the ghosts again for a while. That was an incredible experience — to be steeped in memory like that — it was visceral. Heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.
The insights and time from these two women were a true gift. The book is enormously more powerful as a result.
WOW:I am in awe of poets because I simply don’t have that lyrical talent. Tell us a little about how a poem is born. Does it come out in a rush of words or do you have to fight to create each line?
JEN: I know that some poets anguish over poems for weeks and months. To be honest? I don’t have that kind of patience. On the rare occasion when I do anguish, I end up with an over-kneaded poem that’s too tough and lost its original flavor.
I always say the poems “show up,” which is what it really feels like. Something will trigger a memory or offer up the first line…and whoosh…there’s the poem!
Ok, it’s not that quick of a process. I probably spend at least an hour or two on a poem — write, rework, read it out loud a few times, rework some more, repeat. Sometimes I go back later and edit, but not much and not often.
The poem that took the longest to write in Sleeping with Ghosts was probably “Under His Spell.” That took a few days, mostly because it’s a rhyming poem, and I don’t often rhyme. (In general, I resist writing to [poetic] form…though I’ve been challenged recently to give it a try.)
“Dear Jenny,” one of my favorites, took almost no time at all. That one showed up as if I was channeling the ghost himself and just transcribing his words. Like magic!
Poetry always kind of feels like magic to me.
WOW:A magic that is out of reach for so many of us. So tell us, how do you curate a poetry book? Do you select a topic and write poems, do you look at poems you’ve already written and perceive a common thread or is it some combination of the two?
JEN: Would you believe I’ve had the title of this book in my mind for more than 10 years? I even saved the cover art and artist’s name in a file for safekeeping!
The poems span about 20 years of work. The curating of them was fairly straightforward when it came to the ghost chapters — the seven ghosts are seven of those defining moments for me, with plenty of poems written over the years. But there were other poems — like the small pieces of stories you find in the Ephemera chapter, or the ghosts that reappear in Dreamwork — that needed to be included.
My favorite chapter to put together was Muses — these are the women who have shaped and continue to shape my life. It felt important to include them.
Most of the poems were already written, but about a dozen of them are new, written specifically for the book or because of the book. The very last poem I wrote for Ghosts is called “The Poet at Midnight,” which describes, in a sense, what the curating often feels like — a wandering through old memories and the discovery of which ones we hold onto.
WOW:Fascinating! I love the idea that you saved that image, knowing that someday there would be a book to go with it. Let’s take a peek at your life beyond poetry.In addition to a poetry and prose writer, you are also an artist, photographer, graphic designer (let me know if I’ve forgotten anything). Do you have a favorite creative outlet?
JEN: Writer, artist, photographer, graphic designer, yes. Also blogger and zinester…business owner (Words by Jen) and publisher (Three Chairs Publishing).
I don’t think I see them as individual roles, so much as tools I use for my Creativity. And I don’t have a favorite, really. Sometimes I love poetry — like in April when I write a poem a day for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), and sometimes I’m all about creating the next zine. It’s more like whichever burner is fired up is the one I’m cooking on today — LOL!
I need to create. It’s my raison d’être — who I am and how I move around in this world.
I’m just lucky that I get to participate in the creative process all day long, either for my clients or with my own various ideas and projects.
WOW:What a lovely life to lead. You mentioned being a zinester. Could you tell us a little more about MANIFEST (zine)?
JEN: The zine is like storytelling lite!
I had always dreamed of doing installation art — in my “spare time.” LOL! — like large spaces filled with words and visuals that visitors could walk through and experience. As an alternative, I came up with the idea of doing a zine that could hold the same ideas on a much smaller scale.
I had published another zine back in the early 90s, so I was familiar with the format and the (fabulous) zine community. It just felt like the perfect venue for my essays and poetry, and my other creative pursuits, like collage and photography.
MANIFEST comes out quarterly with a different theme for each issue. It has covered topics like change and transition, solitude, the pandemic, time and time travel — sometimes politics, like gun control and women’s rights. I just mailed issue #15 called Write, about finding inspiration.
WOW: So where are you finding inspiration? What are you working on now?
JEN:Mostly, right now, I’m working on shepherding Sleeping with Ghosts out into the world. So there’s a lot of publicity work and events to prepare for, including my blog tour with you!
But I also have the next issue of MANIFEST (zine) in process, and I’m trying to decide if I should resurrect an old manuscript or start fresh with a new project of essays and poems. Maybe also a podcast?
I guess we’ll have to wait to find out, right? Folks can follow along on my blog and social media for all of the latest HERE.
Thank you for your time, Jodi. It’s been great to talk with you!
WOW:And you. I’ll let you get back to your being creative and your WOW blog tour with Sleeping with Ghosts.
I am very excited to participating in my second WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour! For four weeks in October and November, Sleeping with Ghosts will be featured more than a dozen blogs and websites across the country with book reviews, guest posts, book giveaways, spotlights, and interviews.
It all starts today with an interview on the WOW! Women on Writing blog The Muffin. I hope you’ll follow along!
I am very excited to participating in my second WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour!
For four weeks in October and November, Sleeping with Ghosts will be featured on close to two dozen blogs and websites across the country with book reviews, guest posts, book giveaways, spotlights, and interviews.
It all starts on Monday, October 14 with an interview on the Women on Writing blog The Muffin. I hope you’ll follow along!
WOW! Women on Writing is a global organization, designed to support women’s creativity, energy, blood, sweat and tears, throughout all stages of the writing process.
Its concept is unique, as it fills in the missing gap between writing websites and women’s magazines. WOW! is dedicated to raising the overall standards within the writing community, and devote an active profile within writing industry associations, organizations and websites.
They actively contribute to the love, enjoyment and excitement of producing quality writing — so that the reader in all of us will never want for good material, in any form.
The girl in the mirror takes on the twisted shape required to put on earrings — it’s a learned posture: how to do deft work without consideration.
I watch as she decorates herself with the green peridot pair I loved so much and notice the favorite pullover I wore once on a whale trip off the coast of Cape Cod.
The girl is familiar — the eyes mostly, since they are all I choose to look at usually. Those hardly change at all, except when a certain mood hits and they momentarily turn as green as those earrings.
Still, we look at each other sometimes — this girl and I — and we have that kind of silent eye conversation you can only have with people who know you well enough.
Most often it’s a this will have to do rolled-eyes thing she’s perfected. A slight lopsided smirk as if to say…something. I don’t know what.
God, she’s had that lopsided smirk since kindergarten. With a picture to prove it. It seems ironic, sardonic, sarcastic. At five-years-old?
It’s either the smile-smirk of an old soul or a poet, I can’t decide. Reborn or born that way?
But five was a long time ago. Time enough to let smirk lines coexist with laugh lines and that what the fuck indent between her brows.
Has she been perplexed all this time? Since five? Or is circular? Does she come around to understanding now and then? Belief, faith, confidence. Then adrift, nonplussed, confused.
There are days I recognize the all of that. Can see the well-roundedness to her reflections. And days I don’t.
Days I don’t even want to look — use my peripheral senses to pat down the cowlick and add a little color to her cheeks. There, there — a small comfort before we go about our day.
Don’t MissAuthors in Conversation: Poets Jen Payne and Julie Fitzpatrick discuss Sleeping with Ghosts at Breakwater Books, October 13
Three Chairs Publishing is pleased to announce the publication of its newest book, Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings by Branford, Connecticut poet Jen Payne. Known for her meditations and musings about our outside world, Payne takes readers inside this time…into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams.
Those ghosts — her lovers, soulmates, and muses — reveal themselves slowly, chapter by chapter, in this wistfully reflective, time-traveling memoir that Branford Poet Laureate Judith Liebmann, Ph.D. calls “Beautifully crafted and luminous…an intimate and unforgettable journey of love found and lost, the joys of creativity, and the power of memory.”
Sleeping with Ghosts will be the subject of the Breakwater Books AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION event on Sunday, October 13 (5pm) with Payne and Guilford performer and poet Julie Fitzpatrick. Join them for a convivial exploration of the ghosts and stories from the book. In additional to reading selected poems, the two — who recently collaborated on Fitzpatrick’s poetry book Church on the Screen — will talk about the creative process and the experience of making books.
Come enjoy poetry, creative conversation, and sweet treats during this author event and book signing. Registration is required for the Breakwater event, and books will be available for purchase the night of the event. Please register now at tinyurl.com/ytbujx4h, or visit EVENTS on the Breakwater Books website, breakwaterbooks.net. (Please note there is a $5.50 charge to register, but on the night of the event, you will get a $5 Breakwater Bucks store credit to use any time.)
Sleeping with Ghosts will be featured in a national WOW! Women on Writing Blog Tour beginning October 14, and Payne is part of an Authors in the Shop series planned at Guilford Art Center in November. Details can be found here.
Copies of Sleeping with Ghosts (5.5 x 8.5, paperback, 182 pages, $20.00) will be available at Breakwater Books (81 Whitfield Street, Guilford) and the Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford) in October, or pre-order your copy from our Etsy Shop now.
I am so excited to tell you about my new book, Sleeping with Ghosts! The ghosts — my lovers, soulmates, and muses — reveal themselves chapter by chapter, dream by dream, in this wistfully reflective, time-traveling memoir filled with poems, musings, and illustrations.
The book is at the printer now and should be available in early October. You can pre-order your copy today, see below. Then please save the dates for these upcoming book events, and watch for more details soon.
I look forward to seeing you!
❤️ Jen Payne Words by Jen Three Chairs Publishing
BOOKS & BLOOMS at the BLACKSTONE with the Branford Garden Club Friday, September 27, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. Blackstone Memorial Library (758 Main Street, Branford) • Tickets
AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION with Julie Fitzpatrick and Jen Payne Sunday, October 13, 5:00 p.m. Breakwater Books (81 Whitfield Street, Guilford) • Register Now
WOW! WOMEN ON WRITING NATIONAL BLOG TOUR begins Monday, October 14
AUTHORS IN THE SHOP at Guilford Art Center Book Signing Saturday, November 16, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford)
That’s my dad and me, college graduation 1988. Today would have been his 81st birthday. I am now 6 years older than he ever got to be. Life is fleeting — perhaps that is the biggest lesson of all.
Do I have as much of a death wish as the motorcyclist weaving weekend traffic, hair in the wind, shirt so caught up in the moment his rib cage is showing, and he not a care in the world?
Am I embracing life as much as the motorcyclist weaving weekend-traffic, his arms outstretched, wind in his face, that loud vroooom of rebellion and joy, not a care in the world?
He used to choke on Cottonwood seeds, the sweet smell of wild roses, strong female voices, and perceived insults in dreams, but never on his own bitter words — that acidic response to the odd, queer, gaudy, perverse — probably never on the dry, brittle body of Christ from whom he now finds absolution that never requires atonement, only tithes and tethers to rank ideas and pungent, noble hatred.
Her first husband was a rogue too young for what she had in mind but it was high-school sweetheart love and her parents insisted in a Roman Catholic sort of way his too, it was a good investment that soon included the benchmark 2.0 kids in a house-and-white-picket-fence world but he was prone to outrageous fortunes and accidental accidents that practically left him speechless her too, most nights, waiting by the phone so she gave herself a Divorce for Christmas and never, ever looked back.
But he did. Retraced his missteps relived his worst nightmares (and mine) hit rewind and started over with a nimble bride the same age his first wife had been though a better investment this time consented not contrived with two more dividends and a house on a Dream where he sometimes smiles that scoundrel smile to his reflection in the mirror a flash of wicked conceit for an endgame so very well played.
She knows, of course, it’s why she’s allowed me here this intimate task of parting, of packing up your things, why we smile easily between hidden glances
so this is her
We’ve known each other forever, of course, wondered enough to troll, but we’re like minds and hearts as well, why else would you have loved us both? I don’t tell her I saw you a shadow, a whisper in her room, that your smile was in gratitude for the kindnesses here now, and then, when I held tight your sorrows and secrets.
Instead, we just laugh at your photographs, agree to keep the tape in the top drawer to put things back together after I leave.
From the fascia that constricts — wants my body fetal some days — I cannot extract the kamikaze pilot, tweeze him from his destructive path save those who drowned or the family of survivors who struggle, still, some days, to keep their heads above water.
I cannot extract the boy in the photo unawares and smiling while sea battles raged and mothers wept eyes blind to the the hard fist of the drunk who pounded on doors and broke happy spirits.
Some things float, you see, carry on despite the damage.
Last night I dreamt of my grandmother. She was sitting next to my dad toasting champagne in a luncheonette on Broad Street. You know, the kind with leather stools spinning around a counter and formica tables? I knew she’d be waiting, but the front door was locked, so I found a back entrance, pushed past the steel workers having lunch and ran to her. My heart was so full it felt like I was drowning, swallowing air and love; racing towards that hug that almost knocked us off our feet, her arms as tight as mine, holding on ‘til morning.
Harry Anderson saved my life. At least that’s what my wide-eyed younger self remembers. The man had a gun, after all. I saw it as he paid for his coffee, hitched up under his arm. I was working the overnight, back when a girl could do that on her own. And besides, the cops watched out for me. That’s why I called them. Harry was there in minutes. Dragged the man to the parking lot. Discharged the gun in a moment of midlife bravado that almost got him fired. I never forgot it — overfilled his apple fritters every time thereafter.
Last night, while I slept in the just-right bed, my feet pressed against the tower wall, the Bears came and ate what was left of the wise Scribe’s apples. His favorites, he told me, bewitchingly red and wild, but rare these late fall days.
It’s quiet enough here to hear the wings of the Crow King as he flies through the stars, but not — apparently — the sound of Bears crossing the meadow in Moonlight. It seems they ate the Mountains too, or so the Fog might tell. Tell if it could speak that is, but all I hear is birdsong.
I slept on a cot near my grandmother’s bed in a room that smelled like eucalyptus. The aluminum frame squeaked when I moved, despite my small size and efforts to keep quiet. My grandfather slept in the adjoining room, his presence as unnerving as the Jesus portrait on the wall. The story goes he woke her once with a pitcher of water, threw it on the bed so she’d make his breakfast. I wonder if the train whistle ever disturbed him, pulled him down the tracks to the steel mill, back to the stacks and hot slag where he belonged.
Some days, I feel like the girl in the tub with the fish in the comedy show hitting so close to home but so far out in left field that eating popcorn while I watch doesn’t seem nearly as awful as eating chicken wings during an episode of Criminal Minds. Me and my dying cat curled up on the floor, my hand stroking her tail — and only her tail because otherwise she thinks I’m about to stick another pill down her throat and she’ll run to hide from me. It’s a terrible thing when a part of your heart runs and hides from you, but I don’t blame her. She likes me best now in the mornings, too tired and stiff for any chase. Instead we curl up, like the girl and the fish in the tub, floating there in the early morning hours as if nothing will ever change.
My first family was soft and warm, and covered me with enough love and affection to keep my heart hopeful for decades. My second family was threadbare, though, worn down so much that it hardly covered the dysfunction anymore, left me sick and unable to breathe. My third family fell apart at the seams. My fourth has been a patchwork of cotton and corduroy — thin in places, strong in others, woven together over time and enough to pull up to my chin, close my eyes and remember the little girl skipping, blanket always in tow, her Mom and Dad laughing.
I save their stories like scraps of stolen poetry. I know, for example, that she was conceived at the 1965 World’s Fair and that hidden above his left ear is a question-mark shaped scar. I remember the name of the child they lost, what she called the family dog, and that he wakes from nightmares as if in a back-alley brawl. Thief, collector, storykeeper — how easily I can tell the stories of couples in love and couples lost; about the pillow talk of lovers, the half-life of trauma, and the white-haired widow forever chasing a dog by the shore.
In sports, sudden death is a tiebreaker — two teams of equal measure play until one scores. In my family, sudden death was a torpedo in the East China Sea and a kamikaze’s final score. It was a flu pandemic in 1957 that meant game over for my 19-year-old aunt…and my grandmother, who never quite recovered her self. Sudden death was an 18-wheeler on a mountainous interstate in southwest Virginia — a certain game changer for my father, and for me who wakes more often than not with an adrenaline rush of grab the ball and run before it’s too late.
It was Valentine’s Day, but we’d already broken up. I ended it days earlier because he never listened to me — not about extravagant gifts, not when I asked him to drive with both hands on the wheel, not when I said I was allergic to dogs. He also didn’t pay attention when I told him not to deliver the postscript Valentine’s gift furtively left at my door. It, a $75 teddy bear, was dressed in what he assumed was my regular working-from-home attire: suit, skirt, briefcase.
But removed of her conformity? I say: who couldn’t love a bear named Naked Betty?
Dale and me at the launch of my first book, Look Up!, in 2014.
The first time I met Dale Carlson was in 1996 over coffee at the Hidden Kitchen in Guilford, Connecticut. She was the first person to call Words by Jen from the first yellow page ad I ever purchased.
And while we would both tell you that we were not really sure we really liked each other that day — and many days after that as well — we would go on to make almost 30 books together under the name of Bick Publishing House.
Ask me today what inspired me to write books and how I came to start my own publishing company, and I will tell you about the 25+ years that Dale and I worked together: the long hours of editing around her kitchen table, selecting art and cover designs, developing a house style, and promoting her books. All of the things I do for my clients’ books and my own books now, I learned from Dale.
But she wasn’t just a client. Dale was my long-time mentor and spiritual guide who helped me understand my family dysfunction and my mother’s mental illness, who taught me about meditation and the many faces of god. She showed by example that you can create a life on your own eccentric terms, and how it is to move around in the world in the body of writer.
Often, our approaches to life were vastly different — how we saw the world and how we coped as different as our backgrounds and ages. But in so many ways, we were kindred spirits who could complete each others sentences and easily nod in agreement more often than we expected.
We talked just recently about our work together and our long, enduring affection for one another. “It is so lovely,” she said, “to know how entwined we are! Love you, dear one.”
I love you, too, Dale.
Dale passed away on January 23, 2022. You can read more about her life here, or from her many books that are still available online.
The Garden State Parkway Rest Stop was half-way to my grandmother’s. We’d pull off the exit and shuffle into the rose-colored stalls of the Ladies Room.
Inside, near the pink-vinyl couch, a pull-knob vending machine sold hairnets, bobby pins, and rainhats neatly folded into pastel plastic boxes.
The Rest Stop burned down in ’91, years after we’d stop traveling as a family. But in my mind, it’s all still there — the soft golden light and tiled floors, the vending machine, my sister sleeping, Dad singing I Got You Babe to Mom in the front seat, his hand on her knee.
For sure there is a story to tell, of late-night clichés and coffee-stained romances there behind the counter of the midnight doughnut shop. She had written them in situ, on journal pages stained with raspberry-pink jelly: the dashing pirate, the rookie cop, the old war vet with a “crack in his cookie jar.” No doubt she learned more there than in any class at the university — or any day since. But could she find them again? Stir them up, let them proof and rise into something more than naïve schoolgirl impressions of the world and her life not yet begun?
I saw an elf bent over, studying the bark of a tree just up the path. “What are you looking at?” I asked, feeling curiouser and curiouser. “Mushrooms,” he told me, “these.” Then he bowed and plucked a bouquet from the log at my feet. Edible, he explained with a smile, so I asked “What are you making?” and he replied “Oyster mushrooms with a sherry cream sauce.” Mouths watering, we talked a bit about wild woods and food fare before we parted ways. Darn, I keep thinking, I forgot to drop my shoe. How will he ever find me?
randomactsofwriting.net 