Favorite Moments at the 2016 Alabama Writers Conclave

The Alabama Writers’ Conclave met July 15-17 at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, Alabama. It is always an enriching time. The weekend was filled with information, inspiration, and good food. It was a time of meeting new writer friends and talking with old writer friends. I left with a writer’s buzz that took a while to settle down from, and there were a couple of especially memorable moments.

Open Mic

Open Mic became what I considered to be a sacred gathering on Friday afternoon at the Alabama Writers' Conclave. Eighteen people got up to read poems and stories they had written; each had three minutes at the mic. Hearing just a snapshot of other people's lives, experiences and encounters was moving on so many levels. A sacred circle of time it was!

Exploring Imagery and Language

There were a number of helpful workshops for poetry, memoir, fiction, and creative nonfiction.  In one of the sessions, "Exploring Imagery and Language in Poetry,"  Shanti Weiland led us in examining some of the "challenges of anchoring abstractions with concrete language." The most memorable piece we read in that workshop was one by Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate:

 

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

                 

or press an ear against its hive.

               

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

                 

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

                

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

                

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

                                             ~ Billy Collins







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Friends Writing Good Books: Rick Watson

Life Changes: Enjoy the Ride

Rick Watson
(Photo from author's website)

I met Rick Watson a few years back at the Alabama Writer's Conclave. I found out that he was a blogger, which interested me because I had just begun my Not Dark Yet blog about six months before. Rick's wife Jilda also blogs, so we all got more acquainted, following each other's blogs. I soon found out that Rick grew up in West Jefferson where my wife grew up, and that he has a home spun manner about the stories he tells. He writes a weekly column for The Daily Mountain Eagle in Jasper, Alabama and has had articles featured in other newspapers in the region, including 280 Living, The Tannehill Trader, and 78 Magazine. Rick also does freelance writing for Village Living in Mountain Brook, The Hoover Sun, and The Homewood Star.

Life Changes: Just Breathe, is a collection of some of his best columns, and it is actually his third collection of essays. When Life Changes was about to hit the press, Rick asked me to read it and write a brief review for the back cover. Here is what I wrote as it appears on the back cover:

One of the best things about this delightful collection of essays is that Rick Watson shows us the value of an examined life. My guess is that you will relate immediately to the brief episodes that Rick shares in Life Changes. It doesn’t take long to read one, and then you’re hooked on reading the next. He may be driving down the road, sitting in the kitchen, or sitting on an old five-gallon paint can by the barn. Wherever he goes, he takes the time to reflect on life. Thankfully, he has shared those reflections with us. You’ll find something for every season of the year and every season of life in these pages. ~ Charles Kinnaird 

Rick has a page at Amazon which features all of his books at http://www.amazon.com/Rick-Watson/e/B001KDX1DE/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

If you would like an autographed copy, he will gladly accommodate you if you go to his personal blog site, Life 101 at http://www.rickwatson-writer.com/p/books.html                                                                                                                                                       ~ 

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A Conclave of Writers!

I just returned from a great weekend in Huntsville, Ala., where the Alabama Writers’ Conclave  met. The Alabama Writers’ Conclave is one of the oldest writing organizations in the country, and is the body which nominates the state’s poet laureate.  The annual meeting always focuses on providing workshops led by expert faculty for writers who work in all genres of the field. This year we had workshops in fiction, memoir, and poetry. My greatest excitement was that Rabbi Rami Shapiro  was there to lead a workshop session as well as to deliver the keynote address.

I discovered Rabbi Rami a couple of years ago when I noticed his column, “Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler" in Spirituality and Health magazine. I have also recently begun following his blog, Beyond Religion with Rabbi Rami.  I knew he had a sense of humor from reading his blog, but this guy is hilarious! He encouraged us writers to be subversives to the status quo by puncturing the cultural norms that aren’t working by using humor. He gave us examples of what he does on Twitter to send out aphorisms that question some of our status quo assumptions.

Rabbinical wisdom

Rabbi Rami, in his keynote address had us all laughing but also shared some useful wisdom for anyone interested in spirituality and religion. He talked about how in the Jewish tradition, the old biblical stories are seen as just that – stories, not facts or history. This allows those in the rabbinic tradition to discuss and debate many different views of what a story means. He used the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as an example. He shared many different ways that Jews have interpreted that story, but never has it been taken as factual, and never has it been used to blame women for sin entering the world as many Christians have done.  Ideas about the serpent, what the exit from Eden meant, and what the angel at the entrance of the garden symbolized – all take on new meaning that those of us in the Christian tradition are not usually exposed to.

For example, did you know that, according to one interpretation, Eve passed by the forbidden tree in the garden three times? The first time she saw it looked good to eat, but did not give in to that base appetite. The second time she saw that it was beautiful to look at, but resisted the urge to take it just to have it for its beauty. The third time she realized that it was a means of gaining knowledge of good and evil, so this was why she ate the fruit (and it was an acceptable reason to partake). When she offered it to Adam, however, he asked no questions, gave no consideration, he just took it and ate it because it was food for the stomach. As a result, it was Adam who was sent out from the garden because he was not yet ready to make a new advancement in life and development. He was still guided only by his base appetites. Eve went along with him to help until such time that he could grow and advance in his development to the point that he was capable of the higher level of knowledge and life that is be found in Eden. The angel with the flaming sword was not to keep people out, but to show the way back when mankind is ready.

The rabbi also touched upon the idea that the serpent in the garden is sometimes seen as identical with the messiah figure in Jewish thought in that his role was to guide humankind out of a dependent protected existence as children in Eden to a more mature consciousness. Fascinating concepts! It can be invigorating to take a step away from our traditionally held views, which is one reason I love interfaith dialogue.

Philosophical Views of God

Rabbi Rami offered as an aside the five basic views of God. However you think of God, it will fall into one of these five categories:     
        1. Theism

        2. Atheism

  3. Agnosticism

  4. Pantheism

  5. Panentheism

Theism holds the view that God is “out there” somewhere. Away from us, separate from creation. Atheism holds the exact same view of God as theism – except that is denies Gods existence – but the God that it denies has the same traits as the God the theists affirm. Agnosticism says it is just not sure, so why go to all that bother with religion if we can’t be sure anyway? Pantheism sees God as equal to creation/nature.  What you see of creation is equal to God. Panentheism holds that God is indeed in all of creation (not separate from it). Creation (the universe) is God, but God is more than creation.

Those were just a couple of philosophical asides that the rabbi shared as he gave his keynote address.  I found out in conversation with Rabbi Rami that his rabbi is the renown Zalman Schacter-Shalomi of the Hasidic tradition. No wonder he has such a grasp on spiritual approaches to life and can so readily share those in the course of conversation. A project he is working on is to use children’s letters to God as a means of using humor to puncture some of the narrow cultural views of religious fanaticism.

An Inspiring Weekend

Let me hasten to say, lest anyone think that this was a weekend of Hasidic spirituality, there was a variety of educational offerings for writers with a wide range of interests. We were privileged to have an excellent faculty to lead the workshops. At night we were able to hear from many of our gifted colleagues as they read portions of their work. We meet all kinds of people at these gatherings. It is always fascinating to hear from other writers, to find out what they write, and why they write. I left the conclave today with new ideas for writing, new contacts, and renewed inspiration. For anyone interested in attending future conclaves or joining the AWC, be sure to visit their website at http://www.alabamawritersconclave.org/index.html.

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