Riehl’s writing life revealed in Story Circle Network National e-letter

Click here to read a profile by Joyce Boatright that gives a snapshot of some areas of my writing life.
Story Circle Network National e-letter
July 2008, Vol. 9, No 7
To read this e-Letter on the Story Circle Network web site, click here.

Click here to go to the main Story Circle Network web site.

Write your hearts [...]

Meeting Anais Nin by Maryanne Raphael

Anais Nin, photo courtesy Maryanne Raphael
Maryanne Raphael has written and co-authored 10 books, short stories, poetry, and articles. You can read more about Maryanne and her work on www.authorsden.com/maryanneraphael. She says: “No matter what I’m doing right now, I would rather be writing.”
Anais Nin was important in my own life as a woman and [...]

How to offer condolence…what I learned from watching my father

Photo by Susan Tweit
From witnessing my father at ceremonies surrounding death, I’ve learned a new approach to being at these events.
He is completely natural. He visits. He chats. He may even make a joke. He tells stories. These are transmissions of comfort through the transmission of culture.
I have never heard him utter any of [...]

Why funerals? Erwin A. Thompson gives 3 good reasons

Photo by Susan J. Tweit

I’ve gone to several visitations and memorial services with my father this past year since I’ve moved back to the Midwest. Recently, we lost one of my cousins in a rather haunting death. In thinking ahead to her memorial day at the cemetery, we began discussing the purpose of these gatherings. [...]

River Styx is poetry central in St. Louis

Poet Michael Castro is the founding editor and spiritual father of River Styx.
Since 1974 Karen Duffy has hosted literary readings at her Central West End restaurant, Duff’s.
Says Newman: “Our literary agenda is to promote accessible poetry. In the early ’90s, poetry had been taken over by academics. It was obscure, unmoving poetry, and it was [...]

J.K. Rowling on the benefits of failure…& how empathy and imagination re-builds worlds

In her Harvard Commencement address J.K. Rowling is funny, dignified, deep, and delightful. Speaking of the lowest point in her life and how it prepared the way for writing her big idea, she says:
“So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped [...]

Riehlife Boosts 100 Thing Challenge…and, gosh, the Chicago Tribune noticed!

On June 10th when I posted on The 100 Things Challenge that Dave Bruno is campaigning for on his Guy Named Dave blog, little did I imagine that I’d receive a call from Kyra Kyles to contribute to her article “Living with less: One man’s quest to do away with all but 100 belongings [...]

Keith Shepherd at Portfolio Gallery & Education Center

The connection wasn’t merely kinship but of generations of shared experiences.–Keith Shepherd
Portfolio Gallery and Education Center’s current show is 4 OF A KIND featuring the work of Anthony High, Keith Shepherd, Bonnye Brown and Edward Hogan, all artists from the Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas community. I had the pleasure to [...]

Summer in Full Bloom: Peony Memories

We’re in the time of Summer Solstice now when summer is in fullest bloom with the longest day and shortest night. To celebrate this time on Riehlife, I’m sharing a peony bouquet plucked from an email correspondence between Susan J. Tweit and my father…about the horticultural history of our homeplace, Evergreen Heights.

Photo by Susan Tweit [...]

“Peony Harvest” by Erwin A. Thompson

Photo by Susan Tweit. Susan calls this “Old Home Place” peony because it came from her mother-in-law’s childhood home in Possum Valley, Arkansas. “It’s doing fine here at 7,000 feet in the southern Rocky Mountains, but sometimes I wonder if it doesn’t wonder how it got here!” Susan says. [...]