Wizard Altar, by Janet Riehl “Thinking as if…magic is real.”
If someone gave you a million dollars, what would you do with it?
If you could be a character from any book, who would you be?
What is the silliest thing to ever happen to you?
BUS RUN by Janet Grace Riehl (from Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary) My drumbeat feet round the corner of our private road that rushes down towards the river. A bulldozer a decade past shaved off the sharp bend in the road to reduce the odds that downhill cars crashed into uphill cars. We trudged up this…
Nancy Connally, a member of Women Writing the West, gives a few editing tips, including her technique of RECORDING AND LISTENING to help with crafting authentic dialogue and editing. –JGR During many years of editing, I received some fine tips, such as: – Read a document backwards to catch typos and misspellings. – Set a…
This poem was written in Lake County, Northern California, and refers to Clear Lake, California’s largest self-enclosed lake. I now cross the Mississippi River at least once a week, rather than gazing out on Clear Lake. But, as we’ve slid deeper into Autumn with the time change, this poem from “Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary” (see…
When you receive a “Listenback” from a critique on your work, what can you do next? Use the feedback you’ve received to set up exercises to try things out. Use this releasing question: What other poems are inside this poem? Editing and re-writing are like sculpting.
I’ve started a new writing project—working with my longtime friend and writing colleague, Stephanie Farrow who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the last weeks we’ve developed a way of working which I’m analyzing into steps below in hopes it might help those writers among Riehlife’s readers. [Note: This is filed in the Write, Pen!…
blessing the boats (at St. Mary’s) by Lucille Clifton Quilting: Poems 1987-1990 may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to…