Open Mic for Writers June 5, 2012

Summertime and the livin' is easy...especially when you kick it off with a summery feeling at the Open Mic. Come and celebrate the season of barefoot days and dreamy, ice creamy nights. Please join us for Soup, sandwiches, dessert, great coffee and even better stories. Meet  for dinner at 7. Readings begin at 7:30PM. Bring your own story. Double dare you! The address is Milkboy Coffee 824 W. Lancaster Ave. Bryn Mawr, PA 19010.
Open call for writers/readers and a receptive audience. All are welcome to share up to ten minutes of personal narrative/creative non-fiction/memoir writing work. Writers of all ages and levels of experience are encouraged to bring in your stories - prose or poetry. Stories bind us to a common humanity. Let’s open up our hearts with an open mic and an open mind. Tell your friends and relatives. Tell your story.
This is a first Tuesday monthly event happening this Tuesday, June 5, 2012, at 7:00 PM at Milkboy in Bryn Mawr. Please join us. 

Mother's Day 2012

Our mothers are our hearts and souls. Happy Mother's Day to you and yours.

Writing Workshops Informational Brochure

Dear Writers, Potential Writers, Anyone who has thought about writing, Have I left anyone out?
    We are so excited and pleased to present a program of Summer Writing Workshops coming your way in July and August. We have local (Ardmore, PA) and seashore options (Strathmere, NJ) and four choices of dates and schedule.

    Word by Word: Finding Your Voice— A Workshop for Creative Writing and Living  will be held at my house in Ardmore. One option is to have a lively and intense  weekend of creative overflow taking place on Thursday, July 12 from 6:30PM until 9:00PM, Friday, July 13 from 6:30 until 9:00PM, and Saturday, July 14 from 10AM until 1:00PM. Eight hours in total. The cost will be $150 and includes a copy of Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird, writing guide and materials, as well as light refreshments. 
    The other option is to conduct the same 8 hour workshop over the course of four weeks on Monday, July 9, 16, 23, and 30. One two-hour session per week, morning or evening depending on majority preference. Same cost and inclusions.

    Our Oceanside option — Ocean as Metaphor — A Workshop for Creative Writing and Living will be over the weekend of July 27-29 or August 3-5, depending on majority preference.  There is the option to stay overnight together at our ocean-block location or stay nearby, wherever you please. The entire weekend will be infused with time for silence and written expression, time for discussion, time for walks and yoga on the beach, time to breathe.The weekend will begin on Friday evening at 7PM with a light dinner and kick-off discussion and end at 3PM on Sunday following an afternoon tea and  Open Mic. The cost for this workshop including book, writing guide, materials and light refreshments is $175., plus room and meal costs to be discussed as soon as we have our first 4 committed writers. 

    So please email back to me ASAP if you are interested, including the date & location option that works for you. Please see the attached flyer for more information about the content and tone of the workshops. This is for everyone — writers at all levels of experience. Remember. A writer is someone who writes!

    We're looking forward to writing and sharing our words with you —

    Alyse Halpin M. Ed. and Tracy Kauffman Wood, M. Ed.
   

Amity Goes Back to Vietnam (for a visit)

Check out this new video from our December 2010 trip.
Just copy and paste to your browser.

https://vimeo.com/38937208

Thanks.

Book Review of Then, Again by Diane Keaton

Women's Memoirs just published my book review of Then, Again, Diane Keaton's new memoir. Here's the link. Check it out! It's a fun and insightful read.
http://bit.ly/A7ajvH

In the season of my birth

This is one of my all time favorite pictures, taken by Tony Wood on my 5oth birthday. Here is a piece I wrote for the day.
In the season of my birth, and as I turn fifty, I’m thinking about parents and children,mothers and daughters, my mother, my daughter and me, and how we teach by who we are. All parents wish for their children to be happy. It’s their greatest wish. Children learn how to be happy by watching their parents enjoy themselves.
I learned this from my mother, especially in winter, because she never tried to turn
winter into spring for me. She made the most of winter...
In the morning of a freshly fallen snow, we’d take a hike always with the same
destination in mind-’Dunkin Donuts’, she loved their coffee. In the afternoon, after all the forts and snowmen were built and destroyed, she’d pack us into her station wagon and take us to Burholme Park for sledding. We’d all pile on top of her and plow down that hill, making the most of a snowy day, before the sun went down. Winter road conditions never stopped her from driving downtown to the theater at night, then Chinatown for a late dinner. Winter cold never stopped her from celebrating New Year’s Eve on the patio, clattering pots and pans, popping noise makers and yelling “Happy New Year!” to the cars racing through her corner stop sign. (The one she fought City Hall for). New Year’s Day found us shivering on Broad Street while Mummers paraded to the music she loved. In winter, we ran to the Spectrum for the ‘Ice Capades’, her dream, then created our own at ‘Boulevard Ice Rink’. We did all of these things with visions of hot chocolate and ‘TastyKake Chocolate Cupcakes’, her favorites, awaiting our return to the blue and yellow chrome kitchen table.
I was nearly born between the heavy chrome legs of that table on a snowy Sunday
in December, just before brunch. My pregnant mother’s water broke in the kitchen and
three year old brother Lanse ran upstairs for a towel, and for Dad to take her to the hospital. I think she gave birth to me prematurely on purpose in mid-December rather than January, so I shouldn’t miss a party, and the holiday vacation.
Throughout her life, my mother’s older sisters “did for her”, allowing her to be their
princess. She never crocheted or sewed, she barely cooked or cleaned. They did it for
her. She strutted around in the fuzzy winter coats and hand knitted scarves and hats they passed down, and wore them to the opera. My mother had big feet in wide boots. She
trampled the snow for me, forging a path for happiness to come sledding through, leaving clear instructions on my heart.