Announcing Website Launch, Upcoming Classes and Blogging Book Project

In the kingdom of hope there is no winter--Russian proverb

This winter I spent a good deal of time working behind the scenes on preparing a new website, the latest in a series of steps along the way to developing my life as a professional writer. With my youngest child finally in school, I spent this last year devoting time to editing, interviewing, cross-posting and promoting the work of other writers, all valuable and worthy work I intend to continue. But with our family at a financial cross-roads, perched on the cusp of choosing one city to live in so we can potentially forgo the two city insanity, it is time for me to fund that writing life.

Additionally, I began to feel Feral Mom, Feral Writer’s usual focus (on the changes of heart and hearth as I write and raise children) became diluted with posting announcements for classes and forthcoming published writing. So I’m attempting to allow Feral Mom her due and let my other site be the new hub for published work, classes I’ll be teaching, and a new blog I’ll be starting in August about the transformative blogging book I am in the process of writing for women bloggers.

Teaching a subject, of course, always pushes one to grow; teaching Transformative Blogging continues to be rich. In the networking world, I’ve come across the work of writer and blogger Nick Thacker (thanks to research expert and blogger Marlene Samuels). I bought Thacker's book and am working my way through it (actually answering his questions, putting in the footwork to look around the net), as he provides very tangible ways for understanding the business side of blogging (something I am definitely not savvy about) as well as how to grow one’s roots and connect to others. Here’s a link to his blog: Nick Thacker and a link to his book on Amazon ($4.99 on Kindle, and you'll see I wrote him a review) Building a Blog for Readers: 101 Questions to Ask Before you Launch your Blogging Empire.

While Thacker and I share some similarities in terms of questions and the inventory approach to the blogging process, I find the worksheets I'm using and developing for women cover what I'd loosely define as emotional and spiritual aspects of the blogging process. But I wanted to spend the next year inviting women bloggers to work with me so that what I offer extends past my own potentially myopic view of what we face as women bloggers. I invite you to come along with me--I will be blogging at my new site (www.taniapryputniewicz.com) and offering sample worksheets to subscribers starting in August.

But until then, I have worked to make the site visually appealing, so I hope you'll visit. You’ll find links to the projects I’m enjoying, including the collaborative photo poem montages. Robyn Beattie and I just completed our fourth montage, “Nefertiti Among Us,” a companion montage to “Nefertiti on the Astral.” We are also very excited to have submitted our montages to a gallery—a goal we have long had in the back of our minds. I’ll be sure to let you know when we do finally find ourselves with a gallery opportunity.

I’m so grateful to be a writer, today, now, given the many ways we have of connecting (as a writing mother, I’m thrilled we have the venue of online teaching). I get so much pleasure out of coming up with on-line classes, and then having the chance to work with my students. You know the saying, that the map is not the terrain--I start with the course map, and we veer where we need to go given who arrives to take the class. I’m excited about the scope of the International poetry workshop, as well as the new class for couples recovering from parenting (class structure will include the usual sharing of poems in progress, but the secret assignment: writing a poem we won’t share, to be mailed to the better half by Valentine’s Day).

Over at Mother Writer Mentor, here’s the forthcoming class list:

Around The World in 30 Days: Reading and Writing the International Poetry of Motherhood and Fatherhood: September 10-October 5th, 2012

Transformative Blogging for Writing Mothers: November 1-November 30th 2012

Send Me a Letter: Love Poetry for Couples Recovering from Parenting: Jan 8th to February 1, 2013

Excavating and Writing the Poetry of Motherhood: April 1-April 26th 2013

Excavating and Writing the Poetry of Fatherhood: May 6-May 31st 2013

For a blog post about the support I’ve received from other women writers and a link to an interview with writer Julianna Baggot: Mother Writer Mentor Blog post by T

Or to go directly to full course descriptions or to sign up: Mother Writer Mentor Workshops.

Look forward to our writing lives crossing. As always, we are ever on the lookout for guest posts written by writing mothers about any aspect of that dual role.