April Abundance: San Diego Writer's Festival and Tarot on the Balcony

Calling all writers and lovers of words! I’m honored to be teaching tomorrow, Saturday April 13, 2019, for the inaugural San Diego Writer’s Festival, a beautiful 100% free and open to the public event with over 60 make that 80 presenters offering workshops, panels and more such as: Highlights from the Memoir Showcase, Black Stories Matter, Stories from the Veteran Writers Division of So Say We All, Roustabouts Theater, Paul-Klee inspired WordArt Project for children, Children’s Face Painting, Spirituality and The Writer, Poetry Karaoke, and more. Whether you write poetry, memoir, romance, epic fantasy, fiction, ghost stories, children’s literature, or have a book or manuscript to pitch, or perhaps you have a child eager to write poetry and participate in the Children’s Poetry Slam, come on out tomorrow to the San Diego Central Library. Again, the program is free, every event! Here’s the link to check out all San Diego Writer's Festival events; come hear keynote speaker Piper Kerman (author of Orange Is the New Black) speaks from Noon-1, or catch her Q and A with Festival Founder Marni Freedman from 3:00-4 pm in the Neil Morgan Auditorium.

My workshop runs from 10 am-11 on the 5^th floor, Room 563, so come and write with me! Here's the course:

The Bold Poet - Finding Your Muse

Where do you find inspiration? Under a full moon or beneath a blazing sun in the desert? Out quietly paddling by canoe down the middle of the misty river? As writers, we draw on the wonders of the natural world around us, we use our five senses, and we let our imaginations run wild. In this workshop, we will explore the sources of wonder that surround us in nature, that we experience through the body’s fives senses, and that we follow by traveling the imaginary landscapes of the mind’s eye. Where have you been, what have you seen, and where will you take us? Join this poetry workshop to write your own five senses adventure poem. All level of writer welcome. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to order copies of my first poetry book, November Butterfly in time for the festival, but I will be bringing giveaway writing exercises to our class from my latest writing project, The Heart's Compass Tarot and Writing Workbook. Here's a link to a poem from one of my working poetry manuscripts; this one is from The Fool in the Corn (about an Illinois commune I lived on as a child) and was published by Tweetspeak Poetry and reposted here: Cooking Class, Mid 70s, Illinois.

Poetry Read and Critique

If you can’t make it to Saturday’s writing extravaganza, join me on Sunday April 14, 2019 for my monthly Poetry Read and Critique class from 10-12 at San Diego Writers, Ink at Liberty Station. I’ll be sharing poems from chapbooks and books from Portland’s AWP 2019. Bring a poem to share with us, a pencil, paper, and an open heart. Walk-ins welcome, or register ahead of time. 

Tarot on the Balcony at Yoga with Shawna

Question of the heart? A tarot reading provides sacred conversation and an overview of your present situation in which we look for possible next steps towards your highest joy. Together we formulate the core of your question and seek solutions in a loving, compassionate dialogue. I’m next in session in Imperial Beach at Yoga with Shawna during Reiki Clinic this coming Sunday, April 14, from 3:30-6:30. I'd love to work with you. Learn more about my approach to the tarot here.

Heart's Compass Tarot News and Joy

Happy March! How can it be, that my firstborn trammels towards graduation? Monumental for this Feral Mom, Feral Writer, to have one of three children at graduation's threshold. In honor of that passage of time, I'm posting a link to my very first post, The Desk, all of two paragraphs long, about, you guessed it, what it takes to get to the Desk: 

The Desk

How far things have  moved since then, though I still keep Emily's #1263 in my typewriter pencil sharpener on my desk, and that little half wing of a framed butterfly turned into my poetry collection November Butterfly. 

Tarot Fun

I am super-charged about a new tarot workbook I am writing as we speak. I'll be bringing an excerpt from the workbook to pass out for free at AWP in Portland at the end of March where I'll be manning the Saddle Road Press table. Do stop by and take advantage of the free ten minute tarot readings I'll be giving on writer's block, latest writing project, or whatever is weighing on your heart that day. Here is a post at my main website about my Heart's Compass workbook and and why I'm changing the name of my tarot work and Facebook page to Heart's Compass Tarot and Writing.

I had a beautiful weekend reading tarot cards at the San Diego Yoga Festival. Kalli volunteered with me; we are so in love with yoga time through Yoga with Shawna in Imperial Beach. Here's a new post at Tarot for Two about the return of yoga and its impact on my well-being, how it is helping me shed the past and integrate spiritual studies:

Tarot for Two: The Nine of Wands, the Hierophant and the Star card. 

Mary and I haven't blogged for awhile together--we both had good reasons, and we write about them in the post. I connect the Hierophant to a family memoir I'm writing and Mary connects the Star card to a novel about the afterlife she is writing.

Poetry Fun

Second Saturdays Poetry Read and Critique meets this coming Saturday March 9,  from 10-12 at San Diego Writers, Ink. We are a lovely, open-hearted group of devoted poets coming together to write, read, and offer suggestions on one another's poems. Drop-ins always welcome; I hope you'll join us.