non-fiction

nan lundeen, non-fiction, staff's contributions

the power of creative collaboration

The book's cover. Photo by Ron DeKett, design by Kristin Toney.
The book’s cover. Photo by Ron DeKett, design by Kristin Toney.

A friend said she likes the cover of my newly printed book, Black Dirt Days: Poems as Memoir, and I promised to share the story behind it that illustrates the power of creative collaboration. My daughter Jennifer came up with the idea of a girl’s toes in black dirt as a cover illustration for the book. Then, as a surprise to me, she arranged a photo shoot with Naomi, a girl who lives next door to her in Michigan. Yes, the book is about growing up in the 1950s in Iowa, and yes, my husband Ron DeKett had to buy bags of black dirt to dump in the Michigan cornfield (that’s called poetic license). Southwestern Michigan soil tends to be a bit sandy, not black like Iowa’s dirt. Naomi all on her own dug a lovely family heirloom dress out of storage for the shoot. Kristin Toney designed the cover using Ron’s photo, and John Adam Wickliffe tweaked it before publication. I’m thrilled with the result. There you go, Rhea Lynn. That’s the story. Visit me at www.nanlundeen.com.

my journey

I’ve lost nearly 50 pounds – and it’s taken 18 months.

I still have about 30 to go so I’m far from through with this journey. But at least I’m well underway.

Thinking back, I’m not sure why I reached the decision I needed to lose weight. Of course, any photograph I looked at showed me why. But that wasn’t new. Every time I stepped on the scales (which didn’t occur often), the numbers also told me why the weight loss was needed. That wasn’t new either.

I knew I could do it; I lost about 60 pounds years ago when I did WeightWatchers at Work. But I had gained every pound back plus maybe a few more.

Actually, the real reason probably was because I huffed and puffed when climbing the 15 steps to my mother’s apartment at College Walk. I did that when I arrived and when I bought groceries, lugging the bags up in two or three trips. I was beat at the end of that. And I noticed that I automatically took elevators whenever possible.

I had retired six months earlier. I had no excuse of working too hard, having lousy hours or eating on the run.

On Jan. 13, 2013, I took the plunge. I found a WeightWatchers meeting in Greer and walked in. That first weigh-in was humiliating. When I came back to the house and looked up more information, had to admit that I wasn’t just overweight. I was obese. That’s an ugly word that is thrown around often. We read about obese kids. We hear about and see obese adults. Now I had to say out loud and to myself – that’s me I’m reading about.

My health wasn’t bad. I did have high cholesterol. I wasn’t fit. I ate poorly. But I wasn’t diabetic. I didn’t have heart disease. I didn’t feel bad most of the time.

My support community became a staunch ally in my weight loss journey. As I grew to know people in the meeting, they supported me as I lost one pound, two pounds. Then I lost five pounds. They all clapped for me. But even more supportive was my mother, a woman who has never had weight problems.

She encouraged me and applauded my losses. She made up a game that provided money as I lost certain numbers of pounds. She said, “That’s okay” if I gained a little. I wanted so badly to lose all the time so I could tell her every Monday night. Of course, that didn’t happen.

I realized as I started that this would be a life-long journey. I’m the type of person who can look at potato chips and gain a pound. My first experience nearly a decade ago was losing between half a pound and 1.5 pounds weekly. So I had realistic expectations.

The disappointment came when I looked no different after losing 10 pounds. My clothes seemed no looser. My shirts were just as tight. But at the meetings, I still was applauded for every five pounds lost.

Then one day, one of the lifetime members said, “You’re going to have to get new pants soon.” What a lift!

I wasn’t going to buy new slacks because weighing in with the same clothes – navy blue pull-on pants and a gold and white top that I bought when I retired – had become a ritual (weigh-in time also meant taking off my shoes, my watch and glasses). But it was nice to know that the time had come.

Still, I was in no better physical shape. I didn’t want to exercise although I knew it would make me feel better and spur my weight loss. Finally, I met someone at WW who said she needed a walking partner. So we began walking at the old high school track – nearly a fourth of a mile around.

That first day I made one mile. Every week, we added another lap.

Then I had difficulties with my feet. Old shoes caused blisters. Other shoes only made them worse. I knew I needed new shoes, but my feet hurt too much to try them on and buy any. So to a podiatrist I went, a man I had used years earlier. We cleared up the blisters. I bought new shoes – expensive ones. They didn’t cause blisters.

Then came the day I tried on a pair of size 12 pants I had hanging in my closet. They fit. Some of the sweaters were now looser. That encouraged me to consider going to a gym. Walking wasn’t enough although we up to three miles a day.

Toward the end of May, I went to SSI, a gym that is primarily a therapy center. Allison, a trainer, weighed me, measured me and ensured me I could do an exercise program.   The next time I was there, I tried out the equipment as planned. Some were easy. The arm exercises hurt.

But Allison told me I was limber. Anything that sounded good provided encouragement.

After a couple of weeks, she checked me out again. I hunched my shoulders as I did the arm exercises. That’s not good and made my neck tight. So my goal now is to lower my shoulders, do the exercises and get stronger. Once again, this will be a long-term exercise. It will take months to get stronger. It will take years to get fit.

But I’m on another journey – a fitness journey to join my weight-loss journey. And it’s one I expect to last a lifetime.

 

non-fiction, staff's contributions

with gratitude, my life in a few pages

The book's cover. Photo by Ron DeKett, design by Kristin Toney.
The book’s cover. Photo by Ron DeKett, design by Kristin Toney.

I am so very grateful to my loving family and dear friends who made possible the publication of my new book, Black Dirt Days: Poems as Memoir. It will be available on Amazon any day now, and we’re planning a party in August to celebrate its release. Thirty-seven narrative poems on seventy-two pages tell the story of life on a 160-acre farm in Iowa during the 1950s, when farmers rotated crops and milked cows by hand, neighbors helped neighbors, and church and school were an integral part of family life.

I greatly appreciate the friends and colleagues who wrote blurbs for the back cover, especially because they said nice things! Here are samples:

“Nan Lundeen poetically works the past in her collection, Black Dirt Days, Poems As Memoir. With her ear to the ground, she tills the soil of her familial lineage. She wields her lyric voice like a useful farm tool and the reader benefits from her creative laboring. In these poems, she harvests the stories of the land and the people that she came from and both will forever live in her well-worked lines.” – Glenis Redmond, Teaching Artist & Poet.

“Black Dirt Days celebrates farm and family, childhood and church, and ultimately even ‘good death.’ In these honest, forthright poems full of Iowa light, Nan Lundeen offers praise for the place ‘where [her] soul planted itself/and refused to move/although [her] body did.'” – Gil Allen, Bennette E. Geer Professor of Literature, Furman University, Winner of the Robert Penn Warren Prize in Poetry.

“Nan’s works are warm, engaging, understandable, and down-to-earth, full of concrete images and enticing language.” – Jenny Munro, Freelance Writer.

“Black Dirt Days puts me right back into the farm kitchen, the church, and the neighborhood among loving sometimes judgmental people.” – Jeanne Hansen, Author, Iowa Resident.

Please visit www.nanlundeen.com to hear me read “The Oracle,” a poem from the new collection.

Nan Lundeen

autumn leaves in florida

I wandered through the forest

Gathering fall-colored leaves.

Shannon, my granddaughter, needed them for show-and-tell.

She lives in Florida and leaves don’t turn

Russet and gold and orange and red down there.

But up in Carolina (what Shannon calls my home) those colors abound.

So my daughter and I gathered the leaves.

When I sent the box,

It was like mailing air.

Those leaves adorned bulletin boards –

North Carolina leaves for Florida children.

–Jenny Munro

nan lundeen, non-fiction, staff's contributions

rare and common pleasures

For your reading pleasure—a love affair on the page. Carolyn C. Rice revels in the English language. Her poetry is lush and perceptive. “Lost” is her favorite among her poems—”a secret mischief lost.” Read it and wander with her mentally and metaphorically. “Defining Box” is the story of a blues man painted with words such as “his voice sharper than the broken neck of a whiskey bottle.” Is that a peacock behind the wheel in “Peacock Display?” Carolyn shares a sensuality of expression with her readers in “Strawberry Pleasures” and “Pretty Please.” MooingAround.com begins 2014 with a lover of language extraordinaire.

nan lundeen, non-fiction, staff's contributions

magical prose

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Josette Williams Davison
Josette Williams Davison

“Some of the words covered dancing sheets of music, and could barely stay on the pages they were so full of life and longing.” –  Josette Williams Davison.

Josette writes of words and writers, of angels and people, of books and a great man in her essay, “In the Beginning.” She shares her reflections with readers in magical, thought-provoking prose. Click to read “In the Beginning.”

Happy 2014!

Nan Lundeen – www.nanlundeen.com

in the beginning

By: Josette Williams Davison

 Once upon a time there came to the earth a very great man. And the great man possessed all the words that ever were, or ever would be. But the great man was lonely surrounded by all his wonderful words, and he wished to share them with others. So he built a great city on a hill and in the midst of the city, he created a beautiful building of glass and silver and gold to house his words. And the words were enclosed in a single book. His spirit aglow with his plan, the great man opened and placed his book on a table for all to see and to read. And he invited everyone passing by his huge display window to pause and read the words.

But the people, in weather foul or fair, rushed by the window without stopping, heedless to what they were missing. Disappointed, the great man called upon his angels and asked them to bring more books, and to turn the pages endlessly. “Add to that,” he said, “thousands of words floating in the air so that those who wish to may capture the words and fashion them into books of their own.” Soon, fascinated by the word floating in the air and fluttering pages, the people began to stop and read, and to stuff their pockets with words from the air.

Some of the words covered dancing sheets of music, and could barely stay on the pages they were so full of life and longing. Flying overhead were more words bound in richly engraved covers and written by great philosophers such as Aristotle and Kierkegaard. Still more were written by poets like Emily Dickenson, or playwrights named Shakespeare and Arthur Miller, and authors like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and Mark Twain.

One day, an old woman, bent and faltering, clothed in rags, her hair gray and uncombed, paused to read, and was wrapped in a golden cloak of words set to music. And she became, once again, just who she was and had been—beautiful and fragile, and a singer of songs. The familiar words of her old ballads filled her with light, and sent her twirling about in front of the window in ecstasy. Children and adults, seeing her transformation, rushed to the window to see what they might be missing.

Presently, a richly dressed man shoved through the curious children and adults, blustering: “Out of my way. I was here first! Do you know who I am? I am a very important person, and you, .you are of little consequence.” Peering closely at the largest book in the window, the man read these words: ‘Take heed, for I look on the heart, not on the person.’ Stomping away, the man tripped over his pearl handled cane and cursed the sidewalk. Then, those who had been pushed aside, allowing the startled children to go first, stepped forward to read the words meant just for them. And some went away troubled, while others were strengthened and uplifted.

But the possessor of all the words found his deepest pleasure in the delight of children who came to read the words made just for storybooks and painted with bright pictures. And their laughter rang in the great man’s ears like tiny silver bells.

Still, there remained one dark figure, who passed by the window every day, his head bowed, his eyes fixed on the ground.

And though the great man knew the man walking in darkness was free to choose, sad at heart, he begged of his angels, “What can I do?

“Try again,” sang all the angels in chorus, and so he did, again and again forever.

nan lundeen, non-fiction, staff's contributions

an impractical writing companion

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Jack in Wildflowers by Ron DeKett
Jack in Wildflowers by Ron DeKett

This morning as I was making toast I noticed a tiny, tiny, pale spider crawling across the kitchen counter. I was going to capture her and put her outside, which is what I usually do with spiders, but I realized she would quickly die in winter weather. So, I lured her into an empty toilet paper tube and wedged her new house between a table leg and the wall.

Animals make perfect companions for writers. A dog will get you outdoors for a walk and offers unconditional love. A cat brings her own capriciousness into your writing day, often with delight as part of the bargain. If nothing else, animal companions add a dimension to a writer’s life that is outside the human experience and thus, valuable.

Not all animals make perfect companions, however. Being hidden away in her toilet paper tube, the little spider is unavailable to provide an ear when I’m reading a new poem aloud. Jack, our yellow Lab who passed away this year, used to listen intently. He was wonderfully cuddly. I imagine if I try to snuggle with the little spider on the couch, I’ll quickly lose her in sofa cushions if I can find her to begin with. As far as a leash goes—probably not practical, and if my neighbors saw me walking down the street gently carrying and conversing with a toilet paper tube, well . . .

For now, Bailey, the fuzzy white dog across the street, lets me rub her and gives me kisses. Oliver, a neighbor’s black cat comes to meow and be petted when I step outside mornings. He and Jack used to rub noses, but he seems quite content with human greetings. A silky border collie named Shadow often greets me at the track where I walk. She makes my day.

When you’re a writer, solitude is a splendid gift and often a rare one. Solitude gives a writer time to think, to ruminate, to contemplate, to observe, to study, and to write. Now that I’m retired from the world of journalism, it’s an enormous blessing to be writing away and not be interrupted. You can hear your own writing. For many writers, interruptions can’t be avoided, especially when they involve young children, a spouse, a partner or another family member or good friend. Unfortunately if you believe you shouldn’t feel frustrated, you heap more frustration upon your keyboard which sits abandoned.

An animal friend or two, however, is the perfect companion—I’ll let you know if a whole family of tiny spiders comes marching out from behind our table next spring.

Thank you to all mooingaround.com readers and contributors, and to Adamy Damaris Diaz of Artistik Dreamlife LLC (and a cat lover) for administering the site. We had a great start-up year, and I appreciate all of you. Please contact us with your thoughts and inform us if you have writing to share. Let us continue to build a creative community.

May 2014 bring you solitude and companionship.

Nan Lundeen – www.nanlundeen.com

mary ellen lives, non-fiction, visitors' contributions

the process of getting published or why is my head hurting so much?

Mary Ellen Lives
Mary Ellen Lives

It’s an old joke: a man tries to cure his headache by banging his head against the wall. This is the life of a fiction writer trying to get published. I can’t speak for non-fiction as I don’t write it, except for now, but there are hordes of fiction writers out there. Some are like the gentleman who said he creates stories in his mind every day but doesn’t write them down. Some day he will. At that moment he will join the rest of us in the ocean called “sending it out.” We are like a school of fish, friendly little fish, but fish that are all swimming in the same direction. For this gentleman I feel I should give a fair idea of what it’s like to get a piece of fiction published.

Let’s take a hypothetical writer who for this piece I will call, me. I write a short story one day and immediately see it as a hit. It’s raw and needs help, but I know it has the makings of brilliance. I rewrite it a couple times. It’s getting better; I think it’s almost there. I bring it to my writing group. They love it, but have a few suggestions. I take home their copious revisions for review. Some I like, some I don’t agree with, and so begins another round of rewriting. I look for repeated, unnecessary words. I change things around. I let it sit for a week or two and look at it again. Rewrite it again. It’s damn near perfect.

Now I start to look for appropriate venues to send it to, both online and in print. I read, and read, and read, and there it is—the perfect literary magazine. In fact that’s its name, The Perfect Literary Magazine. I follow all the guidelines and send it off. It will take four to six months to hear back from the PLM but they don’t ask for exclusivity so I keep reading and looking for places to send it. Some reject me in no time at all. It takes longer for others. Some kind editors tell me why they are rejecting it, maybe even make suggestions. Most do not.

In the meantime, I begin to rewrite it some more. I rewrite the beginning, change the ending. Now I’m unhappy because I sent it to PLM way too early and it is a much better story now. Sure enough, six months down the road The Perfect Literary Magazine sends me an email: “Dear Me, We read your story with great interest . . . blah, blah, blah.”

I am crestfallen. The last rewrite was so much better. Why did I send it off so soon? I think about moving it from my short story folder to the works in progress folder, otherwise known as the never-to-be-seen-again folder. I think about drinking in the afternoon.

But wait—I have been sending it out all this while. I have forgotten how many places I have sent it due to the fact that I can’t stand to look at my submissions log for fear of day-long depression. One was a magazine that asked for my best work. In fact that’s its name: Send Us Your Best Work.

One day I open my email and see that there is a message from Send Us Your Best Work. I moan. Oh no, another rejection. But this time the first word in the email is “Congratulations!” They love it! They want to publish it in the next issue! They have only a few, minor, suggestions.

I am ecstatic, of course, but I wonder—why does my head hurt so much?

 

nan lundeen, non-fiction, staff's contributions

let’s celebrate this writer’s win!

Mary Ellen Lives
Mary Ellen Lives

MooingAround.com contributor Mary Ellen Lives won the Penn Cove Literary Arts Award for her humorous short story, “A Damn Good Funeral.” Here’s an interview she gave us:

What were your feelings when you learned you won?

“I was and am ecstatic! Even though this is not a highfalutin contest it pays, and this is the first time anyone has given me any money. I have to say, though, that I get excited even if they don’t pay. Just publish me!!”

How do you choose what contests to enter?

“I generally don’t enter them if they charge. Some of these contests are way out of line and I can get rejected for free all day long.”

How many things do you send out per month?

“I try to get a couple out a month. Right now for instance I have four out for review. Two of those have to be exclusive so that takes those stories off the market. (These are short stories only. I also have the novel out to one contest and one publisher.) I just had two stories rejected so I will be sending those back out when I figure out where I want them to go. That takes a lot of time.”

What advice do you have for writers submitting to contests and/or to publications?

“Do your research. I know, everyone says that but it’s really true. Spend the time to read what the mags are looking for. And expect a lot of rejections. Even if it is what they are looking for. Get down about it for a day, then get over it and move on.

“Don’t just send to paying magazines or print magazines. Send work to university presses and others who don’t pay in anything and don’t look down at online only sites. They all give encouragement and exposure. The two things every writer needs.”

Congratulations, Mary Ellen. Your win is our encouragement.

 

she knows them all

Can you believe it? She knows them all.

All of what, you ask.

All of her school teachers, I reply.

Me – I remember the most important ones.

But not my mother – she remembers them all.

And she reels off the names.

They flow with little hesitation from her brain and mouth:

Hattie Earl and Tessie Stanton and Rita Galloway.

Then came Gladys Lucas and Mrs. Edwards and Mrs. Bethea.

They were followed by Ethel Lee.

By the time she reached high school, she talks about one teacher –

Elizabeth Covington, whom she adored,

Miss Covington  taught Latin and life lessons with equal abandon.

And she taught my mother to love education and respect

Those who taught it to others.

Eventually she followed in their footsteps, teaching students

Who still remember her name and lessons.

— Jenny Munro

nan lundeen, non-fiction, staff's contributions

a holiday anthology from hub city press

Josette Williams Davison reads from Imagine a Snowflake
Josette Williams Davison reads from Imagine a Snowflake

Josette Williams Davison’s kids post themselves at windows reporting, “No snow yet, Mama, only leaves falling.” Bertice Teague Robinson writes of evergreens, clementines, country ham and memories of the young and old as her family gathers before the hearth of her rambling Southern home. Crystal Tennille Irby remembers the powerful and the holy present as Black church women teach their children how to honor the Christ Child. And Susan A. Sistare celebrates what she calls her “Hannumas House,” her home where people play dreidel games, light the menorah, eat latkes and Christmas cookies and enjoy her Christmas trees. These stories and more by 34 Spartanburg, South Carolina, writers are found in Hub for the Holidays: Spartanburg Writers on Christmas newly published by Hub City Press. Their sharing is a wonderful way to build community. Congratulations to the writers and this nonprofit press for a fun and meaningful anthology. Visit Hub City. org.

nan lundeen, non-fiction, staff's contributions

my pail runneth over

cowGraduate

My family will print my chapbook, Black Dirt Days: Poems as Memoir, in honor of my 70th birthday. Awesome! I empathize with Cynthia Morgan’s drawing of this “Mu Cow” who has graduated from a Moo of Writing class and whose milk pail runneth over. My daughter Jenny, her husband Jim, my son Jeff, and my husband Ron, told me the news and revealed the book cover when we were all together at my daughter’s house in Michigan this month. What a gift! To see the cover visit www.nanlundeen.com.

And more awesome news–the pending publication of my handbook, Moo of Writing: how to milk your potential, received a boost from Writing Magazine in the UK who published my article, “Find Your Moos,” in its December issue. The editor has written me a lovely blurb for the cover of my handbook which will come out early 2014.

What a Thanksgiving for me this year. I am grateful.

 

nan lundeen, non-fiction, staff's contributions

poems by Traci Barr

A Jersey gal taps her Southern roots and shares her take on Geechee red peas, sweet tea, barbecue and Frogmore stew, too in two poems, “Covered Dishes,” and “Verna.” She writes about Southern cooking as the mother of cuisine, but she’s not quite sure what y’all are really thinking when you bite into her genteel pimento cheese spread and say, “Bless your heart.”

she survived

“No! No! No!”

The voice sliced through her head –

A scream from a woman

Hearing her husband was dead.

She couldn’t go to the woman or help her

Because she was trying to absorb her own news

Her husband also lay dead – and he was the driver.

Tommy, that vital, fun-loving man, lived no more.

She took the news stoically,

Hiding her tears as a secret.

She was alone.

Friends gathered to support her –

Clean the house, cook food, call the children, help make arrangements.

Nobody could really help. It was so final.

Her husband was dead. Twenty-six years of marriage lay cold and still.

She was alone.

No – that wasn’t true.

She still had her children, a son and a daughter.

They arrived home and did their best to support her.

Their need for an anchor gave her life a new balance.

She got on with living. She cried, mostly alone.

She grieved. Her mind roared with anger, diving to the depths of despair.

Tommy was so young and he had so much to live for.

But she cared for her elderly mother, gaining purpose in life.

She taught, continuing to mold young minds.

The laughter came back. Tommy was still part of her life.

He lived through her thoughts and in family stories and pictures.

Grace was strong and not really alone.  Life was different, but it could be good.

She survived.