Backward Miracles: Poetry and Memoir in Conversation

I am over the moon to read with my Saddle Road Press sister, Marcia Meier, author of the powerfully structured and written book, Face: A Memoir (Saddle Road Press, 2021). In choosing poems and passages, we landed on the theme of “Backward Miracles,” taken from the title of a favorite poem of mine by Kay Ryan, “Backward Miracle” (you can find the poem parked at Poetry Foundation).

Both Face: A Memoir and my memoir-in-poems The Fool in the Corn (Saddle Road Press, 2022) mine challenging circumstances to ultimately celebrate the complex web of life and its gifts: Marcia’s through the lens of an accident she experienced as child that meant she underwent 20 surgeries by the time she was an adult, and mine through the lens of a different kind of accident that befell my father that initiated a journey that took us from the East coast to an Illinois commune and eventually to California. Insights gained through the writing of our respective books lead both of us to various stages of growth and forgiveness (of self and others).

Marcia and I will read from our work, discuss the crossover in the lessons gleaned from pain-points with a focus on how it expanded our capacity for joy in the present, and take questions.

All my gratitude goes to Ruth Thompson and Don Mitchell for the miracle of the publication of our books with Saddle Road Press and for the miracle of sharing the zoom room with Marcia and all of you. We will leave time at the end of our conversation for Q&A.

Please reach out through my website contact form for the zoom link. Our reading takes place Sunday, September 7^th, at 12 noon PST, 3 pm EST. Please pass it on.  You can read our full bios here on my events page.

Stitching Stories: What is Home?

I long, as does every human being, to be at home where I find myself.―  Maya Angelou

There are as many definitions of home as there are people on the planet! Truly! Do you haiku, or would you like to?

Visions Museums of Textile Arts is offering a free 2-part workshop and we still have several spots open. I would love to write with you; we will muse on the concept of home and distill our insights into haiku…which you will then learn how to translate into stitched art. You’ll have the rest of the month to work on your textile art in time for a public exhibit of the art in October. Use the QR code to sign up.

The Stitching Stories, What is Home class takes place at Liberty Station in San Diego on Saturday, September 6^th at 11 am. The exhibit for the finished art takes place October 3^rd. Class is free but you are required to register to hold your place. See you there!

Tarot Journaling: The Lovers

Begin or deepen your exploration of the Tarot Lovers card with me this September. How do you love? What fills your being with joy and fires your capacity to love others, yourself, and the world around you? We write to a wide variety of tarot card imagery, we reflect on our lived experiences of the card under study, and we create personal tarot card art based on 1) our lived experience and 2) our “wished for” experience. The new card we create acts as a both a witnessing and a visionary tool. The level of inquiry and heart connection experienced in these courses is what drives me to keep teaching them.

Tarot Journaling: The Lovers: Runs on Sundays over zoom 2:00-3:30 pm PST / 5:00-6:30 pm starting Sunday, September 7th and ending on Sunday, October 12th. Offered by Antioch University Continuing Education (Online).

Course Cost is $100.

Fourth Saturday Poetry Read & Critique

Time to write? Love poetry? Love to write and discuss what makes poems come alive on the page? Join my long-standing read & critique poetry workshop. We bring poems, read them aloud, and share from the heart to help you with your goals as a poet for each poem. We meet now on the fourth Saturday of every month; next class takes place on September 27th.

Learn more and sign up here for Fourth Saturday Poetry Read and Critique (in-person at San Diego Writers, Ink at Liberty Station).

Using Tarot to Prepare for Auditions with Lila Frazier

My fabulous July Heart’s Compass Tarot subscriber guest was Lila Frazier; we used tarot cards to explore three questions:

1. How do I best connect with audition opportunities?

2. How do I best balance acting career, work life, and family for the best of all?

3. How do I nurture and deepen my relationship to the creative process around my own scripts / projects?

We pulled cards from We’Moon Tarot by Musawa, Daughters of the Moon by Ffiona Morgan and Tarot of the Wild Unknown by Kris Krans. You can grab pencil and paper to work with your own project, accessing the questions, process, and our conversation on my Heart’s Compass Tarot YouTube channel here: Using Tarot To Prepare for Auditions.

Lila Frazier is a Los Angeles transplant who has worked in stage and film in San Francisco and Chicago. She was trained at San Francisco State University where she received her BA in Theatre Arts.   After leaving San Francisco and moving to Chicago in 2005, Lila decided to pursue a career in commercials and television. In San Francisco she performed mainly in stage productions. Chicago allowed Lila to delve into sketch comedy and improvisation techniques from some of the best. She made connections instantly while training at The Second City. She continued her Improv training with Annoyance Theater and quenched her thirst for sketch comedy under the direction of Mr. Antoine McKay at the McKaw Theater in two shows – Chi Me A River and A Tribe Called Questioning our Existence.  Fractured Fairy Tales was highlighted in Chicago Sketch Fest 2019 under the direction of Mr. John Hildreth.

Lila’s most recent project is a comedy Web Series titled Curls For Humanity. She plays Muffy DuBois in this series that she co-wrote and executive produced. Her favorite works include Mrs. Antrobus from The Skin of our Teeth, Dogberry and Verges in Much Ado About Nothing, and Regan in Cinderella Waltz. Lila has performed in sketch and improv groups around Chicago and San Francisco. You can catch Lila in front of the camera in various shorts created for @lilaanddana. Lila is on social media @purelilafrazier.