Good News + An Invitation
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering… these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.” ― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Dear Friends,
I hope this message finds you as well as can be as we all continue to find our way through challenging times. I'm more grateful for your presence in my life these past two years than ever before. Thank you!
Here's the good news I wanted to share with you on my memoir's first birthday: The Part That Burns has, in addition to being chosen as a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award in Women's Literature and a Kirkus Best 100 Indie Book of 2021, smashed all previous sales records at Split/Lip Press. "It's bananas!" says my publisher. Of course, Split/Lip is a micro indie press, so in reality my sales are modest (about 1500 copies last I knew). But for Split/Lip and for me, that's a really big deal. And it's all because of you. THANK YOU!
Now, it's time for me to turn my attention in earnest to my new book project, and it's an urgent one. In light of this, I am making some changes in 2022 to my complicated, demanding, chronically overextended work schedule, all of which is related to the invitation part of this message.
The short version is that I am starting a Patreon through which you can join what I intend to shape into an engaged, vibrant community of writers (and passionate readers, too!) while also supporting my new book. I have a special, quirky gift for my first 50 patrons, which is a signed copy of a first-and-only edition (now out of print) of my children's picture book, Mama Moon, published in 1995 by Orchard Books of New York and gorgeously illustrated by Catherine Stock. This book is practically an antique! But I have these pristine copies available and would love to put them in good hands. Here's a link to the Kirkus review of Mama Moon and its one single review on Amazon, so you can see its lovely, lovely cover.
What does it mean to be a patron? You can choose from various tiers of support, but no matter what level you choose, you automatically receive my new Writing in the Dark newsletter, which is the cornerstone of the new community. The Writing in the Dark newsletter will focus on creative inspiration and direct insight into the craft and process of writing in a way that you can actually wrap your mind around and use. Anyone who signs on as a patron is automatically subscribed to this monthly offering. Other benefits of support at various levels include writing exercises that will elasticize your practice and steer your work in new directions, recorded mini lectures, talks, and readings; reviews of new short stories and essays; livestream salons; live Q & As; a private writing community hosted on Patreon via Discord; collaborative writing projects; free tuition for Elephant Rock virtual workshops; free signed copies of my new book when it comes out; and early access to annotated excerpts of my new novel-in-progress, which I will be drafting throughout 2022.
I hope very much that many of you will join me in this new endeavor, at whatever level works for you. My promise is that I will pour my heart into making it beautiful and valuable, in the same way I have poured my heart into my teaching for all of these years. It matters to me, and you matter to me, too. Together, we can make this place beautiful. You can find me on Patreon here.
Love,
Jeannine
PS And here's the "about" section from my new Patreon page, which is of course also on the Patreon page itself, but in case you want to know more now before navigating the website, which is pretty simple, but not as simple as reading it right here where we already are.
Here's me: former foster kid, college dropout, feminist mama and nana now writing and teaching like my life depends on it. Which it does, and always has. I write and teach specifically because writing and teaching are the things that make me me. I could not be myself any other way. Writing saved my life, and teaching enriches it. I can't do either alone. What I want most (and what I believe my superpower to be) is to harness the power of stories + community and help other people to do the same. There is something I have been told so often now that I finally believe it, which is that I have a gift for helping people to hear the song in their words and then make something from that song.
That's what this space will become: a choir of words formed by communal imagination, curiosity, and strength of will.
Also, I'm working on a new novel, the most important book of my life, and I need ongoing support to make it happen. Here's the short version: I need to streamline my teaching in order to make more work. No, I won’t stop offering Elephant Rock classes! I promise. I just need to offer fewer. In order to do that—streamline the teaching while still building and maintaining a vivid, engaged community of fellow writers—I created this Patreon, where I can offer much of what I already do in my current classes and workshops in a more efficient (and affordable, at most of the levels!), way. Again, to reiterate, because many of you already emailed to ask!, I'll still teach classes, workshops, and retreats. Just not as many, at least while I am completing this new novel.
I believe, in a shadowy & fragile corner of my heart, that this novel will touch people in a way nothing else I've written has. It's a big book, a book on fire, much in the way our planet is on fire, and I'm seeking support to bring it forth in time to make a difference. No, I don't think I can reverse climate change with my novel. Sadly. But I do think there is nothing better at mobilizing humanity than an urgently powerful story that breaks our hearts and lifts us up at the same time. I need to bring this story out from the filaments of my imagination into the world. Your support will go a long way toward making it possible for me to materialize this novel, which is about being a human, being an animal, and being both. It’s about motherhood. Also, coyotes. And love. And fear. And what happens when absolutely everything is at stake. What happens when love is all we have left. One of my all-time literary heroes (perhaps she is one of yours, as well) recently reviewed a synopsis of this new novel and said she's ready to throw her weight behind it when I have a draft. She believes in it, and I want you to believe in it, too.
Again, why Patreon? Because support equals time. Writing, as most of you know, doesn't pay. Not unless you're famous—and I am not. Patreon support will help me clear space in my intense schedule (I work full time at the School of Public Health, teach part time, coach and mentor writers, and have six grown children and four grandchildren). Building a writing community here on Patreon, one rich with interactive learning opportunities, will help me free up time for writing this book. I also know from experience that a truly engaged, interactive community around a project helps bring that project to life.
I saw this in action last year, upon the publication of my debut memoir, The Part That Burns. As my community coalesced to support that project, I discovered, even as deeply introverted as I may be, that writing together is so much better than writing alone.
What a thing to discover in the midst of a raging pandemic. What a thing!
And in truth, I might not have discovered it any other way. It's only because of the pandemic that I paired my book's release with the inception of my most popular and longest-running writing workshop ever, Writing in the Dark. I offer Writing in the Dark through the tiny creative writing program I founded in 2012, Elephant Rock. From the outset, I envisioned and described Writing in the Dark as a virtual space for "creating during uncertain times." I offered a sliding fee scale down to zero because people were losing their jobs and gigs and futures. People were scared. I was scared. Sometimes I still am. Maybe that's why Writing in the Dark has been growing and thriving since its inception. Maybe that would be true whether or not my memoir was forthcoming when I started the workshop. I'll never know. But I do know that my memoir's release combined with Writing in the Dark created a synergy like I've never known before. Connections in my life and in my creative spirit started lighting up and firing bright, like synapses of possibility. The people I was meeting, including lots of other writers and creators, kept telling me, week after week, that the communal spaces surrounding my book and within Writing in the Dark were keeping them afloat creatively (and otherwise!) through an atrocious time. Those spaces kept me afloat, too.
Which brings me to the here and now, Patreon, where I plan to nourish a community in even deeper ways while building this new book. In exchange for your support, you will be rewarded as richly as I am able. A few of the things I have in store are:
A newsletter with creative inspiration and insight into writing craft and process that you can actually wrap your mind around and use
Writing exercises that will elasticize your practice and steer your work in new directions
Recorded mini lectures, talks, and readings
Previews of new short stories and essays
Livestream salons
Live Q & As
Private community hosted on Discord
Collaborative writing projects
Stipends for Elephant Rock virtual workshops
Signed copies of my book
An eventual new novel, a draft of which I am committed to completing in 2022
Your support helps all of this come to fruition. Hopefully, too, what you receive in gratitude for your support nourishes stories of your own.
If you're newer to my work, a bit about me: I am the author the memoir The Part That Burns (Split/Lip Press, 2021), which received starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus, was a Kirkus Best 100 Indie Book of 2021, a finalist for the Next Generation Best Indie Book in Women's Literature, and a Rumpus Book to Read in 2021. I'm also the author of the children’s book Mama Moon, and several educational titles. My short stories and essays have appeared widely, including in Narrative, Masters Review, North American Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere, along with several anthologies, including Passed On: Daughters Write about Father Lack, Loss, and Legacy, Ms. Aligned: Women Writing About Men, and Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. My work has been supported with fellowships from Millay Colony for the Arts and Brush Creek Foundation. I'm the recipient of a Margarita Donnelly Prize, Curt Johnson Fiction Award, Proximity Essay Award, Masters Review Emerging Writer's Award, two recent Pushcart nominations, as well as awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Medill School of Journalism. My work has been praised by Joyce Carol Oates as "simply beautiful, precisely imagined, poetically structured, compelling, and vivid." I teach creative writing with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and am the founder and director of Elephant Rock, an independent creative writing program in Minneapolis. I earned my MFA in fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts. I love this broken world, and the all the broken people in it.
