I'm Here and "I'm In"

When I was 20

Hello Writers,

How are you doing? 

One way I navigate this time of confinement is to be on-line with others as much as possible each day.  My virtual writing circle meets up every week day from 11:00 till 1:00 PM and there are 40 of us writers who are "in" each day. It's lovely to see the email response expand and get that sense of us being together, writing. I also do ZOOM visits and consultations, as well as ZOOM counseling. I just got a call from a friend in Florida who I haven't heard from in decades. My daughter and I have decorated the sidewalk with messages and will do so again after the rain. I am sending out cards, texts, and my version of smoke signals. 

​Being confined doesn't have to mean isolated. 

I offer writing prompts along with each virtual writing circle meet up -- if you need a writing prompt, send me an email request and I will send one out to you. And if you want to join in with the virtual writing circle for next week, let me know. 

There are ways to connect.

Please reach out.  

You can take The Initiated Writer™, my on-line course. I'm signing up for one David Whyte is offering, and I'm seriously considering Neil Gaiman's Master Class on Fiction Writing. Of course there are many, many wonderful writing classes through the UW, Madison Continuing Studies (I teach a Creative Nonfiction Class).  

Here's another good read and resource:   Writing Through Wordlessness in a Time of Isolation by Tishani Doshi on Seclusion and Life Along the Coast.

​We are in this together. 

I am here.

​I'm in.  


SOMETIMES. by David Whyte 

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,you come to a place
whose only taskis to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
andto stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,questions
that have patiently
waited for you,questions
that have no right
to go away.  

​Julie 

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a message to my neighbors