Harnessing the healing power of words through writing helped Deborah Mayaan recover from serious illness. Her essays and poems have appeared in a wide range of publications including Woman of Power, Sin Fronteras, Maize, Unstrung, and Rattlesnake Review, and anthologies including Sister/Stranger and She Who Was Lost Is Remembered. Her journalism articles on health and spirituality topics have appeared in Spirituality & Health Magazine, the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson Lifestyle, the Tucson Weekly, and the Arizona Jewish Post. She loves teaching writing workshops and earned an MA in educational psychology. She also brings writing opportunities to people through art installations in public spaces. The Tucson Pima Arts Council awarded a grant for her installation “Fountain of Peace” in which participants write about what they need to release or strengthen to be at peace. Mayaan has led P&W-sponsored workshops with the Tucson Medical Center, University of Arizona Cancer Center, and Congregation Chaverim.

What techniques do you employ to help shy writers open up?
I put a strong emphasis on creating a group that serves as an emotionally safe container. Each time we meet, I reiterate the importance of confidentiality and also attend to physical needs. I not only remind people of the location of drinking water and the bathroom, but also check in about their comfort with the temperature, lighting, and room configuration (with, of course, a great deal of variability depending on how much we can change in different spaces). I also remind people that sharing writing is optional. If people do choose to share, they also choose if they’d like to receive feedback, and what kind. I often use a meditation bell timer to set time boundaries on shares so that there is an opportunity for everyone to share at least once in a smaller group, or to give more people an opportunity in a larger group.

What has been your most rewarding experience as a workshop leader?
It’s been very rewarding to witness real shifts in people’s lives. In a recent workshop at the University of Arizona Cancer Center on the topic of “What am I living for?” I appreciated seeing how energized people were by developing visions and goals for challenging phases of life. I liked hearing about how it helped them focus and take action. In a recent workshop at Tucson Medical Center Senior Services, the focus was on writing a will of ethics and values as a way to pass on a spiritual legacy. A woman said that it helped her open up her heart. Several people commented on how the plan for sharing the ethical will with their families, and updating it regularly, had great potential for changing the family dynamic in order to express feelings and to share personal growth.

What effect has this work had on your life and/or your art?
Working with people who are facing death helps keep me awake to the present moment, and reminds me not to play it too safe. The practice of writing a will of ethics and values is rooted in my Jewish culture and teaching it has helped me become clearer about my own values. The combination of these reminders has given me the courage to become increasingly vocal in addressing current issues in Israel. I’ve organized healing rituals and written about them. I’ve recently started writing creative nonfiction that includes reporting, memoir, and political reflection. Here in Tucson, some of us are drawing connections between border issues in Israel and Palestine and the U.S. border with Mexico. On both borders, separation walls, guard towers, and the detention and questioning of people based on their ethnicity are all used to restrict the movement of people through regions that have been their homelands for generations. Israeli writers like Avraham Burg and Ari Shavit have written about how the unhealed trauma of the Holocaust may possibly be reenacted in Israel—in the creation of a state system of racial discrimination, along with those eerily similar guard towers and detention camps. A friend of mine is currently on a trip to Germany that includes speaking publicly about U.S.-Mexico border issues and praying at Dachau, and our conversations have helped bring all these threads together. Since I’ve seen such deep healing shifts in myself and others, I have hope for the healing of societal issues when we address our shared needs for safety, security, and self-determination. I don’t yet know what actions I’ll take to share and place this writing, but I’m carving out time to write.

What are the benefits of writing workshops for seniors?
Seniors usually have the time to write, but can hold themselves back, not trusting their voice, feeling constrained by what people will think, or simply procrastinating without knowing why. Writing workshops give a structure in which people can write an entire ethical will, or get started on a larger project like a memoir.

Photo: Deborah Mayaan     Credit: Amy Haskell
Support for Readings & Workshops events in Tucson is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

The longlist for the 2014 National Book Award in Fiction has been announced. The list represents a notable range of emerging and established writers, including such heavy-hitters as Richard Powers (who won the award in 2006) and Pulitzer Prize winners Marilynne Robinson and Jane Smiley, alongside debut novelist and Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle, and Molly Antopol and Phil Klay, who were both nominated for debut story collections.

The ten long-listed finalists are: Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman (Grove Press); Molly Antopol, The UnAmericans (Norton); John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner); Phil Klay, Redeployment (Penguin); Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (Knopf); Elizabeth McCracken, Thunderstruck & Other Stories (The Dial Press); Richard Powers, Orfeo (Norton); Marilynne Robinson, Lila (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); and Jane Smiley, Some Luck (Knopf).

Robinson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her 2004 novel Gilead, has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award, for her novels Home (2008) and Housekeeping (1980). Antopol was named one of the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 recipients in 2013.

The judges in for the 2014 National Book Award in Fiction are Geraldine Brooks, Sheryl Cotleur, Michael Gorra, Adam Johnson, and Lily Tuck. Publishers submitted a total of 417 titles for this year's award.

The nonfiction longlist was announced yesterday, and the poetry longlist was announced on Tuesday. The longlist in young people’s literature was released on Monday.

Shortlists in all four categories will be announced October 15, and the winners on November 19 at the National Book Foundation’s annual awards ceremony in New York City.

For bios of the finalists and judges, visit the National Book Foundation website.

Photo: Marilynne Robinson

Have you ever been the subject of a work of art? What is it like to look at someone else’s artistic interpretation of who you are? This week, write a piece analyzing why the artist made the compositional choices he or she did. If you’ve never had a work of art created for you, write about how you’d want to be portrayed. What medium, lighting, color palette, and setting do you think would capture your spirit? Who would you want to create the piece? Where would you want it displayed?  

Does one of your characters have an obsession with their appearance? Is she the type that habitually glances at every reflective surface in order to catch a glimpse of herself? Does this behavior have a negative effect? This week, write a story in which this character can no longer examine her appearance. Perhaps she goes on a camping trip, or decides to take down all the mirrors in her house. Think about how this change in circumstance can impact the character’s mood, confidence, and outlook on life.

Louise Glück and Edward Hirsch and are among the ten longlisted finalists for the 2014 National Book Award in Poetry, which were announced this morning. Hirsch is nominated for his most recent book, Gabriel (Knopf), an elegy for his son, who died at the age of twenty-two. Glück makes the list for her twelfth collection, Faithful and Virtuous Night, published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The seven other books competing for the $10,000 prize include Collected Poems (Knopf) by Mark Strand, Roget’s Illusion (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) by Linda Bierds, A Several World (Nightboat) by Brian Blanchfield, Second Childhood (Graywolf) by Fanny Howe, This Blue (FSG) by Maureen N. McLane, The Feel Trio (Letter Machine Editions) by Fred Moten, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf) by Claudia Rankine, and The Road to Emmaus (FSG) by Spencer Reece. Both Glück and Strand have served as poet laureate of the United States and have won Pulitzer Prizes. Earlier this year, Rankine recieved the $50,000 Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers, Inc.

Five shortlisted finalists will be announced on October 15. The longlist for young people’s literature was announced yesterday, and the longlists for fiction and nonfiction will be announced in the next two days. Winners in each category will be announced at the National Book Foundation’s annual awards ceremony in New York City on November 19.

The judges for this year’s poetry prize are Eileen Myles, Katie Peterson, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Paisley Rekdal, and Robert Polito. The panel considered more than two hundred submissions. Books written by U.S. poets and published in the United States between December 1, 2013, and November 30, 2014, are eligible for this year’s awards.

To read conversations with both Edward Hirsch and Louise Glück, read the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Watch a video of Hirsch speaking as part of a panel on Why We Write at the most recent Poets & Writers Live event in New York City.

Photos: Glück (Webb Chappell), Hirsch (Tony Gale)

We all have questions buzzing around in our heads. They could be questions about the future, a love interest, or what to make for dinner. We usually turn to family and friends for advice on such concerns, but what if you could ask your favorite poet? How would he or she respond? This week, pick a question that’s been on your mind. Then channel the voice of a poet of your choice who answers your question and offers much-needed advice.

Estelle Ford-Williamson, is coauthor of Seed of South Sudan: Memoir of a "Lost Boy" Refugee, and editor of the Lou Walker Center Writers Anthology, Vols. 1 and 2. She has received Poets & Writers grants to teach creative writing to young adults who have timed out of the foster care system in Atlanta, Georgia.

On the other end of the phone, a willing librarian listened: Would a library in north-central New York State be interested in a former Lost Boy of Sudan and his coauthor reading and discussing their recent book about his experience fleeing death in a religious/ethnic war, and his subsequent life adapting to Atlanta and now living on two continents?

Fortunately, the answer from Oswego Public Library’s Edward Elsner was yes. My coauthor Majok Marier and I began to put together an extensive road trip that included readings in four cities far from our Atlanta roots: Lakewood (Cleveland), Ohio; Oswego and Syracuse in New York; and Washington, D.C. One grant to appear at the Oswego Public Library was the catalyst that encouraged us to set up other readings–the grant was through Poets & Writers. During our tour, we met former Lost Boy John Bul Dau, author of God Grew Tired of Us and a South Sudan aid leader, and many others involved in refugee issues.

Our book, Seed of South Sudan: Memoir of a “Lost Boy” Refugee was published in May by McFarland and Company. It updates the story of the young men and women, thousands who arrived in America in 2001. Their resettlement was a part of an unprecedented airlift to provide futures for the young children facing limited lives in refugee camps due to a decades-long war. Now young men and women, they are spread throughout the United States (Australia and Canada, too) as they pursue an education and jobs that enable them to support family back home, as well as help build the new nation of South Sudan.

The welcome was warm at the Oswego Library, the “Castle on the Hill.” The historic building is a shrine to abolitionism and to the Free Library movement as the library was built by noted abolitionist Gerrit Smith. Our book tour coincided with heated protests in another part of the country to block entry of underage migrant children from Central America. It was probably one of the most emotional times in the recent national debate on refugees in the United States.

The reading yielded only appreciation, encouragement, and a desire to learn more about Majok and our journey together as coauthors of his story–his semi-nomadic life as young Dinka tribesman in the Rumbek area before fleeing his village in the war. Even more interest centered on his goal of drilling the first water wells in such villages.

Our trip affirmed the value of such face-to-face exchanges, and I highly recommend that writers contact this library and other venues in states and cities served by the Readings & Workshop program. All it took was a minimal amount of research, a willingness to cold-call possible sponsors, and an interest by a library to enrich their patrons’ literary experiences.

Photo: (top) Estelle Ford-Williamson. 

Photo: (bottom) Estelle Ford-Williamson, Majok Marier, and John Bul Dau. Photo Credits: Richard Williamson.

Support for Readings & Workshops in New York is provided, in part, by public funds from New York State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Think back to your childhood, to the stories you remember being told. Was there a particular story you wanted to hear over and over again? This week, try and remember that story, and choose one of the characters from it. Take that character and write an entirely different story centered around new obstacles. For example, if you choose Pippi Longstocking, write a story in which she is raising her own family, or has become the captain of her father's ship after his retirement.

American writers Joshua Ferris and Karen Joy Fowler have made the shortlist for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, announced today by the Booker Prize Foundation. This year the prize was open for the first time to writers of any nationality whose fiction books were written in English and published in the previous year in the U.K. The winner, who will receive £50,000 (approximately $80,000), will be announced in London on October 14.

The finalists are: American writers Joshua Ferris for To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (Viking) and Karen Joy Fowler for We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Serpent’s Tail); Australian writer Richard Flanagan for The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Chatto & Windus); and British authors Howard Jacobson for J (Jonathan Cape), Neel Mukherjee for The Lives of Others (Chatto & Windus), and Ali Smith for How to Be Both (Hamish Hamilton). The six finalists were selected from a longlist of thirteen announced in July.

“As the Man Booker Prize expands its borders, these six exceptional books take the reader on journeys around the world, between the U.K., New York, Thailand, Italy, Calcutta and times past, present and future,” said A. C. Grayling, chair of the judges. “It is a strong thought-provoking shortlist which we believe demonstrates the wonderful depth and range of contemporary fiction in English.” Along with Grayling, the 2014 judges are Jonathan Bate, Sarah Churchwell, Daniel Glaser, Alastair Niven, and Erica Wagner.

Established in 1969, the Man Booker Prize was originally awarded to a writer who was a citizen of the U.K., the British Commonwealth, Zimbabwe, or the Republic of Ireland. Jonathan Taylor, chair of the foundation, announced the prize’s expansion last September. Recent winners include Eleanor Catton, Hilary Mantel, Julian Barnes, and Howard Jacobson.

Upper left: Joshua Ferris, photo by Laurent Denimal; Upper right: Karen Joy Fowler, photo by David Levenson