Join us for the Pet Project on Friday, June 19 from 2 – 4pm

Posted on by Ashley Harris

Writer Friends and Pet Lovers! This month, I had the honor of writing the lead article in the June newsletter for Women on Writing, Never Alone, Your Pet as Muse. Just for you, I’ll share an excerpt with some of my favorite writing prompts featuring our “other babies.”

Write a story for children. Like so many other Gen X’ers, I grew up on the illustrated tales of Richard Scarry and Dr. Seuss. Featuring animals in a story is an easy way to captivate children and to gently teach them important life lessons. This is especially appealing for writers who also like to draw or are willing to learn. Or, in the example of Stan and Jan Berenstain, creators of the kid’s lit franchise, Berenstain Bears, you can also find a collaborator! 

Give your fictional character a pet. The addition of a pet can add texture to the life of your protagonist, and in the case of Jasper, the dog of Mrs. De Winter in the novel Rebecca, they can also help advance the plot. Jasper led our heroine on a number of adventures that ultimately helped unravel the novel’s deepest secret.

Where is Fido? Take a pivotal point in your life and put your pet in it. The harrowing and poignant modern essay, The Fourth State of Matter, by Jo Ann Beard, gets its momentum from the author’s masterful weave of her collie’s illness and a workplace shooting. Where was your pet during your own struggles? Make a short diary of their behavior and your dilemma and watch them magically converge into an essay of your own. 

Give your pet the pen. Write a scene from your own life from the point of view of your pet. But there’s a catch. You must be perfectly serious. Comedy will naturally arise, but it will be even funnier if you let your dog describe you baking a cake or weeding the garden without irony or intentional humor.

Your pet at work. My dogs and cat spend most of the day snoozing, to be honest. But when Little Puss is stalking a lizard or when my husky Max is alerting me to the arrival of the postal carrier, they are all business. In the spirit of White’s beloved Fred, describe the unwavering dedication of your favorite hunter or guardian in work mode.

If these prompts intrigue you and you’d like to have even more, I hope you’ll join us for The Pet Project, a two-hour workshop on Friday, June 19, from 2 – 4 pm ET. At this special event, we’ll read pet-driven poetry and prose written by masters such as E.B. White, T. S. Eliot, Rachel Wetzsteone, Mary Oliver and more, and discuss techniques from them that can enhance portrayals of our own pets. We’ll use THREE unique prompts guaranteed to generate instant work you may polish later and submit for publication. As with all my classes, I’ll also include a roundup of magazines and websites eager to publish your writing. And for an additional fee, I’ll critique up to 3 pages of your work and offer targeted submission opportunities.

During our time together, we may laugh, and yes, we may cry a tear or two, but it will be time well spent. Hope to see you (and your pets) there!

For more information and to sign up, please click here.

Wishing you and your other babies a happy spring!

Ashley, Max, Tulsi, Hermia and Lysander

A Writer’s Guide to Managing COVID-19

Posted on by Ashley Harris

At Whale Tail, the dogwoods tremble with nascent blooms on the cusp of unfurling. For me, especially now, in the face of coronavirus news that has gone from sobering to frightening, these trees symbolize hope and faith. Even as the Black Plague devastated Europe in the 14th century, the “whipple-trees” (as dogwoods were known back then) continued to bloom, reminding us that there is a greater power at work in the world.

As we struggle to cope with what this pandemic means for our daily lives and future, it’s more important than ever that we writers dive deep into our souls and pull out insights that can help ourselves and others cope and heal.

1.  Keep writing! We are so fortunate that the nature of our work – which requires its own form of self-isolation – means we can do it without worrying about making others sick. In fact, you could argue that it is nothing less than our job as writers to do our very best to lift each other up. And we don’t need computers. A pen and paper are just fine.

2. Send your words out into the world. There are so many ways to do this. There are countless markets advertised through the N.C. Writer’s Network, Submittable and Freedom with Writing (three of my favorite sources) seeking your work right now. And they need your words more than ever. Even if you don’t formally submit, you can still update your blog, text a poem, or mail a letter to a friend, just as I did today.

3. Read, read, read. I’m currently reading (and re-reading!) my favorite essays from America’s Best Essays series and online essays posted through Memoir Monday). I’m also savoring poetry – Jane Kenyon, Mary Oliver and the lighter work of Billy Collins are currently helping me cope. Reading is sustenance, every bit as powerful as food and water.

4. Stay connected with each other. Being solitary by nature, we writers naturally limit social events, but this crisis makes our few gatherings all the more precious. I have a number of traditional workshops listed on my Events page that are on hold right now, out of necessity. But this doesn’t mean we can’t convene through phone, postal mail, email and other online connections such as social media. By the way, I’m investigating the possibility of offering online classes in the future. As a student, I’m a big fan of these classes myself, so it makes sense to explore this option.

5. Try this writing prompt. Having trouble finding something to write about? Choose the smallest thing in your life that brings you joy right now. Is it the ladybug you saw this morning climbing up the deck chair? Is it last summer’s Gerbera daisies that somehow survived the winter and are now emerging from the pot? Maybe it’s the sight of your dog sunning himself on the porch…. in short, write about whatever it is that makes you happy right now! You might have more blessings than you know. 🙂

A pie chart just for the holidays….

Posted on by Ashley Harris

pie chart

Percent of responses from an unofficial survey of unbiased dessert lovers…..

Now I love traditional pound cake as much as anybody, but for my last meal on this earth, it would have to be my beloved Grandma Wilma’s apple pie.

As a sweet treat to myself, this month I’ve been taking a Women on Writing online class, Humor Writing with Chelsey Clammer, and loving it. Among many other things, she’s inspired me to think of traditional graphs and charts in a new, twisted way. 🙂

At this point, I’m not smart enough to tackle anything more than a basic chart, but I’m hoping there’s a flowchart or a Venn diagram in my future….