A Cover Reveal . . .and a little blog hop

Today, I am pleased to reveal the cover for Soul Prompts: Finding and Hearing Your Inner Voice, written by my friend Morgan Dragonwillow.

Soul Prompts is a spiritual writing experience that gives you a direct line to the source of inspiration.

If you could communicate with your soul would you?

If you could hear what your soul's plan is for this life, would you want to hear it? What if learning to communicate with your soul could help you get your words on the page?

Soul Prompts will help you connect to that voice within whether you want to have a deeper spiritual life, a better understanding of your purpose, discover which path to take next or to help you get your stories written. Are you open to the possibilities? It's time to have a conversation with your soul. This book is for you if you want to:

1. Take your writing to a deeper level.
2. Explore your connection to your soul.
3. Live a more spiritual life.
4. Have a better understanding of your writing journey.
5. Figure out your next step.
6. Discover where your words come from.
7. Learn why your soul chose this life.

And so much more. Soul Prompts: Finding and Hearing Your Inner Voice - Paperback and ebook - coming out this October!

Cover Artist. Morgan reports that this beautiful cover was created by the artistic and wonderful Andrea Moore! Working with her was a pleasure and she was very patient with my questions and suggestions until we were both happy with the results! If you are working on a book and don't have a cover yet, I highly recommend you have a chat with her!

Andrea Moore grew up in a town so small, on top of a marsh, that the mosquito was considered the city bird. She uses her degree in computer graphics and her artistic abilities to sprinkle joy throughout local consignment shops and EtsyEtsy. Andrea is now breaking out of the box further as she explores the adventures of book cover creating.

Fun Trivia Game!  What's a party without a game? In this game you will hop from one blog to the next, finding the clues and when you think you have the answer, go back to Morgan Dragonwillow's post, Soul Prompts Book Cover Reveal Party, and put the answer in the comments. 

The first person with the correct answer will win a signed copy of Soul Prompts and a $10 Amazon gift card!

Question: Where in the world is one of my favorite places to sit or walk and connect with the source of creation and to remember we are all one? CLUE: It is in Humboldt county.

Next Stop Poetry, Prose, Art, and Creativity 

Good luck, but most of all, have a great time!   

Morgan Dragonwillow is a poet, survivor, lover of all things magical, dancing with words, recovering perfectionist, and indie author that (mostly) doesn't let her fears get in the way of her passion for writing and creating. She is team leader at @StoryDam and creatrix of #OctPoWriMo. She lives in Marietta, Ga. with her loving and patient partner, their dog that thinks she's a princess, and the cat that reminds her that she isn't.

Into the Blog Hopper . . .

I think the My Writing Process blog hop has gone viral.

This very informal blog hop asks writers to talk about their writing process. It has no rules and no coordinator. Writers answer 4 questions and tag two more writers, giving each a deadline of 1-2 weeks. The questions are:

1. What am I working on currently or just finishing?
2. How does my work differ from others in this genre?
3. Why do I write what I do?
4. How does my writing process work?

Poet Morgan Dragonwillow got me started. Her invitation was quickly followed by another invite from Deb McKnight. I happily went off to the east coast for a family reunion and a wedding and forgot who invited me first. Red face! Morgan graciously forgave me.

Morgan Dragonwillow writes poetry about that unique journey creative people pursue. In Wild Woman Waking, an inspirational read, she celebrates her commitment to writing.  Her book pairs poetry with some phenomenal photographs from Tui Snyder. Morgan's combination of visual image and writing from the heart pulls me right in.

Then, one of my tags bowed out! So I invited Sandy Brown Jensen to participate, a creative writing teacher colleague I've known for many years. 

Sandy talking about her sister's painting, Cheryl Renee Long

Now the fun begins, for Sandy writes poetry, paints, teaches writing, and has embarked on something called digital storytelling, that neat combination of voice and image presented in a video. 

Her latest video brought me to tears, in the way something true and exceptional evokes that emotional response.

Here is Sandy's video, "The Current is Everything" -- her response to the first question: What am I currently working on?


The Current is Everything from Sandy Brown Jensen on Vimeo.

This morning S. J. Maylee invited me to participate in another My Writing Process blog hop via Twitter, a new wrinkle I almost missed. I'm going to hop next week, but with slightly different questions . . . and, inspired by Sandy, just maybe a different medium. 

Sandy balances her writing process posts with the end of the school term; her posts will go live over several days on her blog, Sandy Brown Jensen: Mind on Fire

Morgan has already posted her responses on her blog, Morgan Dragonwillow, Dancing Where Others Fear to Tread 

Why not hop on over to visit Morgan and Sandy?  

How do you celebrate creativity in your life?

Poetry Review: Wild Woman Waking

This week, I’m pleased to review the latest book of poems by Morgan Dragonwillow, friend and chief instigator behind poetry prompts and online resources (both StoryDam and OctPoWriMo). I look at poetry as a way to explore our most intimate perceptions of life, nature, love – distilled into impressions of what we hold most dear.

Click to go to Amazon!

Wild Woman Waking, a collaborative work by Morgan Dragonwillow, poet, and Tui Snider, photographer, shows the transformative power of poetry combined with images. Each of these 57 poems in free verse begins with a beautiful image that evokes the very nature of the poem, inviting the reader to reflect further on the nature of women, identity, healing, and growth.  

These themes lead we readers on a poetic journey of discovery. We find we must acknowledge the sometimes harsh realities of our pasts before we can embrace change and heal ourselves. For me, that is the essential message of Wild Woman Waking – that we celebrate our true selves with passion, self-acceptance, and commitment. We may not be able to return to the home of our childhood, but, as Morgan writes in ‘Finding My Way Home,’ “. . . you carry home in your heart . . . where it was all along.”

Wild Woman Waking is a passionate read. When we read these poems, we become the child who is misunderstood, the woman who searches for acceptance. From ‘Diving Deep’:

As the leaves fall I find

myself curled up inside

diving into the darkness . . .

Several poems ask us to consider the link between poetry and our bodies. In ‘Where Do Words Come From’, Morgan asks if words are:

searching for a way out of our fingers

 . . . . are the words traveling in your blood

riding along the great highway of your inner being

 Morgan’s poems make me think about the power of poetry to transform ourselves, as if in the very act of putting down words, we invent ourselves, we create order out of chaos, we show others possibilities.

Sometimes poets write what we wish we could say, and they tell us what we need to know. The poems in Wild Woman Waking lead us to a place where we can proudly refuse to be “bent and broken”; instead, they document a journey to self-acceptance, peace, and understanding – where in a community of women, we celebrate and dance as Mud Women. We become women of spirit and keepers of our own keys.

What's next? You can scroll down to read a little about about Morgan and Tui, visit the other hosts on this blog hop, and ENTER Morgan's giveaway (see below). As always, thank YOU for visiting and commenting.

Morgan Dragonwillow is a shadow poet and recovering perfectionist that strives to inspire other poets and writers. She especially enjoys helping those that have had trouble letting go of the fear holding back their words from landing on the page. It thrills her to her marrow when her words inspire someone to write; it is one of her greatest joys. Morgan released her first poetry book, Dancing within Shadow, in March 2013. She is intimate with shadow and dances into the heart of it. She believes that diving into what most people try to avoid makes great fertilizer for all types of creativity, especially writing and poetry. She writes poetry to be able to say things, feel things that she can’t seem to express or feel anywhere else. Morgan lives in Marietta Ga. with her partner, their Pekinese, and their long haired Tabby. She loves creating of all kinds but words are her passion. You can connect with Morgan from the links below.

Morgan Dragonwillow's Amazon author page 

Morgan Dragonwillow's Shadow Poet & Author Page: Dancing where others fear to tread. 
Facebook Author Page 
Pinterest
Twitter

Tui Snider is a writer, photographer, and travel blogger specializing in offbeat sites, overlooked history, cultural traditions, and quirky travel destinations. Her articles and photos have appeared in BMIbaby, easyJet, Wizzit, Click, Ling, PlanetEye Traveler, iStopover, SkyEurope, and North Texas Farm and Ranch magazines, among others. She also wrote the shopping chapter for the “Time Out Naples: Capri, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast 2010” travel guidebook. Unexpected Texas is her first book. For Tui, travel is a mindset. Her motto is "Even home is a travel destination," and she believes that "The world is only boring if you take everyone else's word for it." She has worn a lot of hats in her life - literally - and is especially fond of berets. Her first book, "Unexpected Texas" is a guide to offbeat and overlooked places within easy reach of the Dallas - Fort Worth region of North Texas. You can find Tui all around the web. 

·        Tui Snider's Amazon author page

·        Tui Snider's Offbeat & Overlooked Travel blog

·        Facebook author page

·        Instagram 

·        Pinterest

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Women's History Poetry: On women quilting

We begin innocently,
as strangers,
stitch and turn,
repair and bind,
the talk between quilts
held us together,
stories, dreams, revelations, laughter.
We shared more than fabric.
We began to quilt for others.
Sometimes we were angry.
Sometimes we despaired.
Stitch and turn,
repair and bind.
We attended weddings and funerals.
Our quilts remain,
a history of stitches.

This is the first little poem I've written in quite a while. Pared down to simplicity, the words remind me of how women create beauty out of small scraps of fabric, sometimes those scraps that we cannot throw out. So we repurpose, and the quilts remain to brighten our daily lives. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have old quilts, those made by women we knew.

Quilting has gradually become a passion, a process of making something from a flat piece of cloth. You'll find a quilt in every book I write, sometimes drawn from history. The fascinating story of the Rajah Quilt, made in 1841 by women transported to Van Diemen's Land (present day Tasmania) for petty crimes is hidden like a small quilt block in Standing Stones. Can you imagine being down in the hold of a small sailing vessel, on a trip that took four months, and sewing a quilt?

This poem came about because of Morgan Dragonwillow's mini-poetry challenge to celebrate Women's History Month. See what others have written here. Morgan will be back here as a guest on March 15 to introduce her new book, Wild Woman Waking.

A Poet's Necessary

Necessary, a noun, meaning something indispensible. 

One pair of watchful eyes, trained to observe
One half sense of history
One half sense of nature
A love of words unmeasured
One full willingness to say what only the heart knows
Sprinkling of humor, especially at self
Dash of bitters and commitment

Mix all at odd moments.

Let rest.

Revise.

Read aloud and revise again.

Tuck away in a journal or
serve with joy to all those who love poetry.
Repeat as you are moved to write.
Feeds a multitude.

River Ness near Inverness, Scotland (Camp 2009)

Morgan Dragonwillow's recent post, Recipe for a Poet, made me wonder what my own recipe would be. And what would your recipe include?