Writing Is More Important Than Ever

And Sunday Journaling Sessions start March 16

Writing is more important than ever. Let’s deconstruct this.

I believe that the quintessential movement of life is toward “better,” and I think that anything that takes us toward “worse” is counter-intuitive, counter-productive, and dangerous.

Trauma moves us toward worse.

There are many ways to move toward better—therapy, for example. Meditation. Community. Laughter. A loving relationship with another person. Medication sometimes. Nature. Grounding. The sun. A healthy diet.

One of the best ways to move toward better is stories. Stories transform. This happens because of the narrative arc—

• the way the world was

• what you learned

• the new world

Good stories are the quickest, most powerful way to positive transformation that I know. That’s why I have always been attracted to writing and why I continue to write.

(I recognize that some narratives are destructive. Here I’m talking about the stories that heal, that work to end oppression, that build community, that care for others, that defend the earth.)

A lot of the chaos and cruelty we’re seeing coming out of Washington with the reelection of Donald Trump is deeply rooted in trauma, both in the new administration and in the folks who elected and continue to support the president.

One great antidote to this cruelty is

• to continue to write stories

• to write more stories than ever

• to write better stories than ever

• to seek out stories of human kindness and caregiving and love

• to bring narratives of suffering to light

• to call out cruelty for what it is

• to disseminate your stories by any means possible

What I am calling for is a guild/alliance/union/fellowship of story-writers who move through the world thinking about transformation—who work to heal themselves of trauma—who work diligently to keep their hearts open to others—who understand the art of empathy—and from whose typewriters, pens, and computers flow stories that build support for kindness and caregiving and love.

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Writing Prompts

1. Write about an act of kindness that you witnessed yesterday. Make sure you include a color, a fragrance, and a sound.

2. Write about a person who is suffering. Tell us how they are suffering. Include a texture, a phrase describing the physical appearance of the person, and at least one line of dialogue.

I want to submit this Little Free Library to you as an act of love. Look how carefully the latch has been carved, out of cedar, in the shape of a fish.

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Write a Book Review for Southern Lit Review

Southern Literary Review is asking for your assistance in reading and reviewing new titles. They make a real effort to cover small presses and independent publishers, and they can only do it with your help. They don’t have particular deadlines or length requirements, although most reviews run around 500-1,000 words.

If you are interested in obtaining a copy of a title, let Donna Meredith, Editor, know and she will put you in touch with the publisher/publicist/author. Let them know how to get either a print or electronic copy to you. If you receive a book and find it isn’t to your taste, you are not obligated to review it.

Consider choosing a title if you can find time in your busy lives. It’s good karma for a writer and adds a pub to your bio.

Contact Donna Meredith, Editor

meredithds@comcast.net

SLR Titles for Review Winter 2025

Memoir

1. Between Dying and Not Dying, I Chose the Guitar: The Pandemic Years in New Orleans (UL Press 2024) by James Nolan. This visceral account of the coronavirus years blends first-person, present-tense commentary about the pandemic with the perspective of a memoir, including other epidemics James Nolan survived, first polio as a boy then AIDS in San Francisco. We believe this sometimes contrarian “rough draft of history”—intensified by the bizarre plot twist of the writer’s mid-pandemic eviction from the gothic Luling Mansion while Amazon was filming a vampire movie there—will find a receptive audience for years to come.

2. South of My Dreams (USC Press 2024) by Italian ex-pat F. K. Clementi. Nourished on her mother’s Hollywood version of America and her musician father’s Gershwin soundtrack, young Fania could think of no higher calling than escaping bourgeois Rome, “becoming queen and finding her prince in New York City.” As detours, dead ends, and dishonorable men continually delay her arrival, the reader gets to follow Clementi’s dizzying progress from Rome to Warsaw, Tel Aviv, Boston and finally New York City, through prestigious jobs and ill-fated love affairs. Like an exercise in comparative cultures, we rediscover America through the author’s eyes – diners and Delmonico’s, Jews and Christmas carols, IKEA and green cards, The Big Chill and The Wizard of Oz.

Fiction - Novels

3. Cinnamon Beach by Suzanne Kamata is a multicultural tragicomedy told from three strong female points of view in which an American writer living in Japan returns to South Carolina to scatter the ashes of her brother while trying to maintain the perfect-family facade she created from afar, and support her Indian American sister-in-law who wants a future which might upset everyone; sparks fly when an impromptu book-signing reconnects the writer with her college friend who is now a famous African American country singer, and her daughter who is deaf finds a secret first love, providing readers a reflection on death, divorce, disconnection, and how summers on the hot sand can usher in surprises.

4. The Light on Horn Island by Valerie Fraser Luesse. (2024) After a life-changing loss, Edie Gardner returns home to her grandmother's tiny hamlet in coastal Mississippi. Alongside her grandmother's tightknit circle, a mysterious antiques dealer, and a troubled family friend, Edie explores the past to see what she might learn about who she really is, and what her future may hold. Set in Mississippi.

5. Serial Burn by Lynette Eason. (2024) Ever since Fire Marshal Jesslyn McCormick lost her family in a fire, she’s been looking: for the arsonist, for a reason, for relief from the guilt of surviving. In a twisty tale of revenge, forgiveness, and justice, Jesslyn and FBI Special Agent Nathan Carlisle team up to find the answers—if they can keep her alive long enough to ask the questions. Lynette Eason lives in South Carolina and her books are all set in the South.

6. The Summer We Ate Off China by Devin Jacobsen. Thirteen short stories.

7. Measure of Devotion by Nell Josli. In this debut novel set during the American Civil War, a South Carolina woman who's a Union supporter leaves home to retrieve her only child, a wounded Confederate son, staking everything in a mission of danger, privation, and emotional anguish.

8. Shattered Sanctuary by Nancy Mehl. Ex-police officer and bestselling mystery author Erin Delaney seeks solace in a cabin nestled in the Smoky Mountains, but her newfound peace shatters when cries pierce the night. When local police chief Adrian Nightengale seeks her help with a baffling murder case, she is thrust back into the world of crime-solving, joined by the enigmatic Kaely Quinn-Hunter, a former FBI behavioral analyst. Together they race against time to stop a merciless serial killer.

9. The Goddess of Weaver Street by Joy Ross Davis. (Wyatt-MacKenzie 2024) The story is set in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and explores the life of a former beauty queen (Lynda Lee) who leaves her posh life to marry a medical student. Throughout the years, they seem a happily married couple who live in an upscale neighborhood on Weaver Street, and enjoy close friendships. When Lynda Lee begins to have crippling migraines, she naps frequently, and in her dreams, she is always in Galway, Ireland where she meets the two people who will change the course of her life forever: an ancient Irish weaver and a traveling storyteller.

10. Under the Gulf Coast Sun by Skip Rhudy. (Stoney Creek Publishing 2025) Eighteen-year-old Connor O’Reilly isn’t ready to leave his beloved hometown until the tourist girl he met the previous summer, Kassie Hernandez, returns to Port Aransas for one final vacation before college. Their tumultuous summer fling is wrecked by a freak accident in which Connor is lost at sea. His long years of surfing and fishing in the Gulf, as well as Kassie’s desperation to reunite with him, are pitted against the enormity and utter indifference of the sea.

11. Half Truths by Carol Baldwin. A 15-year-old Southern girl from a farm in Tabor City, North Carolina, aspires to be a journalist to shed light on the social issues of 1950. While pursuing that dream, she covers dark secrets about her family’s past after moving in with her grandparents in upscale Charlotte. Since Half-Truths takes place in (relatively!) recent years, there is a strong crossover market to adults who enjoy historical fiction and remember this period. The themes of prejudice, truth-speaking, intergenerational secrets, forgiveness, and reconciliation appeal to readers of all ages.

12. That Which Binds Us by Cathy Rigg. In the 1860s, on Virginia’s Appalachian frontier, the fates of five people are forever linked as they navigate love, loss, and the cost of buried secrets amid the strife and turmoil of an unimaginable civil war. Punctuated by class and the realities of a devastating conflict, That Which Binds Us is a broad work of historical fiction that celebrates our best and explores our worst, that serves to remind us that across continents and cultures and generations, love holds the greatest power of all.

13. Love on Tour by Lee Adams (June 17, 2025 She Writes Press). Though she has her dream job in the booming country music industry — Christine Matthews lives an unexciting, overlooked life. That is, until a broken shoe brings Nashville singing sensation Austin Garrett to her aid. As one thing leads to another, she is catapulted from a life of solitude straight into the spotlight. When Christine starts developing feelings for Austin’s tour manager, Matt, and one of her newfound online bullies turns threatening, Christine must decide if the turmoil is worth it, or if her only real solution is to walk away from everything—even the man who might just be the love of her life.

Nonfiction

1. Voices and Visions: Essays on New Orleans's Literary History (UMiss Press 2025) edited by Nancy Dixon and Leslie Petty, is an insightful survey tracing the influence of New Orleans writers, past and present, on the literary canon.

2. Deep Roots, Broken Branches. (U Miss Press 2025) by Victoria Bynum. She turns now to her own history in this multigenerational American saga spanning from 1840 to 1979. Child of a mother from Waconia, Minnesota, and father from Jones County, Mississippi, Bynum blends a historian’s voice with personal experiences, intertwining her grandmother’s unpublished memoir and letters with her own role as a diarist and historian. Through meticulous historical research, Bynum examines five generations within the broader context of the nation’s history, navigating pivotal events such as First Wave immigration, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Great Depression, two world wars, the Cold War, and beyond.

Poetry

1. Rosa Castellano’s All Is The Telling (Diode Editions, 4/5/25). A sort of Kindred-in-verse, a poem play in the middle of the collection finds two more siblings--biracial sisters split from their Georgia childhood, one passing as white.

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Take an Hour Weekly for Creativity, Flow-writing, and Yourself

New Series

For a while now I’ve been leading journaling sessions on Sunday evenings 5-6 pm Eastern Time. I choose a theme and set a number of sessions, usually five or six, to explore a topic. The courses are by donation, which means you set whatever price you can afford to pay. (The amount you pay is private.)

The sessions are good for taking an hour for yourself, working both the right and left sides of the brain, and producing numerous short pieces of writing. These come from 3-4 flow-writes that we do each session.

A new series will start March 16 that is based on the garden. Registration is happening now. More info below.

Journaling the Garden

These sessions are designed for you to process, document, and celebrate your life, gardens, spring, and the natural world around you. We will focus on The Garden.

• 6 Sundays in a row between March and April

• hour-long sessions

• each Sunday afternoon

• 5-6 pm Eastern US/Canada Time

• starting March 16, 2025

• ending April 27, 2025

• with no session on Easter Sunday, April 20.

Sessions will take place on Sunday, March 16 | March 23 | March 30 | April 6 | April 13 | and April 27.

This is not a single event. This is a workshop with 6 sessions. There is no session on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025.

You only need to sign up once. The Zoom link you will receive is the same for all sessions.

Nature writer Janisse Ray will inspire and guide you to write about gardens you have known in a meaningful and creative way. In addition, you will study with guest artists. See below.

When you sign up, you're signing up for all 6 sessions. March 16, 2025 is the first session and April 27 is the last. On Eventbrite this may look like a single event, but it's a 6-session course.

The Zoom link you receive will be the same for all 6 sessions.

TUITION IS UP TO YOU

Cost of the course is by donation, which means you get to determine the class's value to you. Pay what you wish. The amount you pay remains private.

SCHEDULE (BIOS BELOW)

1 | Mar 16 | Janisse w/ Susan Loeb, The Garden’s Story: One Line at a Time (drawing by outline)

2 | Mar 23 | Janisse w/ Rachel Michaud, Art Tips for Non-Artists

3 | Mar 30 | Janisse w/ Madeleine Jubilee Saito, Wisdom Quadrants

4 | Apr 6 | Janisse w/ Clare W. Leslie, Learning To See

5 | Apr 13 | Janisse w/ Nina Veteto, Capturing Experience With Color

6 | Apr 27 | Janisse w/ Jasmin Pittman, Ancestral Healing Through Creativity (simple wildflowers with watercolor) and

w/ Rachel Michaud, A Season with Black-eyed Susans: Journaling One Plant's Insect Relationships

MORE SPECIFICALLY...

phase of the moon~clouds~phenology~draw a wildflower~ be astonished~a simple banner~a cool page border~5-steps breathing exercise~ map of your garden~how to increase your creativity~your favorite garden~phenology wheel~signs of spring~enso~3 stages of observation~poem templates~shading~outline drawing~getting insects on paper~your garden observations~adding color~wisdom quadrants~simple wildflower watercolors~the weather~rainfall~fragrances~anyone can draw~what spring means to you~seeds

GUEST ARTISTS
Janisse has arranged incredible guest speakers during this 6-week course.

Clare Walker Leslie

Clare is a naturalist and artist and the author of a dozen books on nature journaling, including Keeping a Nature Journaland How to Look at a Bird. She is a member of the National Guild of Scientific Illustrators and the international Artists For Nature Foundation. She teaches nature drawing, field nature study, and the nature journal around the world, helping people of all ages to better connect with their own places.

Susan Loeb

Susan is a life-long painter specializing in oils and watercolors. Now that she has retired from teaching art she has more time to garden and be in nature. Journaling encourages close observation and amazement and sparks curiosity. Susan will be teaching how to contour-draw (outline) elements from the garden with an emphasis on paying attention to negative spaces.

Rachel Michaud

Rachel is a Certified Tennessee Naturalist, facilitator, and coach who finds joy in slow, intentional connection with nature. She has been nature journaling since 2020, when she first sketched a wobbly thistle in her hike log—proof that the practice is about attention, not perfection. As a slow-hike leader and board chair for Girls Who Hike TN, an inclusive hiking group, she fosters belonging in outdoor spaces. Indoors, she leads workshops for nonprofits and helps nature lovers apply the wisdom of the non-human world to their lives. Whether through ink on a page or boots on the trail, her work is rooted in deep listening, curiosity, and connection.

Jasmin Pittman

Jasmin Pittman is a writer, editor, and mentor living in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her work is featured in Bigger Than Bravery, Meeting at the Table, The Peace Table, and elsewhere. When she's not writing, cooking, or mothering, she's probably out in the woods.

Madeleine Jubilee Saito

Madeleine is a cartoonist living on Duwamish land in Seattle, Washington and the author of the forthcoming book You Are a Sacred Place: Visual Poems for Living in Climate Crisis.

Nina Veteto

Nina is a long-time forager, explorer, plant lover and art maker living in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. She's the creator of the Substack, Flora & Forage, with 6.5K+ subscribers. She also created the beautiful--and wearable--Field Guide Bandana to Appalachian Wildflowers.

IN THE COURSE WE EXPLORE

• nature observation

• phenology (what happens when)

• writing, including craft

• simple art exercises, including shapes

• borders, corners, spirals, dividers, banners & other page designs

• what gardens mean to us

• our favorite gardens

• our personal gardens

• the metaphorical garden

• weather

• mapping

• natural history

• perspective

• healing

• ancestral healing

• the breath

as well as your thoughts and feelings about it all.

The course is a chance to acknowledge and transcribe the enjoyment, contentment, sense of wonder, and inspiration that you get from gardens.

ON OR OFF

The vibe will be loving, inspirational, and hopeful.

You are not obligated to share your thoughts or your writing in any way. You will be welcome to turn off your video. Level of participation is your decision, and participation is always optional.

Show up on Sunday afternoons this spring at 5 pm Eastern Time for an hour directed toward curiosity and wonder. You can come for one session or for all six.

YOU WILL NEED

• your journal (unlined paper is best)

• sharpened pencils

• your pens

• crayons and/or colored pencils or pens

• a small children's watercolor tray

NOTE

We make recordings available afterward, in case you need to miss a session.