STORY CIRCLE NATIONAL E-LETTER
Vol. 1 Number 1
January 2000
******************
It's a new year, a new century, and a new millennium--and a wonderful time to send you our first free Story Circle National E-letter! We'll be e-mailing once a month with an update on Story Circle news, inspiring quotations, book reviews, a life-writer's notebook of great ideas to help keep you writing, and links to our own Story Circle website and other websites we've found interesting. We suggest that you file it so you can re-read it later (we hope we've provided some ideas and material that you'll want to return to). We also hope you'll forward it to your friends. There's no better way to start off the new year and the new millennium than by resolving to write your life--and we're here to help you keep that resolution!
*****************
STORY CIRCLE NEWS
Internet Chapter
Our webmistress and computer whiz Peggy Moody has been busy setting up our new Internet Chapter, and we hope to have it open for membership within the next few weeks. Membership is open to any woman who is already a member of the Network. Dues will be $12 a year. Chapter members will have access to a growing list of services: on-line classes and workshops, free writing prompts and quotes, articles, interviews with fascinating women, bulletin boards, a chat room, and even a place for you to publish your work. We'll be adding these features over the next year, with your support and contributions. We'll invite you to join when the site is ready--so please watch for our invitation!
Story Circles
If you're leading a Story Circle in your community, please let us know about it so we can report on it here and also in the Story Circle Journal, our quarterly print newsletter. And don't forget that we'll be glad to provide you with free sample copies of the Journal for your group. Just write to our office (our address is at the end of the newsletter) and tell us how many free copies you'd like to have.
******************
TRUE WORDS FROM REAL WOMEN
There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there. - Indira Gandhi
Before you can do something that you've never done before, you have to be able to imagine it's possible.--Jean Shinoda Bolen
******************
THE LIFE-WRITER'S NOTEBOOK
In our Austin Reading Circle, we're reading Reeve Lindbergh's memoir about life with her famous father (Charles Lindbergh) and mother (Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author of many published journals and memoirs). Reeve Lindbergh says:
"'Write it down!' our mother had told us whenever we said something that particularly interested or touched here: write down that sharp insight, that funny story, that especially appealing turn of phrase. She taught us that any experience worth living through was worth writing about, but beyond this, she made us feel that the act of writing about it significantly affected the experience itself."
So this year, resolve to start writing it down. Find a notebook that invites you, a pen that feels light and easy in your fingers, a comfortable place, a quiet time--and write it down. One way to begin: write down the words "I remember" and then keep on going. Don't worry about staying with the first memory that comes--instead, follow the thoughts as they come into your mind, as if you were an explorer following a trail into the wilderness. And don't worry about whether these are "authentic" memories--they're traces of memory, and have their own authenticity.
Want more ideas for writing your life? Go to www.storycircle.org and click on LifeStory Briefs.
*****************
BOOK REVIEW
Writing as a Way of Healing, by Louise De Salvo, Ph.D., HarperSanFrancisco 1999
"Writing has helped me heal. Writing has changed my life. Writing has saved my life."--Louise De Salvo
Louise De Salvo's wonderful book is a moving testimony to the belief that writing is a way of healing old wounds, as well as preserving old memories; and that as we write, we invent a new life for ourselves, as well as see more clearly our old lives. One of my favorite sections is called "The Yoga of Writing." Here are a few selections from it:
We work without expectation. We work to work, not to produce a work of genius. Or to get a six-figure advance. Or to make the best-seller list. We write to engage in the process of writing.
For me, De Salvo's book has become a kind of credo. I hope you'll read it and learn from this wonderful teacher!--Susan Wittig Albert
*****************
YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS
We welcome your contributions of women's quotations, updates from your Story Circle, brief book reviews, and life-writing tips and ideas. Please email them to Susan Albert at susanalbert@storycircle.org.
*****************
WHO WE ARE AND HOW TO JOIN US
The Story Circle Network is a non-profit organization made up of women who want to explore their lives by exploring and sharing their stories. Annual membership is $20. Members receive four issues of the Story Circle Journal, a 16-page quarterly filled with writing ideas, members' writing, interviews, articles, and book reviews. To join, send a check for $20 to
NOTE: If you received this email from a friend and would like to join one of our eLetter mailing lists, you can do so via the web or via email:
Copyright (c) 2000 by Story Circle Network, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce or distribute this newsletter only in its entirety, including this copyright notice.