Stories from the Heart IV

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•Open Mike
•Story Wall / Scrapbook /
Heart-to-Heart Table

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Friday, February 1
12pm	Registration opens [Highland Lakes Foyer]
1:30-3:30pm	Optional Pre-Conference Workshop with Susan Wittig Albert, $30 [Lake LBJ Room]
4-5pm	Conference Welcome session: Penny Appleby, SCN President [Lake LBJ Room]
5:30-7:30pm	Dutch-treat dinner, Wyndham Hotel restaurant
7:30pm	Keynote Speech: We are All Alchemists: How to Turn Your Sorrow into Gold, Nancy Aronie [Lake Austin Room] (Dessert reception following; included in registration fee) [Lady Bird Lake Room]
Saturday, February 2
8:30am	Registration opens [Highland Lakes Foyer] Hospitality Suite open (check registration desk for times)
9-10:30am	Session 1
10:30-11am	***Coffee/Tea Break*** [Highland Lakes Foyer]
11am-12:30pm	Session 2
12:30-2pm	Lunch (included in registration fee) [Lady Bird Lake Room] "Musical Memories and Anecdotes" with Sue Bilich, Paullette MacDougal, and Greta Gutman on piano
2-3:30pm	***Free time***
3pm	***Drinks & light refreshments*** [Highland Lakes Foyer]
3:30-5pm	Session 3
5-8pm	free time; Dutch-treat dinner, Wyndham Hotel restaurant and other nearby restaurants We will have several "Special Interest" tables
8-10pm	After-dinner Open Mike: Storytelling from the Heart , Becca Taylor, Mistress of Revels [Lake Travis, Lake LBJ, ELC Rooms]
Sunday, February 3
9-10:30am	Session 4
10:30-11am	***Coffee/Tea Break*** [Highland Lakes Foyer]
11am-12:30pm	Session 5
12:30-2pm	Lunch (included in registration fee) [Lady Bird Lake Room] Inspirational music and remarks by Susan Lincoln of Hilde Girls

Susan Wittig Albert, Ph.D., our Friday afternoon pre-conference workshop facilitator, is a former English professor and university dean and vice-president. The recipient of many teaching awards and fellowships, she is the author of numerous books for young adults and the best-selling author of three mystery series: the China Bayles herbal mysteries, the Robin Paige Victorian mysteries, and (her latest) the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. She is also the author of Work of Her Own and Writing From Life: Telling Your Soul's Story. In 1997, she founded the Story Circle Network. Susan's website is mysterypartners.com.

Nancy Slonim Aronie, our Friday-night keynote speaker, has been a college professor at Trinity College in Hartford, CT and a teaching fellow at Harvard University; a television performer in the mini series "Catch a Rainbow" on Channel 5 in Boston, a magazine columnist with a year's column in McCalls and a commentator for NPR's "All Things Considered". She is the author of Writing from the Heart, Hyperion, Little Brown which is about to go into its seventh printing. She hosts an hour long weekly radio talk show "Writing from the Heart" on Lime Radio, Sirius Satellite. She teaches the "Chilmark Writing Workshop" in her home on Martha's Vineyard. Nancy's website is nancyaronie.com.

Susan Lincoln began her career in opera and vocal performance at UT Austin, but soon branched into a broader understanding of music as a source of healing power. After a pivotal experience at the German Abbey of 12th century mystic and composer, Hildegard of Bingen, Susan committed herself to helping women heal through the power of their own voices. She returned to Austin and founded the Hilde Girls, spirit-song-circles of women she leads through Hildegard's music and healing wisdom. A gifted and charismatic teacher, Susan facilitates workshops, leads retreats and works with individuals using sound and vibration to heal. She has taught on the faculty of The School of Conscious Harmony, Sedona, and The Journey School, New Orleans. To learn more about Susan and her work visit her website, susanlincoln.com.

Penny Appleby, our Friday afternoon Conference Welcome session speaker, is the 2008 President of the Story Circle board of directors. She lives in Austin, where she has been a member of the local Austin SCN reading circle since 1997. Penny facilitated and continues to participate in an on-going OWL-Circle group. Since her retirement to Austin in 1997, she has been active in several volunteer-supported organizations, including acting as an Austin Museum of Art docent and reading mentor in a grade school program. Penny is also active in the American History Club (the oldest women's club in Austin).

Mapping Our Stories [Lake LBJ Room]
Susan Wittig Albert, Bertram TX
A "personal map" is a representation of our personal understanding and awareness of the places we inhabit, based on our daily practices, life experiences, and cultural values. Whether our maps focus on the external geography (the physical places in which our life stories take place) or our inner geography (the way we feel about those settings), they help to clarify not only our understanding of a particular place and its local and larger contexts, but its role as the setting for our personal stories. In this workshop, we will look at and discuss several life-story maps, construct our own, and write about them.

1. Circles of Creativity:

   Coming Full Circle: [Lake Travis Room]
   Joyce Boatright, Houston TX; Lisa Shirah-Hiers, Austin TX; Sandi Stromberg, Houston TX

   You started out a timid member in a writers' group, an OWL group or story circle, and you grew in skill and confidence. Get ready to come full circle! In this session you'll learn how to take on the leadership role of growing a free-range story circle, OWL group or any women's writing group. Learn from the experts. We'll provide you with the tools you'll need to build a successful program.

2. Nuts & Bolts:

   Panel: Blogs & Life-Writing: Finding Our Voices On-line: [ELC Room]
   Moderator: Susan Albert, Bertram TX
   Panelists: Pat Flathouse, Austin TX; Sharon Lippincott, Monroeville PA; Patricia Pando, Bainbridge GA; Becca Taylor, Pinehurst TX

   Many are using the magic of the Internet to record and share their life stories. Hear how SCN members are using blogs (web logs) to piece together the fragments of experience into personal story, gaining a new awareness of their inner and outer lives and providing themselves and their readers an intimate view of life-in-progress.

3. Putting Our Hearts on Paper:

   Solitude: Balm & Mystery: [Lake Austin Room]
   Barbara Miller, Austin TX

   Finding solitude in the midst of our chaotic society is a daily challenge, especially for writers. The focus for our writing and discussion will be to identify and explore the barriers to solitude, reflect on our personal experiences of solitude and its value, and write and articulate a plan to attain space for personal solitude.

4. Myriad Methods of Storytelling:

   Place as Character: [Lake LBJ Room]
   Paula Yost, Yantis TX

   This workshop will stress the importance of using details and sensory input to bring the environment to life and transform it into a key "character" in our writing. Through timed writings and discussion, we will learn how the myriad, seemingly insignificant details of nature come together in our memories of a place, and how to include those details in our writing in order to make it come alive for readers.

1. Circles of Creativity:

   Money Matters: [Lake Travis Room]
   Carolyn Blankenship, Lockhart TX

   "Money is power." "Time is money." "The love of money is the root of all evil." Messages about money are passed down from generation to generation, worn and chipped like the family dishes. Your memories about money will tell you a lot about where you put your time and energy, what you really value, and why. We'll use a variety of writing techniques to explore our sometimes ambivalent feelings about this touchy subject.

2. Nuts & Bolts:

   Harvest Your Family Tree and Write Scrumptious Stories: [Lake Austin Room]
   Cindy Bellinger, Pecos NM

   From land deeds and birth certificates to stories heard around the kitchen table, this workshop shows how to turn family legacies and genealogy research into solid pieces of writing. We will also discover how facts from dry, legal records can wondrously fill in so many of the lost threads in stories.

3. Putting Our Hearts on Paper:

   Through a Glass Darkly: Accessing Your Inner Muse: [Lake LBJ Room]
   Lisa Shirah-Hiers, Austin TX

   In this workshop, we'll discover why creative blocks occur, explore playful ways to reactivate and honor our inner muse and recover the writer within by using music, art activities and writing prompts. We'll gain an appreciation for our inner sources of inspiration and a better understanding of our unique creative process.

4. Myriad Methods of Storytelling:

   Digital Storytelling: You Can Try This at Home!: [ELC Room]
   Martha Meacham, Driftwood TX

   Like scrapbooking done on a personal computer, digital storytelling is a way to preserve memories and share recollections. This introduction to digital storytelling targets the home computer-user. Come learn how to blend pictures with word stories told in your own voice to create narrated slide shows and simple movies.

1. Circles of Creativity:

   Panel: Cooking Up Memories: [Lake Austin Room]
   Moderator: Jane Ross, Austin TX
   Panelists: Peggy Grose, Austin TX; Pat LaPointe, Prospect Heights IL; Bonnie Watkins, Austin TX

   There are so many ways to write about food! These panelists will present a variety of ways to turn our memories of food and cooking into delicious stories that will be a delight to share.

2. Nuts & Bolts:

   Making Your Pages Picture Perfect: [ELC Room]
   Sharon Lippincott, Monroeville PA

   Even the most touching and carefully written story can lose impact if it looks sloppy in print. This workshop will demonstrate steps involved in attractively "framing" the words from our hearts and show how to get those stories transferred from hard drives to hard copy. We'll demystify word processing programs, look at using fonts, margins, graphics, and learn how to combine files to make our stories something to be proud of.

3. Putting Our Hearts on Paper:

   Here Be Dragons: Women Writing from the Edge: [Lake Travis Room]
   Susan Albert, Bertram TX

   We will explore some dangerous, difficult, and challenging areas, writing about places, situations, and people "on the edge." Where are our dragons? What are the farthest unexplored places (literal, virtual, metaphorical) we have reached? What does it mean to write "from the edge"? What is "Xtreme" writing?

4. Myriad Methods of Storytelling:

   Writing & Yoga: Listening With the Ear of Your Heart: [Lake LBJ Room]
   Regina Moser, Austin TX

   Come participate in a seated Yoga practice designed for releasing stress while seated in a chair or at a desk. We will journal and write about the process of listening to our bodies, focus on quieting our minds, and support each other in being present as we use our journal to open our hearts and connect mind, body and spirit.

1. Circles of Creativity:

   The Magic of Metaphor: [ELC Room]
   Jan Golden, Largo FL; Patricia Daly, Largo FL

   Is your story like an incredible sunrise or is it more like a dark storm? Do you get stuck trying to describe what you're trying to say? In this workshop you will learn how use metaphors to express what you are trying so hard to describe. Discover (or re-discover) metaphors in this hands-on workshop and watch your story blossom!

2. Nuts & Bolts:

   Giving the Critic the Slip: How to Get Words on Paper and Feel Good about It: [Lake Austin Room]
   Helen Leatherwood, Beverly Hills CA

   This workshop will help participants learn how to scoot right by that inner critic and tap into the right brain's natural spring of stories. We'll learn specific methods to prevent the left brain's critic from damming up one's natural flow of words and have fun doing it. Participants will go home with tools to help them write faster, easier, and with more creativity.

3. Putting Our Hearts on Paper:

   Words That Heal: [Lake Travis Room]
   Pat Flathouse, Austin TX

   This workshop focuses on the healing power of telling our stories. We will discover that our stories contain important lessons and see how writing them down often helps us put our things into perspective. We will become more aware of our inner guidance and learn to recognize the wisdom in our own writing that can help us work out solutions to or acceptance of our difficulties.

4. Myriad Methods of Storytelling:

   Weaving Our Stories: The Fabric of our Lives: [Lake LBJ Room]
   Barbara Heming, Abiquiu NM

   Like fabric constructed by the interlocking of warp and weft, so our lives are woven of the threads of our circumstances and those of our choices. In this workshop, we will explore the image of weaving a way to access and express the color, texture and weight of our stories.

1. Circles of Creativity:

   Exploring Our Cultural Traditions: [Lake Austin Room]
   Linda Wisniewski, Doylestown PA

   America is in transition from the old "melting pot" metaphor to a beautiful cultural mosaic. It has been reported that "ethnic" or cultural writing comprises 35% of the publishing market. Come find out how sharing our personal experience of ethnicity, today and yesterday, enriches our writing.

2. Nuts & Bolts:

   Panel: From Pen to Print: [ELC Room]
   Moderator: Paula Yost, Yantis TX
   Panelists: Cindy Bellinger, author of Journaling for Women, Pecos, NM; Theresa May, editor, University of Texas Press, Austin TX; PJ Pierce, author of Let me tell you what I've learned: Texas Wisewomen Speak, Austin, TX; Donna Remmert, author of Littlest Big Kid and The Jitterbug Girl, Boulder, CO; Janet Riehl, author of Sightlines: A Poet's Diary, St. Louis, MO

   Come learn what women are getting published and how. Our panelists have published quite successfully in many venues, including university presses, self-publishing, and in a variety of formats. They're excited to share their knowledge and answer your questions about sharing your work.

3. Putting Our Hearts on Paper:

   Finding Our Way Home: The Next Chapter: [Lake Travis Room]
   Jeanne Guy, Austin TX

   What does it mean to find your way home? Maybe you want to move fully and mindfully into the next chapter of your life. A woman in her 20's is in a different place or chapter in her life than a woman in her 50's, 60's or 70's. Let.s start where we are and explore the possibilities for the next chapter in our lives. Together, let's find "...a place where the dirt feels like goodness under your feet..." and discover what home means to us and what it feels like to be there.

4. Myriad Methods of Storytelling:

   Pass It On: The Lost Art of Storytelling: [Lake LBJ Room]
   Rhonda Esakov, Georgetown TX

   We'll learn how to write very short stories and camp fire tales gleaned from our vast memories of the tales told by our grandmothers, folklore and around the campfires when we were younger; then practice methods of sharing our stories with others.

It's Saturday night in Austin TX—what would you like to do after you've enjoyed a fine dinner at one of Austin's many great restaurants? Well, you might take in a film, or visit Austin's disco district (the River City is widely known as the Live Music Capital of the World).

Or we could all hang out together and swap stories.

Swap stories?

Hey, what a great idea! After all, isn't that what Story Circle is all about? And who has more stories to swap than women—women who have loved and laughed and cried and succeeded and failed and survived and, yes, triumphed! Creative, canny, crafty, clever, courageous women. Women who have lived ordinary, extraordinary, and sometimes downright outrageous lives!

So for Saturday night's entertainment, we offer you—ta da! (a flourish of trumpets and rattle of drums, please)—an open mike!

And all you have to bring is you, and your story. Maybe it's a piece you've already shared with your Story Circle, or a poem or two that you've just finished, or a short autobiographical fiction piece. Maybe it's a story to be sung, or danced (if you need music, let us know ahead of time). Or perhaps you'd like to bring a piece of art that you've made—pottery, painting, textile, whatever—and tell us how and why it is part of your story. The sky's the limit, gals, and the only thing we have to fear (as some famous man said once) is fear itself. So let's see how many different stories, and how many different ways to tell a story, we can all come up with.

To give each story-teller a chance to participate, we'll divide up into as many as 9 groups - each in a separate meeting room. We ask you to limit your turn at the mike to five minutes. And in order to help our Mistress of Revels, Becca Taylor, to do a good job, we'll also ask you to sign up for a turn at the mike when you pick up your registration materials. Please sign up before 6pm on Saturday. And please bring a copy of your piece to post on the Story Wall—and plan to email it to us, as well, for sharing with the attendees!

Remember that wonderful '60s song that began "When you come to San Francisco, be sure and wear flowers in your hair"?

When you come to Austin, Texas, be sure to bring a story from your heart. We're eager to hear it, y'all!

^*Session topics are still tentative.