JCWritersPicExcited to spread the word about the next literary reading of Jersey City Writers. The competition this time was to write about Inclusion in Science Fiction, and my short fiction piece Duster is among the selected works. Books by Jersey City Writers will be for sale as well. Hope to see you there!

Strangers in Strange Lands
Wed, Aug 30, 2017 @ 6:30pm
Barrow Mansion, 83 Wayne St, Jersey City, NJ 07302

Featured works include:

Ancient Language by Joe Del Priore
Another World by Jessica Serrano
Slow Drip by Ed Stone French
The Final Mystery by Kevin Singer
The End of the World by Ray Norman
Heaven is a Place on Mars by Stephen Weber
Duster by Sarah T. Jewell
Consuela’s Quest by Beth Bentley
Exodus by Nick Stone

“We can train ourselves to respect our feelings, and to discipline (transpose) them into a language that matches those feelings so they can be shared. And where that language does not yet exist, it is our poetry which helps to fashion it.”

Audre Lorde poet

This week I encourage you all to read the essay Poetry is not a Luxury by Audre Lorde. Even if you are not a woman of color, I would like you to consider how her arguments might apply to your life, your poetry. Is there a hidden power in your core, in feelings you have yet to explore? I’d also like you to read two poems of hers, Hanging Fire, and Coal. Pick whichever poem resonates the most feeling in you, and then isolate that feeling, and study how it feels. Use her poetry as a leaping off point to explore your own feelings. What situation in your own life does the feeling conjure? Or perhaps you imagine a character’s situation, or a metaphor comes to mind… write as if your life depended on it.

Picture attribution: Elsad at the English language Wikipedia