–When I write, I like to practice what Emily Dickinson suggested about telling the truth. That is, to “tell the truth, but tell it slant.”
–I prefer to write my beginning drafts with a blue medium point Bic ballpoint pen on loose leaf college ruled notebook paper. The problem is, college ruled is wider these days then when it was several years ago. I know this because I measured it against the paper I used to use.
–I’m terrified of bees and dogs. This seems to come up in my writing frequently.
–Sometimes what I write gets published in magazines. My work has appeared in Christian School Teacher, The Banner, and Christian Home and School.
–While I love to read, I don’t think I could pick out a favorite book. However, my favorite storyteller was my elementary school librarian, Mrs. Lewendowski. When she read us stories, she was very careful with the pages as she turned them. She never licked her fingers or whipped them over so they made a cracking sound. She took good care of words. On an early spring morning, when we kids were on the brink of adolescence, and the chairs we sat in to hear stories year after year became uncomfortable to sit in, she told us to look outside at the buds on the trees. She wanted us to notice their growth as we walked home from school each day. “Things are changing,” she told us. That seemed significant, and I’ve tried to take note of things ever since.
-I am a graduate student working on my MFA in Creative Nonfiction through Seattle Pacific University.
You can contact me at: calliefeyen@yahoo.com
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I enjoyed learning about you as a writer on this page. And I love that poster you got for Christmas! Coffee and blogs. How would we live without them?
~ Milli
I recently read “Girl on a Bike” in Christian Home and School Magazine and heard the sound of the tuning fork of truth when I read, “…my youngest daughter, Harper, looks like a blue Peep as she steps carefully with one foot, then gently steps away, fascinated by her footprint.”
A writer dares to show readers the world in new, fresh ways, even (perhaps especially) the parts we encounter every day but manage not to see. Seems to me you have a writer’s eyes in your head and in your heart. Plus you’re a mother, so you likely have them in the back of your head as well.
If you ever doubt that you’re a writer (and what writer doesn’t?), then remember that fascinating footprint in the snow; it proved to me that you’re a writer, and it should give you courage to believe the same. Thanks for the story.
Scott
Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging comment! Indeed, it gave me lots of courage. Thank you for stopping by and for reading “Girl on a Bike.”