by Laurie Wagner | Feb 10, 2014 | Blog
One of the best things about staying with your work for a very long time is that you have a chance to understand, year after year, what exactly you’re doing. Not even because you’re trying to do it better, but because each year your work reveals itself even more to you, and you can deepen your understanding as to what it is about your work that you really care about. I knew I was teaching people something about writing for the last 14 years, but each year was an opportunity for me to peel away a little more the layers and get to the center of that work. Yes I could help people get published and find homes for their books and stories. Yes I wanted to help them tell their stories in engaging ways, but the more I worked with people, the more I understood that what I really cared about – more than whether someone published – was to inspire and to be among people who were striving to find the most honest language to tell their stories with. My aim is to help people find the words that open like doors and which invite both the reader and writer into deeper understanding of what it means to be alive. What I look for in a story is a chance to learn something – – not even a lesson per se, but perhaps some instruction on how to behave in the world. I remember seeing Ira Glass from the radio program, This American Life, on stage in S.F. many years ago and he told...
by Laurie Wagner | Jun 2, 2013 | Blog
The note your ten-year-old writes you because she heard you crying in the bathtub. “Mommy, we love you very much. Who wouldn’t?” The way she comes in while you’re laying there in three inches of hot water; depleted, exhausted, alone, and how she tacks her little note onto the tile across from where you lay so you can see it. “Mommy, we love you very much. Who wouldn’t?” The way your skin feels right after the bath; smooth and velvety and warm. The peace of being alone in the house because your husband has taken the children out for a bike ride, and how you sit on the porch with your summer skirt on and light up that cigarette. How glad you are that you saved this little bit of tobacco for a moment like this. The big, tall, magnificent trees in your yard and the way they move in the wind. The sound of the wind. The peace of being alone; everything is going to be alright, you tell yourself. You’re going to be alright. Wondering if you could fall in love with your husband again. The possibility that the love you seek is right here, at home, with him. The quiet beauty of your ramshackle home at the end of the road, a home with no one in it except you and the dog. The way you leave the front door open for the wind. How you need the wind to keep you moving, especially now. How after the cry, and the bath, and your late afternoon glass of wine, you feel capable again. Strong. Ready. Right....
