Join me in this writing class on Tuesday evenings, 6 - 8 PM - from your own home

Pass the word!

No matter where you live, you can attend my next writing class on Zoom. Online classes help us reach writers in distant areas who cannot attend in person. 

Quote from a student:   Despite the challenges of ZOOM, my recent Creative Writing class with Glenda Beall proved valuable. Motivation, learning new things and excellent peer review far outweighed the perceived difficulties of distance learning. Hopefully, Zoom classes won’t be the new norm, but if so, know that Glenda and the students handled the shortcomings well. Class notes were emailed and students shared work and suggestions via email and Zoom. I couldn’t ask for a better outcome despite my technical aversions. M.C. Brooks

Beginning May 17 for six weeks I will teach a course on writing your life stories. The classes run weekly through June 21.

Because many work during the day, I am offering this class Tuesday evenings.  6 PM - 8 PM. Fee: $40

Email Glenda Beall - glendabeall@msn.com for instructions on how to register.

Write Your Life Stories for Your Family or for Publication:

Our life stories are a precious legacy. Putting them in writing is a gift to all who know and love us—they can be treasured and enjoyed for generations to come. Facts bring us knowledge, but stories bring us wisdom.

If you are interested in writing family/personal life stories – those significant tales of adventure, transition, love, loss, and triumph, as well as the lovely everyday moments shared with loved ones from the past or the present, come learn specific tools and techniques to retrieve and record them.

We will answer all of your questions about how to write your true life stories. Where do I begin? How can I write about my long life? Who can I include? What can I include?

Students will write a short piece each week and receive feedback from their peers. Each student receives personal attention from Glenda. This class is structured for beginning and intermediate writers.

Please pass this on to those who might be interested. 

Virtual Class March 22, 7 - 9 PM

Join me on Zoom for a two-hour free class on writing about your life.
Read more about it here.

When you write your life stories, you want to Inform, Entertain and Enlighten. This will keep your reader engaged and wanting to read your entire book. We will do some writing in class and you will be given handouts.

You will register with the Carl Sandburg Home Historic Site, Connemara, located in Flat Rock, NC, a delightful place to visit. But I will not be there. I will be home on my computer and you can do the same. Hope to see you there.

Good friends, good times, and good books

Heavy clouds over the blue mountains

A rainy week but sunny today and I will soon go out into it.

I go to physical therapy twice a week and I enjoy it. Many might think that is unusual, but my therapists are friendly, kind, and competent. We chat and that makes the work go more easily and quickly. 

For ten minutes I ride the bicycle (the one that goes nowhere) and I often listen to a book while I pedal. I am listening to Barack Obama read his book about his childhood and his African father. Dreams from My Father is a memoir about Barack's early life. This book was written in 1995, years before he would become the American President. Not only is Barack Obama a fantastic writer, but he also reads his work so well I feel he is sitting beside me telling me his story.

As my readers know, I thrive on true stories about people and the lives they live or have lived. Obama writes about how he imagines the meeting of his father and his white grandparents. He writes about how his grandfather had not had much reason to consider race until he moved to Texas where he was told how he should treat black people. "Don't ever call them mister" and his mother, as a girl, was taunted by other children for having a black girl over to play. 

I wonder, if those who hold racist feelings about Barack Obama, read this book, would they see him as they would see any little boy growing up in the sixties. Being a brown child in Hawaii, the color of his skin might not have been such a challenge as it would be in the mainland of the United States. This book is entertaining, informative, and enlightening, three things I believe a memoir must be for me to enjoy it.

This weekend found me on the telephone for hours at a time. An old friend called on Saturday and since we have not talked in a long time, we just kept thinking of things to say. 

Friday evening I hosted a Zoom writing event, Writers' Night Out on my Zoom account while Karen Holmes introduced and talked with a fine poet from Seattle, Washington. Several members of her family joined us for the reading, including her parents. Once again I marveled at the opportunity to meet and hear this writer who lives on the far western side of our country while I sat here in the North Carolina mountains. 

On Sunday I had another long conversation on the phone. This time I talked with my sister, Gay, about the progress made this week on the apartment she is creating at her house. I am excited about having this nice place to go to where I can stay as long as I want. Where I can see and visit with family members anytime. I will have a home away from home. 

Here at home, my writing friends are so supportive of me and helpful. One of my students, Raven, has gone to the grocery store for me a couple of times. A former student, Nancy Rowland, and Jay, her husband, came over and took care of some issues I had with my house that I could not do for myself. Jay even thinks he can replace the door handle for my microwave and plans to come back later this week. These kind people don't want or expect any payment from me. They are simply good people who want to help. It is this kind of generosity and caring that keeps me hopeful that our country will overcome the anger and division we face now.

Monday I will teach a writing class on Zoom from my own chair and my own computer at my house. We have a terrific class of writers who are eager to tell their unique stories. I hope they enjoy it as much as I.

Visit www.glendacouncilbeall.com to read my latest post on writing a memoir. 

I love to read your comments, so please let me hear from you.

Tell me if you have experienced kindness and generosity or if you have shown caring for others lately. Do you see a kinder and gentler nation rising from the ashes of COVID?  

Visit me here:

www.riceandbeall.blogspot.com

www.netwestwriters.blogspot.com 

Digging up Memories and Planning for New Ones

I have been working on ways to improve my blogs and website this past week. I have changed my website, www.glendacouncilbeall.com and I like the new colors which make it easier to read. I was thinking about hiring someone to update my pages, but upon looking around, I find I like what I have and it works for me.

I would like your opinion. If you think I could improve my blogs by making them more modern in appearance, please let me know.

I am thinking about opening my studio again but just for online classes. Now that I have found Zoom is so easy to use for most of us, I can hold virtual classes and host other writers who teach. 

The Zoom format would work well for me because I can hold those classes from home or from my sister's house or wherever I might be. 

I went down to my studio this afternoon and worked about four hours going through files, discarding papers I no longer need and surprising myself when I found little treasures that have been buried in that file cabinet for much too long. 

I began publishing poetry and short nonfiction in 1996 after taking classes with poet, Nancy Simpson, my mentor and my friend who is gone now. In my files are encouraging notes from her complimenting me on my poetry. I also kept her handouts and used them when teaching poetry to beginners. So many memories turn up when we delve into those folders where we tucked them away long ago.

As we age, we can not do all the things we once did. 

Like my friend who was a skydiver said on her blog, those days are gone now, but she has wonderful memories that will always be with her. 

This is a portrait of Pretty Thing done by my sister, Gay Moring

My memories of my horse, Pretty Thing, still linger in my mind and in my heart. A sorrel mare with a blaze, she was perfect for me. She came to our farm when she was a two-year-old.

I had her for twenty-eight years and she was a wonderful friend. I can't ride now. The last time I got on a horse and rode for an hour, I had to have help getting out of the saddle. Then I had to have help for a minute to make my knees work.

I am accepting the loss of those activities I loved when I was young and those activities I enjoyed here in my studio. But, with the new technology, I can continue with my Writers Circle Around the Table. Maybe this summer or fall will be a renewal for me and I can invite those excellent writers and poets who live in distant places to join me here in western North Carolina while they sit at their computer at their home. 

My friends, thank you for visiting me here. I hope you will subscribe to my blog and even though Google is going to stop sending you emails when I post, I will find a new way to keep you informed.

Have a great week.