I’m passionate (some would say ‘cranky’) about our right to tell our own story, to document our lived experiences as they have happened to us and have been processed through our individual consciousness.

As a writing workshop facilitator, it’s an honor and privilege to create the space in which new new or seasoned writers can do this.

So when someone calls or emails with a potential writing workshop request, it’s really flattering. And, once that organizational host asks, it’s often tempting to immediately say, “Yes.”

However …

Before signing that writing workshop contract, here are four questions to ask.

Question 1: What is Your Budget for this Writing Workshop?

Go on, ask…

You know that old saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone?”

During our 2020 COVID pandemic lockdown, the thing I missed most from my “normal” life was … no, not dining in restaurants, not outdoor barbecues, not shopping centers (yuck), not bars and certainly not gyms (yuck again).

In those late-spring 2020 days, before our state government or our New England weather permitted outdoor dining, the thing I missed most was sitting in a coffee shop or café. I know. In light of all our other deaths and losses, this was a very small complaint, right?

Still…

Growing up, we had no household telephone. Instead, in our rural Irish village, we had one of those street-side payphones. You know the ones: They were cream with a green trim. Inside, you had to turn a black handle to dial the operator. Then, you told the operator that you wanted to place a call to a certain number and you let your coins clink through to get connected.

Incoming calls? We didn’t really get any. Sometimes there was an emergency or quasi-emergency, and the post-office lady came to our door or called out over the backyard wall. …

As a writer and as a white woman and as a naturalized U.S. citizen, I cannot yet write about systemic racism and our police murdering my fellow citizens and residents and documented or undocumented immigrants. I cannot write about a COVID-19 pandemic that, in some U.S. cities, has killed people of color at almost four times the rate that it has killed us white folks.

Not yet. I’m too slow. I’m too sorrowful. I’m too disgusted. I’m too furious.

Plus, I’m too Irish to fast-forward or insta-skip from death to mourning to writing.

So like most of us, this morning…

January 6, 2021

In my native Ireland, January 6th is Nollaig na mBan or Women’s Little Christmas, when our mothers were supposed to kick back and relax while our fathers did the housework.

Em .. Right.

Elsewhere, depending on your country, tradition or religious belief, January 6 is either just another day or the Feast of the Epiphany or the 12th Day of Christmas or La Fête des Rois or el Día de los Reyes Magos.

Of course, in 2021, the one-day switcheroo in male-female labor divisions is not supposed to be newsworthy or even a thing.

So nowadays, Nollaig…

(Psst: Most can be bought at your local dollar store)

Got a writer on your gift list this year? Just trot on over to your local discount place.

Here are some items for your shopping list:

1. Small, pocket-sized notebooks . We need them for those middle-of-the-night or stuck-on-a-train ideas.

2. Boxes of thank-you cards. I love to send out hand-written thank-you notes to editors, friends, book-discussion group hosts, bookstore event people and others. We can never have too many of thank-you cards.

3. Pens. Many, many pens. Yes, even in this digital age, many of us love to hand-write our drafts. Oh, and highlighters.

4. Post-it notes…

Yesterday I decided to dust off an old, holiday-themed essay. It had already been drafted and re-drafted, so (I convinced myself) it would only take an hour to edit, fix and pitch.

The essay was written in 2011, when I had pitched it to a popular Sunday magazine in which I had been previously published. Back then, the editor returned it with a nice note saying that it just didn’t work for that publication.

Today, thanks to eight years of editorial distance, I understood why my original draft got rejected. …

Recently, a woman asked me if, as a creative writer, I actually had time for any other work--including my paid day job.

The tone and body language told me that this wasn’t just friendly small talk between two just-met strangers.

Instead, the inference was that I was short changing the part of my life that mattered (day job) to feed the other (creative writing and teaching).

Haven’t you been there, too?

You’re so gobsmacked by a stranger’s question that, at best, you respond with something evasive or inadequate.

Then, hours or days afterward, here are all those clever things you…