Notes from The Writer's Corner

This week ... A call for essays! What's coming up next week! And save the dates!

Call for essays …

Did you know WISDOM & WORDS runs essays?

Do you have a story that needs a home? Maybe it’s been rejected because it isn’t based on a trending topic or it doesn’t fit a certain formula. Maybe you’ve already shared it on your own platform but are looking for a way to get more eyes on it (yes, you can pitch pieces that you’ve already published elsewhere). Or maybe it’s an excerpt from a longer work.

Whatever it is, we’d love the chance to read it!

Click here for instructions on how to pitch your essay.

What’s coming up next week …

October 7 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST - Judith Lindbergh on Considering Whether to Publish Family Secrets
Should you or shouldn’t you? Writing about things that happen behind closed doors can be challenging. In this session, we’ll unpack all the pros and cons of writing family stories. Special guest Judith Lindbergh is the author of the books Akmaral and The Thrall’s Tale. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including in Newsweek, Zibby Magazine, Next Avenue, Writer’s Digest, Literary Mama, Archaeology Magazine, Other Voices, and UP HERE: The North at the Center of the World published by University of Washington Press. Judith received a 2024 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She is the Founder/Director of The Writers Circle, a creative writing center.

Our fall lineup keeps getting better and better! Mark your calendar for these upcoming sessions you won’t want to miss …

October 21 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST - Julie Maloney on Your Writing Life Deserves Happiness
Many writers get caught in the trap of feeling stress around their work—you aren’t producing enough, what you are producing isn’t good enough, or that “it” you thought you had seems to have vanished into thin air. In this session, we’ll talk about ways to turn that mindset around and remember what brought you to writing in the first place. Special guest Julie Maloney is a poet and writer and founder/director of WOMEN READING ALOUD, a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of women writers. Since 2003, she has guided women writers throughout the USA and across the Atlantic through writing workshops, retreats, and special literary events.

October 28 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST - Claudia Johnson on Book Banning
Claudia Johnson is a nationally recognized advocate for free speech and social justice. In 1993 she was honored with the inaugural PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award, presented by Paul Newman, for her “extraordinary efforts to restore banned literary classics to Florida classrooms”—and again in the 2022 “PEN America at 100: A Century of Defending the Written Word” exhibition at the New York Historical Society. She continues to fight book banning, helping to reinstate banned books in Virginia Beach classrooms and libraries. Her memoir Stifled Laughter: One Woman’s Story About Fighting Censorship was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize when first published by Fulcrum Publishing in 1994. In March 2023 Fulcrum released a new edition because the book “is even more relevant today.”

November 11 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST - Sherry Sidoti on Regulating the Writer Within: Memoir Writing as a Sacred + Healing Practice
Sherry Sidoti is an author and yoga teacher. She is the founder of FLY Yoga, a yoga teacher training program and non-profit that offers yoga and meditation for trauma resilience on Martha's Vineyard, MA. She leads embodied memoir writing courses, somatic healing workshops, and yoga + writing retreats globally. Her musings, infused by twenty-plus years of practicing and teaching yoga, healing arts, and mysticism have been published in Heart & Soul Magazine, Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly, Mystic Magazine, among others. Sidoti’s debut memoir, A Smoke and a Song received the 2024 Gold Medal for Non-Fiction/Inspirational with Readers’ Favorite Book Award, the 2023 Gold Medal for Inspirational Memoir with Living Now Book Award, the 2024 Grand Prize Winner Honorable Mention with Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Finalist for the da Vinci Eye Prize, and 2024 Finalist for National Indie Excellence Award.

November 18 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. Kathy Curto on TBD
Kathy Curto teaches at Sarah Lawrence College/The Writing Institute and Montclair State University as well as several nonprofit organizations and writing centers in the metropolitan area. She is the author of Not for Nothing-Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, on NPR, in the anthology Listen to Your Mother:  What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now, and in Barrelhouse, The Inquisitive Eater, Memoir Magazine, Oh Reader, The Mom Egg Review, Drift and Talking Writing among others. Kathy’s piece, “Still Cooking Side by Side” considered a “Modern Love in miniature” by The New York Times, was included in The Best of Tiny Love Stories in August 2021. She is co-founder of Key to the Castle Workshop and serves on the board of the Italian American Writers Association.

December 2 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. - Steve Almond
Steve Almond is the author of 12 books of fiction and nonfiction, including TRUTH IS THE ARROW, MERCY IS THE BOW and the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His recent books include the novel All the Secrets of the World, which has been optioned for television by 20th Century Fox, and William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life. For four years, Steve hosted the New York Times Dear Sugars podcast with his pal Cheryl Strayed. He is the recipient of a 2022 NEA grant in fiction, and his short stories have been anthologized in the Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Erotica, and Best American Mysteries series. He also publishes crazy, DIY books.

December 9 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. - Kimberly Senior on Articulating Your Point of View
Kimberly Senior is the author of WHAT WOULD A PERSON DO?: THOUGHTS ON DIRECTING AND LIVING. An award-winning freelance director, Kimberly was the director of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning play Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar. Kimberly made her HBO debut with Chris Gethard: Career Suicide, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Kimberly was awarded the prestigious Alan Schneider Award at the 2016 TCG Conference. She is also a 2013 Finalist for the SDCF Joe A. Callaway Award. She is the recipient of the 2016 Special Non-Equity Jeff Award for her Chicago career achievements as a trail blazer, champion and role model for emerging artists.