And then, an acceptance letter...

How quickly the tides turned!

I'm so thrilled that the Briar Cliff Review has accepted my essay for publication. I'd submitted it to a nonfiction contest, which it didn't win, but it was a finalist. Most importantly, they want to publish it. I'm going to be published!

When I got the news, Mom and I were Christmas shopping in the cities. I stood in a flower shop we love, reading my email on my phone. "The Briar Cliff Review wants to publish my essay," I told Mom. "That's good news, but I need you to look at this ribbon right now - will it go in my bedroom?"

Yep. Mom keeping me humble.

The essay is about my brother and me and our vastly different relationships to the same element: wood. I finished it on his 40th birthday. I let Jeff read the essay before I submitted it. He disappeared for a good hour and then shouted up from the basement, "Good work, Amy." It's hard and a little scary to share these kinds of insights and emotions with someone. I'm glad he liked it. When I called to tell him the essay was accepted, he told the guys at work on the construction site to quit hammering and shut off the saws so he could hear all the details. THAT's brotherly excitement.

The issue with my essay will publish in May 2013. My next big task (after the holiday playing rush is over) will be to head back to this laptop and finish some other essay-poetry-memoir ideas I started back in late October. One of them will be a flash nonfiction piece. I've never written flash anything, but I think it will be a good challenge.

My immediate task will be to toast the Muse of Acceptance Letters with a little bottle of (very cheap, very crappy, but it does the trick) champagne.

If you have to get a rejection letter...

...I hope it's as nice as this one.

I've been sending out some of my writing to contests and publications recently. I've had fingers crossed and been checking the mailbox and my email during breaks from performing, waiting for news.

I'm new at this submission thing. I haven't submitted anything for publication seriously since college. Then I got a harp and then, well, you know...

So putting my personal writing out into the world has been a little scary. It's exciting, though. It's a new road for me to travel, a different focus than my solid harp career, something I'm "emerging" with rather than continuing with as always. I like the feeling. I like the uncertainty. It's good to emerge with new art periodically in our lives, I think. It keeps us fresh (and humble).

And I love the feedback - "we very much enjoyed reading your essay" and "your piece flowed smoothly and inspired lively debates among our staff."

Onward. More mailbox and email checking in the next few months. Fingers crossed when I'm not playing holiday music. Wish me well!

My new favorite place to write

Gail's Hairport in North Mankato, while Ethel gets her hair done.

Playing every weekend this summer and being busy at work and taking care of a big old house and nursing a sick Harry cat back to health (he's fine now) have worn me out. And Ethel, my tiny little feisty 93-year-old neighbor took a bad fall last weekend and needs extra love and care right now. I've been so worried about her.

And I've been tired. Too tired to think. So I took Thursday and Friday of this week off so I could have a nice long Labor Day weekend. To rest, relax, sleep late. To get some good writing time in. To let the vacuum rest for a few days. To maybe give zucchini bread another try. To gorge myself on more of Dad's tomatoes.

Glad I had the day off, because Ethel needed someone to take her to her hair appointment. Gail's Hairport is cozy, air conditioned, quiet and smells like shampoo, hairspray and all sorts of good beauty stuff. Perfect for plugging in the laptop and making some edits (suggested by my super-smart and talented writer and editor friend Ann Rosenquist Fee) on an essay I'll be submitting for publication this weekend. Gail's fast - Ethel got a wash, roller set and comb-out in less than an hour. But it was just enough time for me to get in the writing mode.

While Ethel was under the hairdryer, I tried to talk Gail into having me ghost write a tell-all book filled with juicy stories she's heard while doing hair for the past 30 years. We think it'll be a best seller...in lower North Mankato. Though neither of us would probably ever work in this town again after it came out.

Where are some of the unique places you've found to write / be creative? I think I might try the bowling alley next...

Writing: Back at it

It's been a while since I've blogged about my writing project. Late last summer. And that's because my project has remained mostly untouched since I began preparations for my holiday concert in November. Lots of reasons for not writing. More than lots of excuses. Perhaps, more likely, I needed a break in order to have some distance from the story, to get some much-needed perspective.

Well, that's all over now. For the past couple of months, I've been meeting with the smart, talented and very supportive Rachael Hanel in our own little writing group. And now we've decided to start meeting on Saturday mornings at a local coffee shop to produce. To write. To not talk (too much anyway) and to just face the folders and get stuff done.

Evidence: Coffee cups, scones, laptops, Rachael typing furiously...

 

Rachael suggested that I print out everything I have written so far.

Here it is, taking up its own chair at the table.

A lot more than I thought it would add up to, and inspiration for writing more.

More Saturdays are on the calendar. Until then, I'm working on getting all these separate documents organized into folders and completing my outline. It feels good. Very good.

OK. Fine. I'll admit it.

It started in December. I don't know why, but I couldn't get myself to wake up in the mornings. Work was so busy and I had things I needed to write. Lots of things. My normal morning beverage of organic green tea spiced with lemon and spices just wasn't getting me going like it had since I broke my lifelong addiction to coffee (in 2005? 2007? I can't remember).

Lifelong? Yes. My grandfather used to spoon feed me coffee from his cup when I was an infant. Not even kidding. When my Mom and Grandma finally figured out why I was this screaming, caffeine-withdrawn baby and yelled at him, he said, "I had to give it to her. She wanted it." Oh, Grandpa. Oh, Grandma's egg cofee...

Anyway, December 2011. It began innocently enough. A styrofoam cup half full of crappy office coffee at work once in a while. Just for a little buzz. Maybe a chaser of decaf. It didn't mean I was a coffee drinker, though. Nope. Because I'm one of those healthy, eat-organic, don't devastate the rainforest kind of people, right? 

Yeah. This isn't even a week's worth of coffee cups.

That is one tall stack of environmentally unfriendly coffee cups.

I do like how the colors complement the Roget's Thesaurus that's always out on my desk, though.

For the caffeine and makeup addicted, here's the lipstick breakdown, top to bottom...

1,2: Chanel Rouge Allure #17, "Emotion"

3: Smashbox Legendary Lipstick, "Mandarin"

4: Chanel Levres Scintillantes lip gloss #158, "Braise"

5: Revlon ColorStay #320, "Dreamy Dusk" - tragically discontinued

6: Chanel Levres Scintillantes lip gloss #4, "Spark"

So I gave in. I made it official. I bought myself a cute coffee cup to use at work. No more ruining the environment with 10+ styrofoam cups every week. No more lying to myself. I've cut back to decaf, but still. I'm in. I'm doing it. 

I'm Amy. I'm a coffee drinker.

Mug: Anthropologie.

My first garage sale

Sale runs today from 3-7 p.m. and Saturday from 7 a.m. to noon.
637 Nicollet Avenue, North Mankato, Minnesota (out of town? worth the trip!)

...I'm thinking it will probably be my ONLY garage sale. Wow, the time I've spent getting ready for this - sorting, cleaning, setting up, pricing. 

Loot sample. There's more. Muuuuuch more.

And the emotions I've gone through while doing so. Oh, my heart. Each piece that's going on the sale has some kind of lovely old dream attached to it. My friend Gwen and my Mom came over to help me set up the other night and each time they commented on something, my heart would clench and I'd say, "I love that! I was going to (paint it, fix it, make a room divider out of it, make curtains out of it, turn it into a pot rack for the kitchen, make a headboard out of it, turn it into a lamp, make pillows out of it, put it in my garden, use them as candlesticks...) but I never did." Gwen said I should have called this a "...But I Never Did" sale. True.

Now, it's time. As much as I've loved having all this great, shabby, vintage, potential-filled stuff waiting in the garage for me, it's time it goes to people who will love it and use it. I've talked here about how how my priorities and passions have changed over the last few years. My garden has been neglected. I've spent more creative energy on writing and my harp and traveling and seeking than on decorating my home and turning old window screens into a room divider (...but I never did). I've been sorting through years of accumulated treasures and have made countless trips to the thrift store. They know my truck by sound now.

 But you can't really take 100 old windows to the thrift store...

Here's a sampling of what else is going on the sale. And don't faint - I'm even selling some Jadeite. I know. I surprised myself, too.

Vintage linens, old windows, a vintage secretary desk.

15,000 vintage hankies @ $1 each.

The cutest old chicken coop you've ever seen.

(I was going to raise chickens in my backyard....but I never...you know)

Sweet vintage dishes and prints. Flowers...

 Accumulated little "doo-das" (as my Mom called them) awaiting creative touches.

Pretty. (And they go with Fire King Jadeite, if you must know...)

Used to be in my first apartment, then on the porch, then I was going to put them in a baby's room...

but then I just never had a baby.

As promised, Jadeite. Yes, there are more pieces than Jane Ray pattern cups and saucers.

The coolest assortment of terra cotta pots EVER. 

I used to plant something in every single one of these things. Can you imagine???

Everybody needs goddesses frolicking in the garden, don't they?

And more vintage linens.

So, here we go. It's supposed to be pretty cold this weekend. But I'll have the chiminea fired up to keep cozy. Hope you'll stop by.

And now, a sight never before seen by human eyes

I was on the porch writing this weekend when I looked up and saw the rarest sight in the animal kingdom. Ever.

Jingle Belle on the other chair...but not alone.

She was sharing the chair with Sam.

Sharing, people. 

Meaning: she was on the chair with Sam

and their bodies were touching.

And nobody was getting torn to shreds.

Jingle Belle, she was perfectly happy with the all-girl arrangement she and I had before Harry showed up. And then Sam just kind of sealed her doom. She never got over that only-cat attitude, though. She doesn't share her space. Ever. Not even with me. If she decides to sit on my lap or come over for a scratch and a snuggle, I stop whatever I'm doing and enjoy it. Because it won't happen again for a while.

I don't know what brought on this unusual display of feline tolerance. I just crouched down behind my laptop and kept typing lest the incident end...badly. But it didn't. After about half an hour, Belle stretched and yawned and looked at Sam like, "Whaaat?" Sam looked a little panicked. I'm sure I did, too. But Belle just jumped off the chair to go sleep somewhere else. 

I'm calling The National Geographic Channel now.

I have a writing group!!!!

It was one of the things Jamie Cat Callan, the instructor of the writing seminar in France, told me was a must, must, MUST: that I absolutely had to break out of my solitary creative cocoon and find other writers to talk about writing with. Smart people to show my writing to. Kindred spirits to get support from.

And I have finally found my group!

(Stacks of papers, computers, prosecco, candles

and homegrown tomatoes...

all the necessities of writing meetings.)

One member lives right down the street from me, a many-times published memoirist and fiction author. We've run past each others' houses for years, we've said "hi" and waved as we've been unloading groceries or mowing the lawn. Finally, we decided it was high time to get together and talk shop, work the words, get into the craft. The other member is an instructor at Minnesota State University...teaching writing, of all things. Yeah. Smart, writers, kindred spirits. Check. 

I've been honored to be allowed into their stories. I've been moved to tears by their support and comments on my story. And we've just begun! I can't wait to read more of their writing and can't wait to share more of mine with them. And with their encouragement, I can't wait to write some more.Their comments have given me the freedom to write what I think, feel and know. A weight has been lifted. No more holding back. I'm going to let 'er rip. I have a four-day weekend ahead of me, by design, with only "WRITING" on my calendar. Bliss.

My new "office"

It's been so hot and so horribly humid that lately I've been feeling as cabin feverish as I did in the winter. Stuck inside.

 Grateful for the air conditioner roaring there from the window,
but...stuck. 

(I've gotten used to my papers blowing in the breeze.)

I've also been in a bit of cloister mode. No meetings with friends, no outings, no movies, no happy hours. Just work, home, write, brave the heat and humidity to go for a run, take a bath, write some more. I get that way, all solitary and reclusive and determined, when I'm working on a big project, and this writing project is a big one.

But then a friend broke through my cloister walls with a series of text messages. They went something like this...

Him: Moondogs game tomorrow? (The Moondogs are our local baseball team.)
Me: Can't. Writing day.
Him: Good for you. Drinks after?
Me: Writing. Not drinking.
Him: Lunch before then?
Me (feeling a little bored with what I had in the fridge): Um...
Him: Great. Noon. Mexican place uphill.

Undone by food again. I'm so easy. It was, however, nice to actually talk to somebody, nice to eat something I didn't cook (if you can call the salads and hummus and cottage cheese and fresh fruit I've been dining on lately "cooking"), nice to be in a place that's not my house.

Then came the second breach of the cloister: after lunch, my friend said that since the humidity and heat had broken he was heading out to Westwood Marina for an few hours of writing and sipping lemonade by the lake. Did I want to go? Did I want to go???? Yes, I said. But just for two hours. And he couldn't talk to me. No chit-chat. Serious stuff. Agreed.

Deck. Lake. Fresh air. Lemonade. Ahhh...

I worked on my book, he worked on song lyrics.

We only talked about stuff like a song title

that rhymes with keys ("Please Mr. Please")

and if accelerate has two "l"s. (It doesn't.)

Now that summer has become bearable again,

I think this may not be the last time I claim

the deck at Westwood as my alternate writing office.

(Plus there's really good free popcorn.)

My beautiful writing assistant

Jingle Belle, all ready to get to work.

It's so hot outside, there's nothing to do but seek the cool. To pull the velvet curtains and hole up in my gorgeous office near the window AC unit and write, write, write, write, write.

Belle is a great little assistant. She's sweet and cuddly. She scrunches down in my office chair next to me and purrs. She lets out an affectionate "rrrRRRRRrrrr" if I move (which keeps me in my seat and on task). She looks up at me once in a while, blinks her beautiful green eyes, goes back to sleep. She says she'll quit if I don't mention her in my memoir.

Oh, you're in there Belle. First appearance: page two.

Always a writer

I got a big, thick letter in the mail a while ago and the handwriting on the envelope was sooo familiar. When I looked at the return address, I saw it was from my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Enright. It took me right back to that little classroom in the old Rapidan School, the dusty smell of the chalkboards, the creak of the wooden floors, her voice, her laughter. I remember how much I learned from her, how wonderful she was with words, words, words.

 Teacher handwriting. 

In her letter, she told me that she was cleaning out some things and had found a bunch of old poems I had written while I was her student. She thought I would like to have them back. Reading them was a riot. I laughed so hard at my poems and at my great rhymes ("Fly, Eagle, Fly! Through the sky! Looking around with a watchful eye!" is just one stellar example). And then I felt such tenderness for my 5th grade self, my budding writing skills, how hard I tried to create art and a meaningful world for myself out there in that tiny town in the middle of the bean field.

 There were a lot of poems.

Writing was my solace.

My parents encouraged every single word I wrote, often "commissioning" me to write poems for birthday cards, thank you notes and anything else they thought would be...ahem...enlightened by my writing. They even helped me enter a contest where the winner got their writing and illustrations published in book form. That was, alas, my very first rejection letter. I was 11 years old.

However, from this batch of poems did come my very first publication. Mrs. Enright had asked me to write a Halloween poem for our class party. Then, proud and sneaky teacher that she was, she sent it to the Mankato Free Press and they published it. I vaguely remembered my great Aunt Margaret sending me a clipping of that poem, so I spent an hour digging through my closet for my old grade school scrapbook - and there it was, right next to our class newspaper, "The Tales of the 5th Grade Nothings" (ha!)...

...and here it is, in all its glory. Oh, my.

Just in case you can't read type that small, I'll gift you with this reprint. Ready?

On Halloween night

The shadows fight,

And Spiders cling to the wall.

In all the rooms

The people are doomed,

And ghosts pace the hall.

In forests deep

All witches creep,

Planning spells so mean.

And from nowhere around

Comes a roaring sound,

"Tonight is Halloween!"

© Amy Kortuem 1979

A farewell-to-spring poem

I've been writing a lot lately, working on my story, my memoir, my book. But I needed a break from prose and wrote this farewell to spring poem. Enjoy.

Spring looks like
she spent the night at the prom
and is rushing home
to beat her curfew at dawn.

 Her fresh corsage is now just
breeze blown petals
on the crushed grass.

Drying dying lilac blooms
have the over ripe scent
of stale drugstore perfume

 and petticoats of leaves
rustle immodestly on every tree
in the shifting, rising wind.

 Every tulip is ragged at petals’ edge,
scuffed from dancing
and swaying too close to one another

and the heavy buds of roses yet to come

bend their stalks over, over

like a careful up-do coming down.

Soon, perhaps tomorrow,
she’ll step out of her pastel dress,
shake off the pollen,
and slip into summer.

© Amy Kortuem 2011

If I can't write for Coldwater Creek, I'll play the harp for Coldwater Creek

 If you don't get the Coldwater Creek catalog, you should. 

Yeah, the clothes are beautiful and everything, but the WRITING - it's like getting a little volume of poetry, of gorgeous vignettes, of lovely little 50-word stories that transport you beyond clothing and and accessories into the place you want to be while wearing them.

That's good copywriting. And I know. I've been a copywriter for more than 15 years, and I'm pretty jaded. When other catalog copy manages to move me beyond the product to the experience, I bow down in homage.

I actually met the chief copywriter for Coldwater Creek once. I was at a catalog conference in San Francisco several years ago and she was one of the presenters. I was already a fan then. I introduced myself and dithered and mumbled something about wanting to write for her, write like her, work for her, to be her, wear clothes like her...and she said, "Thank you," and turned to the next person in line. End of dream.

Then, in December, the local Coldwater Creek store called and asked me to play for a holiday event. Playing at the mall is really a pain - parking, hidden entrances, loading docks, long hallways, dodging shoppers. But I agreed. Because I wanted to be part of it all.

No, they're not selling harps.

 Strange how you get what you want, 

like working for Coldwater Creek, 

but in ways you never expected.

I have come to accept these twists-of-fate kind of things lately with open arms. The universe and I are on timidly friendly terms, meeting in the middle on thin ice, shaking hands, eyeing each other up. I'm ready for more. Bring it on.

I got a rejection letter! (No, it's a good thing!)

I haven't submitted anything for publication since I was in college. But, buoyed with confidence and enthusiasm from my writing seminar in France in the fall, I decided to print out some poems languishing on my computer and send them off.

It was a contest, offering publication and a cash prize. I kissed the envelope and dropped it in the mail. And then in the flurry of holiday performances, I forgot about it. Until I got this in the mail:

A rejection letter!

So I didn't win the prize and my poetry won't be published, but it's a NICE rejection letter. One of the judges took the time to write me a personal note telling me I made it to the second round, that they loved my writing and that I had the talent to transport readers into the heart of the poem. 

Hooray! I learned at the writing seminar in France that it's rare for a judge or an editor to write a personal note on a rejection letter. It gave me hope and those encouraging words absolutely made my day.

The poem the judge is referring to is "Dominion," which I wrote last summer while sitting on my front porch after a run. I'm going to do something scary right now. Very scary. I'm going to share that poem with you. (Gulp. Shake.) Here goes:

Dominion

by Amy Kortuem

And God said, Let us make man in our image: and let him have dominion

over all the creatures on earth and over all the birds of the air. Genesis 1:26

This early evening is still and the heat is so close

my running pace turns plodding, reluctant,

slow enough to see a baby robin sleeping just beside the walk,

a jewel nestled in the damp uncut grass,

head tucked under its wing,

tiny spotted breast rising and falling.

I stop to bend over it,

worrying that the approaching dog will stretch its leash and startle the little thing,

that the black cat straying this block will find it easy prey,

that the cluster of clumsy boys on skateboards four houses down will crush it.

So I wait for the dog and its people to pass panting,

for the cat to roam in lazy distraction behind the neighbor’s hedge,

for the boys to give up their jumping for lolling on their front steps.

And I keep watch for the bird’s mother to

flutter at me with her protective wings,

dash at me, furiously chipping,

But she doesn’t appear.

Neither does a nest when I search upward into the haze of the leaves.

I remember standing small in my father’s tall shadow

over a baby bird windblown from my grandmother’s tree,

crying for dad to climb it back up to the nest

and he sighs but doesn’t,

tells me if the little one has his scent

the mother might not take care of it anymore.

Now, as then, the only power I have

is to stand and worry and wait and keep watch

until distant lightning spears the sky,

thunder rumbles some slow seconds later,

and I turn for home.

Copyright © 2010 Amy Kortuem

Read my wedding music post on the Jean M Blog

The Jean M wedding blog asked me to provide expert advice on choosing wedding music  — and I delivered!

Visit http://blog.myjeanm.com/ to read the post and get great ideas for your wedding, or forward it to an engaged friend.

I'm in my office

I've been procrastinating about writing. I hate hauling the computer around, having to share my "work space" (a.k.a. the couch) with three cats, having no desk and never a pen or a certain book or a picture when I need it.

So I made a decision. The cute little room next to my bedroom, which I've used for a dressing room and a reading/relaxing room for years, was going to go through a transformation.

Before: couch, rug, mirror, armoire.

After: a real office.

In it is my vintage desk I had stored away, my Paris mementos, a sassy red lamp or two, my books, my papers, my pens, my scarves from Paris and a new rug that I miraculously found to fit my specifications: pretty, with blue and red it.

I love it. I'm in here all the time. Everything I need is within reach. I have a radio to play Minnesota Public Radio, a few candles I brought back from Notre Dame and all around me is Paris. I even held my first important meeting in my office the other day...

...with my assistant, Harry.

I had to write him up for sitting in the boss' chair.

Cats and feathers in Auvillar

I was sitting in the ancient market square in Auvillar, taking a few quiet moments alone to think about my story, what I was learning. And down the street came scampering the most adorable little black cat.

Her owner, sitting on the step in front of the hotel where the cat lives,

said her name is Lulabelle.

Lulabelle was chasing a leaf, but took a detour and stopped to sit at my feet for a little ear scratch. I'd been away from my cats for 10 days, and little Lulabelle made me miss them. We played and petted and talked pidgin French and laughed, Lulabelle's owner joining in.

And then a tiny white feather floated down from the sky

and landed on Lulabelle's tail.

Oh, feathers, feathers, feathers.