Use Scent to Heighten Writing

The best writing employs the use of the five senses to explore metaphor, to show instead of just tell. In the book, "The How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci Workbook," the author Michael Gelb poses this self-assessment test to help you become more aware of your sense of smell:

-- I have a favorite scent. (What is it? Why do I like it? What does it remind me of?)
-- Smells affect my emotions strongly, for better or worse.
-- I can recognize friends by their scent.

-- I know how to use aromas to influence my mood.

-- I can reliably judge the quality of food or wine by its aroma.

-- When I see fresh flowers, I usually take a few moments to breathe in their aroma.

Gelb also suggests making "smells" a theme for a day. This could be a perfect journaling "date." Record what you smell and how it affects you through the course of a day. Spend a half hour at your favorite florist. Inhale the aroma of ten different perfumes or essential oils and describe your reactions. Others have suggested smelling a crayon, chalk, a rubber ball or other simple items from childhood.

How does smell affect your mood or memory? Write down your observations. What does each scent remind you of? Comparing sensory reactions to real life experiences or memories is the core of metaphor and image. You might want to even create a poem out of these images.

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Use Scent to Heighten Writing

Heirloom Tomatoes and Giant Peppers

It took a month and a half of weekends to clear our 25-foot Chicago which included hauling ten yard bags of leavings away. I found, as usual, that actually planting tomatoes and peppers to be the easiest part. I ordered heirloom tomato and giant pepper plants this year from Wisconsin, which conveniently arrived on my doorstep just before Memorial Day weekend.

I intensely pruned our three grape vines in late March. They are prolific nevertheless with tiny, baby grape clusters forming in green and blushed red. Fredonia, Swenson Red, Edelweiss! I reluctantly ripped off the blossoms the past two years. This season's vines are hearty enough to bear fruit. Each "grape" is the size of a bb-shot at this point. I recall my son's toes the size of petite peas, way back when. But these guys are growing before my eyes, instead of over the years.

Also strung up five strings on the neighbor's garage (oops, don't tell him) to serve as props for pole beans, which I've never grown before.

Note to self: Remember the order in which you planted from house to alley (blogs are handy archives)! Tomatoes: Big Beef, Amish Paste, Yellow Brandywine, Red Brandywine. Peppers: Super Heavy Weight, Giant Marconi, Fat 'n Sassy, Big Bertha. I always say I'll remember, but I never remember. Even if I tag plantings, rain washes the words away. Thanks, blog. ◦

Heirloom Tomatoes and Giant Peppers

Lit reading at Woman Made Gallery, May 17

I've been to a literary reading at Woman Made Gallery before, and it is more than a reading -- it's an experience. Not only can you enjoy a couple of hours of new poetry, fiction and nonfiction work read aloud by the authors, but also take in the clean, spacious gallery tastefully arranged with paintings, sculptures, crafts and jewelry made by women, mostly from the Chicago area.

On Sunday, May 17, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. come on down to Woman Made Gallery for a lit reading on the theme of "The Emotional Body." Woman Made Gallery is located at 685 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago. For more info call 312-738-0400 or visit its poetry site.

"The Emotional Body:" Think of body as object or actor, in whole or in part, in function and malfunction, sickness and health, stark or embellished. Think active body, gendered body, consuming body, sexual, emotional, physical body...our most inescapable abode.

Join curator Nina Corwin and a body of fabulous writers:
● Allison Joseph, author of Wordly Pleasures
● S.L. Wisenberg, author of Cancer Bitch
● Nikki Patin
● Laura Dixon
● Sara Parrell
● Cynthia Gallaher, author of Swimmer’s Prayer and Earth Elegance (reading poems about medicinal herb and plant healing)
● Kristin LaTour
…and a special guest appearance by Marty McConnell, recently returned from NYC.

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Lit reading at Woman Made Gallery, May 17

Met Audrey Niffenegger Last Night

I met Audrey Niffenegger last night, author of "The Time Traveler's Wife." My husband Carlos and I attended a benefit for the Ragdale Foundation and book release party for Luis Alberto Urrea's "Into the Beautiful North" at Tumbao bar and restaurant on Armitage near Kedzie in Chicago.

Since Niffenegger is a Ragdale alum and her book was part of a special raffle going on that night, she was a definite invitee, who walked through the door with a striking presence. She is a beautiful brunehilde of a woman, with long red hair, in a hue that's unique but complementary to her features.

She is not only a writer, but an artist as well. Audrey Niffenegger's self portrait appears above. I approached her while she ordered a wine at the bar and complimented her on Time Traveler's Wife, which was a book selected by my family book club. I told her I liked her Chicago references, in particular of the Get Me High Lounge, which was a notorious Chicago poetry reading haunt back in the 80s. In that same scene, she described a bartender named Mia who had relatives in Glencoe. I told her my stepdaughter Mia also has relatives in Glencoe, but Niffenegger laughed, saying everything in the book is fictional. She's noted other such coincidences among her readers.

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Met Audrey Niffenegger Last Night

Wine and cheese tasting at Bin 36 -- Chicago

What better precedes a long evening of music with Leonard Cohen then a dining experience of short courses of cheese, hummus and soup at nearby Bin 36 at 339 North Dearborn in Chicago.

I took the 'el' downtown, walked north over the river, through the shadows of Marina City, and met my husband Carlos, awaiting me at Bin 36 with glass of Stella Artois in hand. Once seated at a relaxing booth, we had fun stretching our free time before the concert with little plates of pleasure.

Many patrons order flights of four red or white wines, which arrive in full-sized wine glasses, each filled with just a sampling of wine. Because I didn't want to get sleepy at the concert -- I heard Cohen keeps going until 11 p.m. -- I chose a tiny glass of 2007 Cabernet/Merlot/Malbec/Pinot Noir blendng called NQN, Picada 15 Tinto, Neuquen from Patagonia, Argentina. It was very good, fruity and dark.

Flights of cheese are also a specialty of the house, served with thin, crisp crostata bread. Since Carlos only likes goat cheese and I prefer cow milk cheese, we again didn't order a flight, but individual cheeses. Flights of sheep cheese are also available.

He loved the Cabra al Vino from Murcia, Spain, which is marinated in a local Jumilla wine. He said the cheese had "walls, floor and architecture. Very round and extremely satisfying." The Bridgewater cow milk cheese that I chose from Zingerman's Dairy in Ann Arbor, Mich., was creamy, mild, with a slight rind and spicy peppercorns throughout. Excellent! We also ordered a side of apricot/fig terrine and a small pot of honey to spread on bread along with the cheese, and it proved a bright, tasty addition.

The bowl of mushroom and walnut soup I ordered teetered between above average and just O.K. Would have preferred a salad. But the generous hummus plate accompanied by soft pita triangles was, according to Carlos "stunning, including the best oil, red onions and tomatoes." Our tab was just a little over $30. By midnight, when we turned in for the night, we still weren't hungry again. ◦

Wine and cheese tasting at Bin 36 -- Chicago

Leonard Cohen at the Chicago Theatre

It's been more than 15 years since Leonard Cohen played Chicago, and I was fortunate to grab two tickets only 1/3 back -- through a preview buy as a "fan." You know how it often can be to sit through live music that isn't quite up to par to a band's CDs? Quite the contrary with Leonard Cohen's show.

His musicians, singers, sound system, lighting and, of course, Leonard himself drove the entire occasion above and beyond the recorded disc -- a spectacular experience that pushes Cohen's legendary quality to the forefront, in a friendly way, and makes his 70-plus years just a side grin, which even he occasionally pokes fun at. But what other guy his age can get down on his knees over and over and rise without effort, sing for nearly three hours and dance off stage a couple of times between curtain calls?

Dressed in pork-pie hat, backed by six musicians (including Spanish guitarist Javier Mas) and three female back-up singers (one who is collaborator Sharon Robinson, as well as the two Webb sisters, who cartwheeled between numbers), Leonard Cohen brought forth beloved lyrics such as "dance me through the panic...dance me to the end of love;" "it was the shape of our love that twisted me;" "everybody knows the boat is leaking, everybody knows the captain lied;" "I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel;" "we are so lightly here, it isn't love that we are made, in love we disappear." ◦

Leonard Cohen at the Chicago Theatre

The Passing of Poet Deborah Digges

I was aware of the poet Deborah Digges as someone close to my own age who was beautiful, talented and a respected teacher at Amherst. You might say I was a little envious of her.

On April 10th of this year, she commited suicide. She had so much to live for, such a gift for poetry, even if everything else in her life might have fallen apart. I know she wrote a book about her struggles raising a teenage son, with both mother and son triumphing as a result of her efforts.

After so many hardships, to keep pressing on would make all the sense in the world. But which suicide in the recent or distant past makes sense?

The following is a gorgeous poem written by Deborah Digges that I found online. She makes mention of a stadium, death squads and an executioner. Strangely, she died in a stadium:

My Amaryllis

So this is the day the fat boy learns to take the jokes

by donning funny hats, my Amaryllis,

my buffoon of a flower,

your four white bullhorn blossoms like the sirens

in a stadium through which the dictator announces he's in love.

Then he sends out across the land a proclamation-there must be music,

there must be stays of execution

for the already dying.

That's how your pulpy sex undoes me and your seven

leaves, unsheathed. How you diminish

my winter windows, and beyond them, the Atlantic.

How you turn my greed ridiculous.

Now it's as if I could believe in having children after forty,

or, walking these icy streets, greet sullen strangers

like a host of former selves, so ask them in, of course,

and listen like one forgiven to their crimes.

Dance with us and all our secrets,

dance with us until our lies,

like death squads sent to an empty house, put down,

finally, their weapons, peruse the family

portraits, admire genuinely the bride.

Stay with me in this my exile

or my returning, as if to love the tyrant one more time.

O my lily, my executioner, a little stooped, here,

listing, you are the future bending

to kiss the present like a sleeping child.

(published in Ploughshares)

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The Passing of Poet Deborah Digges

More about "Neighborhoods: Poetry Writing Workshop" in Chicago on April 18

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, each with a distinct feel, a unique style. Become the creative bard of your neighborhood. Set your imagination free, gear up your memory, and take part in a writing workshop for adults where you’ll create a story poem about your neighborhood, whether an urban or suburban one.

What is a story poem or prose poem? How does it differ from a standard poem or short story? What are the special sights, sounds and aromas of your neighborhood? Is there an unusual character who stands out in your neighborhood? What makes your neighborhood like none other?

Find out at Neighborhoods: A Poetry Writing Workshop led by poet Cynthia Gallaher on Sat. April 18 at 1:30 p.m at Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago. Explore prose poems by Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Italo Calvino, Carolyn Forche and Chicago’s Stuart Dybek. Get city-centric poetic inspiration from Polish poet Wislawa Symborska. You’ll then mix it up and try your hand at mapping out your own prose poem or two about that special place in Chicagoland – your own neighborhood.

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More about "Neighborhoods: Poetry Writing Workshop" in Chicago on April 18

Free poetry writing workshop on Sat. April 18 at the Harold Washington Library

Neighborhoods: Poetry Writing Workshop. Write a story poem about your neighborhood during a prose poem workshop led by Cynthia Gallaher on Saturday, April 18, 2009 from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State Street, Chicago, Room 3N-5. For more information or to register, call 312-747-4400 or 312-747-4713. This event is part of the One Book, One Chicago celebration for "House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros. ◦

Free poetry writing workshop on Sat. April 18 at the Harold Washington Library

Personal dream image inventory for your journal

Let’s say you’ve been journaling your dreams for some time now. Your recall and vividness of dreams are becoming sharper and your dream entries contain more detail because you remember more of your dreams. You will reach a point when you’ll feel ready to begin re-reading your entries. Keep an eye out for recurring themes, images and symbols. Underline them in your entries.

Start a new journal entry and list these images. Such images can be characters, themes, objects, locations, situations or sounds. Try to remember the context in which these images appeared and the emotions that surrounded them. What do these images mean to you personally? Do they relate to anything going on in your waking life? What do you think some of your dreams are revealing about yourself?

Most sleep and dream experts discourage “dream interpretation” books or dictionaries, insisting dream images are all extremely personal and can only apply to the particular person dreaming them. If you go to the bookstore and look through various dream interpretation books, you might notice that these books will usually not agree on the meaning of any one image! Many of the dream symbol interpretations are based on older cultures in more closed societies in which everyone thought along the same lines. And every different culture had their own interpretations. In today's mixed societies of individuals, it's a much more personal story.

Robert Moss, author of the highly recommended The Three “Only” Things, said, “You don’t want anyone telling you what your dreams mean. Dreams bring many gifts of power and you don’t want to give that power away.” You are the best judge and interpreter of your own dreams.

Dreams are not prophecies, largely, but are instead a means of finding out more about how you really feel about aspects of your own life. And dream journaling is a way to record and reflect on these dream issues.

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Personal dream image inventory for your journal

Heighten Five Senses: Smell

The best writing employs the use of the five senses to explore metaphor, to show instead of just tell. In the book, "The How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci Workbook," the author Michael Gelb poses this self-assessment test to help you become more aware of your sense of smell:
-- I have a favorite scent. (What is it? Why do I like it? What does it remind me of?)
-- Smells affect my emotions strongly, for better or worse.
-- I can recognize friends by their scent.
-- I know how to use aromas to influence my mood.
-- I can reliably judge the quality of food or wine by its aroma.
-- When I see fresh flowers, I usually take a few moments to breathe in their aroma.

Gelb also suggests making "smells" a theme for a day. This could be a perfect journaling "date." Record what you smell and how it affects you through the course of a day. Spend a half hour at your favorite florist. Inhale the aroma of ten different perfumes or essential oils and describe your reactions. Others have suggested smelling a crayon, chalk, a rubber ball or other simple items from childhood. How does smell affect your mood or memory? Write down your observations. What does each scent remind you of? Comparing sensory reactions to real life experiences or memories is the core of metaphor and image. You might want to even create a poem out of these images.

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Heighten Five Senses: Smell

Practice Naikan When Journaling

Naikan (pronounced nye-kahn) is a Japanese practice that blends meditation and gratitude. The word means "inner observation," made up of nai (inner or inside) and kan (observation). Naikan creates awareness by helping you remember the significant people in your life.

In the book, "Wabi Sabi Simple," author Richard Powell suggests taking your journal to a quiet room and sitting comfortably with no distractions, preferably in a corner behind a screen. Write down the names of one to five people who mean a lot to you, whether relatives, friends, teachers or coworkers. Then ask yourself three questions concerning each person:
1. What have I received from _________?
2. What have I given this person?
3. What troubles, difficulties or worries have I caused this person?

Write down concrete examples, such as "My mother always made lunch for me for school and told me she loved me as I left the house in the morning." General statements such as "My mother was nice to me" doesn't work. Try to put yourself in the other person's shoes and try to feel what he or she has felt.

Through your meditations and writing, what you find important about your relationship to this person will become more clear. When the time is right, express to each person on your list your gratitude for the specific things that they have given you.[naikan][wabi-sabi]

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Practice Naikan When Journaling

Heighten Five Senses: Taste

A sense of taste, like any other sense, can be developed. According to "The How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci Workbook" by Michael Gelb, you can self-assess your sense of taste through the following statements:
-- I can taste the "freshness" of fresh food.
-- I enjoy many different types of cuisine.
-- I seek out unusual taste experiences.
-- I can discern the flavor contributions of different herbs and spices in a complex dish.
-- I am a good cook.
-- I appreciate the pairing of food and wine.
-- I eat consciously, aware of the taste of my food.
-- I avoid junk food.
-- I avoid eating on the run.
-- I enjoy participating in taste tests and wine tastings.

No one becomes a good cook or an afficiando of the world's great cuisines overnight. Like first poems, your first attempts on the stove-top might likely end up in the trash can. Mine did for many years -- in both cases. I believe two elements you need to develop a keen sense of taste is a spirit of adventure and a willingness to make mistakes.It's the same as approaching any other creative aspect of your life, be it writing, skiing, cooking or traveling. You'll never know what octopus tastes like until you try it, or how ginger might enhance an apple dessert until you make one yourself.

I'm not a good enough cook to create my own recipes from scratch or just "throw things together." Maybe I'll be able to someday. I have, however, enough "taste" experience to imagine what a dish will taste like just from reading the recipe. So recipes and cookbooks are my friends. I sometimes cross reference two or three recipes for the same dish and make a hybrid of it, or simply "tweak" a recipe, usually because I lack a certain ingredient or two and would rather substitute with something I have on hand. It does take a little kitchen experience to know which items can suffice as substitutes. But it all comes with time, as does a seasoned palate.

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Heighten Five Senses: Taste

New online journal writing course

Let the new year serve as a fresh start for your journal writing direction. I'm leading an online journal writing course this spring with the University of Illinois at Chicago Writers Series. It's called "Rescript Your Life: A Journal Writing Workshop." The great thing is you can be anywhere in the world to take this workshop because it's online. It gets underway on March 9, 2009. Juicy details follow:

Direct your plans, relationships and creativity toward a new, personal direction through journal writing. In this online workshop, you’ll find your journaling “personality” and apply a variety of eastern and western techniques to uncover and explore your burning issues. Also learn how to journal your dreams, travels and creative ideas and even start your own online journal blog. Journal Writing Online allows participants to better deal with past, present and future issues through the outlet of journal writing, particularly when applying field-tested techniques introduced in the course.

Participants will also be better equipped to use the journal as a creative conduit to evolve raw experience into written poems, stories, character studies and other creative pieces. During this time of economic downturn, journal writing offers people an inexpensive, yet passionate outlet. This era is an ideal time to turn to an introspective mode, evaluating the past and looking for new direction for the future. Journal writing can help people in any situation deal with our changing times.

Topics include history of journaling, journal styles, dialogues and their methods, techniques of journal writing and blogging.

At the completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Focus on the type of journal writing to fit his or her personality.
• Access their own list of numerous, personal journal writing topics and questions.
• Use the journaling method of dialogues to address personal and creative issues.
• Understand and use the Japanese method of haibun and naikan.
• Create a Leonardo da Vinci-style notebook.
• Create an active dream journal.
• Create an online journal blog.
• Develop a personal journaling vocabulary

COURSE TITLE:		Journal Writing Online
DATES:		March 9 - April 10, 2009
TIME:		Online
COST:		$325
INSTRUCTOR:		Cynthia Gallaher
LOCATION:		Online
COURSE NUMBER:		JW0309
REGISTRATION DEADLINE:		Friday, February 27, 2009

Register for Journal Writing ◦

New online journal writing course

Dialog with the Body

Your body's wisdom can speak to you through metaphor. Writing dialogues in your journal can help faciliate the life lessons your body may be trying to teach you. Dialogue with the body is one of the six main types of journaling dialogues described in Ira Progoff's seminal book on modern journal writing, "Intensive Journal Workshop," first published in 1966.

First, choose a dialogue partner, whether it be a body part or organ, illness, injury or surgery, allergy, your sexuality; a body subpersonality such as thin self, fat self, addiction or habit; foods or nutrition; or pain, which always seems to be an important messenger.

Dialogue in writing, back and forth, with your dialogue partner. You will be writing both roles, of course! Your dialogue can be in the form of a thoughtful and direct "letter" or "instant messaging" back-and-forth dialogue if you thrive on fast-paced banter. If you feel like you're making it up, you're right. You are making it up, but it is a part of you. Don't be afraid of the unexpected or ideas that seem to come out of nowhere.

Having a dialogue with the body can be a form of healing visualization. Whether your dialogue partner is anything from an allergy to dust, a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer or the ache of a twisted ankle to an addiction to chocolate, the fear of hair loss or compulsion to wear too much makeup, your two-way dialogues can help you sort out the real from the imagined, the old you from the newer you, and help you decide what can be changed and how to go about it, or what may be inevitable and how best to face it. [Intensive Journal Workshop][Ira Progoff]

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Dialog with the Body

Writing the Seen and the Unseen

Deena Metzger, in her book "Writing for Your Life: A Guide and Companion to the Inner World" suggested, "When you think you have nothing to say, when your life feels dull and tedious, try writing: Things I didn't see today." The things we can't see are often the most important. A Turkish poet who spent a number of years as a political prisoner, Nazim Hikmet, wrote a poem entitled "Things I Didn't Know I Loved," while looking out a Prague-to-Berlin train window.

...night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain...
I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors...
I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts...
I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks...

As a journal writer, you don't need to write a poem, but simply write your own "things I didn't see today" or "Things I Didn't Know I Loved."

[Nazim Hikmet][Deena Metzger]

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Writing the Seen and the Unseen

Thanksgiving Weekend Journal

When we think of Thanksgivings of the past, our memories can often blur into visual "bytes" of rising before sun-up, basting turkeys, cooking down cranberries into a sauce, hanging harvest decorations, watching a wave of people rush into and then out of the house, washing and drying dishes in a bright, steamy kitchen, and laughing with others, like yourself, festively dressed in fashionable high heels, but also in slightly worn-torn aprons. But what does Thanksgiving really mean to those partaking in the meal with you?

There's a special window of time during Thanksgiving when you can find out. You know that time in between the Thanksgiving meal itself and dessert, when you need to digest the first part of your meal before you can even think about cutting into the pumpkin pie? Instead of rushing off to watch the football game or get a jump on loading the dishwasher, grab your journal and instruct everyone at the table to "set a spell" to talk about the things that they are most thankful for this year. Write them down in your journal.

Or, ask everyone if they can recall their most memorable Thanksgiving (outside of this year's!) and why. You may find out some interesting anecdotes about your relatives that can help you appreciate them even more. You might even hear stories from the old-timers about those who have passed on whom you may have never met. The practical joke Great-Uncle Joe pulled 50 years ago could sound remarkably like something you, your son or your niece might pull today. More than looks often run in the family.

Sometimes Thanksgiving is the only time the whole family really gets together, and it's a day that often goes by far too swiftly. If you record some of what people say and do during Thanksgiving, you can savor the day longer and your relationships more deeply.Forget videocams. They put people on the defensive and no one feels comfortable enough to say anything substantial in front of them. Plus, hardly anyone ever looks at them again once the camera is put away. On the other hand, people open up when you sit down at a relaxed table and chew the fat (and the Turkey bones), as you just happen to jot down a few notes in your journal all the while!

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Thanksgiving Weekend Journal

Why journal your dreams?

In the Robert Moss book, The Three 'Only' Things: Tapping the Powers of Dreams, Coincidence and Imagination, he cites "The Nine Powers of Dreaming:" 1. We solve problems in our dreams. 2. Dreams coach us for future challenges and opportunities. 3. Dreams hold up a magic mirror to our actions and behavior. 4. Dreams show us what we need to do to stay well. 5. Dreams are a secret laboratory. 6. Dreams are a creative studio. 7. Dreams help us mend our divided selves. 8. Dreaming is a key to better relationships. 9. Dreams recall us to our larger purpose.

And when we journal dreams on a consistent basis, perhaps for a two or three-week trial period, we may see a pattern develop that can help give us greater insight into that "other" side of ourselves.

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Why journal your dreams?

Writing the Seen and the Unseen

Deena Metzger, in her book "Writing for Your Life: A Guide and Companion to the Inner World" suggested, "When you think you have nothing to say, when your life feels dull and tedious, try writing: Things I didn't see today." The things we can't see are often the most important. A Turkish poet who spent a number of years as a political prisoner, Nazim Hikmet, wrote a poem entitled "Things I Didn't Know I Loved," while looking out a Prague-to-Berlin train window.

...night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain...
I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors...
I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts...
I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks...

As a journal writer, you don't need to write a poem, but simply write your own "things I didn't see today" or "Things I Didn't Know I Loved." ◦

Writing the Seen and the Unseen

Rescript Your Life Journal Writing Workshop

Saying there is only one way write a journal is like saying there is only one kind of food to enjoy. Recharge, rescript and change the way you approach both personal issues and creative explorations through a variety of journaling techniques. Attend "Rescript Your Life," a one-day, hands-on journal writing workshop taking place on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the University of Illinois at Chicago Writers Series, 1333 S. Halsted Street in Chicago.

It will be led by yours truly. As you experience different methods one-by-one in this hands-on journal writing workshop, you'll pinpoint your burning issues and learn how journaling can help achieve your goals. Contact the series at 312-355-0423 for more info and fee.

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Rescript Your Life Journal Writing Workshop