A Writer’s Heart Blog

When I attended a school in California to learn to meditate, a seven-week experiment  turned into a three-year program of transformation. The teachers used no books or written material. All instruction was verbal, in the tradition of the great mystery schools of ancient times.  Similar to Gnosticism in its approach, at that unconventinal school we learned to understand and work … Read more

This week I finished a short story I’ve been noodling around with for about five years. It started with an image of an old woman building a circular wooden device in her backyard. I saw her in a seaside town on a New England island, threatened by rising sea levels. She refused to evacuate, instead collecting items from the people … Read more

Beatitudes for the Weird Blessed are the weird people —poets, misfits, writers, mystics heretics, painters & troubadours— for they teach us to see the world through different eyes. Blessed are those who embrace the intensity of life’s pain and pleasure, for they shall be rewarded with uncommon ecstasy. Blessed are ye who see beauty in ugliness, for you shall transform … Read more

My students often talk about “waiting for inspiration.” They’re right. There’s nothing better than a thunderbolt from the blue—the perfect idea, the fully formed story, the image of the painting that drops into your mind. You can’t wait to get it down. The rush carries you through a creative session. An hour. A whole day. Maybe a week. Very exciting. … Read more

Native American communities have struggled for decades with high rates of assault, abduction, and the murder of women. Currently, more than 200 Native Americans from New Mexico and the Navajo Nation are missing and being investigated by the FBI. The new novel by Joyce Phillips, Stolen Sisters, tells about one young Navajo woman who was abducted from an Albuquerque Mall … Read more

To move forward in collaboration with your Creative Self, you may need to re-arrange some priorities. I sure did. When I decided that finishing my novel was my top priority, I forged ahead, without gaining more confidence or even believing that my efforts would be successful. The fear of not embodying my Creative Self—finishing my stories and putting them into … Read more