I am pleased and happy to announce that after five years as an online teacher for Story Circle Network, I will be joining this fine organization as their Online Class Coordinator. I am taking over the reins from the very able Amber Lea Starfire and will do my best to maintain the high standard of quality and consistency that she has established over the past several years.
Story Circle Network is an organization that is dedicated to women telling their stories and my association with this organization has been pivotal in my development as a writer. I started as a member of an online writing circle, where I established friendships that are still part of my everyday Internet life. I remain a proud Writing Circle 6 member, where we support each other through our writing life and our regular life, offering encouragement and community when times are good and times are tough.
From there, I began submitting to the many SCN options for publication and slowly began to amass publishing credits to help me recognize that I had an audience for my work. With that confidence under my belt, I took a chance to submit to other publications and have found success there as well. This past year, I am honored to say I was nominated for a coveted Pushcart Prize – the best of the small presses – for one of my published short stories. That would have never happened without SCN’s initial support.
As a writing teacher in real life, I decided to try teaching online as well. That’s when I became involved in the SCN online classes. I have taught a wide range of classes over these past five years, ranging from flash fiction/flash memoir, writing for healing, personal essay, scene writing, even powerful sentence writing! In each of these classes, I have met and enjoyed smart women who want to learn to express their thoughts on the page. We have become friends through their stories and my life has forever been enriched.
I have also had the extraordinary opportunity through this organization to be a presenter at SCN’s biennial “Stories of the Heart” national memoir conference. There I have met face-to-face many students I have only known online, visited with my Circle 6 sisters, and also presented workshops on topics as diverse as “How to Transform Your Writing Life in Just 20 Minutes a Day,” “The Wild and Crazy World of Flash Fiction/Flash Memoir” and “How to Tame Your Inner Critic.”
So, it seems only natural that my next step is to become even more involved with this organization that has given me so much by moving into the position of Online Classes Coordinator. The program is well established and my hope is that we can now build on its success. I would love to broaden the class offerings, develop an even stronger core faculty and create a certificate program for those who want to systematically build their writing knowledge in either memoir, creative nonfiction or fiction. These are goals that are shared by the leadership at Story Circle Network so I believe together we’ll see many of these hopes come to fruition.
I am grateful to be part of an organization that is dedicated to lifting women’s voices and that epitomizes the best in all women: support, nurturing, guidance and love. I could not be happier to have been given this opportunity. Thrilled is the world that comes to mind.
Comments