Anne Faye

Lansing, MI: In collaboration with FAITH Catholic Publishing and Communications, The Catholic Writers Guild , will sponsor Your Word is My Delight, a Catholic writers' retreat, Oct 5-9, 2011. Come and delight in God's word and sacrament, and pray in a beautiful and serene retreat setting. The retreat's key presenter is Pat Gohn, Catholic columnist, podcaster and catechist (link: http://www.patgohn.com/patgohn/About.html) . Other presenters are Father Charles E. Irvin, David Krajewski, Father David Rosenberg and Father Larry Delaney. Writers will enjoy five spiritually-enriching days of daily Mass, adoration, the sacrament of reconciliation and many hours of writing time. Talks will explore how God speaks to and encourages writers through Scripture, papal writings and other topics in order to promote faith-filled writing. Opportunities for networking also will be offered through an informal "book bash and social hour" Wednesday evening and Faith Catholic'...

I'm engaging in some leisure reading right now and enjoying The Last Promise by Richard Paul Evans. In his Prologue, he writes of his inspiration for the story. I like this line: "I lifted my pencil to the page, not because I had words, but because a blank page beckoned." So much of being a writer is writing even when the inspiration seems far away. It comes. It always comes, but you have to put yourself in a place to receive it. You need to be willing to do the work, to open the notebook (or the laptop) and start writing.

Dr. Suess, aka Theodore Geisel, was an iconic children's book writer. Who among us is not familiar with the Cat in the Hat or The Grinch that Stole Christmas ? Born and raised in my hometown of Springfield, MA, our city features a sculpture garden in his honor. Right now, The Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History is featuring a special exhibit, "And to Think That He Saw It in Springfield" illustrating the many sources of inspiration that he found in this city. All writers seek inspiration. It can come from many sources, but the places that we live and work can be especially fertile ground if we can see them with fresh eyes. This exhibit compares some of Dr. Suess' fancicul drawings with photographs of the actual places that inspired them. For more information on the exhibit, please visit: And To Think That He Saw it in Springfield

Congratulations go out to Michelle Buckman for winning the 2011 Catholic Arts and Letters Award for Adult Fiction for Rachel's Contrition (Chisel & Cross Books) . This is an amazing book. The award is well-deserved.

I read in the paper today that it is Henry David Thoreau's birthday. Here, from Walden is my favorite Thoreau quote: I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. . . I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

I have to return my copy of Writer's Digest to the library tomorrow, but I wanted to leave you with one last quote from an article by Dinty W. Moore (either that is not his real name or his parents had quite the sense of humor!): It's not what happens to us in our lives that makes us into writers; it's what we make out of what happens to us .

I've been drinking in the pages of the latest issue of Writer's Digest . So many good ideas! So little time! I did come across this great idea in "The Geyser Approach to Revision" by James Scott Bell: "To do the best revision possible, you need to recapture the feeling you had while writing your draft in the first place. One way to do this is through music. Find several pieces that move you to feelings consistent with your book. . . Compile a playlist of songs that evoke the mood - or better yet, a medley of the various moods - you hope to convey in  your story, and use it as background each time you sit down to self-edit."