“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
― Vincent Van Gogh
You’re invited!
Spring 2023 From Heart to Paper Writing Workshop Live!
Classes: 9 Saturday Mornings Location: West Contra Costa Adult Education Alvarado School 5625 Sutter Ave Richmond, CA 94804
Dates: April 15, 2023 —June 24, 2023*
Time: 10:00AM to 12:00PM Pacific Time
Fee: $119
Margaret C. Murray has been leading From Heart to Paper Writing Workshops for over a decade. A professional author and teacher, Margaret is presently preparing her most recent novel, Deer Xing, for publication. She is also the publisher of Writewords Press.
To read what her students say about the workshop, seeTestamonials.
Read more about Margaret C. Murray’s From Heart to Paper Writing Workshop below.
Have you ever stopped to watch a butterfly’s soft flight of light and color leaving you with a feeling like falling in love?
Imagine that you can not only watch and feel the butterfly, but hear it as it flits from flower to flower.
Ithomiine butterfly photographed in Yasuni National Park, Ecuador.
Music artist Chris Goslowhas written a song, Butterfly, that takes you to that place.
Every year Chris writes and records a new song on the birthday of his wife Charr Crail,artist and photographer.
Mysterious Butterfly Girl by Charr Crail
Listen to Charr’s birthday song. Butterfly, words and music by Chris Goslow. Performed by Chris Goslow.
Chris Goslow, who is also my son, has accompanied me at my book readings, playing ’60s and ’70s popular music mentioned in Dreamers and Pillow Prayers as well as tracks from his albums Waterfall and The Cherry Rainbow Piano Experience.
Chris also recorded the soundtrack for the videos Stones of Chaco Canyon and My Trip to the War Gods for Sundagger.net and Spiral. For more about Chris and me, see Music, Writing, and Working Together.
Who doesn’t love a good book? Give the gift of WriteWords Press books. It’s easy. Buy here!
Margaret C. Murray reading from Pillow Prayers, Fourth Street Fine Arts, Berkeley, CA
Give the gift of story this holiday season. Stories are powerful and can change lives. As a writer, I know because I work with them all the time. What a delight for me to find the story in the process of writing it.
In the photo above I’m standing in front of my audience at the book launch of Pillow Prayers in Berkeley, CA about to read from my new book. I’m feeling great and I love my story.
That all happened a few years ago. Maybe you were there!
My next book became Dreamers, a Coming of Age novel I began when I was just the age of my characters. Back then it had a different title and feel. It took several decades before Dreamers became the book I wanted.
A few years after publishing Dreamers, here I am feeling elated as I hold out the first printed copy of Spiral, a prequel to the “old story” in Sundagger.net. It’s a strange kind of delight to find the deeper story when you go back in time.
It took me much less time (and angst!) to complete my companion novels Sundagger.net and Spiral. Maybe the Southwest desert landscape allow my imagination to run wild? Or perhaps it was the amazement I felt visiting the Four Corners area multiple times.
From the start I knew what my titles would be.The “.net” in Sundagger.net speaks to the magic of electronics in our internet/cybernetic culture today. I had a sun dagger in my mind after seeing videos and reading the history of the actual spiral carved at the top of Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon National Park. Yes, a spiral! And now the title of my second Anasazi adventure. It wasn’t until 1973 that a perceived “dagger” of sunlight through the spiral was discovered during the summer solstice, leading to the realization of the advanced knowledge these prehistoric Native Americans had of the heavens.
Order now and save.
For New Year 2023, give the gift of story.
Order today.
Any single title $17.00*
More Savings** when you buy Sundagger.net and Spiral together! Both for $22.00!
*Plus Sales Tax and Mailing charges. **Limited Offer.
DIRECTIONS: Choose your book titles below by clicking the blue arrows, then press the Buy Now Button to continue.
The famed mystery writer of the Southwest wrote the above advice to me the last year before his death in 2008. We had been corresponding since before I published my novel of the ancient Anasazi of the Southwest, Sundagger.net. In a note to him, I had been complaining, whining really, about my writing life.
“Keep writing, stay heathy,” he wrote back. This is my mantra when I feel confused, at loose ends, or discouraged with my work.
I wonder if renown writer J. D. Salinger had taken this advice, he would have experienced life differently. When he died at 91 in 2010, Salinger was possibly the world’s most renown and most successful literary recluse. “Hermit Crab,” Time magazine dubbed him. Here was somebody who was up there with the Grammy winners in star power and prestige, yet seemed cursed with the dismal personality of old Scrooge.
Back in the ’60s when I read Catcher in the Rye, my teenage heart beat along with Holden Caulfield’s. I was the catcher, those sheep; I was the rye too. J.D. Salinger was my writing hero along with Dylan Thomas, Oscar Wilde and Dostoevsky (No females in that short list, alas, but that is another story.)
Unlike Tony Hillerman who wrote 29 mysteries set in Navajo country, Salinger wrote one novel, a phenomenal success that he disdained, and three small volumes of short stories–then nothing else for 45 years.
By all accounts, J.D. Salinger was a phenomenal writer who refused his success. Was he was sick with self-loathing of his own genius, his own work? He must have felt he had no choice. He must have done his best from inside the worm of his illness.
But he did take one piece of Tony Hillerman’s advice. His wives and daughters say he wrote all that time. What did he leave us? I am dying to read it. Maybe that’s all he wanted–fans dying to read him. Maybe that’s why he shunned his fame and adulation. To keep us hungry. Life is strange. What do you think?
Keep writing, stay healthy.
Thank you, Tony Hillerman.
“The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.
– Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist
Fall 2022 From Heart to Paper Zoom Workshop
Seven Tuesday evenings September 27 — November 8, 2022
7:00PM to 8:30PM Pacific Time $185.00*
To REGISTER for the upcoming From Heart to Paper Writing Workshop,
Choose ‘New writer‘ or ‘Returning writer’ below.
Then click on the Pay Now icon and complete the fields.
The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power. – Toni Morrison
“My writing was a stalled train sitting at the station. Then From Heart to Paper Writing Workshop came along and showed me how to fuel the process forward. Now the train has left the station and I’m writing every day.”– Caroline
Margaret C. Murray presenting Spiral, an epic adventure of the ancient Southwest
A professional writer and teacher, Margaret C. Murray has been leading From Heart to Paper Writing Workshops for over ten years. Margaret is completing her fifth novel Deer Xing. She is the author of Dreamers, Sundagger.net, Spiral and Pillow Prayers. She is also the publisher of Writewords Press.
For more about Margaret C. Murray’s From Heart to Paper Writing Workshop, click here.
To read what her students say about the workshop, click onTestamonials.
Now in this time of the epidemic, racism, mass shootings and threats of war, the first line of an Emily Dickinson poem speaks to me.
“A wounded deer leaps highest.”
The story I imagine from the above line fits with my upcoming novel I’ve been rewriting, Deer Xing, which I began in the early ’90s. A time that seems like forever and also yesterday.
My title evokes the image of a deer crossing a road at a deer warning sign. Its message is clear; drive carefully to save a deer.
Elm Creek Doe photo by Rick Cavalieri
The sign gives us humans driving our cars, RVs, trailers and trucks the chance to be present to what is possible and how carefully we can choose to live our lives. And how possible it is to change, to save the life of a deer, such a beautiful, gentle, quiet, vulnerable creature.
Hungry Doe photo by Rick Cavalieri
Both deer and sign inspire and uplift me to continue reworking my draft. As I edit the final section of my story, I experience deep silence, the same feeling I imagine in the eyes of a deer. And gratitude too.
Pillow Prayers book launch at Fourth Street Fine Arts, Berkeley, Ca
Enchanted by stories? Looking for poetry, drama, biographies, and non-fiction? Yearning to read your next good book? Addicted to the magic and artistry possible with words? Fascinated by small press possibilities? Excited to talk with others who feel the same?
If your answer is “Yes” to any of the above, consider coming to the outstanding Bay Area Book Festival that takes place on Saturday, May 7th, and Sunday, 8th from 11AM to 5PM at Martin Luther King park in downtown Berkeley, CA.
At the festival, there’s so much for you to explore, including book readings by incredible authors from around the world, state-of-the art discussions and fascinating panels. Click Bay Book Festival for all the details.
BAY AREA BOOK FESTIVAL
Saturday, May 7th & Sunday,May 8th
11AM – 5PM
Martin Luther King Civic Center Park
2151 Martin Luther King Jr Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
At the Festival you will find me, Margaret C. Murray, under the canopy of Booth #36, Thoth Writers Collective, by the Main Stage in the Park.
What is the Thoth Writers Collective? We are a group of six writers across two continents, from Spain to California, who collaborate via Zoom, email, etc., to encourage one another and improve our writing which spans interpersonal and gender dilemmas, global conflicts and myth. We take our name from Thoth, the ibis-headed god who introduced writing to the ancient Egyptians. Below is a short bio of each of us.
Jan Alexander, based in New York, writes both fiction and non-fiction that reflects how globalism and technology are changing everything, in good ways and bad. Her books include Ms. Ming’s Guide to Civilization (novel, Regal Publishers 2020); Getting to Lamma (novel); Bad Girls of the Silver Screen (with Lottie Da; nonfiction). See more at https://www.janalexander.com/portfolio-category/books/
Peter de Lissovoy is a writer and free-lance editor living in New Hampshire; besides his nonfiction memoirs of his days as a civil rights activist with SNCC in Georgia (The Great Pool Jump), his works include the novels Invisible Car Dealer; Wisconsin; Rita; Melusina; The Angels of Zimbabwe; and Feelgood: A trip in time and out: See https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Peter-de-Lissovoy/e/B06XPRQ21X?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1649153619&sr=8-1
Geoffrey Fox, based in Spain and New York, is the author of the novels Rabble! A Story of the Paris Commune (2021) and A Gift for the Sultan (2008), translated into Turkish as BirCihan, Iki Sultan (Nokta Istanbul, 2012) and the short-story collection Welcome to My Contri (1988; augmented e-book 2017). His best-selling sociological work is Hispanic Nation: Culture, Politics and the Constructing of Identity (University of Arizona Press, 1997). See https://geoffreyfox.com/
Karla Huebner is a novelist and professor of art history at Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, and author of Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic (art history, University of Pittsburgh Press), In Search of the Magic Theater (novel, Regal House 2022) and other works. See https://www.karlahuebner.com/
Dirk van Nouhuys writes novels, short stories, experimental forms, and occasionally verse. He has a BA from the Stanford creative writing program and was a minor pioneer of what later became the internet. He has published a book on Macintosh applications, and a translation of two Flemish novels, The Danger and The Enemy. He publishes fiction regularly in literary and other magazines. See http://www.wandd.com/Site/Publications.html
As for myself, I am the author of novels Sundagger.net, Dreamers, Spiral and Pillow Prayers. I’m also the publisher of Writewords Press, and teacher of From Heart to Paper Writing Workshops. Presently I am fine-tuning my upcoming novel, Deer Xing. You can read more about me here.
Valley of the Gods, Cedar Mesa, Bears Ears National Park
Pictographs, Petroglyphs and Potsherds are the clues to hidden treasure in pure daylight at two National Parks in the American Southwest.
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Parks are located in the Four Corners area of the Southwest: Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. Bears Ears, the largest park in the United States at 1.9 million acres, was designated a National Monument (Park) by President Obama in 2017 after thirty Native American tribes, including the Navajo, Hopi, Ute, Zuni, Paiute, and Apache, advocated for its protection as a sacred site.
Potchards at Chimney Rock, CO, site of Spiral
The pre-puebloan people known as the Anasazi disappeared from this land by the 13th century, leaving behind their petroglyphs, pictographs and potsherds, a mysterious gift to explore.
“This place is a part of the history of all the Native peoples in this region. It’s like a book for us, and when many tribes have a chapter in this book, it tells us a lot about why we are the way we are. But it’s also part of the history of the peoples of the United States and the world.”—Jim Enote, Pueblo of Zuni
Petroglyphs by Anasazi at at Bears Ears National Park
Bears Ears (1.9 million acres, designated by Obama, 2017) and Grand Staircase Escalante (designated by Clinton, 1996) contains 4,000 years of Native American culture.
In Grand Staircase Escalante National Park are buried the richest deposit of dinosaur bones in the world, with fossils 75 million years old. So far twenty-five new species of dinosaurs have been discovered.
Dinosaur’s tail embedded in sandstone, Grand Staircase Escalante National Park
There was danger that these precious parks would be destroyed to make National Park land ripe for “development”, i.e., private mining, fracking, conglomerate agriculture, and industrial off-road recreation. Anextremely rare dig of dinosaur fossils was looted before development could be stopped.
I wrote my novels of the ancient Southwestafter traveling to the Four Corners, amazed to realize that here in the American desert was over 100,000 sites of Native American archeology. Click on the YouTube video “Stones of Chaco Canyon” and feel the magic that led me to write Sundagger.net and Spiral.
Click the Paypal button below to order Sundagger.net and Spiral.
My friend gave me an attractively covered book to add to the Little Free Library I have in front of my house. But when I examined Crow Planet“Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness” by Lynda Lynn Haupt I realized I wasn’t ready to give this book up.
Crow Planet begins with the author, suffering from depression, looking out the bedroom window of the new suburban home her husband and she just purchased in Seattle, Washington. It’s midday but she’s still in her pajamas, seeing no reason to get dressed. Suddenly twelve feet away she sees a nest and hears a tiny bird preening. Looking through her binoculars, she sees a baby crow with a malignant growth over one eye. Both she and the baby bird are injured she thinks, crying and laughing at the same time.
Haupt is a scientist of the natural world who once worked as wildlife rehabilitator and in addition raised nearly a hundred fledging birds. She is also mother of a young daughter also fascinated with birds. After seeing the suffering baby crow, she captures, feeds and when it is healed frees it to join the hundreds of crows she sees daily on her nature walks. She begins to understand that Seattle can become the beloved wilderness she reluctantly left behind when she and her family moved to the city. She learns that urban nature is infused with magic and wonder and I, the reader, do too. The baby crow creates a “liaison with a truer way of being” that is not the romanticized Walden of Thoreau’s “pure nature”, but her — and our—natural world.
Crows are birds of the Corvid family which is several million years older than humans. Most crow populations are increasing while globally birds are declining due to human environmental destruction. This likely is because crows are omnivores who eat anything, scavengers who feed upon the dead (hence the term “murder of crows”).
Crows are also immensely intelligent in a way similar to apes which is why their behavior is so complex. They have an extensive vocabulary, for example a “remonstrative call” consisting of scolding and screeching if you get too close to a nest. They use mimicry. They also whisper, whine, meow, croak, chuckle and whinny. Crows take care of one another; they can use tools and are able to “reach a contemplative state while sunning themselves”. Crows may have a “helper” third crow to tend their young along with the mother, father and babies in a nest. Crows also attend “funerals”, gathering around their own dead. This is known as “mobbing”.
“Everybody has a crow story,” Lyanda Lynee Haupt writes.
My story centers around my mother’s death. It began when I flew to Pittsburgh to be with her at what turned out to be the end of her two-year struggle with cancer. The doctors had predicted she had a few more months to live so I flew back to California to put my affairs in order, intending to return as soon as possible. Five days after I left her, mom died. I returned for the funeral.
Both times I was in Pittsburgh I stayed in mom’s condominium on the fifth floor of a brand new housing complex in Forest Hills. It was surrounded by old venerable trees and inhabited by hundreds, perhaps thousands of crows cawing morning and night. I wanted to believe the crows calling out incessantly in those dark trees were messages from my mom. I wanted to learn their language and talk through them to her. I still do.
I ‘ve placed Crow Planet in the Little Free Library at the bottom of my driveway now. Whenever I see the crows I feel myself once again staring through that window of my mother’s condo divining answers while outside the wild, free birds peck at the garbage and clean the street, then fly off, screeching and circling above me—“Portents” Lynda Lynn Haupt writes, “of nothing but themselves, swirling like all of us in our beautiful, tangled, transitory lives.”