Hot Off the Press! From Brenda Miller and Holly Hughes

The Pen and the Bell Mindful Writing in a Busy World giveaway at the end of this posting

Two wonderful Washington State writers, Holly Hughes and Brenda Miller have just published a new book, their first collaboration. The book, The Pen and the Bell, Mindful Writing in a Busy World is one that everyone I know wants to get their hands on right away as it purports to give ideas on how to live and more specifically, to write,  mindfully in a crazy busy world. As I spend this evening grading and preparing classes, I know that I need to read this book as soon as possible. If you are interested in finding out more about this book and how to get a free copy, read on!

The Pen and The Bell

Excerpts from the Preface

“A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me—a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day’s blow
rang out, metallic—or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.”

—Denise Levertov, “Variation on a Theme by Rilke”

Denise Levertov’s poem describes a state of mind many of us would love to achieve in our daily lives.Wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel that each day we’re granted an “honor and a task,” and each day to know that we can easily do this work—with pleasure, focus, and joy?

This book is about how to carve out space for writing in a world crowded with so many distractions. It’s about how many of us long to be “a bell awakened,” and yet how difficult that state can be to achieve in the face of our massive to-do lists. It’s about being able to gain access to our deeper selves in the work-a-day world, and to bring forth this authentic self in our writing.

Brenda Miller is the author of several books of creative non-fiction including Listening Against Stone and Blessing the Animals; she teachers at Western Washington University. Holly Hughes is the author of Boxing the Compass, which won the Floating Bridge Chapbook Award and she is also editor of the anthology Beyond Forgetting - poems concerning patients with Alzheimers and their caregivers.

For your chance to enter a free copy of The Pen and the Bell, just click here!