Lupita in San Miguel
I am going to be psoting some accounts from different program participants over the next few days. Here’s the first from post-grad member and Spanish Conversation teacher Emily Lupita Plum. Emily talks about her experience reading, and gives some tidbits from our post-grad workshop:
Excerpt from Emily Lupita Plum’s blog she kept while in San Miguel: http://starmountainview.blogspot.com/
Last night I read for the first time from my recently completed childhood memoir, Growing Mexican Plums. And…I sang because one of the sections I read was called “Song” and is about the songs I used to listen to as a kid. I sang lines from Supertramp’s The Logical Song and had the audience join me in a few lines from Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2). I also sang a lullaby my mom used to sing when I was little, in Spanish.
It was the first time I’ve ever sang during a reading, and I found it powerful. The audience was wonderful…gracious and generous. I felt a surge of energy when I was reading & just afterward. It helped me to remember why I’ve “chosen” the life of a writer, anyhow.
We had two guest speakers at our writing group this week and they were both fantastic. They talked about their path to becoming successful writers and gave us suggestions…imparted wisdom.
Dinty W. Moore said that writers need to pay attention to three things: karma, responsibility, and opportunity. (For more…see Dinty’s journal, Brevity).
When asked what advice she would give to writers beginning their career, Amanda Boyden said, “If you can imagine yourself doing anything else with your life and being happy, don’t be a writer…do that other thing. But if you cannot imagine yourself doing anything else, then be writer.”
Good words from both. I am learning exponentially.