KaBooM Writers
Welcome to the online presence of KaBooM, a writing group that has sustained the creative lives of a diverse group of women for over a decade. We hope that getting to know us will inspire you, too!Here’s a picture of all of us at the book party on December 6. The cake that Mary made, decorated with the tree from our book cover, is in the center. Thanks to the many friends who celebrated with us and made it a great day!
Lynn, Mary, Jan, Gail, Pam, Susan, and Leatha
On December 6, we presented When The Bough Breaks to the public with a reading and a celebration at the Carnegie Center. I had forgotten in the midst of publishing, sewing, and marketing the book how wonderful the written work is. Each of us read five minutes and each of us made the work new again.
Words weigh more when read out loud. When reading silently to yourself from the page, you hear your own voice, your own incantations and prejudices. But when the author reads, you hear her intent, her emphases and pauses and, hence, her meanings, as her voice feels its way from word to word, stone to stone through rapids, over falls, along placid streams, into reflecting pools.
It felt as if I was hearing these poems and stories and essays for the first time. So, it seems, we begin again. I left that celebration brimming with good cheer. What a joy again to be part of this enterprise. What gladness at our individual and collaborative triumph. What gratitude for the reading public who appreciate this book, this venture, this claim.
Lynn
Over the long weekend I closed out one writer’s notebook and prepared to begin using another. For me this process involves leafing through the pages of the filled book, looking for nuggets that might be left behind and eventually forgotten.
I was surprised to see that my old notebook, begun in early summer, is mostly filled with notes from KaBooM meetings. Here’s a to-do list, made as the manuscript neared completion. Here’s a list of questions to take to Larkspur Press, followed by a set of instructions on how to hand sew book signatures.
Here are thoughts for blog entries, made when our web site was fledgling. Here are ideas for the panel discussion we led at the Kentucky Women Writers Conference, and the descriptions for two workshops we’ll lead this winter at the Carnegie Center.
It’s a rich history of the process of creating and then taking public When the Bough Breaks. I’m glad to have it. Problem is, there’s more note taking than writing, more listing than generating.
This, I see, is the rhythm of a writer’s life: writing, then bringing to fruition, followed by reflecting.
I also see that it’s time to get back to writing.
One evening last week, several members of KaBooM led a Lexington Girl Scout group in the how-to of handmade book craft. We showed them When the Bough Breaks, certainly. But because our time was short and these young women deserved an opportunity to make their own books as places to set words to paper, one of our goals was to provide them a chance to make something beautiful they could take home. Soon, ten sets of hands were running fingers over paper choices; wrestling with bulldog clips and paper awls; pulling thread through beeswax; and enjoying success with Japanese binding—a technique very different from what we used for our anthology, but one just right for first-time book makers.
Bulldog clips hold multiple pages firm as they are worked into a book.
Coating thread with natural beeswax before sewing.
Of course we wanted them to take away more than just beautiful handmade books. We told them that publishing can mean many things, as setting words to one sheet of paper and presenting them as a gift to someone special is one way that writing moves out into the world. You have the ability to do this, we urged these young writers.
Scoring the cover folds with bone folders and rulers.
We made sure they knew that before we began our own project, we didn’t even know what we needed to learn to ensure our anthology became reality. Nonetheless here we are, at a particularly exhilarating part of the journey to print.
Book makers displaying the visual aspect of the evening's success.
What we took away was less physically tangible than the crafted objects they proudly displayed in this group picture. That evening my pockets were full with the energy in the room, the shared delight in accomplishment, the heartfelt appreciations. Since then I’ve reflected that the fierceness of purpose I took away has far more to do with the making of meaning than of making only a pretty object. The books we make are fine work because the freight they carry matters deeply to us. That, of all they took from our time together, is what I most desire those young writers remember and take to heart.
We’re still catching our breath from an exciting weekend! The book fair was fun, with so many readers and writers gathered in one place. Seeing old friends and meeting new ones made the day a real pleasure.
The book had a good day as well! We sold every copy we brought, gathered up all the others we could find at short notice, and sold out of them, too! We met a lot of people whose friends had recommended When the Bough Breaks. Thanks for spreading the word.
Here are some pictures from the big day:
Lynn sewing more books at the Ky. Book Fair
Wyn Morris stops by to chat with Leatha, Pam, and Susan
Pam, Mary, and Susan at the KaBooM table, Ky. Book Fair 2009
We’ll be at Table 10 for the Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort this Saturday. Stop by and say hello!
So we’re a day into National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWRiMo, and more power to all of you who are making the words fly. But for those of us who aren’t up to the challenge of drafting a novel by the end of the month, (maybe next year…) here’s another possibility.
Dawn DeVries Sokol is offering a prompt per day for her version of this month’s excitement: NaNoJouMo, or National Nonstop Journaling Month. She’s a lettering artist who renders a word to serve as the day’s inspiration with style and personality. And if the thought of another writing project sounds more like an energy drain than a spigot for new ideas, this can be a journal for doodles and drawings—lines that convey emotion without using language. Sounds refreshing to me, like taking up a dowsing rod to locate a new well of creativity.
For several years, I’ve been privileged to lead a gathering of wordsmiths in “Writing Practice” at the Carnegie Center, where for an hour and a half once a week we do short timed writings in response to specific prompts. These prompts can be as simple as single words or phrases: one popular prompt collection includes paint chips of bright or unusual colors with evocative names: “blush,” “forest light,” “firecracker.”
The point is to commit to write without stopping, without thinking through labored connections; to write quickly and from our deepest places, burning through false starts and second guesses because there simply isn’t time for unproductive dithering. Often, writing this way captures an energy of mind our more considered writing lacks. Frequently, small bits of real treasure are uncovered. We immediately read these pieces aloud. Because these pages are raw, critiques are not appropriate. Instead, reading aloud releases the words, provides a small public place for them to be heard, and allows some all-important distance between the writer and the pages that have just been filled. Sometimes what’s read is so fresh and sharp it surprises everyone in the room, including the writer.
And that treasure I mentioned? Many of us take it away and, in private writing spaces, allow it to open even further. Award-winning poems, serendipitous solutions to narrative problems, and satisfying essays have all had their beginnings in writing practice. This is the kind of practice that keeps a word-yogi limber. At their roots, the words practice and practical come from the Greek praktikos which means ‘concerned with action.’ Writing practice is one way to make our commitments to writing active, to take them from vague good intentions and transform them into embodied reality.
But you don’t have to wait to find a group to try this kind of “capture.” One of the reasons we chose to include our “Try This” exercises at the end of each piece in our anthology When The Bough Breaks was to encourage our readers to engage in their own creative process. Our “Try This” pieces are full of questions designed to nudge, suggest, and encourage the reader to pick up a pen and let that ink flow.
Why not make an appointment with yourself this week? Come on—set a timer, pick up a prompt, and Try This.
A further note: Writing Practice is a tradition Laverne Zabielski initiated more than a decade ago, indebted to Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down The Bones, where in her chapter “First Thoughts” she lists “rules” to make timed writings a place where one can “explore the rugged edge of thought.”
These pictures were taken as the “Longest Short Story Ever Written in Lexington” event unfolded at Third Street Stuff. Everyone was invited to add a line, or several, to the story begun that morning at the Carnegie Center by Ed McClanahan. The tale grew at various locations in Lexington throughout the day. Listen to the WUKY radio report featuring Gail and Lynn.
Gail with the poster advertising Lexington's writing event
Pam adds to the story as Jan looks on
One more writer in the parking lot considers what to add before the writing pad moves on
The Herald-Leader article by Amy Wilson about the finished product, with photo by Pablo Alcala, are here.
This Tuesday morning, October 20, the members of KaBooM will join millions of other Americans as they observe the National Day on Writing.
Conceived by the National Council of Teachers of English, the day is devoted to celebrating and spotlighting one of humankind’s “most central and important activities.” The US Senate recently passed a resolution commemorating the day.
The National Day on Writing is intended to capture what Americans are doing as writers and to document the breadth of that effort—from social media posts to journaling to writing family histories to composing poems and stories to gathering together with the members of a writing group to create an anthology of pieces.
If you would like to post a piece of your own writing to the National Gallery, you can visit www.galleryofwriting.org and find the perfect home for your words. (By searching Kentucky galleries, you can post your work directly to the Carnegie Center Gallery. Or choose another gallery if you prefer.)
Or stop by Third Street Stuff and Coffee between 9 and 11, where the members of KaBooM will be busily engaged in their regular Tuesday occupation—setting pen to paper as they practice the art of writing.
