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COMMENTARY

Blog Notes:

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Please share my blog with others who might be interested.

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Please forgive my typing errors.  I go back and clean them up as I can, but I am a modest writer, a bad typist, a poor speller, and I dislike editing! How is that for a bright self endorsement?  But, I write for enjoyment and the chance at connecting with others.

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JUNE 2020 

Invitation for Writing a Story about Your Life

Pacingaround.com

 

Due to covid risks and my video incompetence, in place of typical interviews I am for now anyway asking people to write stories for my blog.

 

  1. Share some of the foundations and frameworks of your life – the who, what, when, where, how’s of basic experiences or identities. Send me a few sentences of a bio for you so I can share that or if you prefer to be anonymous you may do so.

 

  1. I’d like you to tell me any stories you want to express your life journey.  I’m interested in your hardships and joys, and the lessons you have learned. Select a story or two that mean a lot to you and help express important meanings or transformations in your life and just write about it as you wish.  You might consider both difficult/challenging and joyous/ uplifting stories, of course many stories have both of these qualities mixed in. 

 

  1. I do have special interests in stories about health and illness and ways these experiences have shaped, built, limited, changed, harmed, bettered, troubled, or re directed your life and ways you have found to cope.

 

  1. I have similar interests in issues of culture. gender, race or other core identities and how these have informed, challenged, burdened, privileged or blessed your life.

 

  1. There are no right or wrong life stories, there are just your own stories. 

 

  1. Please don’t worry about writing style.  I’ll read and lightly edit if needed (with your permission), but mainly your words are what matter. This is not an academic essay but a personal, plain spoken and/or creative expression.

 

  1. Length can be 2-20 pages or whatever, I’ll work with you.

 

  1. You may include a few photos or illustrations, songs or videos that support your story if you wish. Just send it all to me by email.

 

  1. Just email me your drafts or finished copy and I will publish on my blog.

 

  1. The story is yours.  If you want me to take it down, send it back to you, make updates or whatever, it’s your decision.

 

PS:  You may also send me poems that you have written and would like to share, or song reviews similar to ones on my blog.

 

PSS: Essays on current events and issues are also welcome – BLM, COVID, Climate Change, Immigration, Gun Control, or political issues.

I posted two new poems today by a guest writer, my friend Francis Grant, Jr.  Francis has been a friend many years, but we re-connected on social media the past year and it has really been a blessing to me. I knew Francis as a student and always enjoyed him, but its so much fun to get to know him more fully as a person. Francis comes from and belongs to the Sac and Fox Tribe as well as the Pawnee tribe. He was raised in Pawnee Oklahoma by his grandma and graduated from Stillwater High School.  Francis worked as an RN for many years and then earned his masters in professional counseling.  Please enjoy his really original works, that come across to me as prose-poems.  I am looking forward to more contributions by Francis and also will be seeking original contributions from others. Thank you Francis!

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TWO NEW POEMS POSTED TODAY 12/920 BY FRANCIS GRANT, JR.

THESE ARE POEMS OF STRUGGLE, GRIEF AND HOPE AND REFLECT THE TIMES WE MAY FIND OURSELVES IN.

Dr. Rockey Robbins is one of the best friends anyone could have. He is of the Choctaw and Cherokee Tribes. He is also a brilliant artistic and scientific mind. Dr. Robbins is a professor and a counseling psychologist at the University of Oklahoma. He is the deepest lover of music that I have ever know, so I feel honored to get some of his thoughts in the review of the Song - Deflowering.

My friend Will Ivey wrote the essay I just posted called How Big is your Tent, posted under the essay link in this blog.  Will and I grew up in the same small town of Levelland Texas and were both farm kids, he lived in the country on the north side of town (we called it the Pettit side of town for the tiny community of Pettit) and I grew up in the country on the south side of town (we often called it Clauene for the tiny community of Clauene). We became friends in middle school and spent countless hours together in our teens and early adult years before life took us different directions.  Yet, we kept in touch and have more recently reconnected in a closer way, probably thanks to social media.  Will has a bachelors degree in psychology, was farmer, then an RN, then a Nurse Anesthetist. He and some other friends in Washington state have recently founded a group called Action Matters to effect social change for justice and the good of democracy in the USA.  He is a life brother to me and his willingness to do hard work, both intellectual and physical, along with his wisdom, courage and kindness are models for me.  I am so thankful for his writing, a real gift he has developed and for his friendship.  

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