[WERDZ] This is why you should open your mail from publishers right away...

I got the letter from Weber: The Contemporary West two weeks ago. It has sat on my desk all this time, while I launched a new website, did the major busywork that sending a kid off to freshman year at college halfway across the country entails, prepared my home for the send-off party while also pre-writing nearly 20 blog entries to auto-post at the new website over the next 3 weeks while I am out of town in New York, then in Portland.

When I get paper mail from publications, I automatically think it is a request to subscribe. Now, please note, I didn't toss the letter. It has been in the inbox all this time because I will always consider requests to subscribe. It just wasn't at the top of my priorities these last couple of weeks.

Here's a hint if this is your practice as well... if the letter is hand-addressed to you, and not stamped for presort? OPEN IT.

I got an email from the ever-patient Kristin at Weber yesterday asking me if I had received a letter from them recently. The email subject was "Weber Award."

Of course, I was at work at the sleep lab when I read this email, which means it was close to midnight last night and I could not hope to be home from work until at least 730 today.

When I finally got home at 7am (lucky me, I was out early, with only one patient who was easy to check out this morning... not all of them are!), I tore into the envelope and discovered I had won a literary prize.

"The Dr. O. Marvin Lewis Award of $500 is presented annually in the fall edition of Weber to the author of a work of essay/personal narrative selected as the 'best' published in Weber during the previous year."

Perhaps as thrilling for me to discover was the fact that the prize namesake is a retired medical practitioner who is also a literary writer and arts advocate. A man after my own, newly updated career heart! Even if my essay is not medical in nature, my life today most certainly is, and so I leave you with the thought that the universe speaks to us in myriad lovely ways, if only we should listen (and open our mail promptly!).

Check out my essay here. And thank you, Weber, for validating this choice of mine: to leave behind the charmed literary bubble for a life in the working world while continuing my path as a writer. This will fuel my efforts for a long, long time!

[WERDZ] Writing Life Updates!

Weber: The Contemporary West, Spring 2014

Finally I can return here with some news and some plans (however amorphous these might be at the moment).

NEWS

I have a personal essay in the Spring 2014 edition of Weber: The Contemporary West; it's entitled "Intersections." Of interest to those with a deep connection to the Olympic National Forest, especially in the southwest part of Washington State. The archives at the Weber website aren't live with the latest edition yet, but if you can get hold of a hard copy, please look for my work there! There might be a link to my piece in the coming months, so stay tuned!

Poetry Corners poem broadsides displayed at Eagle
Harbor Books, Bainbridge Island, WA

I also have a poem broadside posted at Island Fitness as part of the local National Poetry Month effort; this Poetry Corners project here in Bainbridge Island. Many thanks to BI Arts & Humanities for their continued effort with this successful campaign to get more poetry out in the community.
year's theme is "Don't Be Afraid," and my poem is entitled "Bus Stop Meditation." I believe it will also be included in a poetry anthology, a new development in the

PLANS

I have launched my new career in sleep technology and I'm really loving the work! I put in two 12.5-hour overnight shifts a week (Mondays and Tuesdays) and sleep during the day (Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with a nap on Monday afternoon as well). On top of that, I'm now secretary of the Washington State Sleep Society and helping out with the organization of their annual conference as well as their website. You can imagine that having a working life does cut into writing time.

However, having an active working life out in the world has afforded me some great experiences with people, technology, medicine and society that are beginning to fill my creative well with ideas. I'm narrowing my focus, for now, on science journalism, personal essay, creative nonfiction and some flash fiction for the time being. Part of my goal in becoming an RPSGT was to get quality credentials to solidify my place in the science journalism world. Now I am studying for an additional credential, the CCSH (Certificate for Clinical Sleep Health) which will allow me to become even more involved in patient sleep education and general health literacy, two pet subjects of mine. I'm also looking into writing more about multiple sclerosis.

As for flash fiction, it's a pleasurable pursuit I can wait to return to. I'm taking Sam Ligon's class in the form at the 11-day Port Townsend Writers Conference at Centrum this coming July and can't wait to generate some new material in a focused environment. I'll be camping out in the campground in our FunFinder this time so I can make use of an open fire every night, one of my favorite energizing practices. It'll be great to see old friends, make new friends and generally re-immerse myself in the writing landscape for that time.

I'm still getting requests for consulting and editing via Writer's Rainbow and, yes, even Margin. Just a reminder: I retired Writer's Rainbow in 2010 and Margin was archived in 2007. They were both wonderful pursuits, but I have moved on and will be focusing my non-work time on my own writing projects.

That's it from the trenches. Wish me luck as I return to the land of wandering word minstrels; I must confess I've missed quite a few of you out there!

~ Tamara