Inspiration

Last weekend, I had the pleasure to see and meet two very awesome writers, Jan Beatty and Naomi Shihab Nye. It was my first "literary" weekend in awhile. On Friday night, I attended the Gist St. Reading Series to see Pittsburgh native Jan Beatty read her poetry. I've admired her work for a couple of years now and even own one of her books (which, unfortunately, I forgot to take for her to sign). When I left the reading, I had this strange desire to write poetry again, something I haven't done in months. It was like my brain had opened up and all of this creativity had rushed in again. I was thinking like a poet, seeing things for their hidden meanings once again.

Then, on Sunday, I met Naomi Shihab Nye at the Bridges to New Worlds Literary Festival at Chatham University. Her workshop was amazing! Naomi is such a friendly, down-to-earth, yet wise woman. Naomi is just like me-- a poet at heart turned children's writer. She is probably best known for her poetry, but her YA novel Haibibi is outstanding! I left the workshop on Sunday morning floating on a cloud, my signed copy of A Maze Me: Poems for Girls in my hand and another push to start writing more.

The point of my stories is this: we must live in order to write. When we stop allowing ourselves to commune with other writers, to share our work, to seek out inspiration, that's when we prevent ourselves from being constructive with our work. I feel as if I've allowed myself to get so busy with life that I've prevented myself from truly living the life of a writer. It took a weekend like this past one to remind me how great it feels to have this gift.