Jenny Bates – thebraverypen

All characters welcome (a workshop announcement)

August 3, 2018No Comments

Teaching writing workshops has turned out to be one of the most spellbinding, inspiring, life- and self-changing accidental decisions I have ever made. In my younger, but ever vivid imaginings, my heaps of education would lead me to the blessed shores of a capital-A Academic collegiate theorizing literary dream world. But, I had a much … Continue reading All characters welcome (a workshop announcement)

Found: Some (spring) time

May 8, 2018No Comments

The immediacy intrinsic to this our current version of life makes me feel as though I’m forever engaged in an epic battle against time. That’s fancy talk for: I spend most of my time feeling like the embodiment of an actual living, breathing Day-Late-and-a-Dollar-Short. I imagine myself as a Carnivale-esque side show has-been, the one … Continue reading Found: Some (spring) time

How do you solve a problem like an over-inflated sense of justice?

April 17, 2018April 18, 2018No Comments

A therapist once told me that I have an over-inflated sense of justice. It lingers as one of the more jarring lessons in stripped-down candor that have slapped me into self-reflection. I was aghast and filled with that particular sort of indignation that runs on embarrassment and shame. It felt wrong, but I was young, … Continue reading How do you solve a problem like an over-inflated sense of justice?

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

April 4, 2018April 5, 2018No Comments

Write to live (or, how not to die)

March 13, 2018April 12, 2018No Comments

I used to watch my writing languish. Literally. Like some lazy do-no-good or a comatose soap opera actor waiting for a brain transplant. My ex, would offer to read something I’d poured myself into, hours of pen and paper, computer screen, and back to pen and paper, the cycle of writing and revising spinning until … Continue reading Write to live (or, how not to die)

A place to put it all

February 20, 2018February 20, 2018No Comments

I walked to the pond every day as my life ripped asunder beneath the sharp edges of the summer sun. I didn’t think I could lose any more, but that’s the pitfall of thinking. We fail to realize that much of it is dreaming or hoping or both and that only hindsight reveals the truth. … Continue reading A place to put it all

You own everything that happened to you. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.

– Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

February 16, 2018February 20, 2018No Comments

I will tell you not what you want to hear but what I know to be true because I have lived it.

– Arthur W. Frank, The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness & Ethics

February 16, 2018February 20, 2018No Comments

The good story refuses denial . . .

Arthur W. Frank, The Wounded Storyteller

February 13, 2018February 20, 2018No Comments

Women of legacy

February 10, 2018No Comments

“Have you thought about your legacy?” She asked. I felt hot under the glow of her radiating anticipation. It was Sunday afternoon, and I considered it a feat that I’d managed to leave my house, much less ruminate on the inner workings of what I intended to leave behind for future generations of humanity. “Not … Continue reading Women of legacy