Sandra Johnson – A Woman Inspired

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inspiration, Reading List, women, writing

Sandra Johnson

Sandra Johnson’s book Flowers for the Living comes with a warning from a reader “the author is going to stab you in the heart with her garden shovel,” but, the warning continues: “and when the last drop of blood is shed, you will find a seed planted there that will blossom…” And with that you have your first kernel of understanding who Sandra Johnson is.

We met at a book event in Atlanta, where I had the great fortune to share the stage with Sandra, the event’s featured author. While I began the day knowing little more than what her website disclosed, I left feeling as if I had known her my whole life.

Shortly after the event, I returned to the Internet to read more about Sandra and then, even more intrigued, shortly after that I read Flowers for the Living in a single sitting. Only then did I come away with the sense of having peeled back one layer of a rosebud. Sandra is a multi-layered person, and one who draws from a place deep inside to write. A place filled with inspiration and worldly experience.

Because I believe my own writing is born of imagination rather than the more profound gift of inspiration, I have a fondness for people who can grab something from their core, their past, their heart, and bring it into the light to examine and write through their struggles, producing something that as Sandra says is “beautiful and true.”

This philosophy is central to Sandra’s approach and one she is documenting in a new self-help book that is a guide for people to journal their way to wellness.  She says, we need to examine where we came from and where we are headed to know who we are.  The approach is something Sandra has used in counseling inmates with severe psychiatric illness in a South Carolina correctional facility. The working title for the book is Finding Peace Within:  A 365-Day Journal for Balance, Clarity, and Serenity.

Sandra has been rewarded for tackling tough subjects—in the most recent case advocacy for those who need psychiatric treatment while incarcerated, and earlier for Standing on Holy Ground the story of the rebuilding of a South Carolina church firebombed in a racially motivated incident. She realized an author’s dream, reviews and mentions in O:  The Oprah Magazine, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and Southern Living and invitations to speak across the country.

Somehow, though, I suspect having satisfied her own quest to create something “beautiful and true” was the greater reward.

Of course, all this is in the past.  And, as anyone who strives to better themselves knows, Sandra is moving on. She’s writing historical fiction set in the south in the 1700s. It’s no surprise that the protagonist of Luna is a fierce, strong willed woman who perseveres though enslavement and separation from everything she loves during the Civil War to return to her family.

Another heady and inspirational topic and one that deserves Sandra’s keen eye and big heart.

Read more about Sandra on her website: sandraejohnson.net

 

A Suitable Woman – Soniah Kamal

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Atlanta Writer, India, Isolated Incident, Pakistan, Soniah Kamal, Suitable Woman, writing

Yesterday I heard Soniah Kamal speak to an audience of writers about the highs and lows of writing.  Her talk was captivating, perhaps because she touched so many points we, and likely many of the other writers in the room, share in common.  Thankfully, my lows have never been as low as hers and, like Soniah, I have been fortunate to experience the high of having a novel published.

Years ago, before his death, Soniah promised her grandfather she’d write a novel about Kashmir, the disputed and war-torn region from which he had emigrated.  I’ve read news reports on the area, the claims on Kashmir by India, Pakistan, and China and of the natural disasters and man-made conflicts that pummel the region endlessly, though I’ve never managed to fully grasp the issues that lie at the heart of the conflict.  Perhaps a novel on Kashmir penned, or should I say “keyed”, by a cross-cultural American can best illuminate the situation.

Soniah did eventually write the promised book, An Isolated Incident, and, within months she signed with a literary agent.  Soniah remembers thinking she had arrived, as she said, “all too easily”.  What was the big deal, she must have asked herself.  All too easy it proved to be.  In the ensuing months and years, pursuing editor interest through a series of agents, Soniah found herself back at square one, agentless and still seeking a book contract.  Bruised and buffeted by the fickle winds of writing and publishing, Soniah abandoned writing for two years.

But, this is a story of highs as well as lows.  Soniah persevered.  She continued to volunteer for literary organizations, wrote book reviews, interviewed other authors, and networked.  A chance encounter with yet another literary agent and his interest in her novel spurred Soniah forward.  The world of writing had changed since she first wrote her novel and the Indian publishing world had blossomed.  Soniah chose to go that route and signed with an agent in India.  Soon the novel was sold to a new imprint Fingerprint Press, released on the Indian Subcontinent and made available globally, though Soniah is working now to secure a US publisher.

I have no doubt she’ll realize her dream.  She refused to give up when things looked bleak and now, she’s won numerous awards, published articles, reviews, and stories and is pursuing an MFA and writing a second novel, all signs that it is a suitable time for a suitable woman.

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Note:  Soniah is more than suitable — she’s inspiring but I chose these words on learning that Soniah Kamal’s undergraduate thesis was on Vikram Seth’s book A Suitable Boy — a book I read and enjoyed thoroughly.  Hearing of her long journey to fulfill her commitment and with an endorsement from Khaled Hosseini, An Isolated Incident has found a place atop my to be read list.

Read more at about Soniah Kamal and An Isolated Incident at http://www.soniahkamal.com

Word by Word – Anne Lamott

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advice, Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, inspiration, Patti Callahan Henry, writing

Patti Callahan Henry, speaking to the assembled writer wannabes at a meeting of the Atlanta Writers Club, gasped audibly when she saw the paltry show of hands. She’d asked for a show of hands, certain that almost everyone would have responded in the affirmative, from all those who had read Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird.
I slumped a bit lower in my seat not wanting to admit my ignorance.
“Well you have just GOT to read this book,” Patti said.
And so I did and I will never regret it. The book, in my humble opinion, is a seminal piece on writing for any aspiring writer, but it is also a book of inspiration for life in general.
The premise of the work is that no task is too great if you just get going. The title comes from a tale she tells early on about her brother who had delayed his summer book report, as I remember it, on birds. The night before it was due he was overwhelmed and did not know where to begin. Advice from his very wise father was just to take a fresh piece of paper and start writing, bird by bird.
There are so many wonderful quotes from Anne in this book and in the many others of hers. Here is just sample:
“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”