Marcia Meier's Blog

Ruth Thompson's extraordinary Quickwater Oracles (out Dec. 4 from Saddle Road Press) is a unique and ultimately joyful exploration of life's challenges and triumphs. Her channeling calls forth delightful and in many ways prescient voices providing wisdom and advice to Ruth and to all of us. They belong to her sweet pup Duffy, long departed, but still with Ruth every moment; the Dolphins, who gently remind Ruth not to take life too seriously; Bear and Crow, the Singers, the Faeries, the Dragons and other beings who converse with her. They talk of life, of love, of fear, of joy, and offer advice that rings true throughout.

Read the rest of the review on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Many thanks to the incredible Lisa Rizzo for this beautiful review on the Brevity magazine blog. And thanks, too, to Dinty Moore and reviews editor Debbie Hagan. Here’s an excerpt:

“Many of the book’s chapters open with epigraphs using excerpts from the surgeon’s notes of her procedures. In much the same way that Joan Didion returns again and again to her husband’s heart attack in her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, these notes create a circular pattern, returning to the little girl in her hospital bed before spiraling into future events. The repetition of medical terms reminds the reader of the terror Meier as a child must have endured, even as she deals with how that suffering influenced the adult she became.”

You can read the entire review here.

I received amazingly good news this week, as those of you on Facebook may have seen. My memoir, Face, was shortlisted for the 2021 Eric M. Hoffer Book Award grand prize, and won honorable mention in the memoir category.

This is a wonderful honor, and I’m so grateful to all who have contributed to the success of this book, especially Editor Ruth Thompson and designer Don Mitchell of Saddle Road Press.

And in other good news, my essay “Skin Craft," which is derived from Face, was shortlisted for the 2021 Fish Publishing Short Memoir Prize and appears this month in Reed Magazine.

If you’d like to read Face, you can find it online and through your independent local bookstore. I also recommend that if you buy it online, you purchase it from bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores.

If you have a book club and would like to read Face and talk with me about it, please reach out. I’d love to chat with you and you book friends! I’m also available to talk to groups interested in overcoming trauma. Thanks for all your support and encouragement!

I received amazingly good news this week, as those of you on Facebook may have seen. My memoir, Face, was shortlisted for the 2021 Eric M. Hoffer Book Award grand prize, and won honorable mention in the memoir category.

This is a wonderful honor, and I’m so grateful to all who have contributed to the success of this book, especially Editor Ruth Thompson and designer Don Mitchell of Saddle Road Press.

If you’d like to read Face, you can find it online and through your independent local bookstore. I also recommend that if you buy it online, you purchase it from bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores.

If you have a book club and would like to read Face and talk with me about it, please reach out. I’d love to chat with you and you book friends! Thanks for all your support and encouragement!

This is the view from my new home in Santa Fe, NM. I moved here a week ago and I am thrilled to be in the land of perpetual sun, Georgia O’Keefe, and artists and writers of all stripes. Santa Barbara was home for 35 years, and home base for even longer, since I moved there with my parents when I was in high school in 1974.

But it was time to move on to a new life, and I have loved (and visited) Santa Fe for many years, and have many wonderful friends here. I feel like I am finally home. So, here’s to a new adventure! If you’re ever in The City Different, let me know. Happy new life to me! (And my kitty, Cleo, who is finally relaxing after a three-day trip across the country).

Last call for my new two-hour, Zoom-based workshop, Get Started on Your Memoir! It’s this Saturday, June 6, from 10:30 - 12:30 p.m. Pacific. Link to register is below. Here’s the description:

You've always wanted to write a memoir, but you just aren't sure how to get started. This two-hour workshop on Zoom will give you the tools to begin, with step-by-step instruction that will provide the motivation and oomph you need to move from idea to book. Includes a detailed handout and list of resources to keep you focused and on track long after the workshop ends. Cost is $75.

Let me know if you have any questions.

You can sign up here.

My memoir, Face, will be published by Saddle Road Press later this year! As many of you know, I have been writing this book for almost 15 years. It was the reason I decided to go back to school in 2010 to get my MFA in creative writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles, and it has been revised many, many times of the past four years (version 5,397?).

Anyway, I am thrilled, and want to thank Ruth Thompson, publisher and editor of Saddle Road Press, for offering encouragement and exceptionally helpful editing suggestions over the past year. Thanks, too, to A Room of Her Own Foundation, which is where I met Ruth and many other wonderful and supportive women writer friends in 2011.

I can’t wait to see this book in print! Here’s the tentative cover. You can find out more about the book here and here.

I’m honored to be a part of the California Creative Writers Conference happening Feb. 28-March 1 in Los Angeles. You don’t want to miss this event, which will be held at the DoubleTree Hotel by Hilton Los Angeles Westside in Culver City.

I’ll be doing a solo presentation (What writers Need to Know about Publishing with an Indie Hybrid Press), 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, the 29th, and also will be participating in panels Friday afternoon (How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal that Sells, 5:15 p.m.) and Saturday morning (How to Write a Memoir that More than Your Family Will Want to Buy & Read, 10 a.m.).

This conference is part of Tony Todaro’s wildly successful Greater Los Angeles Writers Conferences, which I’ve been privileged to be a part of several times in the past. The CCWC offers a huge selection of panels, presentations and workshops for writers of all stripes, and I recommend signing up no matter what your level of experience or skill. You’re sure to come away with lots of valuable information. Here’s the entire schedule.

For the next three days (till the 14th) they are offering a 2-for-1 deal that allows two people to come for the price of one registration. And here’s the regular registration link. Don’t miss this great conference!

Happy holidays to all my friends and acquaintances, professional and otherwise. I spent an afternoon recently wandering through downtown Santa Barbara, which is decked out for the holidays, and thought I’d share some of those images.

It’s raining, so I’m not sure I’ll get to do my Christmas Day beach walk (my own little holiday tradition), but I’ll share some photos from a recent walk. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to live and work in this beautiful place, and I’m grateful to all of you who have become friends and clients over the years.

I’ll be teaching a new course for Antioch University Online in January: Writing to Create a Joy-filled Life. It’s the perfect way to start the new year, with gratitude and recognition that if we want to feel joy, we only need to decide to be joyous. Would love to write with you in the New Year! Here’s the link to sign up.

And coming soon: new classes on memoir writing and using fiction techniques in nonfiction through the Pacific School of Writing. Stay tuned for more details after the new year.

Sending all best wishes from me and Cleo (below) for a love- and joy-filled holiday season and a fruitful New Year!

Cleo (@cleoqueenofcats on Instagram) guarding her Christmas tree.

At the waterfalls above Squaw Valley

I was so lucky this month to spend a week at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers fiction workshop. I got a lot of encouragement and support for continuing work on a novel I’ve been toiling over for many years, in addition to a new memoir about living with a family member with mental illness.

My brother has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia since he was a teenager. He’s now sixty-one and lives by himself in a mobile home on a tiny supplemental security income stipend. His teeth are mostly gone, he’s rail-thin, and he still struggles with fear and delusions, though age has lessened his psychosis. This memoir recounts his descent into severe mental illness and looks at the state of our mental health care system nationwide. In a word, it’s abysmal. I’ve written about and followed the laws and conditions of mental health care for many years. It is my hope that this book will enlighten and prompt policy revisions to improve the lives of millions of our family members and neighbors, not to mention the thousands of homeless people on our streets and in our jails.

As for the novel, I am excited to get back to a project that has been percolating since I wrote the first scene in a fiction class in 1987. After seventeen years in a nursing home, on the eve of his thirtieth birthday, a paralyzed Matt asks his gathered friends to end his life. Fred, who feels responsible for Matt’s accident, is conflicted. He is the one who stayed in their hometown, who visits Matt every day, who stayed true. Whether it has been out of guilt or friendship, no one knows besides Fred. Jake, the ambitious African-American attorney up for partner in his Los Angeles firm, thinks the answer to Matt’s request is obvious. Jeremy, the sensitive architect in San Francisco, great-grandson of Asian Gold Rush immigrants, is certain it’s wrong. Fred turns to his confidant and friend, Fr. Michael Cherry, to understand and make up his own mind. Meanwhile, Matt, bedridden, waits for their collective decision over the course of his birthday weekend. This is a project that has gripped my heart for years; now is the time to let the story unfold.

All of which is to say it’s been a busy and exciting summer. And that followed a spring filled with travel through Italy and Spain and a ten-day writing and painting retreat I led with my colleague Helena Hill. We are already planning another retreat to Tuscany for October 2021.

Next fall, I will lead an intensive writing workshop to the south of Spain, from Sept. 26-Oct. 3, 2020, at Casa-Ana, a lovely villa an hour from Granada. We’ll spend most mornings writing and afternoons in intensive critique. Bring your memoir, novel, nonfiction work of any kind. We’ll focus on generating new work and considering how it fits into your overall work. On two of the days we’ll hike the beautiful Sierra Nevada and explore Granada with a local guide. Casa-Ana is a warm and inviting villa with private en suite rooms, enticing meals, and every amenity you can imagine. Lodging, instruction, meals and transportation to and from Granada are included in the $3,600 cost. The only additional expense you are responsible for is your travel to and from Spain. A $500 deposit holds your spot. The balance of the fees is due in equal amounts on January 1, 2020 ($1,550), and July 1, 2020 ($1,550). Limited to nine students.

Interested? Send me an email! marcia@marciameier.com.

Enjoy the coming dog days of summer!