Guest Bloggers

Guest Blogger Susan Hagen: Birthdays, cupcakes, and healing through writing

Note from Marlene: Guest Blogger Susan Hagen encourages us to have fun. And shows us how we can heal through writing . . . one of my strong beliefs, also. I hope you enjoy Susan’s post: To celebrate our 62nd birthdays, my best friend and I recently spent the weekend in Disneyland. Despite creaky knees and stiff backs, we were ready to party like … well, like eight-year-olds. We had great fun on the (not-too-wild) rides and enjoyed being playful and somewhat silly. But in that space of awareness about our childhoods, what arose in both of us were memories of disappointing birthdays of the past. It’s never too late to have that birthday cupcake. For me, it was 1963, the year I turned eight. My mother was supposed to bring chocolate cupcakes to my third-grade class at the end of the school day. But a few days before my birthday, President…

Prompts

Rewrite your past.  Prompt #327

Today’s writing prompt is inspired by something Susan Hagen wrote. “A seminal moment in my life occurred when I was barely three years old. I remember sitting on the kitchen counter, pouring chocolate chips into Mom’s cookie dough. In a nod to our teamwork, my very pregnant mother said, ‘Two heads are better than one.’ A few months later, she gave birth to twins. All I could see was that they had two heads, and she had told me that ‘two heads are better than one.’ So instead of being happy that I’d gotten a baby sister AND a baby brother, I set myself on a lifelong mission to prove that my one head was as good as their two. That showed up as a double major in college, having two jobs throughout most of my life, and constantly battling an inner voice that said ‘you’re not good enough’ (because I only had one…

Book Reviews

Women at Ground Zero: Stories of Courage and Compassion

Women at Ground Zero: Stories of Courage and Compassion, by Susan Hagen and Mary Carouba, is a story of remarkable courage. . . the courage that took Hagen and Carouba from their comfortable home in Northern California to New York City to learn more about the first responders for the September 11th attack on New York City.  After observing only male responders being interviewed  on television, firefighter Hagen and investigative social worker Carouba decided to pack up and head to NYC to discover the stories of the women responders. They interviewed 30 women whose stories are told in detail in this riveting book that reads like a novel.  The individual stories are tributes to the unselfish acts of bravery and valor. All of the first responders, paramedics, firefighters and police should be remembered. Hagen and Carouba have done an excellent job of telling these stories. All should be commended for…

Guest Bloggers

Guest Blogger Susan Hagen: What I want to tell you…

Guest Blogger Susan Hagen wants to tell you something… After a long weekend together, I wrote this to honor the courage and heart of the students at my fall writing retreat. I offer it again here to all of you: What I want to tell you is that you are not like most people. Most people would not be awakened at dawn by the beating of a drum and feel happy about it. Most people would not hurry through their yogurt and bacon to climb a hill and sit all day on a threadbare couch. Most people would not spend four days putting words in a notebook or listening deeply to the words other people spent four days putting in a notebook – and pay for the privilege. They would not weep in front of strangers, or talk about their sex lives, or say truth be told, I’m glad my…