{"id":640,"date":"2014-02-26T18:28:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T01:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=640"},"modified":"2014-02-26T18:30:21","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T01:30:21","slug":"photo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/photo\/","title":{"rendered":"I’d like you to meet Pat Schneider."},"content":{"rendered":"

I am fortunate to have experienced the wonderful and intrepid Pat Schneider<\/a>, founder of Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA<\/a>) . . . both in her books<\/a> and in writing workshops.<\/p>\n

Pat was born in 1934, lived in tenement housing with her brother and single mother where there was seldom food in the cupboards, let alone on the table. When she was ten, Pat and her brother went to live in an orphanage. Those early experiences deeply influenced her writing, and fueled her passion for those who have been denied voice through poverty and other misfortunes. Through the help of a caring teacher, Pat was awarded a scholarship and was able to attend college, where she met her future husband. And so a life of writing began for this remarkable woman who lives and loves passionately.<\/p>\n

Here’s a story about Pat, from her website:<\/p>\n

I was a young poet, published in a few small journals, but I didn\u2019t yet have a book of poems, when another poet in my neighborhood who did have a book, suggested we exchange poems and give each other critical suggestions. I was flattered \u2013 after all, she was a published poet! We exchanged poems, wrote our comments on the pages, and when I read her comments, I was devastated. My poor pages were bleeding red ink! So many criticisms! So little that was affirmed! For several days I felt sick \u2013 thinking I knew I shouldn\u2019t have given her my poems! I\u2019m not a good poet! I\u2019m so embarrassed! <\/i>and on, and on.<\/p>\n

But after a few days, one of her comments bothered me. \u201cMama,\u201dshe said, \u201cis a childish word for \u2018mother.\u2019 Change to \u2018mother.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The poem began like this:<\/p>\n

Mama<\/b><\/p>\n

Mama knew a family in the Ozarks
\nnamed their baby \u201cVaseline Malaria\u201d
\nbecause the words were pretty.<\/p>\n

I could just imagine my very dignified big-city poet friend\u2019s reaction to that. But changing the name to \u201cMother\u201d and putting \u201cwho\u201d before \u201cnamed\u201d so it would work with \u201cmother\u201d \u2014 would make it an entirely different poem. The problem for my friend was the voice<\/i>. And then I saw that almost every one of her comments were aimed at changing my voice<\/i> into her voice<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t speak with an Ozark dialect now (except for a few words that I choose not to alter). I don\u2019t write all the time using Ozark rhythms. But writing about my mama or my grandma \u2013 even writing about my own childhood frequently requires Ozark speech. Like this one, written in response to that experience:<\/p>\n

WHAT I WANT TO SAY<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, I was playing, see,
\nin the shadow of the tabernacle.
\nI was decorating mud pies
\nwith little brown balls
\nI found scattered on the ground
\nlike nuts, or berries.
\nUntil some big boy came walking by
\nand laughed. \u201cHey,
\ndon\u2019t you know you\u2019re puttin\u2019 goat doo
\non your mud pies? I bet
\nyou\u2019re gonna eat \u2018em, too!\u201d<\/p>\n

That day I made a major error
\nin my creative life.<\/p>\n

What I want to say is this:
\nI liked those little balls
\non my mud pies. I was a sculptor,
\nan artist, an architect. I was
\nmaking pure design in space and time.
\nBut I quit
\nbecause a critic came along
\nand called it shit.<\/p>\n

Click here <\/a>to read more about what Pat Schneider wants to say.<\/p>\n

In this interview<\/a> with Cary Tennis<\/a>, Pat shares some of her deepest passions.\u00a0 If you want inspiration for writing, watch Pat in her most sincere conversation about her passion for writing.<\/p>\n

Writing Alone and With Others, a film <\/a>about Pat Schneider and the writing process.<\/p>\n

\"House-Pat-was-born-in\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The house Pat Schneider was born in the year 1934.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am fortunate to have experienced the wonderful and intrepid Pat Schneider, founder of Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) . . . both in her books and in writing workshops. Pat was born in 1934, lived in tenement housing with her brother and single mother where there was seldom food in the cupboards, let alone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[126],"tags":[318,319,320,317],"class_list":["post-640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-write-2","tag-amherst-writers-and-artists","tag-awa","tag-cary-tennis","tag-pat-schneider"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s43Dj8-photo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}