Everyone is a Writer, Family Writing Part 1

"When I discovered Pat Schneider’s writing group in Amherst, I told her that I’d like to come. My route to her home, at dusk, was poetry itself—the Connecticut River appearing, only to disappear, as did seasonal fields and a small town with a library building. Finding Pat to introduce myself, she immediately made me feel as comfortable as if I’d been coming for years. Seeing that the rocking chair wasn’t taken, I sat and put my writing pad on my lap, waiting. … That night I knew Pat only as the founder of Amherst Writers and Artists, but later I read in her book, Writing Alone and With Others, how she saw us seated around her, “You have a voice, just as surely as you have a face, and it is already full of character, passionate and nuanced and beautiful.”*

Re-reading the writing of my family, I’ve become more aware of how deeply it has had an influence on my own. Each writer’s individuality is featured in the coming eight posts, along with how I have benefited.

My realization is, “While an ability may bud, bloom, and be blown, reseeding new levels of accomplishment, that same ability may also be in the family, but not fully seen until years later.”

*A Flower For God