A gardener’s story about growing a writing community
I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going when I started to dig in the ground of my new front yard. I just knew that I didn’t want all that grass or that huge tree or the boring junipers around the house foundation. I was younger then, full of energy, so I just started. Deborah and I didn’t know what we were doing or where we would end up when we started to talk about our lives as women and as writers needing to embrace the changes that life had either thrust upon us or that we were calling into our lives. We just knew that our conversations were necessary and revealing and, ultimately, healing. We were not so young then, yet full of curiosity, so we just started. It was hard work ridding the front yard of what was probably decades of grass, but with the help of a good friend and the encouragement of my partner, it slowly disappeared into wheelbarrows and then down the riverbank at the end of my street. A little while into this method, I learned that the riverbank was private...