Jennifer is a writer and teacher from New Mexico. Her memoir essays have appeared in journals including Creative Nonfiction and Ascent (this essay was nominated for a Pushcart Prize), among others, and a story she worked on appeared on NPR’s This American Life. She is working on her first book, a memoir. Jennifer blogs about her writing process and the elongated, tortoise-like dip she’s taken into publishing her work at jenniferjordanschaller.com. Jennifer graduated from the University of New Mexico’s MFA program, … Read more
For our first as yet unnamed podcast Melanie and I (Jennifer) had a conversation with our July Featured Writer, Christina Socorro Yovovich. We had a great conversation about writing and parenting during this pandemic and the challenges of writing when you’ve been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Here are links to some of the things we talked about: Jenn’s online writing groups Drop in writing sessions Mondays at 5:30 pm and … Read more
I’m not sure how I became Facebook friends with Sue Silverman; I rarely accept friend requests from people I’ve not actually met in person. I do know several friends who’ve studied with Sue and sing her praises loudly. Maybe it was her generosity in sharing information about writing and publishing on one of The Binders groups for writers (on Facebook) or maybe I’d seen pictures of her fun shoes, but … Read more
We are super excited to announce a new regular column—you may recall just a few short months ago (or was it years ago?) we featured the wonderfully talented Rebecca Aronson (April 2020). She is not only a talented poet but she has been running the coolest literary event in Albuquerque, Bad Mouth, featuring all genre of writers alongside a musician or sound artist. I may not have always enjoyed the … Read more
A guest post by Cassie McClure The long walks frame our days during the quarantine. It starts the day and ends the day. My dog has become slimmer; I have not. While discussing the abrupt end of the school year for my daughter during one of the walks, I told my mom about a recent article I had read. A data-ladened piece, that somehow was still tinged with anxiety-inducing barbs, … Read more
A few months ago when stay-at-home orders began all over the country, we started a Zoom support group for women and non-binary writers. It has been such an empowering experience and we have gotten to know some truly amazing people from all over the country in such a short span of time. One of those writers is Chrystal O’Keefe, who shared with us about how she took a traumatic event … Read more
Christina Socorro Yovovich is a writer I met in the MFA program at The University of New Mexico. We took a creative nonfiction workshop together, and I was so moved by her writing and by the way she was able to talk about her life so openly. She was also one of those multi-talented writers who ended up doing a dual-genre dissertation in creative nonfiction and poetry. We are delighted … Read more
My plan for this week’s blog was to share a list of books and publications by writers Plume has published (and I will return to that later), but considering the racial injustice and violent unrest that has boiled over in the past week, I think it’s much more important right now to lift Black voices and share some of the important works we should be reading by these authors. This … Read more
So far 2020 has been … I don’t even know. We started our 2nd year with all kinds of ideas for the future then a pandemic that has thrown our whole Plume plans into… we don’t know. We do know we’re still focusing on our mission, which may now be more important than ever, to celebrate and encourage women writers. We are now going digital and for June 2020 we … Read more
It’s been a minute since I made a post about places to submit. If I’m being completely honest, it’s been a while since I’ve done any blog posts, period. Like everyone, I’m fumbling through this crisis, feeling good one day, despondent the next, but doing what I can moment by moment. A Plumester who has been coming to our weekly drop-in Plume Zoom women writers support group asked about places … Read more
I met Rebecca years ago because we both teach writing at a community college in Albuquerque. In the fall, I actually took her online poetry class and loved it (and if you know me, you know I’ll write almost anything but poetry, but this class gave me a new appreciation for all that goes into writing a poem). She’s a great writer and community builder, and we know you’re going … Read more
(featured image by Jill Badonsky, http://www.kaizenmuse.com/) Even before the Coronavirus Crisis of 2020, I struggled with overwhelm. I have ideas I want to pursue, some strictly creative (bring me nothing but pleasure) and others are business ideas (usually something ridiculous like a pet rock for writers), and some are actually business (ie money-making) tasks for clients. I feel like my brain is on fire, the neurons connecting at high speed. … Read more