I wrote last week: “Write about your post-American-election world – and let us know we are not alone. If I receive at least three pieces in my personal email: bstarr67@gmail.com, I will illustrate next week’s Breakthrough with a photo of Jack, the new and very very busy ginger kitten.” Thanks to Lis Venetiou, Cin Norris,… Continue Reading >>>
Author Archives: Mary Sojourner
No Rest for the Writer: Breakthrough for the week of 11/9/2020
I scarcely know how to stay upright without the fear that has fossilized my spine for the last four years. Perhaps you know how it was to not only be afraid for our country (which had ceased to feel like my country), but for your safety. I didn’t put anti-Trump bumper stickers on my car.… Continue Reading >>>
Refuge: Wrap your writing around you
Take refuge. For now. Imagine your writing as a shawl, a cape, a beat-up hoodie. Enter this image and explore. Move through the layers. What time is it? Where are you? Who scrawled “Meow” across a window? Was it you? Were you alone? We have been told to isolate. Some of us fight the act.… Continue Reading >>>
Not Sure What to Write? Breakthrough for the Foreseeable Future
You better find something you care about enough to write it. This man doesn’t care about you. This umasked creep was in the Mountain Heart parking lot yesterday, Mountain Heart clinic where I – and many others much older and damaged than I am – go for medical care. I asked him if I could… Continue Reading >>>
And now, for something completely different: Breakthrough and Torrey House Press
Nobody stateside has seen Denny for at least twenty years. Last I knew he was in the Canary Islands or Sussex or Santorini. He’s seventy-five now and he’s probably still a great advertisement for profligate drinking. I’ve been going through my innumerable caches of writing prompts and found Denny’s pitch for a movie script. Fade… Continue Reading >>>
Making the Unknown: Breakthrough for 10/14/2020
My friend is a Maker in many dimensions. She writes and makes photographs and isn’t afraid to go into places that may or may not exist. I invite you to join us. Step into this image. Find your place. Explore. Write to all of us here at Breakthrough. Take us where you have gone. We… Continue Reading >>>
Blocked: Breakthrough for the week of 9/28/2020
Part one in a four part series on re-finding your creativity With luck and surrender, the first six months – year – two years of writing were like being a rocket in full launch.. Everything you experienced – from your first sight of the wild Mojave desert to a gum wrapper in a small town… Continue Reading >>>
You step onto the sand: Breakthrough Tip for September 23, 2020
You have come to the shore. There are no instructions. —Denise Levertov Imagine this spine is two inches long; imagine it is enormous. Imagine that you have no idea where it came from; why it is here. Imagine that you turn to get back into the vessel in which you arrived and the boat… Continue Reading >>>
Can You Write Jedi?: Breakthrough for the week of 9/14/2020 (Courtesy: Cin Norris)
The Jedi Word (or This Is Not The Word You Are Looking For) —Cin Norris My kids were just shy of middle school when they first came to me with writing assignments. I had unwittingly set myself up as the “English, History, and Geography” parent (as opposed to my “Expert on Every Natural Science that… Continue Reading >>>
Alone: Breakthrough Tip for the week of 8/31
How is it to be alone? If being alone is a room; a grove of trees no taller than you; an abandoned lot – something in the southeastern corner, moving, not moving; a car speeding down a desert highway, the windows open, your favorite song whipping past you…will you enter? Now, you think, she will… Continue Reading >>>
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