Bearlodge Writers

Maureen Blake

Get To Know Maureen

Currently reading:

Anything by Elizabeth Berg and Kristin Hannah

Recommended Read:

Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True, by Elizabeth Berg

One of the best things I’ve done for myself:

Taken the 12-week self-guided course on creativity, outlined in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Tip: 

Build your library by buying used books online

Goals:

Re-read all fiction by Madeleine L’Engle and Maya Angelou and also explore their non-fiction.

Quote

“Remember, thou canst be brought into no condition, be it ever so severe, where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee.”     Mary Baker Eddy.

 

Maureen Blake Bio

The world of words has always been my safe haven, my land of enchantment, my El Dorado. Earliest memories are of reading—books, the Sunday comics, cereal boxes, the back of the can of air spray while perched on the bathroom throne. Many childhood remembrances are foggy, but I must have started writing creatively at some point because I won a few poetry and essay contests in junior and senior high.

I’ve journaled for over 20 years, at first to cope with severe crises. When I joined BLW in the summer of 1996, I wanted to write for joy. And I did. Several essays, poems, letters to editors, and columns have been published. Currently I am writing a novel and have committed to sharing something at every bimonthly BLW meeting, even if only, “Miranda sighed.”

At present I live alone, with personal life in transition. Some of the ways I squeeze joy out of every day are to dance: line dancing, duo dancing when I can snag a partner, and dancing around the house by myself to very loud music. Painting is another new love, though I suffer from shyness in letting myself cut loose. In many ways I am being surprised by my intense positive response to vivid colors and am surrounding myself with them, more and more.

Last year was my self-proclaimed Year of No Regrets. 2007 is my Year of Full Emergence. Who knows what that might entail?

Publication Credits

In the Shadow of the Bear Lodge, Many Kites Press, 2006

Excerpt of Writing

she waits

at the front door at sundown
a little girl waits
twenty-four inches of pure passion

an after-supper bath removed all evidence of
afternoon play and clumsy attempts to feed herself
pajamas hug her wiry body
top and bottom sprinkled with pink bunny rabbits
washed smooth from all the years her sister wore them first
black curls frame the face pressed into wire mesh
as she leans into the screen door
only a steel hook and eye keep her
from tumbling into newborn night

her daddy used to come home after supper in time
to toss her high, carry her and Sissy off to bed, but
he hasn’t come home for nights and nights
she stopped asking why

her mother’s voice, sharp now, calls her to bed, again
one last glance out the door
down the red and green brick sidewalk
across the driveway bumpy with river rocks
over to the corner of the yard
where wild plum trees huddle in the dark
headlights twinkle in the deepening black
she presses hard against the screen
but lights that crest the hill beyond the plum trees
travel past the driveway, do not turn in

tucked in bed with prayers and butterfly kisses
she drifts into sleep
Mother whispers from the edge of dreams
“Good night, sleep tight,” and she does
crisscross lines fading from forehead and nose
until her face glows rosy, unblemished once again