“Like Eating Butterbeans,” by Barbara Presnell
When I was growing up in North Carolina, summers were hot and busy with work of all kinds. Mid-July meant somebody from a nearby farm would bring us a bushel or more of butterbeans, and we’d shell until our fingers were yellow, filling large pans then putting up pints and quarts for winter. Butterbeans were beautiful to look at, in their waxy light green delicate skins, but when cooked, they were dull, mushy, pulpy things that tasted...
“Take Up your Bed and Walk:” An AROHO Feature with Bridget Birdsall, Gift of Freedom Finalist
Dear Gift of Freedom Applicant: After years of plugging away at my writing, attending countless workshops and earning an MFA, I had filled hundreds of pages, with hundreds of words, that never managed to journey any farther than the filing cabinet in my closet. So, when a friend told me about the Gift of Freedom Award, which of course sounded too good to be true, I decided to take a chance and put my words out into the world. This was...
On Rejection, Mira Bartók
Fear of Rejection from: “How I Became the Grant Queen and How You Can Too” by Mira Bartók The fear of being rejected prevents a lot of women from applying for opportunities out there. This phobia reminds me about that old song we sang in the schoolyard when we were kids. I loved it because it was so gross and everyone who knows me knows that trapped inside this 48-year-old woman’s body is a twelve-year-old boy dying to put a...
Straight Talk about Grants
At AROHO, we want to help you become your best writer, and we believe the Gift of Freedom Application can help uncover some of the obstacles on the path to personal breakthrough and creative “success.” Here are our tips for helping you make the most of the application and for helping improve the chances of your submissions in general. Hygiene (For highly creative women, this is often the area where mistakes are made) The...
“Pull the Lever!” An AROHO Anthem by Lauren Baldwin
Lauren Baldwin completed her MFA in Fiction at Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2010 and her JD at the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1992. She is a Judicial Hearing Officer in the Family Court division of the Second Judicial District Court in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Lauren has attended every AROHO retreat since its inception and is the retreat’s hospitality coordinator (the woman with wine and duct tape). She is a...
Does the sea remember everything? I wonder.
Does she absorb everything? Does she keep it safe?
Virginia Woolf
. . .
The Q: Can you fathom the spectacle that would be created if we moved together, arms outstretched, close enough to touch?
The Q: What echoes through you that longs to take form—a poem, an image, a mark, a whisper of becoming?
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