With a Little Help from My Friends

By Dorothy Rice

For some, writing is a solitary act, best done in the privacy of a room with a door. Others lack that luxury and find their muse on a favorite couch corner or in a coffee shop. You may require utter silence or prefer the murmur of voices, music and the hiss of espresso machines. While the setting and circumstances vary, it’s still a private conversation between your mind and the page. Alone, we grapple with ideas, wrestling them into shape.

Sharing our writing is the other side of the coin. Our thoughts, transformed in that magical, creative space, become part of a broader conversation.

Eight years ago, when I began to pursue my belated writing dream in earnest, I’d recently retired from a 35-year career in environmental protection. With what I now see as blind, beginners’ luck, I located a journal (thank you Duotrope) that accepted reprints of previously published work. An essay of mine (first published in a community college journal, American River Review) was reprinted in the Winter 2013 issue of the Still Point Arts Quarterly.

The Quarterly’s Editor, Christine Brooks Cote, also the founder/publisher at Shanti Arts, became interested in my father’s art (the subject of the essay). The Reluctant Artist (Shanti Arts, 2015) a full-color art book/memoir, became my first published book.

A book about an unknown artist by an unknown author, published by an independent press in an atypical format, was never destined to appeal to a wide audience. Yet thanks to the encouragement and support of colleagues I’d met taking classes and joining writing groups in my community, I was able to participate in half a dozen readings and events and share my father’s artistic legacy.

In the four years since, I’ve become enmeshed in my home town Sacramento’s literary community. One friend says of me that I, “write around,” a joking reference to my promiscuity in searching out opportunities to write and share with others. I’ve participated in workshops, classes and writing circles, convened submissions parties in my home, and provided comments on countless stories, essays and manuscripts for friends and colleagues.

Whenever I can, I attend readings and events to support other authors. I also read for literary magazines—beginning with Narrative, where I volunteered as an Assistant Editor for several years, and now as a member of the Hippocampus Reading Panel. Reading for journals is a rewarding way to give back to the journals we love; reading hundreds of submissions sharpens my internal editor.

As one outcome of my growing literary community, the launch for my second book, Gray Is the New Black: A Memoir of Self-Acceptance (Otis Books, June 2019) was a vastly different experience than my first time out.

916 Ink, the literary nonprofit where I now work part-time facilitating writing workshops for area youth, hosted the event in their “Imaginarium”—an inspiring space filled with prompts, empty birdcages and whimsical clocks. Sacramento-based press River Rock Books, sold their recent releases alongside mine and 916 Ink staff were on hand to recruit volunteers and spread the word about the importance of creative writing in children’s lives.

Jan Haag, a friend and author who trained me in the Amherst Writers & Artists Method (AWA) and welcomed me into her AWA-style writing group years ago, introduced me. A handful of critique partners and fellow authors joined me in “acting out” scenes from Gray Is the New Black. Joey Garcia, critique partner, author, and founder of the Belize Writers Conference led an informal Q&A. One sister served up literary-themed cocktails, another dished out black-and-white snacks (I couldn’t come up with any appetizing gray foods!). The launch was a party, a celebration, not only of my new book, but of Sacramento’s vibrant and growing literary community.

The “then and now” contrasts continue: I forged enduring writing friendships at the first conferences and workshops I participated in five years ago, including One Story’s Summer Writers Conference, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and the Napa Valley Writers Conference. Though we are spread around the globe, the writers I met continue to cheer one another on via Twitter, Facebook and on-line writing communities.

Journals that have published my work have been generous in spreading the word about my new book. Longridge Review interviewed me about Gray Is the New Black on their blog. Thanks to Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog, I’ve connected with dozens of creative nonfiction writers and readers over the past three years.

Writing, even when it flows, can be lonely work. Sharing, whether one-on-one, online, in writing groups or via publication, closes the circle. Finding visible, tangible proof of this widening circle has been one of the most gratifying outcomes associated with the publication of my second book.

Four years of forging connections has transformed my life as writer and author. The Beatles, then Joe Cocker, sang about getting by with a little help from their friends. I’m singing from that same songbook, with a lot of help from my friends.

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Dorothy Rice is the author of Gray Is the New Black: A Memoir of Self-Acceptance and The Reluctant Artist. Her essays and stories have been widely published in journals and magazines, including Hippocampus, the Rumpus, Brevity‘s blog, and Longridge Review. A perennially-blooming author, she earned an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside, Palm Desert, at 60. Find her at www.dorothyriceauthor.com and on twitter @dorothyrowena.