I want to help you help our community with your writing skillz. (That’s right with a z!)
I’m assembling a League of Extraordinary Writers who want to improve their writing and make an impact in the Muncie community. Over the past few years, I’ve committed myself to helping local organizations tell and share their stories, but there are more stories than I can tell. I need help. I need you!
(This is a joint note from me and my co-founder of The Facing Project, J.R. Jamison.)
Stories make a difference.
Stories shatter preconceptions and expand our worldview.
Stories change our hearts and inform our minds.
Stories feed our curiosities and our souls.
Every person has a story and so does every community.
What’s yours?
We invite you to be a part of the story of The Facing Project by helping us reach our goal of creating facingproject.com website. The site will house the tools to help the project spread to other communities, and will allow current Facing Project communities the ability to share their stories on their own unique sites, such as fortwayne.facingproject.com. This next step in our story will push this movement forward and provide the opportunity for thousands of unheard voices to be shared.
From the department of awesome news of awesomeness…
The University of Kentucky has announced the selection of WHERE AM I WEARING? as their 2013-2014 common read book. This means that all incoming freshman will read the stories of Amilcar, Nari, Ai, Arifa, Dewan, Zhu Chun, and all the rest of the amazing folks I write about in WEARING.
My Timbuk2 laptop bag was made in China. I’m not sure of any bags that are made in USA until now…
LexiWynn Bags are made in Illinois. They’re running a cool Kickstarter campaign to help launch their new label.
Tell me what you’re favorite beer is the comments for a chance to win one of their cool Koozies. You’ll also be entered to win if you RT my upcoming tweet, or share my facebook post. The winner will be randomly selected.
For the past six months, every waking hour and some of our dreamtime ones, too, have been dominated by what you’re about to read. It’s important to write about stuff like this. That’s why I’m so glad my wife Annie chose to put her thoughts, feelings, and our journey down in words.
“It’s a boy!”
Kelsey and I had been in the ultrasound room for maybe five minutes when the tech announced with certainty the gender of our second child. We looked at each other and smiled. Coming into this, we were both fairly indifferent as to what we were having — we already had a daughter who we were over the moon about,…
The last five years I’ve been making a real effort to become more civically engaged. As I’ve said before, once you become a parent you have less time to change the world, but more of a reason. So last night, after Annie and I watched Grey’s Anatomy on our DVR, I switched over to catch the middle of Senator Rubio’s rebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union. (Don’t worry I DVRed the SOTU and will watch it later or just read it. All the politics without the applause and awkward facial expressions of the VP and Speaker of the House.)
That’s when I saw this.
Annie was asleep and I had to wake her up. I was rolling with…
In 2001, I attended a service at the Vatican hosted by Pope John Paul II. (Every Tuesday he was at the Vatican, he conducted a service open to a general audience.) The thing I remember most is just how feeble the man was, how much effort every word and step took, and because of that effort how much more each one inspired the crowd. Despite the pain, the Pope didn’t quit. He never did.
He was shot and didn’t quit. Instead he visited his attempted assassin in prison. In 2001, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and suffered from severe osteoarthritis. He didn’t quit. He “poped” for another four years.
This is what puzzles me about Pope Benedict saying that his strength “has deteriorated…to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”
A Pope hasn’t retired in 600 years. There’s more to this story than the Catholic Church is telling the public.
Cathy Day, champion of literary citizenship, English professor at Ball State, author of Circus in Winter and Comeback Season, and my fellow committee member of the Midwest Writers Workshop, tagged me in the Next Big Thing Blog Hop.
Ever look at your banana and wonder who picked it?
In 2009 the USDA began requiring Country of Origin Labeling on food. I couldn’t believe how global our diet had become. Today, the United State’s imports 86% of its seafood, 50% of its fruit, and 18% of its vegetables. I…
I wasn’t the only one to see the disconnect in Dodge’s “God Made a Farmer” commercial. Funny or Die made God Made A Factory Farmer. You have to watch it. It would be funnier if it weren’t all so true. (Thanks to Micahel O’Donnell for pointing this out.)
Latino rights group Cuentame fixed the “white washing” issue in the ad. There are six million migrant workers in the U.S. and there are only about 3 million “farmers.”
The University of Kentucky has announced the selection of WHERE AM I WEARING? as their 2013-2014 common read book. This means that all incoming freshman will read the stories of Amilcar, Nari, Ai, Arifa, Dewan, Zhu Chun, and all the rest of the amazing folks I write about in WEARING.
