Presenting in DC

Last week I was excited to be given the opportunity to attend and speak at the National Council for Literacy convention in Washington DC. This came very last minute, down to the days, but I made it. For those who don’t know, DC is clear across the country for me. Thanks to Frontier airlines, I made the trip for $244 round trip, which meant I could drag my son along. Perk!

I spoke on Saturday at the convention to a small group from Vermont;  they were wonderful, friendly, and quite receptive. I then had the privilege to hear another group speak. It was fascinating to hear about so many literacy programs in the k-12 circuit. All-in-all, I was honored to be there to represent the High Desert Chapter of the California Writer’s Club DCB Memoir Project.

The Dorothy C Blakely Memoir Project challenges seniors at a local high school to take on the task of picking a senior citizens, conducting interviews, and writing their memoir. They are given a once monthly class, put on by the HDCWC, to teach interviewing skills, point of view, and creating a memoir among other things. The memoirs are critiqued over the course of the program, until the final draft is turned in. They are then edited, and selected for publication. Not all memoirs are published. The HDCWC then takes the selected memoirs and  creates a cover, creates a template, and finally creates an anthology of the memoirs. The seniors graduate as published authors. In 2014, this project was recognized by the National Council for Literacy, and was presented as a literacy project in Washington DC…which I presented at.

This is a wonderful program, and I’m grateful to be a part of it. I love teaching.

Fun fact: Most the students who participate are NOT aspiring authors.

Tania L Ramos, RN

www.HDCWC.com for more info   To see last year’s memoir: AMAZON

 

Shattering Two Souls

Its funny what perspective can be gained from writing characters. Are they insights into our own souls, or are they pieces of coal that a character turns into diamonds? I’d like to thank these characters for one of the best scenes ever:

“Don’t buy into it. Don’t buy into ‘a soul is half whole until it finds its other half.’ Two souls wander the earth until they find their perfect match, and then and only then do they become whole and know how simple and easy loving can be.

Bullshit!

A person is whole. A soul is whole. There are no halves. One does not give 50% and think that they can get 100% from that. Love is brutal. It’s a big huge pain in that ass that breaks your soul. It breaks your heart from being so afraid that you’ll lose it at any moment. And only when you have been truly shattered can you pick up the pieces with her. You pick up the pieces, yours and hers, and you put them together to build something new. Something that isn’t half you and half her, where you take sides, but something that is beautifully put together, where you don’t know where she ends and you begin.”

“I’ve been shattered for two years since she left. Since I let her leave.”

“Boo hoo. Two years. Is she dead? are you dead? Do you still love her? Of course you do,  you’re shattered! You lucky bastard!”

Tania L Ramos, RN and Author

Copyright @TaniaLRamos 2014 No reproduction in part or whole without written permission from the author.