Author: alisonmcghee

Poem of the Week, by Ruth Awad

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Sign up here for one of November’s workshops: The Intuitive Leap, The Art of Writing Picture Books, Memoir in Moments. I’d love to see you in the Zoom room!

The food shelf three blocks north is extremely busy these days. People trundle down the sidewalk with wheeled carts holding brown paper bags of food or load bags of groceries into old rumbly cars. The little free library outside the church now holds cans and boxes of non-perishable food.

I don’t like capitalism. When I say that out loud I often follow it up with as-practiced-in-our-country, because saying you hate capitalism here in the “richest country on earth,” where 1% of Americans have amassed more money than the bottom 50% tends to get you pushback. Usually from people who have lots of money or who want lots of money. Who sometimes assume you’re a fan of Communism, which, nope.

Why the pushback? Maybe because we’re taught that all you need to do is work hard, work harder, just keep working, and if you end up poor it’s your own fault because you didn’t work hard enough? Maybe because we’re so used to the systems we’re born into that it’s hard to see what’s right in front of our eyes? Like that man with the cart who passed by yesterday, one of the wheels about to fall off.

Hunger, by Ruth Awad

Imaginary, the value of the pound, and yet when it drops
like an apple rotted from its branch, my family may starve.
1,507 pounds to the dollar. What that means if you’re not
an economist: a kilogram of meat is now a luxury. A line
huddles outside a Beirut bakery though the price of subsidized
bread is up again. The worst financial crisis in 150 years,
the World Bank says. And I don’t see the story anywhere
here. In my house with its lights on. Where I choose to skip
meals. Once we were stitched together by food stamps.
Dirt poor, my mother describes it, though land is more valuable
than almost anything. America and its incongruent abundance:
fields of corn and the hungry in the streets. The cattle well fed.
Security guards in grocery stores. If you die from hunger, the spirit
goes searching for food and the wanting never stops. Hard to say
what you’d do to live. My father picked an apple from someone’s
tree, was chased until he dropped it. If you steal an apple, it’s a crime.
If you withhold an apple from someone who’s hungry, it’s not.

Click here for more information on Ruth Awad.

alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter: my podcast

Poem of the Week, by Dorianne Laux

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Please check out my half-day and Writing Together offerings – I’d love to see you in the Zoom room!

A few days ago I was on the phone with my sister, telling her a true-life tale from a few months ago. She started laughing so hard she had a coughing fit (always my goal). Then she turned quiet.

“I bet it wasn’t funny when it happened, was it, Allie?” Nope. But making unfunny things funny is a way to transcend what really happened. That child with a book in her treehouse, in her hay fort, in her room with a flashlight: she was me. She’s still me, making up people who take everything that’s too hard about being alive and somehow make it manageable. The older brother I always wanted, the high school boyfriend I never had, the woman who’s the me I want to be, they rise up from my keyboard every morning, saving my life like always.

Moon in the Window, by Dorianne Laux

I wish I could say I was the kind of child
who watched the moon from her window,
would turn toward it and wonder.
I never wondered. I read. Dark signs
that crawled toward the edge of the page.
It took me years to grow a heart
from paper and glue. All I had
was a flashlight, bright as the moon,
a white hole blazing beneath the sheets.

Click here for more information about wondrous poet Dorianne Laux.

alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter: my podcast

Brand-new Writing Together session, January 2023

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Calling all word people!

My brand-new “Writing Together” session is now on the schedule for January, and I’d love to see you in the Zoom room! Details below. Click here for more information, along with info on my other half-day workshops both this month and in November. And, please forward to anyone who might be interested. 

Dive deep – see where the prompts take you

Writing Together: January 7-13, 2023, 10-11 am CT and 7-8 pm CT every day (note time zone)

In this brand-new Writing Together session, we’ll convene in our Zoom Room for one-hour sessions twice-daily (drop in for one or both a day, or whatever suits your schedule). Each hour will open with a brief reading and continue with a 20-minute prompt related to the theme of the reading. Each day’s theme will be different, and all are designed to wake up the magical inner writer who lives within us all. The last ten minutes of each session will be reserved for anyone who feels like reading their prompt aloud, not for feedback but for applause and appreciation.

The Writing Together session was inspired by my own yearly practice of a week devoted solely to generating new ideas, having fun, and playing around with cool new prompts. There’s something so comforting about knowing that a whole group –up to 30 of us in any given session– will be writing together at the same time, each of us in our little Zoom boxes. Come have fun and see what you come up with! Fee: $200, payable via Venmo, personal check, or Paypal (scroll below for details).

Bonus: Weekly writing prompts will be emailed to you every Friday for one month after class.

FALL 2022 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE

Memoir in Moments: Thursday, October 13, 2022, 6-9:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)
The Transformation of Trauma: Friday, October 14, 1-4:30 pm Central Time (Note: this class is always free)
The Freedom of Form: Sunday, October 16, 1-4:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)
The Art of Writing Picture Books: Sunday, November 6, 2022, 1-4:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)
The Intuitive Leap: Tuesday, November 8, 2022, 6-9:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)
The Gift of Words: Tuesday, November 15, 2022, 6-9:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)

Words by Winter Half-day Writing Workshops: Could your creative spirit use a recharge? Come join me on my (virtual) porch for an exhilarating, fun, intensive workshop! All my 3.5-hour workshops are taught via Zoom and designed for writers of any and all experience. No preparation or skills required. Workshop offerings are regularly updated (check out the brand-new The Intuitive Leap class), and I’d also be happy to design one specifically for your writing group. Each workshop requires a minimum of five participants and is strictly capped at ten.

Half-day workshop fee: $100. Note that I also offer a pay-as-you’re-able option to participants under financial duress (I’ve been there myself), up to two per class, from $10-$95, no questions asked.

Registration and payment: To register for an individual workshop, email me at alisonmcghee@gmail.com or simply send payment and note which class you’re registering for. Registration is tentative until payment is received. You may send payment via Venmo to @Alison-McGhee-1, Zelle to alisonmcghee@gmail.com, Paypal to alison_mcghee@hotmail.com, or by personal check. Please email me with any questions.

Poem of the Week, by Tony Hoagland

Posted on by alisonmcghee



Most great celebrations, like my daughter’s wedding last month, begin long before the celebration itself. Yards of cotton chosen years ago, to be turned into a quilt. Endless bottles of vodka turned into homemade gin, enough for 180 miniature party favors. Evenings with my daughter and a letterpress kit, hand-stamping each letter of each name of each place card.

Early mornings, late nights: hand-stitching, hand-stamping, hand-steeping juniper and cardamom. Moment after moment in which I thought about how much I love both my girl and her now-husband. Nothing was hurried. Everything took time, time, time, and every moment of it was a reminder that, among our endless rushing, time itself is an act of love.

The Word, by Tony Hoagland

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli,” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful. It touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent from someplace distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing

that also needs accomplishing.
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue,

but today you get a telegram
from the heart in exile,
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them
who can find the time
to sit out in the sun and listen.


Click here for more information about the beloved Tony Hoagland.
alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter: my podcast

Fall Workshops!

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Hello friends,

Happy fall to all! Here in Minneapolis it’s crisp and cool and invigorating, my favorite kind of weather. I’ve just scheduled my fall series of workshops and would love to see you on my (virtual) porch for an exhilarating, fun, intensive afternoon or evening. All my 3.5-hour workshops are taught via Zoom and designed for writers of any and all experience. No preparation or skills required. Each workshop requires a minimum of five participants and is strictly capped at ten.

One-day workshop fee: $100. Note that I also offer a pay-as-you’re-able option to participants under financial duress (I’ve been there myself), up to two per class, from $10-$95, no questions asked.

Registration and payment: To register for an individual workshop, email me at alisonmcghee@gmail.com or simply send payment and note which class you’re registering for. Registration is tentative until payment is received. You may send payment via Venmo to @Alison-McGhee-1, Zelle to alisonmcghee@gmail.com, or by personal check. Please email me with any questions.

See below for our fall workshop at a glance. For details about each workshop and testimonials from past participants, please head on over to my workshop page.

FALL 2022 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE

Memoir in Moments: Thursday, October 13, 2022, 6-9:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)
The Transformation of Trauma: Friday, October 14, 1-4:30 pm Central Time (Note: this class is always free)
The Freedom of Form: Sunday, October 16, 1-4:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)
The Art of Writing Picture Books: Sunday, November 6, 2022, 1-4:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)
The Intuitive Leap: Tuesday, November 8, 2022, 6-9:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)
The Gift of Words: Tuesday, November 15, 2022, 6-9:30 pm Central Time (note time zone)

ALSO, I’m in the midst of designing a one-week Writing Together session for January 2023. This is a brand-new offering of morning and/or evening one-hour writing sessions offered via Zoom. Each morning and evening for one full week, I’ll open by reading a poem or micro prose piece focused on a certain emotion or experience, then offer an accompanying 20-minute prompt in which we all write together. There’s strength and joy in working together, even if it’s silent, even if our little Zoom boxes are black, and I’m so looking forward to this new offering. More details to come!

Poem of the Week, by Ron Koertge

Posted on by alisonmcghee

As a little kid I had a baby doll I loved and played with, but no Barbies – I hated them. They scared me. Maybe because they were so grownup-looking. Those big boobs, the feet permanently stuck in a pointing-down position. I didn’t want big boobs, high heels, fancy clothes.

Ken creeped me out too – that coiffed hair, that shoulders-back confidence, that gleaming I’ll be the decision-maker here, little lady look in his eye. It all gave me the willies. It still does.

Cinderella’s Diary, by Ron Koertge

I miss my stepmother. What a thing to say,
but it’s true. The prince is so boring: four
hours to dress and then the cheering throngs.
Again. The page who holds the door is cute
enough to eat. Where is he once Mr. Charming
kisses my forehead goodnight?

Every morning I gaze out a casement window
at the hunters, dark men with blood on their
boots who joke and mount, their black trousers
straining, rough beards, calloused hands, selfish,
abrupt…Oh, dear diary—I am lost in ever after:
those insufferable birds, someone in every
room with a lute, the queen calling me to look
at another painting of her son, this time
holding the transparent slipper I wish
I’d never seen.

Click here for more information about Ron Koertge.

alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter: my podcast

Poem of the Week, by Gerald Stern

Posted on by alisonmcghee

A long time ago, one of the men from my writing class at the Minnesota AIDS Project, a beautiful writer whose memoirs I still keep in a “Favorites” file, invited us all over to his house for a potluck dinner. I remember he was lying on the couch when we arrived. He hadn’t felt well for years. He’d had to leave his job at the theater. He moved slowly.

But at one point in the evening, talking about one of his favorite performances, he suddenly drew back, hands extended, and transfixed me with a few lines from the play. I remember how his eyes blazed, how his voice changed. I saw for a minute the wildness of his young man self, in love with theater, in love with life, before disease ravaged him.

The Dancing, by Gerald Stern

In all these rotten shops, in all this broken furniture
and wrinkled ties and baseball trophies and coffee pots
I have never seen a post-war Philco
with the automatic eye
nor heard Ravel’s “Bolero” the way I did
in 1945 in that tiny living room
on Beechwood Boulevard, nor danced as I did
then, my knives all flashing, my hair all streaming,
my mother red with laughter, my father cupping
his left hand under his armpit, doing the dance
of old Ukraine, the sound of his skin half drum,
half fart, the world at last a meadow,
the three of us whirling and singing, the three of us
screaming and falling, as if we were dying,
as if we could never stop—in 1945—
in Pittsburgh, beautiful filthy Pittsburgh, home
of the evil Mellons, 5,000 miles away
from the other dancing—in Poland and Germany—
oh God of mercy, oh wild God.

Click here for more information about Gerald Stern.

alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter: my podcast

Poem of the Week, by Luci Shaw

Posted on by alisonmcghee

When Alison shuffles up on a playlist, or in a store, or on the radio, I take it as a sign: There’s my song. A sign of what, who knows, other than that it brings me back to high school, waitressing at Friendly Ice Cream, and the guy at the counter who said Elvis Costello wrote a song about you, you know.
Someone wrote a song about me? And he even spelled it with one l.

Something changed, in a tiny way, for the better that night, as it did the night someone told me, at a wedding where I’d avoided them all weekend, that they had, despite how it seemed, truly loved me all that time ago. The way it changed when, going through a giant bin of old letters, I found one signed We all adore you, from a troubled time. It takes so little, sometimes, to reshape the past.

Wrong Turn, by Luci Shaw

I took a wrong turn the other day.
A mistake, but it led me to the shop where I found
the very thing I’d been searching for.

With my brother I opened a packet
of old letters from my mother and saw a side of her
that sweetened what had been deeply sour.

Later that day the radio sang a song from
a time when I was discovering love,
and folded me into itself again.

Click here for more information about Luci Shaw.

alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter: my podcast

Poem of the Week, by Paul Zimmer

Posted on by alisonmcghee

My grandmother McGhee lived her entire life in the Hudson River valley of downstate New York. She was a young mother in the Great Depression, a farm wife, a high school English teacher, a gardener, canner, cook, needle pointer and housekeeper extraordinaire, and the kind of grandmother who always shook her head sadly at my standard DQ order of a small vanilla cone. Oh Alison, she would say sorrowfully, that tiny little cone? Are you sure you don’t want a sundae instead?

She was a big woman, ashamed of her heavy legs, and she never danced, except alone, in her kitchen, to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. I know this because of the times (unbeknownst to her) that I witnessed her, standing in place, swaying ever so slightly from side to side, one hand moving in the air to the music, which she loved. When she died, at ninety, I dropped to my knees and made a sound that my children –who were tiny at the time–still remember.

Bach and My Father, by Paul Zimmer

Six days a week my father sold shoes
to support our family through depression and war,
nursed his wife through years of Parkinson’s,
loved nominal cigars, manhattans, long jokes,
never kissed me, but always shook my hand.

Once he came to visit me when a Brandenburg
was on the stereo. He listened with care—
brisk melodies, symmetry, civility, and passion.
When it finished, he asked to hear it again,
moving his right hand in time. He would have
risen to dance if he had known how.

“Beautiful,” he said when it was done,
my father, who’d never heard a Brandenburg.
Eighty years old, bent, and scuffed all over,
just in time he said, “That’s beautiful.”

Click here for more information about Paul Zimmer.

alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter: my podcast