Solstice Recommended Reading

Reflections and Readings from My Bradbury Trio Program

Happy Solstice! Some of you may know that I run a writing group called PUSH. Up until May, we met weekly for years. I put a pause on the group for the summer to recalibrate and refresh. (My writing community has a Slack group so we are all still in touch during this pause.)

I started PUSH group because I needed a writing group and couldn’t find one that worked for my style and genre. I had tried in-person groups, groups from classes and Twitter, but something was missing.

If you know human design, I am a Manifesting Generator, so I create what I need - usually quickly. This wasn’t the first time I have done this. A friend and I started a book club of two because we couldn’t get invited to the ones we knew of. As soon as we started the Running Book Club, we got the invites. We were already running together, we just read the same books and talked about them on our runs. We went from one bookclub to four that year.

I have chosen a word of the year for over a decade, and PUSH was the acronym that year I started PUSH. I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. PUSH’s original word puzzle is one I cannot remember now. I believe the S stood for Significance. The name stuck to the group and PUSH group was born.

The initial experiment was to meet weekly for one month. At the end of the trial, the group asked, “What is the topic next week?” I didn’t pause the weekly meetings for years.

The Bradbury Trio [reading a poem, an essay, and a story every day] fuels my writing. It became an on-and-off reference for PUSH groups, usually focusing on poetry. Mini challenges dedicated to the Trio have been part of my offerings over the years. I don’t remember when I first heard about the program. I think it was a blog I stumbled upon after reading Ray Bradbury's quotes! I used one of Bradbury’s books for my essay each day. Then I moved to Natalie Goldberg.

This trio structure works for me because I am inspired to write after I read. I read what I normally might not. After reading the three texts there are hints of influence in the piece I write, but you wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the references. What certain details in a poem or a story or an essay conjures up in my brain is based on my experience and would be different for you.

When I am teaching I often share prompts. There are sometimes similarities in a word or a context but every person writes a different story. It is its own magic.

A little more about me: Tammy L. Evans is a writer, teacher, and coach living in a tiny house on a peninsula with her husband and adventure cat. Her location device is her loud laugh. Her poetry has been published in The Storyteller, FoxGlove Journal, Story Hall, Blue Insights, The Partnered Pen, and others. Her fiction has been published in Gone Lawn, Cabinets of Heed, Spelk, Five on the Fifth, Clover and White, Fiction Berlin Kitchen, and others.

I hope the reading you do today leads you to writing that could have not been created any other way.

Here are some of the texts that made an impact on me. Even though it is the Solstice I did not choose texts that are reflective of the day. I did not find any that resonated with me in the spirit of Midsummer.

Poem: “Orange Tree,” Margaret Ross - The Paris Review

This poem was full of details that didn’t seem to go together at first. There were so many striking lines I copied it into a new document so I could highlight and make notes. If I had a printer, I might have just printed it and annotated on the page.

The last line stayed with me, “We did everything you do to leave.”

Story: “The Doll Tornado” Amy Hempel

This is a reread today because I am drawn to it. The idea of a doll tornado intrigues me and the way Hempel writes it feels like a tornado on the page. Thank you Nancy S. for bringing this to my attention when we were writing yesterday!

Essay: “Some King Of Calling” Pam Houston

I love Pam’s writing because it is always full of details that lead you to emotions that are underneath and have you questioning your own life and what surrounds you.

WHAT HAVE YOU READ THAT RESONATES WITH YOU LATELY?

If deepening your reading and writing practice in a collective appeals to you, my Bradbury Trio course beginning this fall may be for you. We will begin August 6, 2023. More details will be coming soon.

This reasonably priced 12-week course will provide you with a curated list of poems, stories, and essays to fuel your reading and writing life.

• Weekly emails with text suggestions will come directly to your inbox.

• Weekly Writing Assignments will help you dig deeper into craft and will allow you to apply these concepts to your writing.

• Discussions and assignment posting will be in Slack private channels.

• Foster deep literacy conversations with other intelligent people!

Click here to get on the list! (This list does not obligate you to the course. This list is for information about the course when it becomes available.)