A to Z Literary Grannies – Creative Life Midwife

Portland Treasures: Beverly Cleary & Powell Books

July 29, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

Julie JordanScott standing with the sculpture of Ramona Quimby, beloved character created by Beverly Cleary who lived near Grant Park in Portland when she was a child.

Five years ago I spent an afternoon out with Ramona Quimby and a bunch of other (human and sculpture garden) friends in Grant Park in Portland. I managed to gather people from online friendships and Bakersfield Ex-Pats to this park to enjoy a bit of Literary Granny history.

Sometimes I am amazed people are willing to follow my whims and other times I say “Naturally they do!”

Why wouldn’t they? I tend to seek out quirky places other people hadn’t thought to explore yet, especially the artists and adventurers I am most attracted to. Little known secret: I had a conversation with Beverly Cleary more than thirty-five years ago at a convention for English teachers when I was working for a textbook publisher.

She was sitting at a table and no one else was there. She appeared to be fabulously ordinary which I found incredible inspiring. I wish I knew she had said this, “I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.”

If I had known she had said this I could tell her I was the same way when I was a little girl. I loved hearing my mother’s voice when she read aloud. I would close my eyes and wish for once she would read “The Snow Queen” which I loved but was longer than the time my busy mother had for reading aloud. “The Princess and the Pea” was two pages long and I almost memorized it.

Julie JordanScott with a book sculpture outside Portland's Powell Books, a local and national treasure.

Beverly Cleary is a national and Portland treasure, like Powell’s books and a culture that made me feel at home as soon as I arrived. It continues to call to me today. Hearing of the unrest there made me want to road trip there again and lend my body and my voice to the protection of freedom of speech, but pandemic times and my health being what it is – I offer my memory and my love and admiration.

May we continue to honor and praise each other’s voices with an energy like Ramona Quimby’s.

What character from your childhood continues to speak to you today?

Woman writing on the front porch of a brick home, — Write wherever you find yourself.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet.

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Join us now in 2020 in #Refresh2020 in Bridge to the New Year to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020.

Fuzzy Morning Brain Does Not Have to Lead to a Bad Day

May 26, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Today I woke up fuzzy. My old narrative would have fussed and scrolled around facebook and felt negative about not getting enough done. This morning, instead, I decided to start fairly early with a 5 minute brain dump session.

I decided a quote would be good inspiration and when I first looked for a quote about clarity and found lots of clichés and quotes that sounded more like drill-sergeant-speak I did a different search term (which I’ve forgotten) and found this:

“Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes; work never begun.” — Christina Rossetti

I woke up this morning hours before I finally lifted myself out of bed. I don’t know when exactly it was and I don’t think I slept very deeply or sweetly in the interim, I just know eventually the sky got brighter and Samuel started moving about and I knew I needed to rise and shine and do something.

After the bare essentials were complete and I returned home, I still felt that struggly feeling of “What do I do?” (When this particular narrative line is repeated in fast succession and at all based in fear… anxiety rises).

I knew there was a list somewhere (Life Guideline#1 I attempt to live by is to write a possibility list before I go to sleep. I hadn’t on that day. ).

Even as I drove Samuel to school I attempted to prioritize in my mind and again and I got nowhere.

So now, I write, and I think, and I throw words down in attempt to clear my mind and allow myself the space to move forward.

This week has been about getting things done: curating and completion. I have curated and I haven’t done much completion. There is a part of me that feels like a failure and I know where I might have made different choices and gotten more completed.

I can’t change those choices I made before, but I can change what happens next.

My eyes scan back up to the quote I started with as inspiration:

Christina Rossetti said, “Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes; work never begun.”

The timer goes off so I will use the next three or so minutes to make my list. The first thing I will do is create an attractive, artful “Possibility list” to continue the kick start.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session or to request she speak at your next event, call or text her at 661.444.2735

D is for Diane Di Prima: Beat Poet & Extraordinary Human – Literary Grannies from A to Z 2018

April 9, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

It was Spring, 2015 when I last talked about Diane di Prima. I was at the Beat Museum in San Francisco and the gentleman working there told me her health wasn’t doing so well. I have no other update than that.

Diane di Prima broke into the “Boys club” of the beat poets and although many don’t know her name nor her influence, she remains one of my favorites. I found an eloquently written article from “The Heroine Collection” and can’t imagine saying it better. Please check it out here.

From my 2012 Series:

‘I think the poet is the last person who is still speaking the truth when no one else dares to. I think the poet is the first person to begin the shaping and visioning of the new forms and the new consciousness when no one else has begun to sense it; I think these are two of the most essential human functions’ -Diane Di Prima

I recently fell in love with the Women of the Beat Generation. I was curious, after hearing so much about Jack Kerouac, Allan Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski and the rest, I wondered, “Where is the news about the women who were with them? It couldn’t have been completely a Men’s Word-Love Club!”

I discovered while the still best known Beat Poets are men, there are a number of women who not only wrote and lived that era, but women who are still actively creating today.

Diane Di Prima is one of those women. She has been dubbed “Poet Priestess” and “Poet Activist” and “Beat Babe” but those feel condescending to me. After all, her creativity has been present for her entire lifetime. She founded New York Poets Theatre & the Poets Press, she has written plays and poetry and is now the Poet Laureate of San Francisco.

Julie has participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge for several years and is thrilled to be back, once again with Literary Grannies. Follow here throughout April for blog posts featuring women of literary history along with a daily writing prompt that reflects each featured writer.

Julie Jordan Scott is the Creative Life Midwife: a writing coach who specializes in inspiring artistic rebirth for those who may have forgotten the pure joy of the creative process. She offers individual creativity coaching as well as creating individualized programs for businesses and groups in the form of workshops, webinars and more. Contact her at 661.444.2735 for immediate assistance with facilitation, speaking or experiencing an enriched life no

C is for Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Literary Grannies 2018 #atozchallenge

April 6, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

Charlotte Perkins Gilman has been my hero for years.

She inspired me more than five years ago to create an entire body of work I’m still growing based on The Women’s Sphere” those aspects of life seen as driven by the female gender, the softer domestic traits that aren’t on there own as anything bad – it is the devaluing of such that has made them be seen as less-than.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote her landmark novella “The Yellow Wallpaper” in two days in June, 1890. In those two days, she changed how women were treated for post-partum depression forever.

She herself underwent the then approved therapy which included no writing, no art, no use of the mind. Rest and domestic tasks alone would heal woman, it was believed.

The problem with that is if you are a creator, you may as well have been issued a death sentence.

The home in Pasadena, California, where Charlotte Perkins Gilman died.

I wondered when I started my “The Women’s Sphere” project how Charlotte survived without anti-depressants. Now it is I who am experiencing that lack of medicine and while it is difficult – I am able to feel what I imagine she felt, able to detach myself from the pain of it all.

If you are unfamiliar with her work, please read it soon.

One quote: “When the mother of the race is free, we shall have a better world, by the easy right of birth and by the calm, slow, friendly forces of evolution.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Julie has participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge for several years and is thrilled to be back, once again with Literary Grannies. Follow here throughout April for blog posts featuring women of literary history along with a daily writing prompt that reflects each featured writer.

B is for Bella Bella Akhmadulina: Literary Grannies from A-Z/2018 #atozchallenge

April 2, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

One of my favorite aspects of doing this challenge is I encounter new writers. Bella Akhmadulina was a Russian poet, essayist and translator I didn’t know until I wanted to find a new granny to represent for the letter B.

Those of you who are writers and poets, what would it be like to perform in front of a packed arena, as if you were a rock star or super bowl athlete?

That’s what happened for Bella Akhmadulina! She was well loved, defended the dissidents and in doing so, was not published much. She was among the top 4 poets of the time in Russia – and the only woman in the group.

She was one of 40 writers who banded together in 1993 a group of writers to stand up against then President Boris Yeltsin.

I want to get to know Bella Akhmadulina better. I hope you do, too.

Writing Prompt: Imagine yourself a Writing (or whatever your passion may be) Rock Star. What would you say to the crowd gathered to watch you do your thing? Take 5 minutes to write – and just let your words flow without forethought or editing.