Tag Archives: writing life

Happy NaNoWriMo Day!

1 Nov

Today is the start of NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month!

NaNoWriMo is touted as “thirty days and nights of literary abandon!”  The premise is simple.  On November 1, anyone interested in writing a novel begins a novel with the goal of completing the first draft by the end of the month.  More specifically:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000-word (approximately 175-page) novel by 11:59:59 PM on November 30.

Here’s how it works.  The novel has to be completely new, though you are allowed to write an outline before the official start of the month.

In addition to the writing goal itself, participants receive encouragement from the staff and from famous authors and can join in in a variety of meetups, virtual and in person.

I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo for a few years now without writing a single word toward a novel.  I’m interested in actually participating this year for a number of reasons.

Check in next week to find out why!

Are you signing up for NaNoWriMo?

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Photos of the Burnside Writers Collective at FFW

26 Apr

front, right: Jordan Green, Editor in Chief.

middle row, left to right:  Kim Gottschild, managing editor; Diane Nienhuis contributer (and personal website)

back row, left to right: Stephanie Nikolopoulos, visual arts editor; Larry Shallenberger, contributor (and personal website)

left to right: Larry Shallenberger, contributor; Kim Gottschild, managing editor; me.

 

Left to right: Me, Diane Nienhuis contributer;  and Larry Shallenberger, contributer

 

I had such a fun time hanging out with the Burnside Writers Collective at the Festival of Faith & Writing!  Some of them I hadn’t seen in years, some I saw at the last Festival, some I saw when they last came through New York, and some I met only for the first time at the Festival even though I’d been working with them for years. Allof them are amazingly talented writers with huge hearts and are loads of fun.

While I was “working the booth” (fancy speak for chatting with all the cool writers and editors that stopped by our table at the Festival of Faith & Writing), I talked with a lot of people who were intrigued by the concept of a collective.  Burnside Writers Collective is not just a website.  We’re not just individual writers posting articles.  We’re a collective.  A team.  Our work is collaborative, both in the sense that there are a lot of people dedicated to behind-the-scenes work to make it possible for the website to exist and exist well, and in the sense that all of our individual work and varied opinions adds up to something bigger than just ourselves.  We’re also a community.  Writers, editors, and readers share with each other, get to know each other, meet each other.

Writing is such a solitary endeavor.  It suits many of us because we’re introverted.  Almost everyone I spoke to claimed to be an introvert, meaning we get our energy from alone time rather than in the public.  It does not mean that everyone is shy, though.  A festival full of introverts is still boisterous, is still loud, is still frenetic.  Maybe it’s because we’ve finally lifted our faces from our books, and our eyes are no longer glazed over from the glare of a computer screen.  We’ve emerged to find kindred spirits in other writers–and it feels good!  Since so many of us spend our days and nights writing, alone, we are oftentimes looking for community.  That’s what makes Burnside Writers Collective so attractive.  The people who write for and read Burnside tend to come back again and again, to stick around and join the conversation, to share their dissenting opinions, their encouragement, their feelings.  That said, we’re always looking for new writers!  As the visual arts editor, I’m looking for people who can write about arts trends, review new exhibits at galleries, interview artists, and share their art.  Email me at snikolop {@} alumna.scrippscollege.edu if you’re interested.

I miss the Burnsiders already….  Looking forward to seeing you all at the next Festival of Faith & Writing!

 

Here’s Larry’s “Brain Dump” on FFW.

 

Note: This article was edited to include names of people and Larry’s Brain Dump post.

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My Festival of Faith & Writing Festival Circle: Holy Grounds — The Role of Place in Your Spiritual and Literary Life

9 Mar

As I mentioned a while back, I’ll be leading a Festival Circle this year at the Festival of Faith & Writing held at Calvin College.  It’s a tremendous honor to have been selected to facilitate a discussion group at this prestigious writing conference, where so many authors I admire will be speaking.

In case you’re unfamiliar with what Festival Circle is, here’s how FFW describes it:

This year, we are once again offering Festival Circles, small groups that will meet at least two times during the Festival to discuss a topic of common interest. Each circle, composed of approximately 12–15 attendees and led by a Festival participant, will meet during Thursday dinner and Saturday lunch. Because the circles are scheduled to meet at the same time, it’s possible for attendees to participate in only one.

They go on to explain its purpose:

We hope that Festival Circles will give you a place to connect with other attendees, and to deepen and extend your experience of the Festival.

I want to share with you the description of the Festival Circle that I’m hosting:

Holy Grounds: The Role of Place in Your Spiritual and Literary Life
By looking at what the Bible has to say about the setting of a story, this circle will encourage participants to carefully consider the role of place in their writing, and challenge them to see how different locations affect a story’s style and content.

Facilitator: Stephanie Nikolopoulos
Bio: Stephanie Nikolopoulos (www.StephanieNikolopoulos.com) has worked in book publishing in Manhattan for ten years, is the visual arts editor for Burnside Writers Collective, and is a co-leader of the Writers Group at the Center for Faith & Work at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York; her writing has appeared in magazines, newspapers, and books across the country.

I’m genuinely passionate about the multi-faceted subject of place.  I wrote about place for my undergrad thesis at Scripps College, my Burnside Writers Collective column Church Hopping talks about the architecture of unique and beautiful places, the travelogue I wrote an introduction to obviously has a strong emphasis on place, the nonfiction book Burning Furiously Beautiful I’m co-authoring describes how the landscape and history of place affected one of America’s greatest novels, and the memoir I’m writing deals very much with place. My resume aside, I love traveling.  I moved out to California for college without ever even visiting the state first.  I’m the child of an immigrant so place has always played an important role in my identity, in my understanding of who I am and where I come from.

Place isn’t always about a physical place, though.  Place can be a mood, a mental space, a spiritual space.  Place can be about a journey, whether that means hopping a train, opening a book and getting lost in the imagination of an author, being moved to tears, learning something about yourself, understanding the world better, or opening yourself up to a new relationship.  A journey from point A to point B isn’t always a single straight line.  This is true for a traveler (even Jack Kerouac had an infamous setback when he first set off on the road), for a writer (hello, thesis draft number 452), or for a person of faith (Paul went around killing Christians before he went on the road to Damascus and saw the light; as a boy David may have killed Goliath but as an adult he committed adultery … and had the woman’s husband killed; Peter adamantly denied even knowing Christ and then became a martyr).  As the old Paula Abdul song goes, two steps forward, two steps back….

With all that in mind, know that I am on a journey too.  I simply want to walk alongside other writers and talk about the meaning of place in all areas of our lives.  If you would like to join my Festival Circle or any of the others, you can find out how to do so here.

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Feta Salsa

10 Feb

These days it’s all about eating simply.  Dashing between work and class, there are at least two days a week that I eat all three of my meals on the go.  Class doesn’t let out until 10:30 pm, and if I get out a little early I try to pop in Whole Foods to pick up some food since it’s on my way to the subway.

The other day I was in Whole Foods, picking up an orange, pumpkin muffins with actual pumpkin seeds on the tops (double yum!), and soup mix (cut-up fresh veggies that I actually use for stir-fry not soup), when I saw something new: feta salsa.

I eat a lot of pita and hummus and pita and tabouli.  I haven’t gotten sick of it yet, but the idea of something new to put on my pita got my attention.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t justify the price.  It was about $3 more than the hummus.  That might not sound like a lot, but I could buy three Wet ‘n Wild nail polishes for that price or stamps to mail a handwritten letter to a friend.  So, I was quite thrilled when I stumbled upon this feta salsa recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

I’m figuring I could make a batch of it on a Sunday and eat it all week long for lunch.

Feta is one of those cheeses that I love and that makes me feel homesick/festive (my family always ate it at holidays), but that I never really purchase on my own.  I’m not quite sure why.  Maybe because it’s such a distinctive cheese.  I do enjoy it, though, and this feta salsa recipe is a great way to jazz up my lunches.

If you have any tips on quick lunches, leave it in the comments section below.

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