Happy poem

Happy by Reinekke Lengelle I almost forgot I was happy today, while I was wiping the stove an old thought pulled at my sleeve it almost seemed convincing trying to protect me like the way remembered pain sticks and tries to make you right about something, While you know that ‘right’ is the block between …

Writing the self for cultural healing

A narrative that cannot be reconciled on a personal level is per definition a story that cannot contribute to reconciliation. Our book chapter “Writing the self for reconciliation and global citizenship: The inner dialogue and creative voices for cultural healing” by Reinekke Lengelle, Charity Jardine, and Charlene Bonnar was accepted by Springer this week. I …

On writing the self and vulnerability

Is writing the self speaking our vulnerability in order to become empowered? In reflecting on the book “A vulnerable teacher” (1974) by composition teacher Ken Macrorie (1918-2009), I realized I perceive and sense vulnerability to be something different than he does. After explaining that vulnerable comes from “vuln” the Latin word for “wound”, he writes that “To become …

Youth Career Workshop

We ran day 1 of our career writing workshop last Saturday and the participants worked steadily from 10 to 5:30. They were very focused and all took active part in responding to each other’s work. They wrote to Baroque music, made collages and talked about them, and they listed 20 careers they could imagine doing …

On writing poetry

“To write poetry a person must be interested in something in the world and allow that to resonate with something within.” I wrote these instructions for my students. It’s advice I apply to my own writing. I thought you might enjoy it too. Poetry is a dialogue with “other” and “outside” as well as with …

University of Eastern Finland

Frans and I have been invited to the university of Eastern Finland to speak about career writing and career learning processes and share our know-how with colleagues there. We’re delighted to be going. We met some of our Scandanavian colleagues at the International  Association of Educational and Vocational Guidance conference in Madrid in 2016. There …