Kirjahaku

Many writing instructors teach writing through autobiography. By considering the lives of others and then contemplating their own lives, aspiring writers discover a wellspring of material that can be used in their prose. While not explicitly for courses, this book follows a similar pedagogical line, focusing specifically on the philosophical and spiritual questions that every person faces in the course of meeting life's challenges. How the Light Gets In encourages readers to contemplate their lives through spiritual observation and exploratory writing. It guides readers through the process in 17 concise thematic chapters that include meditations on fear, freedom, silence, secrets, joy, prayer, tradition, forgiveness, service, social justice, aging, and death. Short poems by Schneider begin each chapter. Schneider's book is distinct from the many other books in the popular spirituality and creative writing genre by virtue of its approach, using one's lived experience, including the experience of writing, as a springboard for writing about beliefs and faith. As her many followers would attest, Schneider writes with particular clarity and immediacy about the writing process. Her belief that writing about one's life leads to greater consciousness, satisfaction, and wisdom energizes the book and carries the reader gracefully difficult topics.

Many writing instructors teach writing through autobiography. By considering the lives of others and then contemplating their own lives, aspiring writers discover a wellspring of material that can be used in their prose. While not explicitly for courses, this book follows a similar pedagogical line, focusing specifically on the philosophical and spiritual questions that every person faces in the course of meeting life's challenges. How the Light Gets In encourages readers to contemplate their lives through spiritual observation and exploratory writing. It guides readers through the process in 17 concise thematic chapters that include meditations on fear, freedom, silence, secrets, joy, prayer, tradition, forgiveness, service, social justice, aging, and death. Short poems by Schneider begin each chapter. Schneider's book is distinct from the many other books in the popular spirituality and creative writing genre by virtue of its approach, using one's lived experience, including the experience of writing, as a springboard for writing about beliefs and faith. As her many followers would attest, Schneider writes with particular clarity and immediacy about the writing process. Her belief that writing about one's life leads to greater consciousness, satisfaction, and wisdom energizes the book and carries the reader gracefully difficult topics.

Pat Schneider was born in the Ozark mountains of Missouri where she became intimate with fossils, creek bed grasshoppers and box turtles. After a search for work took her single mother to St. Louis, from age ten Pat lived in tenements and in an orphanage until she was given a scholarship to college. Those early experiences deeply influenced her writing, and fueled her passion for those who have been denied voice through poverty and other misfortunes.Pat's books, poetry, plays, and libretti have been praised by the most prestigious publications and authors in America: The New York Times, the Library Journal, the Atlanta Journal, Small Press Magazine, St. Louis Dispatch, the North Dakota Review, Oprah Magazine, Vanity Fair, the North Dakota Quarterly, the Kentucky Monthly, the Bellingham Review, the Louisville Times, and many others.Peter Elbow said that Pat Schneider is "the wisest teacher of writing I know." Julia Cameron, author of The Right to Write and The Artist's Way, noted that Pat is "a fuse lighter. Her work is gentle, playful, brilliant, and revolutionary" and Janet Burroway, author of Writing Fiction, notes that Pat's work is "heartening and practical, a rich variety . . . that celebrates both difference and difficulty as the gifts they are.

Pat Schneider was born in the Ozark mountains of Missouri where she became intimate with fossils, creek bed grasshoppers and box turtles. After a search for work took her single mother to St. Louis, from age ten Pat lived in tenements and in an orphanage until she was given a scholarship to college. Those early experiences deeply influenced her writing, and fueled her passion for those who have been denied voice through poverty and other misfortunes.Pat's books, poetry, plays, and libretti have been praised by the most prestigious publications and authors in America: The New York Times, the Library Journal, the Atlanta Journal, Small Press Magazine, St. Louis Dispatch, the North Dakota Review, Oprah Magazine, Vanity Fair, the North Dakota Quarterly, the Kentucky Monthly, the Bellingham Review, the Louisville Times, and many others.Peter Elbow said that Pat Schneider is "the wisest teacher of writing I know." Julia Cameron, author of The Right to Write and The Artist's Way, noted that Pat is "a fuse lighter. Her work is gentle, playful, brilliant, and revolutionary" and Janet Burroway, author of Writing Fiction, notes that Pat's work is "heartening and practical, a rich variety . . . that celebrates both difference and difficulty as the gifts they are.

For more than a quarter of a century, Pat Schneider has helped writers find and liberate their true voices. She has taught all kinds--the award winning, the struggling, and those who have been silenced by poverty and hardship. Her innovative methods have worked in classrooms from elementary to graduate level, in jail cells and public housing projects, in convents and seminaries, in youth at-risk programs, and with groups of the terminally ill. Now, in Writing Alone and with Others, Schneider's acclaimed methods are available in a single, well-organized, and highly readable volume. The first part of the book guides the reader through the perils of the solitary writing life: fear, writer's block, and the bad habits of the internal critic. In the second section, Schneider describes the Amherst Writers and Artists workshop method, widely used across the U.S. and abroad. Chapters on fiction and poetry address matters of technique and point to further resources, while more than a hundred writing exercises offer specific ways to jumpstart the blocked and stretch the rut-stuck. Schneider's innovative teaching method will refresh the experienced writer and encourage the beginner. Her book is the essential owner's manual for the writer's voice.

Healing Victims of Sexual Assault Through Transformative Journaling"This is the most essential book on writing practice I know ... Every writing teacher, writing coach, writing workshop or group leader and every person with a history of any kind of trauma needs this book.” —Pat Schneider, author of How the Light Gets In and founder of the Amherst Writers & Artists method #1 Best Seller in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Study AidsOne in six women is the victim of sexual assault. Using her own hard-won wisdom, author Jen Cross shows how to heal through journaling and personal writingRape victims and victims of other sexual abuse. Writing Ourselves Whole is a collection of essays and creative writing encouragements for sexual trauma survivors who want to risk writing a different story. Each short chapter offers encouragement, experience, and exercises.A book that could change your life. When you can find language for the stories that are locked inside, you can change your life. Talk therapy can only go so far for the millions of Americans struggling in the aftermath of sexual abuse and sexual assault. Sexual assault survivors can heal themselves. Sexual trauma survivor communities (and their allies) have the capacity to hold and hear one another's stories–we do not have to relegate ourselves solely to the individual isolation of the therapist's office.What You'll Learn Inside Writing Ourselves Whole:How to reconnect with your creative instinct through freewritingHow freewriting can help you reclaim the parts of yourself and your historyHow "restorying" the old myths about sexual trauma survivors can set you freeIf you have read books such as The Body Keeps the Score, The Artist's Way, Writing Down the Bones, or Writing as a Way of Healing, you will want to read Writing Ourselves Whole. Also try Jen Cross’s self-care journal, Write to Restore.