Dear Wonderful Writers,

I’ve been struck by the remarkable courage evident in manuscripts I’ve recently edited. And have said in interviews
that what a writer needs most is not an MFA or a workshop, not a writing group or a grant. What we need most is
courage. Courage to feel things we’d rather avoid.  Courage to name things properly. Courage to contact individuals who
frighten us. Courage to put onto paper what we have carried for many years. Courage to believe that our story
matters.

Courage is required for artists in every art form: composers, graphic designers, architects, dancers. We need courage
to tell the story only we can tell.  To make art and not just stuff.

We have to decide to be brave. A mentor, writing group, supportive friends all help. But no one can actually make this
decision for us, that’s the trouble.

When writing The Memory Room, I pictured one family member showing up at my front door with a gun. I stood in our
entry hall staring at the back of the front door and imagined that happening. It was not out of the question.

I was crying.  But I decided to write the story anyway.

I went to the backyard, stood inside the tall hedge I’d planted and trimmed, a boundary around our property. A safety.
And I made a promise to myself.

Fortunately, no violence occurred.

But on some scale, large or small, we each have to make this decision.

So let me share that moment with you here, as given in The Memory Room. To honor the courage of all of my clients,
and those of you who might become clients. To all of us.
~ ~ ~ ~

In the privacy of this green, I make a pledge, witnessed by leaves:

That I will vest myself with the crooked staff of a shepherd.

And with my crosier, I will gather even the lowliest memory that has fallen, lost, into the ditch.

With my staff I will govern my body. I alone will be its curate.

My history will be my new parish.

And I will make inside myself a new city.

A holy place.
A new Jerusalem.

Let us be brave! Let us be real people writing real stories. The stories only we can write!

Hugs galore,
Mary