jewel bush
I was startled to see a self-addressed envelope arrive in my mailbox over the weekend.
Back in January, I wrote a letter to myself as part of a New Year ritual with my writers group. Jamey Hatley, a Memphis transplant and gifted wordsmith, leads what has become a literary sacrament for the MelaNated Writers Collective. We write handwritten notes to ourselves, seal them and then hand them over to her for safekeeping. It’s an individual exercise that we do together. Some MWC members jot down encouraging words or scribble stern reminders to adhere to writing regimens while others list publishing goals. No one reads your letter and you are free to use the paper – space – however you choose.
Half a year later, after we’ve forgotten all about them, broken all of our New Year’s resolutions and are busy dodging the dog days of summer, these communications wondrously appear at our doorsteps. Not really by magic, but via Jamey’s devotion to nurture her fellow storytellers and her personal pledge to preserve the art of letter writing.
I had no clue what I had written down six months ago and hesitated to open the correspondence postage paid with a limited-edition Forever Stamp commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, “Henceforward shall be free.”
In my writing, I was brief, yet tremendously pointed. I ended my epistle with the following printed in large block letters: “MORE WRITE HARD.”
Simple, profound and immensely timely given I have recently returned from the highly competitive, VONA/Voices of our Nation workshop at the University of California, Berkeley. VONA is the only multi-genre workshop for writers of color in the country and my muse in founding the MelaNated Writers Collective. The 2013 VONA session featured a memoir class by Staceyann Chin, poetry by Jimmy Santiago Baca, graphic novel with Mat Johnson and a fiction group led by the Pulitzer Prize winning Junot Díaz among other classes led by acclaimed authors.
I spent a week talking craft with 11 of the most talented and caring writers under the tutelage of accomplished writer, poet, performer and VONA co-founder Elmaz Abinader. I learned. I wrote. I critiqued works by classmates that I can’t wait to see in print. I blossomed creatively and personally during my second VONA stint.
As my VONA gris gris wears and I reenter my real life and balance it with my literary endeavors, receiving my letter reminded me that I’m an artist. This cryptic phrase, written in haste, reflects my then state of mind of being preocuppied and unfocused on my art. Fast forward, six months later to today, this message makes sense. Since then, I have been writing more and making tangible progress.
“Out of the work,” Jamey always says, “comes the work.”
jewel bush, a New Orleans native, is a writer whose work has appeared in The (Houma) Courier, The Washington Post, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans Homes & Lifestyles Magazine, and El Tiempo, a bilingual Spanish newspaper. In 2010, she founded MelaNated Writers Collective, a multi-genre group for writers of color in New Orleans dedicated to cultivating the literary, artistic and professional growth of emerging writers. She is currently communications coordinator for Service Employees International Union Local 21LA. Her three favorite books are Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Catcher in the Rye, and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
