We kickstarted our 2023 WriteSPACE Special Event Series with our annual Valentine’s Day Extravaganza. This year’s free event was a double celebration marking the launch of my new book, Writing with Pleasure, as well as the second anniversary of the WriteSPACE.
The live book launch consisted of two half-hour sessions 12 hours apart, each featuring a different special guest:
Session I: Book illustrator and cover artist Selina Tusitala Marsh.
Session II: Legendary Princeton UP editor Peter Dougherty.
Each launch session was followed by a mini-workshop called “Draw Your own SPACE Map,” now available in my new SPACE Gallery. (Click on “Your Gallery” to fine the workshop).
Here is WriteSPACE Event Manager Amy Lewis’ first-person account of the live event:
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The two Valentine’s Day sessions thoroughly explored the many stages and phases of pleasurable writing. After all, writing can be a productive, powerful, and playful act!
Helen began by explaining the inspiration for her new book. She revealed that when conducting research interviews with 100 successful academic writers, the most common emotions mentioned were not frustration and anxiety but pleasure and enjoyment! That unexpected finding inspired her to dive into researching the positive emotions of writing. But of course, this kind of pleasure is complex—more like the joy from climbing a mountain than dancing through fields of daisies. Profoundly satisfying writing can be frustrating at first because it’s difficult, but there is a rich pleasure in the challenge. Writing with Pleasure is a courageous book, a mosaic of ‘pleasure prompts’ and multi-faceted challenges to bring more meaning and joy into our writing lives. Helen questions the familiar adage “writing is painful,” suggesting that flexible and enjoyable writing will always create more interesting outcomes, whatever form they take.
It was fascinating to hear Helen and book illustrator Selina Tusitala Marsh talk about how their perspectives on pleasurable writing have evolved over time. Their collaboration has shaped the book into the visually and metaphorically driven touchstone that it is. Selina explained how her practice has become increasingly led by the drawn line, and her whimsical illustrations reflect this passion. It’s worth simply focusing on their beautiful borders—the margins push up against the text in joyful ruptures, justas Helen cracks open the conventional idea that writing is all work and no fun.
Personal memories abound in this book—for example, a memory of stumbling on a hike reveals that sometimes falling is part of any literary journey and won’t detract from the sense of achievement when you reach the end. The book is full of insightful and unique metaphors that can help us negotiate the emotional ups and downs of the writing process. Selina’s illustrations offer visual hints to mirror the metaphors in each chapter. Highlights include beautiful porcelain teacups, word swings, flying bird-books, and a whirlwind girl!
In the second part of the launch, we heard from retired Princeton University Press editor Peter Dougherty, whose enthusiasm and excitement about Helen’s new book was infectious!
At the end of each book launch session, Helen led us through an exercise (which you can do too! The prompt is in the book) called the SPACE of pleasurable writing. Every letter of this acronym explores a different dimension of your writing practice:
Social balance
Physical engagement
Aesthetic nourishment
Creative challenge
Emotional uplift.
Considering these dimensions will enhance your positive feelings about your writing practice. I invite you to grab some coloured pencils and the book, turn to ‘The Road Ahead’, and have a go yourself — or follow the video prompts on Helen’s website at https://www.helensword.com/your-gallery.
Sharing our visual SPACEs of writing with each other was a wonderful moment filled with trees, clouds, spirals, dancers, teacups, animals, landscapes, musicians, and many more beautiful symbols.
A big thank you to Helen, Selina, and the wonderful Princeton UP publishing team, including editor Peter Dougherty and book designer Chris Ferrante, for sharing their ideas and expertise so generously with us. And thank you all for coming along to help us launch Writing with Pleasure. It was a beautiful Valentine’s Day to remember!
A recording of this two-part WriteSPACE Special Event is now available for members in the WriteSPACE Library.
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