Writing, writing, writing. Yes, I’m still writing, really, I am. It has been a while since I’ve posted here, but rest assured, much has been going on.
I’ve recently gone back to work full-time at the United Nations and am again working on HIV. I’m currently working in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations so it is all new and interesting and consuming many brain cells.
We also have two new people living in our home; my partner’s daughter and her 21-month-old son. This brings more layers of complexity to day-to-day life, and also much joy. So much joy!
Oh, and, yeah, and we elected someone as our next president who frightens me so, yeah. There’s that and it is very depressing. But I’m not going to go there today.
Today I am sharing two links to recent pieces of writing that have been published online. (The first piece, Blue Marlin, is also available in print from the TSR website.)
The first link, for Blue Marlin, is the first chapter to my Master’s thesis (aka memoir) for my MFA in Creative Writing and Literature. With luck the rest will also be published, one day, but for now, here are the opening pages which have found a home at TSR: The Southampton Review, the literary magazine run by our MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton. If all goes well, I’ll be graduating with my MFA on the 22nd of December – watch this space for updates!
You can find Blue Marlin here: http://thesouthamptonreview.com/nonfiction/blue-marlin-by-martina-clark/ I’m honored to have been published amongst such remarkable writers.
The second link is for a piece in the Sunday Magazine section of Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel. Panorama is a new journal focusing on literary travel writing. The journal is beautiful and the writers, photographers and illustrators are extraordinary. I am truly humbled to be among such talented people.
This particular piece, The Taste of Healing, in the Eaten section is possibly the hardest piece of writing I have ever attempted. I’m not even sure why, but writing this out nearly broke me and I was convinced it was the worst writing I’d ever done. But, perhaps, therein lies the very success of the piece; I tapped into something so raw that worked exactly because it was so rough around the edges. In any case, I hope you will enjoy it. Your can find The Taste of Healing here: http://www.panoramajournal.org/sm7-eaten/
I haven’t felt much like a writer lately but seeing these two pieces in print has helped. Maybe I’m still a writer after all.