I learn (or used to learn) languages rather easily, I flatter(ed) myself.

Early last year, I decided that I was going to become really fluent in French for the fun of it, and for the fun of talking to French speakers when we travel.

And because thinking in another language broadens your world view, and understanding of the nuances of human experience. I think Charlemagne said, “To speak another language is to possess another soul.”

And because I was bored with the business of setting up our business (a publishing company) last year, but too harassed to write.

So I decided to get fluent in a language I knew, but not well. I was so determined to learn it with my right brain. Listen to it a lot on tape, and in classes, read Le Monde, watch the news in French, watch a lot of French films. And voila, I hoped I would be speaking grammatically correct French. It is not going to happen, alas.

Roy and I, married for 20.5 years, have been so used to characterizing ourselves as left-brain (Roy) and rightbrain, (Anita) that we sometimes forget that everyone has two sides of the brain. And I have decided that, to spare my daughter Zoe embarrassment if nothing else, I am going to use both sides of my brain.

And learn grammar, much though I hoped I had left learning my rote behind me, like other childish things.

Je chantais, tu chantait, il chantait, nous chantions, vous chantiez, ils chantaient

J’ai chante, tu as chante, il a chante, nous avons chante, vous avez chante, ils ont chante,

Je chanterai, tu chanteras, il chantera, nous chanterons, vous chanterons, ils chanteront.

You know, I rather enjoyed that!!

Education

M.A. in English, Somerville College, Oxford University, 1990.
M.A. in English and Creative Writing, The Ohio State University, 1989. B.A. (Honors) in English, Somerville College, Oxford University, 1986

Academic Scholarships
Scholarship from the Radhakrishnan Fund of Oxford University to study at Oxford, 1984.
Scholarship from the Eckersley Trust, Oxford, to study English at Oxford, 1984.

Literary Awards

• National Endowment for the Arts Award, 1998 ($20,000).
• Individual Artist Fellowship from the Minnesota State Arts Board, 1992 ($6000).
• Literary Travel Grant, The Jerome Foundation, Minnesota, 1993.
• Full Fellowship, Residency in Creative Nonfiction, The Vermont Studio Center, a Writers’ Colony, 1997.
• Fellowship, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Briar, Virginia, a Writers’ Colony, 2002.

Selected Literary Prizes and Honors

• First Prize, Best General Interest Article, Catholic Press Association of America & Canada, 2000.
• The Jakobson Scholarship for Writers of Unusual Promise, Wesleyan Writers’ Conference, Connecticut, 1994.
• Working scholarship in Nonfiction to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Vermont, 1997.
• Scholarship in Nonfiction to the Chenango Valley Writers’ Conference, New York, 1996.
• Odyssey Bookstore Scholarship in Nonfiction, Mount Holyoke Writers’ Conference, Massachusetts, 1992.
• Asian Pacific Inroads Award, The Loft Literary Center, Minnesota, 1992.

Selected Publications

• “First Thing in the Morning,” The Style Plus Page, The Washington Post, 16th September, 1997.
• “Nirmal Hriday,” London Magazine, Aug./Sept. 1993.
• “Memories of a Catholic Childhood,” Commonweal, October 8th, 1999.
• “That Ancient Yarn,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2000.
• “The Holy Ground of Kalighat,” Notre Dame Magazine, Autumn 1998.
• “Learning to Pray,” The Christian Century, March 22nd, 2000.
• Also selected by and posted on Religion-Online.org
• “Candlelight Prayer at Stanford,” America, April 11, 1992.
• “View from the Margins,” Contemporary Literary Criticism, 2003.
• “Aliens and Strangers,” Southwest Review, Vol. 87, #2, Nov. 2002.
• “Kalighat,” New Letters, Vol. 59, No. 2, 1993.
• “Tryst,” and “At Santa Maria Novella, Florence,” The Journal, Vol. 13, No.2, 1990.
• “Suttee,” Envoi, No. 98, Winter 1990/91.

Selected Publications
“First Thing in the Morning,” The Style Plus Page, The Washington Post, 16th September, 1997.
“Nirmal Hriday,” London Magazine, Aug./Sept. 1993.
“Memories of a Catholic Childhood,” Commonweal, October 8th, 1999.
“That Ancient Yarn,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2000.
“The Holy Ground of Kalighat,” Notre Dame Magazine, Autumn 1998.
“Learning to Pray,” The Christian Century, March 22nd, 2000.  (Also selected by and posted on Religion-Online.org)
“Candlelight Prayer at Stanford,” America, April 11, 1992.
“View from the Margins,” Contemporary Literary Criticism, 2003.
“Aliens and Strangers,” Southwest Review, Vol. 87, #2, Nov. 2002.
“Kalighat,” New Letters, Vol. 59, No. 2, 1993.
“Tryst,” and “At Santa Maria Novella, Florence,” The Journal, Vol. 13, No.2, 1990.
“Suttee,” Envoi, No. 98, Winter 1990/91.

Anthologies

• “Memories of a Catholic Childhood,” Best Spiritual Writing 2000, HarperSanFrancisco.
• “The Holy Ground of Kalighat,” Best Spiritual Writing, 1999, HarperSanFrancisco.  (Also selected by and posted on ChristianGateway.com, and Faith.com.)
• “Kalighat,” reprinted in Tanzania on Tuesday, New Rivers Press, MN, 1997.
• “Zigzags,” reprinted in The Best of Writers at Work 1994, Northwest Publishing, Inc., Utah.
• “Zigzags,” Speaking in Tongues, a multi-cultural anthology, The Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis, MN 1994.
• Three contributions to  WomanPrayers: Prayers by Women from throughout History and Around the World, ed. Mary Ford-Grabowsky, (HarperSanFrancisco, 2002).
• “That Ancient Yarn,” selected as a Notable Essay of 2000, Best American Essays 2001, Houghton Mifflin.
• “I was a Teenage Atheist,” selected as a Notable Essay of 1999, Best American Essays 2000, Houghton Mifflin.

Teaching of Creative Writing
Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. 1997.
Taught an eight week course in Creative Nonfiction at the Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis, 1993.
Faculty at the Christopher Newport University Writers’ Conference, Virginia, 2000, 2003.
Faculty at the Heritage Public Library Writers’ Conference, Providence Forge, Virginia, 1999.
Faculty at the Spring Writers’ Conference, Columbus, Ohio, 1989.
Taught writing as a Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University, 1987-1989
Taught the modern novel as a Teaching Assistant at the State University of New York, Binghamton, NY1989

Miscellaneous
Several book reviews for Commonweal Magazine between 2000-2003.
Several Theater and Film Reviews, Minnesota Daily, 1993.
Listed in the Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers.
Profiled as “The Star of the Month” by Mangalorean.com, an expatriate website.

A sad and exhausting wrestle with your work is a possible sign that you have chosen something that you should not have, that what you are writing is not right, should not be written at all, or not at such length

I used to go to New Wine in the past, but it was too noisy for me. I needed more time to quietly process what I was hearing, learning, and what the Spirit was saying.

In the past, when I went to retreats, I would come back full of wonderful resolutions to revise my life. To be a better wife, mother, housekeeper, friend, church member, and yes, a writer. Eat well, exercise hard, rise early.

I will…. I will… I will. Not surprisingly, when stitches fell from that shawl of good intentions, I would give up in despair. And feel increasingly suspicious of mountain-top experiences and resolutions, so hard to keep up with or follow through amid the slings and arrows of daily life. And when one fails, your latter state is worse than the first, because you are so dejected and lacking in confidence in your ability to change.

Cantankerous, irritable Martin Luther perhaps because of his very cantankerousness and irritability had priceless insights into the nature of grace. We are caterpillars in a ring of fire. Our only hope is deliverance from above.

I first heard that quote from Jack Miller, the dynamic, insightful founder of World Harvest Mission. Asked what he thought of Richard Forster’s wonderful “Celebration of Discipline,” he replied, “Oh, I am too big a sinner to be  fooled by “The Celebration of Discipline.” Amen.

And I am too weary a sinner to follow the path of good resolutions, New Year’s resolutions, self-help, all that good stuff.

Middle-age is a wonderful mellow time. I know now that I can’t change myself. I can’t heal myself. I need the Great Physician. I need a Saviour. I just need Jesus!

So what do I hope to gain from a retreat? That is a question my 15 year old is going to be asking me a lot, and my 11 year old. So, let me be ready to give an answer.

1. I want to read Scripture some more and encounter Christ in an environment free of distraction.

2. I want again to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I increasingly feel that my deepest desire is for God’s spirit to fill me totally.

3. I want to surrender myself again to God and have him work on the deep, secret parts of my spirit, the parts I myself don’t know or understand–healing, rearranging, reshaping, teaching, setting free.

4. And if God has words of wisdom, revelation and guidance, he would like to share with me (and of course He has, and of course he does, he is a giving God, and both word and silence are his native language) I want to be there, still and quiet, to hear them.

“Gibson has said that his script for “The Passion” was the New Testament, and that the film was directed by the Holy Ghost. ” Peter J. Boyer, Sept 15th, 2003, The New Yorker.

Hey, let’s take his word for it.

I myself have no doubt that the Holy Spirit can direct a movie, or dictate a book.

Come Holy Spirit, dictate some books to me.

Amen

“Let Nothing be Wasted”–what Jesus said after he multiplied 5 loaves to feed 5 thousand, and landed up with 12 baskets of left-overs. (Divine economics in action!)

It feels good to know that that is God’s desire–that nothing be wasted, our efforts, our attempts, our dreams, our work, our prayers.

And what he desires, he has the power to accomplish.

I am someone who curls into a foetal position when I pray intensely. I kneel, or crouch over the seat in front of me if I am seated, shut out the world and its noise. Or I lie flat on the floor if I am alone, or in a free setting. I would look distinctly odd if I prayed like that in a middle of a big outdoor carnival.

We used to go every year to New Wine, a charismatic festival in Shepton Mallet, Somerset–noise, bands till late in the night, radios with sermons playing in the campsite, loud worship with lyrics with not much substance to them repeated, ad infinitum. I had to sit down and shut out the world to try to concentrate in meetings in which everyone else was jumping and waving their arms about.

Part of the beauty of arriving at middle age is that one now knows what works for you, and what does not. No more New Wine (though I have been 4 times.) It is stress for me–noise, queues, long walks to get to places, The crowds, 10,000 plus, the rat race for good seats, the worship, loud, and hyped, whereas I am a choral music, Taize, Gregorian chant sort of girl, though I do love Matt Redman, Michael Card, Rich Mullins, who have verbally rich lyrics, particularly the latter two.

However, there were some remarkable speakers, particularly the amazing HEIDI BAKER who is one of the zaniest, freest, happiest, absurdest, most eccentric and inspiring Christian speakers I’ve ever heard. Her faith is contagious.

But to endure a week of camping, tents, rain, a good half a mile or more walk from camp site to the venues, crowds, even for the good speakers, is something I am no longer going to do.

Different strokes for different folks. I encounter God in silence, solitude, reflection, in Scripture study and private prayer, in nature walks. I find it harder to encounter him in the midst of 5000–10000 other folk–that after all was the recorded size of several of Jesus’s audiences.

But sadly, my kids do. Zoe had an experience of baptism in the holy spirit, and stayed up till 11 at night praying with her friends. Wow. The passion of youth!!

So I guess, she can go to the youth version, Soul Survivor, and I can stay at home encountering God in my favourite way, with a mug of tea, a Bible and journal, or roaming the fields around my home, alone.

My spiritual activity takes place in solitary walks with God, in solitary prayer, in silence and solitude. Just those very words are balm to my spirit–silence, solitude, peace.

So, if I have to take spiritual holidays, I will take them in contemplative abbeys, or out in the wilderness, not in the noise and loud music of New Wine.

For what wears out the life of mortal men?

That is where blessing and breakthroughs happen–in the undivided heart, the single heart, focussed on one thing. Over the last 4 years, we have had three kettles on the hob. Though I was not really writing, I longed to be. Roy was a mathematician.

And we had a family publishing business.

We have now decided to reduce these things to 1, writing.

And what an immense, immense relief that is. And how much blessing and breakthrough it has brought. Dreams are never brought to birth in divided personalities!!