Entries by Kathie Collins
The War of Art in Memoir
Two days ago, I finished reading The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston’s acclaimed 1976 memoir, and haven’t been able to stop thinking and writing about it since. In fact, I’ve already started re-reading in order to understand more fully why the book has so enchanted me, how the story of […]
Breath
Our lives are marked by breath. The first thing that happens when we leave the warm water of our mother’s body is the in breath. The very last thing we do, the thing that marks our passage from this world into the next, is the out breath. In between is a constant tide––inhale meeting exhale […]
Be Here Now
Part of Charlotte Lit’s “Keeping Pen to Paper” Series. If you were alive and awake during the 1970s or have practiced much yoga or meditation during the last two decades, you’ve probably heard the refrain Be Here Now, which also happens to be the title of a best-selling book by author and one-time Harvard University […]
The Mask!
Part of Charlotte Lit’s “Keeping Pen to Paper” Series. Until a few weeks ago, the only surgical masks I encountered were those worn by characters on my favorite medical TV dramas—ER, Gray’s Anatomy, and House, M.D.—and by my dentist and dental hygienist at my twice-yearly cleanings and checkups. Now, the surgical mask is haute couture, […]
Making Connections
Part of Charlotte Lit’s “Keeping Pen to Paper” Series. Let’s face it. Life in the outer world is typically so busy, most of us hurry through our days with little awareness of what’s going on inside us. We awaken each morning with to-do lists so long and loud, our nighttime dreams evaporate before we even […]
Recommended Memoirs for Book Clubs
There are times I’m suddenly aware that I’m not as well-rounded a reader as I’d wish. The curation of this list was one of those moments. I read the way I do most things––intuitively and deeply. I’m a poet, so my memoir preferences lean toward beautiful writing as much as to dramatic storytelling. I’m a […]
Commemorate 9/11 at Wednesdays@Lit Staged Reading
The events of September 11, 2001 changed our nation––and the world––forever. This year, in commemoration of the day, Charlotte Lit will host the first-ever dramatic reading of David Radavich’s “America Bound: An Epic for Our Time,” a poetry collection that explores the physical and emotional impacts of our nation’s history since World War II. Radavich’s […]
Announcing Charlotte Lit’s Beautiful Truth Initiative
We created Charlotte Lit because we believe literature is one of the most important means for understanding ourselves, our relationships, and our world, and we wanted to find ways of sharing literary experiences of all kinds with the Charlotte community. This January, we launch the Beautiful Truth program, one of our biggest and most important […]
Living at the Borders of Boldness: Making Time to Reconnect with Our Creative Selves
Join us for Charlotte Lit’s first multi-day retreat Do you ever feel that you’re living close to the borders of madness, that state of being in which each day is progressively more packed with meetings, phone calls, and errands? Have you begun to open your in-box each morning with a sense of fear and trepidation? Have […]
