A network of blogs about sisters and sisterhoods of all kinds.
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PAIGE’S GOOD FRIEND told her that Mary Karr’s Lit was the best non-fiction she’d read in years, that while she couldn’t bear to put it down, the prose was so divine it made her want to stop after each passage just to savor it. This friend is no easy sell when it comes to writing and reading, so OK, said TSP’S Paige: “add that book to my reading list, stat, and here’s why.”
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SOMETIMES MARION CAN BE SUBTLE. And while no particular incident of that comes to mind right now, she’s sure she occasionally is. Though never when teaching memoir writing, so she knows for certain that she was not a bit subtle in a recent class when she simply declared a total moratorium on the self-congratulatory. Let her explain.
THINK IN PROPINQUITIES, says Marion, and yes, she knows: The phrase makes her sound like a librarian. But the wacky word is a reminder to think of your angle shots when you write up a topic like a family holiday. Don’t give us a Polaroid of the day, she says, on your blog or in your journal, but rather some side view that illustrates how you learned a new way to give thanks–like the one she discovered when she brought a New York City cab driver to Thanksgiving dinner. The tale, and the memoir tips.
MARION’S BACK where she loves to be, three weeks into teaching a new class on memoir. And it’s a great class: Twenty-one eager writers, all with their own tales, all willing to do the work to get the pieces down. Her favorite problem last week was from one fine young writer who simply admitted, “My story is too big.” Ah. Yes. Too big. Whose isn’t? How to wrestle a big story to the ground.
STUCK IN CREATIVE NEUTRAL? NO WORRY. Our writing coach in residence, Sister Marion, says phooey to the idea of writer’s block, and proceeds to prove that anyone can barrel through a “block” with this secret weapon: the friendly ear of a sister or sister-friend. Her plan for pushing ahead on your artistic path.
ARE YOU WRITING SOMETHING? Don’t be shy; everybody is writing something about their lives these days (isn’t that what blogging is?). Though school’s out for the summer where our sister Marion teaches memoir writing, she’s offering up some tactics here to help us sisters get it all down. The first installment is an exercise about finding the story among all those details. You can read it here.
IN THE GALLERIES: Craft missionary DIANE GILLELAND
First time here? Here's the idea: TSP is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: Learn more about TSP, and how to find your way around. And oh—a giant, sisterly welcome.
As the suffix of its name suggests, TSP's Sisterpedia
is the reference section, one we’re hoping you’ll help us grow to maturity by adding your knowledge in the comments. Turn us on to new facts and figures, whether for the branch of our ‘library’ called Sistory (history from a sister point of view, from the Muses of ancient Greece to 60s Girl Groups and beyond) or the one called Sibling Science (what makes sisters tick, genetically and behaviorally). Or just click around and have a good read. See you there. 
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men.
TSP’s Galleries were created to show off that outpouring of art and craft, poetry and prose. Come see a show or two—no ticket required, no lines to get in—and suggest others whose work we ought to showcase.
