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Letter from Joyce Archives

August 28, 2003

Dear Friends,

Ask me where I come from, and I will still tell you it's New Hampshire -- the place I was born and raised, the place I raised my three children (first on an old farm, with their dad, and then as a single parent). Eight years ago, my kids and I held the biggest yard sale ever seen in the town of Keene, N.H. and took off, like the Beverly Hillbillies, for Northern California, and that's where we stayed planted, more or less, until a couple of years back, when my youngest son, Willy, graduated from high school and took off… for Africa. (He's back now, working and studying acting in Los Angeles, while his brother Charlie finishes his studies at NYU this year. My daughter Audrey graduated from college this past June, and has returned to N.H. for a while, at least, to help run her father's salad dressing company. And for those of you who might be concerned as to the whereabouts of our Boston Terrier, Opie… rest assured, he is happy and well, and driving around Los Angeles in our old convertible, with my son Willy, now known as Will.)

Which leaves just me, poking fifty with a short stick (as an old friend of mine from Oklahoma used to put it, only back when he introduced me to the phrase, the number he talked about was 40, and I thought that was old.)

I'm still surprised to find myself -- one of the more home-oriented individuals I know -- living a life that has kept me on the road for as long as I have been, now -- two years. Over the course of that time, I've hung my hat in Guatemala, New York City, an island in British Columbia, Canada -- and that's not counting the cities and towns I visited on my Usual Rules book tour, or a couple of trips back to New Hampshire. For all of the moving around, I still think of myself as a person who loves home, but I have gotten better at creating homes wherever I land, even if it's only for a while. Maybe it's a sign of growth and maturity that I feel a little less need for material possessions, so long as the people in my life are safe and well, some where on the planet, and I'm at home, myself, in my own skin. (It just occurred to me, as I wrote that sentence, that I wrote a book about that feeling. It took me a long time to feel at home in the world, but I do now.)

I'm writing this from the home of my partner, Ken -- a cabinetmaker I met in Guatemala, who lives on one of the Discovery Islands, many hours and a couple of ferry rides north of Vancouver. A week from now, though, I will leave this beautiful place (where an eagle is not a particularly unusual sight, and wild salmon is standard dinner fare). It is possible -- Ken and I have learned -- to love someone, and live in different places, or even different countries. And so for now at least, we do.

I've been working on my new novel up here, but that work will be interrupted, for a while, by a long-awaited appointment: On the East coast, I'll be meeting up with the young girl many of us (including me) first met on the discussion forum here at this site, Ann -- now age 16, whom I first met when she posted a note asking for advice about becoming a writer. (I'd better add here, that I cannot ALWAYS offer quite this level of personal service to visitors on the Discussion Forum. But as things worked out with Ann, our correspondence led to her first trip to the U.S. last summer -- to attend a wonderful summer camp run by a friend of mine in N.H) and a return from Israel, last winter, to begin her education here in the U.S.

Last March we learned that Ann had earned a nearly-full scholarship to my old school of Phillips Exeter Academy, in N.H., where she'll be entering as an 11th grader. With the help of many friends -- including a number from the discussion forum group -- and the blessing of her parents, we have managed to bring Ann back to the U.S. to receive the education she has longed for and so deserves.

Seeing the look on Ann's face, the first time she set foot in the Exeter Library on our visit there last summer, reminded me of how much so many of us take for granted. To be able to bring her back there now, to enroll as a student, will be one of the happiest experiences either of us could know.

Born in 1987, Ann speaks of never having known any situation in her beloved homeland, but war. All this summer (during the "road map to peace" months) missiles have been firing around her village. Several people she knows have died. For her to come to a safe place to read and study and make friends, free from fear of gunfire, is for her the greatest gift she can imagine. I feel lucky to deliver her to that place, and extraordinarily thankful to the many friends who helped make it possible.

So now, with my own children off in the world doing things they love, I look forward to a year of writing, cooking for friends, hiking the trails of Marin County again, helping to elect a new president, perhaps, and returning -- when the winter comes -- to the country that has become my adopted home, Guatemala, where I lived for close to a year, writing my most recent book. (The Usual Rules will be coming out in paperback in February 2004, by the way -- and I'll be back out on the road then, visiting schools and giving readings. Let me know if you'd like to see me come to your area, and if you have a school or group in mind, eager to sponsor a visit.)

One of the happy new additions in my life, over the last few years, has been the discovery of how much I love to help other writers, at all different levels of proficiency, in the telling of their own stories. I'll be teaching a number of workshops -- in Michigan, New York, the San Francisco area, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Western Massachusetts -- in the first person essay, the memoir, and in what I call The Writing Life. For those of you visiting this site who have expressed interest in working with me on your writing, I want to encourage you to take a look at my schedule of workshops and classes. I hope you'll be able to join me at one of them. And because, in the months to come, I hope to set up more classes and workshops, (including, if sufficient interest exists, another in Guatemala, and more pie and storytelling gatherings at my Mill Valley home), be sure to register for the workshop email notification list (found on the workshops index page, linked above) if you'd like to be kept up to date on what's going on.

One thing never changes, and that is my interest in hearing from you. I love to know what's on the minds of readers, whether you're interested in talking about my work, or (just as much) talking about whatever else may be on your mind. I try to visit the discussion forum here at least once a day -- and in fact, when I think about the word "home", it is not only the image of a house in California, or Guatemala, or British Columbia, that comes to mind… but also a location accessed by computer, here. And even when I don't make it to the discussion forum, myself, someone is likely to be there, to hear what you have to say, and offer thoughts, back.

Your turn.

Joyce

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