In The Muse upon My Shoulder an exceptionally diverse group of writers (including Evan S. Connell, Anthony Piccione, David Trinidad, William Stafford, Jean Thompson, Vance Bourjaily, E. L. Doctorow, Stanley Elkin, Jay McInerney, Beth Henley, David Hwang, Bud Schulberg, and Mary Gordon) discuss the creative process. They entertain self-revealing questions about their status as writers, their inspiration to write, and their relationship to an audience. The conversational form of the interview allows for candid answers that readers rarely hear to questions that seldom are answered. The final chapter lets readers participate in the conflicts that surround the production of a good interview. Sylvia Skaggs McTague is a lecturer at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Are you on the verge of a creative breakthrough? Do you want to go deeper, bolder and louder? Is it time for you to come out of the closet and into the world with your gifts? Then you've come to the right place! Alchemy is about transforming one substance into a totally new and different substance. Creativity has the catalytic power to affect major change in our lives. In this book we'll embrace the alchemy of creativity by going straight to the source: our Muse. Caring, feeding and honoring one's Muse is the best way to align with the fountain of energy and ideas that wants to move through us out into the world. It also removes much of the strain and struggle from the creative process. To create in a bigger way also means finding and strengthening your authentic voice so that you can hold and express your unique gifts and way of seeing. Beyond that are the many wondrous techniques and tools that go into building a life filled with creative passion, joy and service. This book is divided into six sections and contains 30 lessons with a daily question, daily activity and daily inspiration/resource.

By adapting a code of conduct at a young age (the Code of the Trail), Lloyd embarked on a lifelong quest to live out his every dream. He became a pilot, he had a brush with the big time in the NHL, he flew with the Snowbirds, he had remarkable encounters with Pierre Trudeau, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and found a job that paid him to have fun. But a sixteen-year search for ancient wisdom, hidden in rock paintings and carvings (pictographs and petroglyphs), an often-dangerous odyssey, brings rewards and consequences unexpected and revelatory. In often very funny, often very moving episodes, Chasing the Muse: Canada, reveals new insights into Canadian history, identity, and landscape. Lloyd has received more than 35 provincial, national, and international awards, including the Academy of Canadian Cinema, the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco, and the World Festival of Tourism Films in Milan, Italy. As a painter, he has had five solo show of oils and acrylics of scenes from across Canada. Texas Governor George W. Bush made Lloyd an Honorary Texan. He was the creative director for a gift from the Province of Ontario to HR Queen Elizabeth II. While filming, he was twice kissed by a moose and once surrounded by black bears. He has been alone in the middle of a herd of caribou, stared a polar bear in the eye and had tigers jumping over him. His films have been translated into French, German, Dutch, Japanese, Cree, Ojibway, Ojicree, Inuktitut, and Russian.

The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club selection. Seductive, exhilarating and suspenseful, The Muse is an unforgettable novel about aspiration and identity, love and obsession, authenticity and deception – a masterpiece from Jessie Burton, the million-copy bestselling author of The Miniaturist. A picture hides a thousand words . . . On a hot July day in 1967, Odelle Bastien climbs the stone steps of the Skelton gallery in London, knowing that her life is about to change forever. Having struggled to find her place in the city since she arrived from Trinidad five years ago, she has been offered a job as a typist under the tutelage of the glamorous and enigmatic Marjorie Quick. But though Quick takes Odelle into her confidence, and unlocks a potential she didn't know she had, she remains a mystery – no more so than when a lost masterpiece with a secret history is delivered to the gallery. The truth about the painting lies in 1936 and a large house in rural Spain, where Olive Schloss, the daughter of a renowned art dealer, is harbouring ambitions of her own. Into this fragile paradise come artist and revolutionary Isaac Robles and his half-sister Teresa, who immediately insinuate themselves into the Schloss family, with explosive and devastating consequences . . . 'Those who loved The Miniaturist will find here all the cliffhangers, twists and heart-stopping revelations they expected, and in two evocative settings . . . as a study of female creativity, it triumphs' – Daily Telegraph

What could you create if you fell in love with a Muse? 16-year-old musician, Sylvia Baker, has always been different. She's the only one who can see the "flickering people." When she sees a gorgeous flickering man named Vincent, she learns that they are Muses. With his help, she finds herself creating exquisite songs that she loves almost as much as songs by her favorite bands--Radiohead, M83, and The Black Keys--and she is falling in love in a way she never knew was possible. While trying to maintain her newfound friendships and her band, she falls deeper into the world of the Muses. When the original Greek Muses wake to find a world in which the internet has given everyone the tools to be an artist, a battle between traditional and new methods of creation ensues. As Sylvia discovers how she is connected to the world of the Muses, she learns that this war may put her music, her love, her very life at stake. Book 1 of this young adult urban fantasy romance was a semi-finalist in the YA Books Central 2017 Awards in the "All the Feels" category

From the winner of the 2014 Regional Emmy Award for A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps Jerry Apps, renowned author and veteran storyteller, believes that storytelling is the key to maintaining our humanity, fostering connection, and preserving our common history. In Telling Your Story, he offers tips for people who are interested in telling their own stories. Readers will learn how to choose stories from their memories, how to journal, and find tips for writing and oral storytelling as well as Jerry's seasoned tips on speaking to a live radio or TV audience. Telling Your Story reveals how Jerry weaves together his stories and teaches how to transform experiences into cherished tales. Along the way, readers will learn about the value of storytelling and how this skill ties generations together, preserves local history, and much more.

Woody Washborns dream is to be artist. Only he doesnt have what it takes. Or does he? By fateful circumstance Woody is suddenly freed from the obligations of the family farm he has come to loathe. Desperate to learn the secret of artistic expression, he ventures off in search of his hero, Ford Sinclair, a modern day Renaissance man not seen or heard from in twenty years. A seemingly farfetched odyssey, it takes the unlikely detective from the sleepy pastures of Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania to jazzy Harlem, ritzy Palm Beach, crazy Key West, a Navajo Indian reservation in New Mexico, and starlit Hollywood; and then on to a remote island in the South Pacific. Where at last Woodrow Wilson Washborn IV uncovers the bittersweet truth.

These are some of my thoughts that yearn to be in print. Over the years I never gave much credence to or had the urge to write. After my heart attack and death I was in a very different state of mind. Everything that my mind conjured up I put to pen and paper. Depending on what you like to read you just might find some of it here. Please enjoy reading my Muses as I have enjoyed putting them to paper.

The Muse Only Wakes After Midnight; A Collection of Stories Written While You Slept contains six short stories compiled over the last five years. They come at you from all directions, from the tale of a fleeing survivor of the World Trade Center attack to the life of a young man who left his home to accompany Jesus and his disciples during their trek into history in Jerusalem. In between, there is the story of a first car and another about a first job as a real cowboy in West Texas. There is one about the JFK assassination in Dallas and a humorous look at a young Connecticut scientist's experience living in an East Texas town. The title of the collection comes from the author's habit of retiring early, sleeping until the early morning hours and rising at one or two o'clock to write and complete research while others sleep. Most distractions are absent at that hour, particularly the telephone.

A collection of 30 poems that inspire and entertain, make you reflect on life, and teach important lessons.