Showing results by author "Maggie Hess" in All Categories

This short story brings a small Southern diner to life. 

Counting train cars is akin to counting a herd of slow moving elephants or giraffes, some creature of wildlife in the African safari certainly. But for me, there are other dimensions now that I am working for the people who drive the conductors. 

This piece is divided into five sections in assorted genres. The first section is a personal essay on the subject of rituals. It deals with observations on my process of obtaining rituals as part of my life and of what rituals mean to me. The second section is a reflection essay on writing as an integral ritual in my life. The following segment contains poems about tea. Tea drinking is a major contemplative ritual for me. The fourth segment includes journal entries on my routine of walking. Finally, there is a brief afterward wrapping up the piece.

Heart Whispering is a brilliant first audiobook in a series about one writer's search for more compassionate responses. Maggie Hess weaves her experiences and extensive reading that she has done on compassion to tell a story of answers.   

Hess sums up the feelings of her feisty female protagonist, Huck, a wild woman with body hair as kinky as the story she tells. 

Earth Prose combines two environment-related pieces of writing. "Return to Clinch River" mixes the tale of a canoe trip down a biodiverse river with subtle undertones of concern for protecting the natural world. The "Five Stages of Climate Grief" layers five poems with narrative around the 2012 hurricance, Hurricane Sandy.

In 2009, I lived and wrote this while completing an internship in Highlands, North Carolina. A must-listen for those interested in nature writing, empowerment of the disabled, and literary memoirs by modern women. Poetry included. 

So I’m stepping back from the girl who thinks of myself as meek and incapable or crazy and a quitter. I need to remember all of the power it took to start all of the things I have started. I need to remember the person who finds herself lost in the woods and finds her legs under her and walks barefoot for her own survival. 

Listen to this book of new poetry, by Maggie Hess.

A mixed genre book of poetry, memoir, fiction, and haiku, Kintsugi 金継ぎ Walnut: 22 Years of Writing tells the story of the young adulthood of Maggie Hess. The book opens with a series of diary entries from 2001, when Maggie was traveling abroad in Costa Rica with her scientist sister, exploring the rainforest daily, and becoming a Quaker.

This book you will find split like a seed, half walnut, half pecan. Some girl might have found two husked nut bodies only to grip them tight in her fist and crack them together. Maybe you that girl, hungry for the meat of the land. Or just curious about the wonder of nature.

New poetry by Maggie Hess covering the range of human emotion (but not forgetting to boogie).

Lone Bird is 19 poems by Maggie Hess. This stark chapbook exposes brutal honesty in nature symbolism. Listen deeply to its poems. Bite right into the meat of it. Don't be ashamed.

Thirty-six poems inspired by volunteering full time with a disability nonprofit, discovery around disability and employment, weight loss and growth, and silence and nature.

In 2009 I lived in Highlands, North Carolina, before I became resolute to graduate or ever even started at Berea College. My internship with three other women, under the stewardship of a Unitarian nonprofit retreat center, was a time of questioning and growing more than any other time of my life. It also encouraged a raw, unique style of writing, influenced by the old-growth dwarf oak forest surrounding us and a certain Meditation Rock where we loved to sit and overlook the rolling mountain.

This is an extensive diary of my time in Costa Rica from January to May 2001, sandwiched between two more recent reflective entries. I recommend listening to this if you are interested in exploring Costa Rica, in what Monteverde, Costa Rica, was like in this particular time period before much of the modern development, or if you are interested in hearing a firsthand account of a young woman with bipolar disorder in between severe swings and culture shock.

These 100 prompts for contemplative writing and poetry have been tested by a writing support group. Some of them are single words, others are questions or phrases. These prompts should be great aids to your personal growth, writing, and poetry.

Journey (Almost) to the Waterfall is the latest collection of poems, plus two short nonfiction essays by Maggie Hess. It involves nature, treacherous hikes, thyme filled meadows, and a deep gratitude for human community. These happen to be some of Hess's best works.