Sandra Shaw Homer at the bow of the HS Schubert, North Atlantic
Writer Sandra Shaw Homer, whom many of my students and retreat participants know of by now, was recently interviewed by writing coach Amy Brooks for the VoicePenPurpose postcast series. In Episode 37, Amy chats with Sandra about the life experiences that have fuelled her fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, including her travel memoir Letters from the Pacific: 49 Days on a Cargo Ship (read the Kirkus review here).
Born in the U.S., Sandra has now lived for 27 years near Lake Arenal in Costa Rica’s spectacular northern highlands. One of the hardest working writers I know, she is published regularly in journals, both print and online. Most recently, her poem “Holding” appeared in Junto Magazine.
She was a guest speaker at my writers’ retreat near Playa Herradura, Costa Rica, in 2012, and a co-host for my retreat at Mystica Lodge & Retreats on Lake Arenal in 2015. Several of her published stories evolved from prompts during these retreats or from my website. (So if you still believe prompts are “just” exercises, banish that thought!)
In an email to me, Sandra talked about her process, and I asked her permission to share this advice:
“I think it’s really important to tell aspiring writers that they just have to keep plugging away. The [first] Junto acceptance was my fifth try with that piece. My practice is to submit elsewhere the very day a rejection comes in.”
Sandra is currently seeking a publisher for her beautiful memoir Evelio’s Garden: The Short History of an Organic Garden in Costa Rica, and she blogs at www.writingfromtheheart.net.