Recently, my editor of Hope Whispers anthology asked all her contributors to submit a blog entry about what inspired them to write such uplifting pieces, to tell the story behind the story. I was thrilled with the idea, one, because it was something new to try for a virgin blogger like me and two, because it would help promote future sales of the anthology as well as create interest in my writing.

I sat, fingers poised above the keys of my computer, thinking this would be a simple task, only to discover I’d come down with an acute case of stage fright. Not writer’s block but actual bashfulness about revealing more of myself. I wasn’t sure how much more about me I really wanted to share with readers, some perfect strangers, some friends.

My poem “Intervention” concerned subject matter very close to the bone, very personal. So close, I couldn’t dwell on it long enough to create a full-length essay. Instead, I boiled it down to its bare essence, hit raw, emotional, salient points and moved on. I couldn’t dwell among the endless adjectives and metaphors reflecting the dark turmoil in my psyche.

But then sometimes, a poem couldn’t do justice to a specific topic. Therefore, to get my point across in “A Sincere Letter of Gratitude,” I was obliged to delve into a lengthy essay touching on three or four significant points in my journey through grief. I revealed small bits of my abusive past life, not to evoke pity or shock in the reader, but simple to provide hope to those who have walked in my shoes, those who were afraid to take a leap of faith and start over, those who couldn’t see life changing for the better.

My hesitancy, my shyness about blogging or not, in this case, was because I would be forced to expand on intimate circumstances. Some people found it easy to share their private thoughts on social networks like Facebook or Twitter, from comments about the weather and what’s for dinner to requests for three flattering words to describe them. Some used it as a platform to further their personal views on sexuality, and politics, and some use it as a sales tool, or as a forum for posting happy hour pictures. I was shocked at what people would indiscriminately disclose to searching eyes. Reading their diatribes was like slowing down to gawk at a carwreck, searching for blood but secretly hoping I wouldn’t see any.

My innermost thoughts, the real me, were carefully hidden among my words. I had a manager once say to me, “Carolyn, it’s what you don’t say that is so important.” His insights were keen because it  was so true. Publishing the real me would be like turning the tiny key in the lock of my little red diary and laying it open for the world to peruse. Thoughts could be taken out of context, misunderstood, unfairly judged.

So I stared at my blank computer screen, my blog yet to be disgorged from its safe hiding place among my personal thoughts. I didn’t want to disappoint my editor so perhaps I’d just blog a few juicy yet innocuous tidbits and hit send.

Hope Whispers is available at whisperingangelbooks.com, Amazon.com and BN.com along with most most online booksellers.

Hope Whispers editor and contributor Lynn C. Johnston shares her “Snapshot of Destiny,” which was titled from the life-changing events of one Saturday morning. 

After stumbling into her kitchen, Lynn discovered something other than a cup of freshly-brewed coffee was about to jolt her awake.  Within moments, a loud, brash, and sassy cosmic voice, reminiscent of Tyler Perry’s “Madea,” spoke to her.  The message would wind up setting a new course in her life and reveal a new connection to her grandparents.

The voice, from deep inside, told her to write poetry – specifically uplifting and inspirational poetry.  Having been a writer from a young age, she understood the power of inspiration, but this was very different.  “I’d never experienced anything like it,” she said.  “I had felt moved to write before, but never to write poetry – and never by such a loud presence.”

“At the moment, I didn’t understand what had happened or why,” she explained.  “Later I learned through my grandmother that my deceased grandfather loved inspirational poetry.  It wound up changing my life and my relationship with both of them in a way I could never imagine.”

“I entitled my piece “Snapshot of Destiny” because that morning revealed my destiny to me and will always be seared in my memory like a photograph.”

Hope Whispers is available through Amazon.com, BN.com and www.whisperingangelbooks.com.

Hope Whispers contributor Sheryl L. Nelms shares "Sunshine"

“twenty-two years old

black

and beautiful

face always smiling

sparkling

brown eyes say

he’s in there

with soul”

Thus begins her poem, "Sunshine."  After spending a week at the Iowa State School for the Mentally and Physically Handicapped in Red Oak, Iowa, Sheryl wrote this moving tribute to a young resident in the school.  “He was bed-bound and could move nothing except his eyes,” she said. “He could not talk.  The nurses who took care of him called him Sunshine.  He always had a smile on his face.” 

Sheryl is from Marysville, Kansas. She graduated from South Dakota State University with a B.S. in Family Relations and Child Development.

She has had over 4,500 poems, stories and articles published.  Some of the magazines, anthologies and textbooks that have used her work are: READERS DIGEST, MODERN MATURITY, KALEIDOSCOPE, CAPPER’S, GRIT, COUNTRY WOMAN, POETRY NOW, CONFRONTATION, Strings, This Delicious Day, TheAmerican Anthology and MenFreeing Men.

Fourteen collections of her poetry have been published. Some of them are:

Their Combs Turn Red InThe Spring, The Oketo Yahoos,Strawberries and Rhubarb, Rural America, Land of the Blue Paloverde,Friday Night Desperate, Aunt Emma Collected Teeth, Secrets ofthe Wind, Howling At the Gibbous Moon, Greatest Hits 1978-2003 and Bluebonnets, Boots and Buffalo Bones.

She has taught writing and poetry classes at conferences, colleges andschools in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and South Dakota.  She recently taught workshops at Amarillo College, The University of Texas at Dallas, Abilene Christian University, Tarleton State University,the Society of Children’s Book Writers Conference in Arlington,Texas and at the Tarrant County College.  She was a Bread Loaf Contributor at the BreadLoaf Writer’s Conference, Middlebury, Vermont.

She was the Editor of OAKWOOD, the SDSU literary magazine.  She was a Contributing Editor to BYLINE, a national writers’ magazine and to STREETS, a national literary magazine.  She was the Editor of CRAWFORD’S CHRONICLES,an insurance trade publication.  She has been a Staff Writer for several newspapers and magazines.  She is currently the Fiction/Non-FictionEditor of THE PEN WOMAN MAGAZINE, the national magazine of the National League of American Pen Women.

She is a member of the National League of American Pen Women, The Society of Southwestern Authors and Trinity Writers Workshop.

She makes a living as an insurance agent. She is also a painter, a weaver and an old dirt biker.

Hope Whispers is available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and www.whisperingangelbooks.com.

“After months of raw pain and no sleep

when each day rises above me

like a precipitous mountain,

suddenly my spirit returns.”

These uplifting words begin Marguerite Guzman Bouvard’s poem, Renewal, which appears in Hope Whispers.  “Renewal reveals that living with chronic illnesses teaches a person to rejoice in the moments of feeling well,” she said. “In other words, it teaches us that true happiness is made of perspective; it comes from within and is related to suffering.”

Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard is the author of numerous articles on illness and spiritualityand six books of poetry.  Her latest poetry book, The Unpredictability of Light, was published in 2009 with blurbs by Nahomi Shihab Nye and Floyd Skloot.  She has also written 11 non-fiction books in the fields of human rights, grief, illness and women’s issues, including Mother inAll But Name: Grandmothers, Aunts, Sisters, Friends, Strangers, Nannies and Healing: A Life With Chronic Illness, whichwas published by University Press of New England. She is a Resident Scholar atthe Center for Research on Women, Brandeis University.

Hope Whispers is available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com and www.whisperingangelbooks.com.