Harvest of Stories: An Anthology Celebrating Love and Community

This week I sent out a reminder that our anthology is on track with a dozen writers saying they want to contribute to a book centered around the theme of love. The love of an animal, nature, a landscape, a parent, a child, a lover, or even love of oneself, this universal theme offers a “harvest” in difficult times.

Working together as a community of writers is important. I look at the writers who in the past leaned on the shoulders of other writers to make their work known. From Virginia Woolf who hosted writers and intellectuals at Monk’s House, her cottage in Rodmell, Lewes, UK to Gertrude Stein opening her Paris salon to gatherings that included Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis and Ezra Pound, the vibe was one of collective creativity.

The support and spiritual power of a loose gathering of friends and colleagues encourages and nurtures self-discovery and knowledge which is the hard work of being truly alive.

Some people say that an anthology doesn’t sell. But that’s not the point. No one writer has to travel solo in this enterprise but leans on other writers in the community through readings and open mics, gatherings in friends’ and families’ homes. It is not the purpose of an anthology to make money—rather to collectively share and honor stories that matter.

It’s why fifteen years ago I started the Women’s Writing Circle. Throughout that time, I felt the love and the joy of the creative community. Women from diverse backgrounds came to the bookstores, the hotels, the churches, and the libraries where we gathered. As the world in which we live became even more troubled, I felt the need to keep going, even as I watched the most experienced person lose the presidential election because she was a woman and felt the grief that young women would no longer be guaranteed reproductive rights and freedoms due to misogyny and patriarchy furious that their dominion over women was threatened. This feminist approach influenced much of my writing.

On July 28, I attended the 50th anniversary of the ordination of Episcopal women priests at the Episcopal Cathedral in Philadelphia. One of the Philadelphia Eleven, The Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward gave the sermon, titled “Laborers in a Troubled Harvest.”  She wrote this: “So we celebrate that event of 50 years ago – for giving us eleven audacious women, then four more women the next year, then a year later dozens, which became hundreds and now is thousands of women priests and bishops throughout the Anglican Church around the world – giving women an opportunity to participate fully in the liberation leadership of a renowned global communion. It was a momentous movement we Anglican women shared with other Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, and women of different spiritual and faith traditions around the world, women struggling to be recognized and celebrated as the religious leaders that women have always been, from the very beginning.

It’s important to remember that women priests, then and now, were standing on the shoulders of the Episcopal deaconesses first ordained in 1857 as well as religious orders of Anglican nuns that date back hundreds of years with their roots in Catholic monasticism. It’s important to see that we stand on the shoulders of those who’ve gone before.”

I am always optimistic that community is the “harvest” of all our endeavors as writers and as “shepherds” of our craft. Together, we nurture other writers to follow their conscience to write the stories that matter in difficult times. Social media as well as self-publishing have totally upended the book market. We can sell our books and we can publish with confidence that our voices matter. The “gatekeepers” that have been traditional publishing can’t keep us out. As writers and authors, we stand on each other’s shoulders, offering an anthology, a harvest of stories celebrating love and community.