One of my favorite quotes is: “The creative adult is the child who has survived,” by Ursula K. Le Guin. When you are a child, everything is new, and you respond to it without artifice. It can be more difficult to maintain that sense of wonder and curiosity as you get older, so people push the edges, just to feel alive. Writing is fullness in the quiet, being open to experience, not just when you are in a new or exciting place, but in everyday surroundings. It helps you to see how in fact, everything moves and changes, even those things that seem to stay the same, or that perhaps, it is people who change. It is about looking more deeply, seeing ourselves and others for who we are, and staying awake.

When I was seven, I discovered that poetry could capture what I was feeling (at the time, joy), just as it was, like photographing an emotion in words. I’ve returned to writing repeatedly since then, for different reasons. Essays help me process what I know. Articles are inspired by the world around me, what others do and how they live, and why. Fiction is a combination of it all.

www.reneerutledge.com