Anne Lamott:

Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story.

Bird by Bird, p. 193

William Stafford:

A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.

Writing the Australian Crawl, p. 17

Anne Lamott:

Mark Twain said that Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before...But what you have to offer is your own sensibility, maybe your own sense of humor or insider pathos or meaning.

Bird by Bird, p. 181

Mary Oliver:

When I step onto a stage to read poems, the anticipation and even the hope of the audience is palpable. The people sitting quietly in the chairs -- they have have not come to rest, but to be awakened. They have come for some worthwhile news.

At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver reads Mary Oliver, Performance Note

Anne Lamott:

Writers are like vacuum cleaners, sucking up all that we can see and hear and read and think and feel and articulate, and everything that everyone else within earshot can hear and see and think and feel.

Bird by Bird, p. 177

Mary Oliver:

The poem is meant to be given away, best of all by the spoken presentation of it; then the work is complete.

At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver reads Mary Oliver, Performance Note

Anne Lamott:

...there are these stories and ideas and visions and memories and plots inside me, and only I can give birth to them.

Bird by Bird, p. 164

Amy to Perform at Women's Work

Amy will be sharing some of her poetry this Sunday at the third annual Women's Work festival. Come and enjoy an evening of original poetry and spoken word presented by women wordsmiths.

Sunday, May 10, at 6 p.m.
Z. Alexander Looby Theater
Looby Branch Library
2301 Rosa L. Parks Blvd.
Nashville, TN
$5

For more information or to purchase tickets in advance, visit Tennessee Women's Theater Project online.