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When I returned from the Women's Writers' Center in New York, I met Charlotte Goshorn and Betty Mathis at a writing workshop at the Women's Building in Los Angeles. We formed our own little group after the workshop was over, determined to publish our poetry together. We did that in 1979, calling our book First Words. We gave readings at all the women's bookstores in Los Angeles and placed copies of our books on consignment. You can still purchase a copy directly from me for just $10. Contact me at [email protected] Even then, language itself preoccupied me as a theme. In those days, I was becoming aware of the patriarchal influences on language that distorted women's "herstory." Take a look at this poem from the book: 
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When I first entered the writing program at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, my intention was to concentrate on non-fiction. It seemed closest to the kind of feature writing I had done as a journalist. In my second year, I won first place for non-fiction in the university's Diversity Writing Contest with a personal essay about a transsexual friend I had known in California. The university videotaped me reading the essay and posted the video online.
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Writing as a Kind of Magic was my first full-length play. It has two acts and runs nearly two hours with a break between the acts. It's principally the true story of the 1620-1621 witchcraft trial of Katarina Kepler, mother of my favorite astronomer, Johannes Kepler, but you can tell by the title that it reverts back to one of the themes that haunts me--writing. Like many of the women of her age, Katharina was illiterate, and in the play, she holds writing in great esteem. But when something her son has written seems to implicate her as a witch, she begins to doubt. At the end of Act One, she says:
"I never knew until today how writing can lie, writing can damn the innocent. If a man lies to my face, I can see it in his eyes, but how can one tell when writing lies?" Click on this link to listen to or download an audio recording of a staged reading of the play. Actors are the real magic! |
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Click the picture to read some of Joy's theater and book reviews.
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Writing reviews of plays is a wonderful way to hone one's own playwriting skills. To write a review, you have to pay very close attention to every element of the play in order to explain to the reader what makes it work (or not, as the case may be). I was fortunate enough to be a reviewer for the Coastal Spectator, an on-line literary journal in Canada, from 2013-2015, writing both book and play reviews. It was a pleasure and an eye-opener. I often caught myself thinking: "Oh, what a great idea for staging," or "So that's how it's done! I've got to remember that." <----- Read some of Joy's theater and book reviews here. |
