Present Moment, Prolific Moment: Using Mindfulness to Write

Writing can become much more fulfilling if we think of it as happening right Now. Much is lost when we overlook the present moment because we forfeit rewarding writing experiences in exchange for stress, frustration, boredom, fear, and shortchanged invention and creativity (it's a poor bargain). Through mindfulness, we can reduce our writing apprehension and the writing blocks that come from future- or past-oriented thinking. Every moment can become a prolific moment: we can write more quickly and with greater ease of mind. In this presentation, we discuss writing tools that emerge when present time is highlighted: impermanence, audience demons, monkey mind self-talk, and preconceptions about writing ability and writing task. Participants will learn basic strategies to incorporate mindfulness into their writing lives.

Alexandria Peary (MFA, MFA, PhD) serves as New Hampshire Poet Laureate. She is the author of nine books, including Prolific Moment: Theory and Practice of Mindfulness for Writing and Battle of Silicon Valley at Daybreak. She is the recipient of a 2020 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, and her work has received the Iowa Poetry Prize and Best of NH (for inspiring artist). She specializes in mindful writing, and her talks include her 2019 TEDx talk, “How Mindfulness Can Transform the Way You Write” (on YouTube). She is the Founding Editor of Under the Madness Magazine, a magazine run by New Hampshire teens, and a professor in the English Department at Salem State University.

This program is funded by the New Hampshire Humanities. New Hampshire Humanities programs are made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.