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For information about Nancy Shiffrin's teaching scroll all the way down and click on CREATIVE WRITING SERVICES. For information
about Nancy Shiffrin's writing click on NANCY SHIFFRIN'S BOOKS. For creative resources click on NETWORK. For information
about computer services go to the CREATIVE WRITING SERVICES page and click on DAVID BEAN'S COMPUTER SERVICES. To contact Nancy
Shiffrin directly click on NANCY SHIFFRIN'S EMAIL.
THE VAST UNKNOWING is my new collection of poems, published by The World Wide Association of Writers wwaow.com
In the tradition of Anais Nin, the poems here unveil a mature woman's creative journey. My themes are nature, intimacy,
Jewish identity, politics and spirituality.
Buy a signed inscribed copy -- click on my email below
"I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live," Anais Nin wrote. "I could
not live in any of the worlds offered to me--the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create
a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I can breathe, reign and recreate myself..."
Celebrate for Anais Nin
in the hills I learn the design
the lizard outside my door
has different markings each year
the same tissue
flame terrorizes brush strips ravines
cleanses the small animal population
I mourn quail and rabbits I've fed
the wild cells baffling your armor
aspects of the scheme
stain them adjust the lens
see how they multiply
jewels blossoming in your marrow
these homely parasites
will devour your high cheek
your graceful step child-woman air
will disappear
I weep do not despair
we are one cell
you I lizard rabbit quail
bequeath me your wigs
orange and yellow bobbed and fringed
I will comfort your falling hair
by Nancy Shiffrin
First published in the Los Angeles Times February 1977
copyright 2008 THE VAST UNKNOWING
About my work Anais Nin wrote:
"Nancy Shiffrin's work has been of the highest professional and artistic quality. During our eight months of study,
she produced a book of poems, each one of which had been reworked and polished to perfection. She also wrote an unusual novel
about the emerging sexuality of a brother and sister in an almost archetypal nuclear family. The novel has a haunting, compelling
quality, produced by Shiffrin's hypnotic prose rhythms. Point of view in the novel moves from character to character in a
masterful way, making this work one among several in the vanguard of what Sharon Spencer has called 'the archetectonic novel'.
Shiffrin proved herself to be a dedicated, committed, talented writer."
Few people realize that Anais Nin spent the last years of her life mentoring women writers through International College.
International College paired distinguished authors with students with who could benefit from their tutoring. My Master of
Arts was awarded in 1977. Documents for International College are now held at William Lyons University in San Diego. My degree
was accredited by The Union Institute when I was accepted into their doctoral program. I received my doctorate from The Union
Institute in 1994. Chapter VI of my novel, OUT OF THE GARDEN, was published in StoneCloud Magazine and nominated for a Pushcart
Prize.
Excerpts from INVOKING ANAIS NIN by Nancy Shiffrin (a talk presented at the Lassen County Arts Council)
Henry Miller called Anais Nin "a luminous being". Her diary was like a mythological voyage to the source and
fountainhead of life ...an astrologic voyage of metamorphosis."
Edmund Wilson referred to her as "half-woman, half child-like spirit, who shops, employs servants...suffers the pain
of childbirth, yet is likely at any moment to be volatilized into a superterrestrial being who feels things that we cannot
feel."
Diane Wakowski perceived Nin as a "a spirit... helping all serious experimenters see their own possibilities."
Anais Nin has been written about as friend and peer of famous men, as erotic adventurer, as breakthrough artist and theorist
of the artist's personality, and as a literary critic. I knew her as a teacher in the year before her death. "What can
I do for your creative life today?" Anais would ask to open the workshop. There are no writer's blocks, she believed,
only secrets we are afraid of telling. She taught us to value our life stories, our unique voices. She trusted the unconscious,
the dream, the archetype as sources for creative literature. She believed in stripping away the false selves, and writing
from the authentic self.
Anais Nin's books are listed on Amazon.com. There is information about her via google.com and on other websites. Her papers
are with UCLA. In my talks, I hope to give the perspective that is not much written about, the perspective of someone who
knew her, though briefly. Her emotional candor gave me the courage to say what I need to say in poetry, fiction, journalism
and criticism. I hope, in my teaching, to give students the encouragement and validation that she gave to me and many others.
My CREATIVE BREAKTHROUGH process consists of careful reading of your work, thoughtful encouraging feedback, and creative
exercises which bring you closer to your own sources.
Anais Nin answered every letter, hundreds per day. I respond to every email. So, if you're interested in my teaching,
editing, lecturing or books; or, if you just want more information about Anais Nin and her influence, click on my email below.
"Nancy Shiffrin did a workshop and reading in Susanville, California through the Lassen County Arts Council and the Thompson
Peak Writers' Workshop ... which I facilitate. The workshop was enormously interesting and Nancy engaged the participants
in a way that led them to want to read, discover more of Anais Nin's work. The workshop was well attended and well organized.
Nancy obviously did a great deal of research and study before presenting her materials..." Dianna Henning, MFA, Facilitator,
Lassen County Arts Council October 2004
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