With Loving Regard to My Hippocampus, Part 1

My tiny desk shrine

I keep a little shrine in my office next to my laptop. It is a shifting assemblage of personal objects alongside visual cues, reminders of pressing matters that require my attention. The HippoCamp mementos are among the most meaningful items I keep here, because they remind me every day of the supportive community I have found through attending the wonderful creative nonfiction conference in lovely Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I have returned from this year's event enthused, reconnected and newly able to see fresh possibilities for my work.

The magic begins after check-in and upon arrival at Tellus, the cool old Irish pub and music venue that is just down the street from the conference location at the Marriott in Penn Square. HippoCamp founders and amazing couple-in-residence, Donna Talarico and Kevin Beerman, are there for the pre-conference event, greeting newcomers and repeat offenders alike.

So fun seeing old friends and meeting new ones.
Gayle with Kevin Beerman, Ali J. Shaw, Donna Talarico and Brendan O'Meara

Attending HippoCamp with my writer daughter makes the experience even more intimate and meaningful. We relish Friday night after the conference begins, when we sit and pore over the sessions for Saturday and Sunday, trying to decide from the myriad of fabulous choices which ones we want to attend. When we don't select the same one, we share notes and insights on the car ride home, as we prepare for re-entry into our real lives.

So, yes, I am back home and back at work. Regular readers of Uncommon Threads will soon see the fruits from this year's HippoCamp. Meanwhile, I have a new stack of books to read, and a million new ideas.

From the author's table at HippoCamp 2019 

Falling Into the Rhythm

Detail of Beauty Queen by Gayle Pritchard

Fall is here. I say it out loud, even though it's only September 4th. Yesterday would have been my mother's 89th birthday, had she managed to live to a ripe, old age. It's also the day my husband and I had our "family" wedding celebration, seven months after we went to a Justice of the Peace in Virginia to get married. Fall is full of memories. It's a bittersweet time, since I always feel a bit wistful as summer wanes and cooler weather approaches. Still, fall offers its own opportunities, and it's time to adjust to that new, slower rhythm.

Last week, I finished and delivered my artwork, including three brand new pieces, to the Artist Archives of the Western Reserve. I am absolutely thrilled to have been included in the upcoming exhbition, In the Details. The exhibition was curated by Cleveland's own Mary Urbas, and it will open to the public on September 15.

I have many stories to tell about the artworks I created for the show, but I am not ready to tell them yet. I will share a detail of one of my new pieces, one of three I made in honor of my nephew, Jeremy Schroth, who died in recent weeks. He was a Wounded Warrior. His life given in service to his country over a series of multiple deployments rested heavily on my mind as I finished Wounded: What You Can Do For Your Country.

Detail of Wounded: What You Can Do For Your Country
by Gayle Pritchard; 2017

This week, I am fortunate to attend HippoCamp 2017 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a conference for writers of creative non-fiction. My daughter, who is also a writer, will attend with me for the second year in a row. I can't wait to explore a different part of my creative brain!