Book Review: Writing Wild - Crafting the Pagan Memoir byT.J Burns

Where has the road taken you? What wisdom have you gained on this journey?

The world needs our stories, tales of both passion and pain. Told from your deep truth, the words can cleanse the soul and heal the heart.

Writing Wild was crafted for new writers and non-writers who identify with an Earth-based spiritual path. It combines writing assignments with personal ritual, guided meditation, and other exercises to connect a budding memoirist with their own story on a deeper level.

Unlike other books on the art of writing memoirs, Writing Wild approaches the subject in a manner that is both practical and magical.

Where to Buy

Amazon      Smashwords    Barnes & Noble

About the Author

 T.J. has been writing stories, poems and bad one-act plays for as long as she can remember. At midlife, and after many other career paths, she turned once again to her first love - writing. In 2008 she earned a MFA in Writing from Goddard College. Today writing is both her passion and her profession.

As a young girl, T.J. and her family were members of a fundamentalist sect of Christianity. In 1990, after years of internal conflict over what she'd been taught as a child and what she'd come to believe as an adult, T.J. came to the Goddess path when she "accidentally" attended a women's Full Moon ritual and discovered that witches were not at all what her upbringing had taught her. In both of her spiritual incarnations, she understands what it's like to be judged as odd, or even dangerous, by mainstream society. That's one reason why T.J writes for and about those who dance to a different drumbeat - the heartbeat of Mother Earth.


My Thoughts

Writing Wild is a step-by-step guide on how to create the perfect memoir. The author offers tips for organizing your ideas and setting reasonable goals, but also merges the writing process with  spiritual practices. Each chapter outlines one step of the writing process and ties in it with a beautiful ritual that will open your mind and your heart to a deeper level of creativity.

Though primarily geared to those writing a memoir of their spiritual path, there are plenty of ideas in this book that will appeal to writers of all genres. I am a fiction writer, but so many of my stories contain pieces of my own experiences that I found a lot of useful information in this book. I especially enjoyed how the author likened each step of the editing process to the elements. Using these steps is helping me add another dimension to my work. I would recommend this book to anyone who lets spirit guide them in their writing.