Influence.

"& now I can feel things turning, slowly. I can feel this tiny, fragile writer person getting bigger, and like a candle flame growing. Tonight is a writing night, & I feel giddy, antsy, bold in a new way. I feel like I have a secret: I am becoming something else. On the outside, I look like a person who has a desk and meetings, but underneath, I'm a writer. I'm a writer. I keep saying it to myself, and it feels risky & furtive." --Shauna Neiquist, Cold Tangerines.

Confession: I love this woman, without technically ever meeting her.
(Now, that's not to sound like the next creep on the street, haha, let me justify myself, if i may for just a second)


I love the way she writes, & now after reading her second book, Bittersweet (which I absolutely recommend to anyone, shamelessly) it is now really fun to go back and read her first, Cold Tangerines.  To read a story like "Visions & Secrets" in Cold Tangerines, hearing her speak of how writing is awkward, and yet rebellious and something that brings her energy, but trouble as well, a sweet trouble, then to read through Bittersweet and hear her same voice on the pages, but to see a writer. She's a writer. & She told it to herself over and over and I'm sure it's been risky as well as furtive. I love that. Shauna is such a woman of what I like to call fierce truth, but with a gentleness and raw love that makes you sometimes cry, but other times belly laugh either because you can totally picture it or because you can completely see yourself in it.  I lead my small group of girls at APU through Cold Tangerines in the Spring of 09 and our group has never been the same since. We dipped into a new level of group, a new level of girl, of friendship, of ourselves. Shauna's writing changed us and continues to change us as we begin to go through Bittersweet (again), this time together. I owe her a large credit to my success as a small group leader I think, and some credit to my decision to start writing and choose to love life, through blessing, and hardship.

Thanks Shauna.

Danielle Nicole