Susan M. Tiberghien

Thanks for visiting.

I hope you will take a look at my recent book, ONE YEAR TO A WRITING LIFE, published by DaCapo Press (Perseus Books). It's doing well, bringing lots of appreciative mail, and finding its way to writers' groups, writing centers, and colleges.

The book includes twelve of my workshops, starting with "Journal Writing", and ending with "Writing the Way Home." Each chapter includes my teaching notes, examples from well-known authors and guided writing exercises. It's available in bookstores, also on line (click on the cover to the left.)

This past winter and spring, I promoted the book with readings in Paris, Geneva, and across the States. Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park was a highlight, selling forty books and signing twenty more, putting the book on their best seller list for the week. As was the Harvard Coop Bookstore in Cambridge where fifty people gathered. The book was introduced with warm words, "Fifteen years of teaching lie behind Susan Tiberghien's carefully considered and companionable words...the book is, first to last, a total delight to read."

The third edition of my first book, LOOKING FOR GOLD, and the Italian version, CERCANDO L'ORO, published by Moretti & Vitali, are now available.

In Geneva, I continue to teach workshops each month and to direct the Geneva Writers' Group. Founded in 1993 to promote all forms of creative writing, there are now 125 members, men and women, a vibrant network of supportive writers. We publish a biennial literary review, "Offshoots, Writing from Geneva". And this past winter we organized the Sixth Geneva Writers' Conference. Please check our website, www.genevawritersgroup.org

To close this home page, I would like to include excerpts from the introduction to my new book, ONE YEAR TO A WRITING LIFE.

"Ask writers to define the writing life and you will get many answers. Annie Dillard says that it is "life at its most free." Julia Cameron says "the writing life is a simple life." For Stephen King, it's a "brighter, more pleasant place." From Brenda Ueland to John Gardner, writers have been offering counsel to encourage people to write. And all the words come back to one fundamental truth: a writing life is a creative life. This book invites you to enter the way of writing. If you are well along the way, it will be a companion, offering both inspriation and instruction.

For me it has become a life that awakens to birdsong in early morning, that lingers with sunlight in late afternoon. For me it is a life that slows down to touch each moment, a life that deepens from an inner source. I was fifty years old when I started along the way...

One Year to a Writing Life presents twelve workshops drawn from over fifteen years of teaching. The lessons dovetail inspiration and instruction. The first component, inspiration, comes from my trust in writing as a way of life, a trust nourished by practice...The second component, instructions, comes from my trust in writing as a process. Each lesson moves forward with notes, examples, and excercises...While the lessons do build on one another, they can also be read in whatever order works best for you as you develop your own writing life...

There is a light within each of us, the light that we bring into the world. One Year to a Writing Life will lead you to this light. With your words, you become a light bearer in the world."