Category: Books

  • The Importance of Retreat

    The Importance of Retreat

    If the world were a sound, it would be flipping through all of the channels on a radio really fast. Announcers and DJs, commercials and music genres overlapping in the same way our 21st-century tasks seem to layer upon themselves. We’re always busy, there’s always something else to be managed, and the To Do list…

  • An Exploration of Love, Memory & Meaning

    An Exploration of Love, Memory & Meaning

    SLEEPING WITH GHOSTSPoems & Musings by Jen Payne An intimate exploration of love, memory, and meaning. Take a journey into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams. The ghosts — lovers, soulmates, muses — reveal themselves chapter by chapter, in this charming and wistfully reflective,…

  • Listening to Your Ghosts

    Listening to Your Ghosts

    by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him… — Plato Ghosts, Muses, Inspiration, Universe, God. Call it what you…

  • About the Ghosts in Sleeping with Ghosts

    About the Ghosts in Sleeping with Ghosts

    by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fadesFor ever and forever when I move.How dull it is to pause, to make an end,To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!As tho’ to breathe were…

  • The Importance of Storytelling

    The Importance of Storytelling

    by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts My mother, who is easily insulted, often remembers the time a therapist called her a storyteller. Mom recounts the comment as one might an injustice, and she twists and elongates the word “storyteller” to make it sound as painful as it felt for her. What’s the old saying?…

  • NOW ON SALE! Manifest (zine) #16: You Are Here

    NOW ON SALE! Manifest (zine) #16: You Are Here

    “You Are Here” is the reassuring little icon on a trail map that gives you your bearings, lets you know, in the grand scheme of things Where.  You.  Are. It’s often the first thing you see when you start out on an adventure somewhere. These days, with things so frighteningly askew, it’s good to have…

  • The Artwork of Sleeping with Ghosts

    The Artwork of Sleeping with Ghosts

    by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts People often comment about the visual nature of my creative work, and how my writing is usually accompanied by photography or artwork. As a graphic designer, artist, and writer, I firmly believe that partnering visuals and words layers the intentions of my work and makes the communication more…

  • My Year in Books!

    My Year in Books!

    Love doing the Goodreads Reading Challenge! MY YEAR IN BOOKS 2024

  • Wishing You an Inspired New Year

    Wishing You an Inspired New Year

    Dear Friends, With all good intentions, I sat down at my desk today to write about this gorgeous painting by artist Lucy Campbell. It’s called Axis Mundi, a Latin phrase that refers to the center of the world or the connection between the heavens and earth. I was deeply moved by this painting, and understood…

  • Time to Write

    Time to Write

    by Jen Payne, author, Sleeping with Ghosts Did you know that Picasso created more than 50,000 works of art, but only about 100 of those are considered masterpieces? That’s less than 1% of his work! I think about that little fact every April, when I attempt to write a poem a month for NaPoWriMo (National…

  • 6 Great Gift Ideas

    6 Great Gift Ideas

    Are you looking for a few unique gift ideas?Here are some suggestions from Three Chairs Publishing. 1. If your New Year’s resolutions include adding more creativity into your life, then check out Mary O’Connor’s book Say Yes! to Your Creative Self. It includes original photographs and haiku, along with writing prompts and suggestions for making…

  • WOW! Women on Writing Interview with Jen Payne

    WOW! Women on Writing Interview with Jen Payne

    by Jodi Webb WOW: Jen, welcome back to WOW! Women on Writing with your fifth book Sleeping with Ghosts. What inspired you to write about past relationships? JEN: Hi Jodi. Thanks for welcoming me back to WOW! I loved working with all of you for Evidence of Flossing and am happy to be back for…