The Pearlsong Letter

Grab the Lapels review of Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under by Anne Richardson Williams

The book review blog Grab the Lapels has reviewed the spiritual travelogue/memoir by Anne Richardson Williams (with Aboriginal Traditional Stories as told by Lorraine Mafi-Williams), Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under.

Read the review here.

In the book, Anne Richardson Williams is told stories that Mafi-Williams wants her to share. As reviewer Melanie Page writes, "Lorraine's stories are separate from Richardson Williams's writing, told verbatim from tape recordings that have a different rhythm and vocabulary than the rest of the book. Lorraine's stories are about Aboriginal slavery (Lorraine was twelve when she was stolen), not knowing how to use electrical appliances, songlines, sacred places, The Dreamtime, Goanna, and the Rainbow Serpent.

"Because both Anne Richardson Williams and Lorraine Mafi-Williams have their own voices in Unconventional Means, it never felt like the white American author was speaking for the Aboriginal elder. Both had equal space and added to my understanding of Australia from two perspectives: 1) the tourist who is open to dreams as messages, meditation, crystals, Native American culture, and looking for signs. 2) the elder who lived through slavery, teaches at conferences and gatherings, and is the 'custodian for Wollumbin.' Getting two perspectives allowed me to enter the book as an American and to feel like I was reading a genuine oral telling from an Australian."

The Pearlsong Press edition of Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under is revised and updated from the 2000 In Circle Press edition. The book is illustrated by Anne Richardson Williams. The ebook edition contains color versions of the paperback's black and white illustrations, as well as a bonus section featuring color snapshots related to the author's spiritual travelogue.

Anne Richardson Williams is a visual author and writer in Nashville, TN. For more information about her and to see a gallery of her stunning artwork, visit her website.

Enjoy a weekend of art, writing and storytelling in the Blue Ridge Mountains with Pearlsong author Anne Richardson Williams

Join Pearlsong author Anne Richardson Williams (author of Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under) and storyteller Mary Lou Wilson August 10-13, 2017 for a weekend at Grouse Run, a beautiful wooded private property in Hendersonville, NC.

The "Art. Write. Tell" workshop/retreat is an opportunity to relax, restore and

• Engage your creativity and explore the intimate links connecting visual art, co-creative writing and/or storytelling
• Come along on an expedition to experience the art and literature of American icons Carl Sandburg and Andrew Wyeth
• Enjoy the pristine streams and rivers, lovely gardens and lush forest of Grouse Run and the surrounding area
• Enjoy healthy and delicious meals and comfortable accommodations for an all-inclusive price.

Grouse Run comprises 40 acres of majestic forest, gardens, private trails, a 24-foot Medicine Wheel and pristine mountain streams. For an ideal retreat experience, take advantage of the clean and comfortable accommodations available at this secluded property nestled in the mountains of Hendersonville, NC, 25 miles south of Asheville. Register early to guarantee on-site lodging; space is limited. 

Pricing & Registration

$599: Reserves your space in the retreat, guarantees 3 nights of accommodation, tuition, materials and meals.

$980 - Come with a friend: Are you and a friend interested in sharing a private room with a queen bed? If so, register together and you'll each save $109! This option guarantees space in the retreat, tuition, materials and all meals for TWO people.

$300 - Deposit only: Your deposit reserves your space in the retreat. Payment in full is due upon arrival to Grouse Run. The deposit is fully refundable up to 15 days before the workshop.

***If you are interested in attending only certain days of the workshop and/or are not interested in staying on-site, please contact Mary Lou Wilson for more information at 828-243-7704 or mlgwilson24 @ gmail.com. 

Payment can be made by check or PayPal.

To register, contact Anne R. Williams at annerwilliams.art @ gmail.com or 615-587-2873. If emailing, use Art. Write. Tell Workshop as your subject line and include your name, phone number, address and preferred type of lodging.

Mary Lou Wilson is a beloved wisdom keeper of the Medicine Wheel traditions. She is the conscious and loving caretaker of the Grouse Run retreat property and Medicine Wheel. The art of storytelling is a vital part of her personal evolution and self fulfillment. Each fall she heads to Jonesboro TN for the International Storytelling Festival. She shares her inspiring stories at schools, women's circles and workshops throughout the Southeast.

Anne R. Williams is a visual artist, author, storyteller and teacher. She was a co-founder of Writers Curiosity Workshops and has facilitated a variety of co-creative learning opportunities including Book Arts workshops in schools to both children and adults. She resides in Nashville, TN, where she is a member of the Nashville Library Book Arts group. She believes there is "an intimate link between creativity and both personal and planetary sustainability." Go to annerwilliams-art.com to learn more about her.

Download a PDF about the workshop/retreat containing photos of Grouse Run and its environs, as well as the authors, here.

Getting old -- & motherhood -- is not for sissies: Anne R. Williams at Body Bliss Central

Author, artist & teacher Anne R. Williams responds to Sandy Ross's Leading Questions at Body Bliss Central this week. Read her "deep and lyrical exploration of living in a woman's body and life" here.

The Leading Questions series started with Ross asking women how their relationship with their bodies affected their success in life, and "evolved into the most amazing inspiration and heart-warming teaching that it is possible to get comfy with your imperfect unique human body and love living your life," Ross, a holistic counselor & coach based in Australia, writes. The series has also featured interviews with author Pat Ballard & psychologist/publisher Peggy Elam.

In answering questions like "What are you most proud of in your life?", What is the most outrageously huge thing you still want to do?" and "How have your feelings about your body affected what you do in life?" Williams touches on the challenges and rewards of getting older, motherhood, self awareness, and having enough energy to do what she wants to do.

After reading Williams's responses, check out her website at www.annerwilliams-art.com to see some of her beautiful paintings. The one she mentions in her Leading Questions interview, Sunshine on the Water, can be viewed here.

To read an excerpt from Williams' memoir Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under, click on the BookBuzzr widget below, or visit the book's page at the Pearlsong Press website.

Explore your creative voice with writing workshops in Nashville June 4 & 18, 2011

Anne Richardson Williams, author of the memoir Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under (available in trade paperback & ebook from Pearlsong Press) is co-leading two half-day writing workshops in Nashville, TN June 2011.

Explore Creative Writing: Finding Your Voice will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 4, 2011. Write Your Own Story: Capturing the Characters in Your Life will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 18, 2011. Both workshops will be held at the YWCA on Woodmont Blvd. Cost is $75.00 per workshop, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the YWCA. Registration closes Thursday, June 2.

For more info or to register, go to the Writers Curiosity Workshops website.

Anne R. Williams co-teaches "Write from the Heart" workshop Feb.12, 2011

Anne R. Williams, author of the memoir Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under, & Beth Atkins Stein will teach a Writers' Curiosity Workshop in Nashville, TN on Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011. The workshop will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the YWCA (1608 Woodmont Blvd).

"In the spirit of dispensing with 'resolutions' and, instead, seeding inspirations, Writers' Curiosity Workshops is offering a one-day adventure, 'Write from the Heart,'" the workshop announcement states.

"Whether your interest is journaling, memoir or fiction, this workshop taps the memories we all hold -- be they of people, events, times, or places -- to start putting them on paper. Through simple but effective prompts and exercises, we'll help writers connect not only with their own talents, but also with the rich material anyone who has lived a life has stored in his or her heart.

"These are the stories that we all know, and therefore tell, best."

Workshop cost is $75. A portion of the workshop proceeds benefit the YWCA of Nashville and Middle Tennessee's remarkable programs that break the cycles of violence and poverty for women and their families.

For more information or to register, visit the Writers' Curiosity Workshops website or email [email protected].

Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under now available as Mobipocket & Kindle ebook

Anne Richardson Williams's memoir and spiritual travelogue Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under is now available in Mobipocket & Kindle ebook editions, joining the PDF ebook edition published a few years ago.

All the ebook versions contain color versions of the author's illustrations, which are in black-and-white in the trade paperback. The ebook also contains a bonus section of color photographs relating to Anne's journey. (Please note, though, that the Kindle is a black-and-white device and thus the Kindle ebook will probably display the illustrations in black and white.)

Unconventional Means ebooks can be purchased directly from the Pearlsong Press website or from various online booksellers including Mobipocket.com and BarnesandNoble.com. The trade paperback is available at your favorite online bookstores as well as at the Pearlsong Press website. (All copies of the trade paperback purchased from the Pearlsong Press website are autographed by Anne.)

Shattered by family tragedy in the early 1960s, an upper-middle-class Southern teenager finds solace in art and literature. Decades later, she is called to the continent whose literature comforted her, and to a magical connection with an Aboriginal woman transcending race and half a world.

Click on the Bookbuzzr widget below to read an excerpt from Unconventional Means.

Transcending trauma through art & writing -- a Pearlsong Conversation with Anne Richardson Williams

Click here to listen to and/or download the 50-minute mp3 recording of today's teleconference call with artist & author Anne Richardson Williams. Pearlsong publisher Peggy Elam, Ph.D. chatted with Anne about using art & writing to transcend traumatic experiences.

Anne is the author & illustrator of Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under, a spiritual travelogue & memoir. As a teenager shattered by a family tragedy, sixteen-year-old Anne found solace in art & reading--particularly the novel A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. His heroine's passage through the tribulations of war to find love and a new home modeled after the town of Alice Springs, Australia gave teenage Anne hope that "there [was] something on the other side of the terrible things" for her, too. Someday, she promised herself, she would go to Australia and to Alice Springs.

Decades later, Anne's call to Australia deepened. An artist and successful businesswoman, she was reading a book about Australia's Aboriginal people when a photograph of Aboriginal elder Lorraine Mafi-Williams mesmerized her. She felt an immediate kinship, even though others found it ridiculous that this upper middle-class Southern white woman and an Aboriginal elder could share more than a common last name.

When Anne finally set out for Australia, she added to her desire to see Alice Springs the dream of also meeting Lorraine. But with no address, no phone number, no conventional way to get in touch with an Aboriginal woman, Anne had to rely on unconventional means--dreams, visions, meditation & intuition--to guide her halfway across the world to find the woman whose ancient stories of a land &its people would help heal her.

Life recently gave Anne another opportunity to employ her artistic & literary skills to transform a traumatic experience. She is currently using her creative process to rise above the aftermath of the Nashville flood.

Anne's hometown of Nashville, TN underwent epic rains & what some are calling a Biblical flood the first weekend in May. Her west Nashville house is perched halfway up a steep hill crowned with old-growth forest, so rising water didn't threaten her. But at 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning, May 2, 2010, the high retaining wall behind her house collapsed with a thunder as the hill shifted & slid downward.

Anne tossed the rubble away from her car & sped to the safety of a friend's house. The mudslide rendered the hill behind her house unstable, the house no longer safe to live in. More than three months later Anne is still living at a friend's house & faced with staggering rebuilding costs that her homeowner's insurance and FEMA won't cover.

What's an artist & author to do? Create art, of course, & write about her experience. And hold a Rebuilding Sale with 25% off all her artwork, which you can view at her website, www.annerwilliams-art.com.

Authors Pat Ballard & Lynne Murray joined us on today's call. Listen to and/or download the mp3 recording here.

Mark your calendar for Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010 (5 p.m. Eastern/4 p.m. Central) for our next Pearlsong Conversation, with Lauri J Owen, author of the new paranormal romance novel Fallen Embers.

Join us this Wednesday for a Pearlsong Conversation about transcending trauma

Artist & author Anne Richardson Williams will discuss the healing power of art & writing with Pearlsong publisher Peggy Elam, Ph.D. during the the August 11, 2010 Pearlsong Conversation teleconference call. You can join the conversation (or just listen in, if you prefer) by calling in at noon Eastern/11 a.m. Central.

Email pearlsongconversations @ pearlsong.com (without the spaces) for the call details (teleconference phone number & access code). The teleconference line will handle up to 96 participants -- first come, first served. There is no cost for the call other than your usual long distance charges, if any.

Anne is the author (& illustrator) of Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under, which chronicles her creative journey after a family tragedy in her youth. Life recently provided her another opportunity to employ her transformative skills, as she uses her creative process to rise above the aftermath of the 2010 Nashville flood.

As we wrote about last week, on May 2, 2010 a mudslide collapsed the retaining wall behind Anne's house, rendering her home unsafe to live in. After the thunderous collapse she tossed the rubble away from her car and sped to a friend's house. Three months later she is still living at a friend's house and faced with staggering rebuilding costs that her homeowner's insurance and FEMA won't cover.

What's an artist & author to do? Create art and write about the experience, of course, which Anne has done here. (And hold a Rebuilding Sale, offering 25% off all her artwork.)

This Wednesday Peggy, who's a clinical psychologist as well as publisher, will talk with Anne about how she's using art & writing to transcend this challenge and how others can use the creative process to cope with and heal their own traumatic experiences.

We'd love to hear from you during the call! If you don't feel comfortable speaking up during the teleconference, you can email your questions or comments to me at peggyelam @ pearlsong.com.

We are recording these Pearlsong Conversations and making them available for listening online or downloading during the calls. You can find links to the previous Conversation recordings on the Pearlsong Conversations webpage.

Pearlsong author employs creative process to rise above Nashville flood

Anne Richardson Williams has long used art and writing to help herself and others transcend traumatic experiences, as witnessed in her memoir Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under (Pearlsong Press, 2005). After her hometown of Nashville, TN underwent epic rains and a Biblical flood the first weekend in May, Williams found herself with another challenge to creatively manage.

As she writes in a new essay on her website, "The Nashville Flood 2010 and Planting New Seeds,"

I live on the side of a hill, so rising water was not what I was thinking about at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, May 2, 2010, when the retaining wall right behind my house -- the one that had held back the hillside for the last fifty years -- collapsed with a thunderous WHUUUMP.  I hefted the rubble in the now crumpled carport away from my car and took off with a few essentials to the safety of a friend's house. Within several hours, some version of the 'what can happen on a hillside when there is too much rain and wind' story was repeated at house after house along my street -- mudslides; huge old trees down, some on the roofs of houses, more collapsed retaining walls, shifting foundations, water, water everywhere....

In the aftermath of the May 2 flood, I can tell you firsthand that the frequency of anxiety does not foster creativity. But I have spent a lot of my adult life advocating the transformative power of the creative process, so I was determined to transform, if not my circumstances, then my response to them, by making art.

Williams began a series of drawings/paintings, Planting New Seeds, about a week after the flood. You can view that series and read her essay here.

The mudslide rendered the hill behind her house unstable, the house no longer safe to live in. Three months later she's still living at a friend's house and using her own home only as a studio in the daytime. Her homeowner's insurance won't cover the cost of stabilizing the hill or replacing the retaining wall, and the estimates she has received run up to and over a hundred thousand dollars. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) gave her less than $10,000.

Art and writing are helping Williams transform the anxiety and stress, but she still has huge bills to pay. What's an artist and author to do?

Well, how about a 25% off Rebuilding Sale?

Williams is offering all her art for sale at 25% off. In addition to the Planting New Seeds series, she has many gorgeous abstract and nature- and music-inspired paintings and drawings, including a signed and numbered limited edition giclee print. Be sure to check out the luminous Transparent Images series of oil paintings over silver leaf.

You can purchase her artwork by contacting her via the links on each available image's webpage. (Remember, the price for each work of art is now 25% off the listed price.) When you contact her, Williams will give you a quote for shipping costs based on where you live.

You can also help Williams by purchasing her book -- for which, of course, she will receive royalties -- from Pearlsong Press or the bookseller of your choice.

Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under is available in trade paperback and ebook format. All paperback copies purchased from the Pearlsong Press website are autographed by Williams.

The paperback memoir contains black-and-white illustrations by Williams. The PDF ebook version contains color versions of the illustrations, as well as a "bonus section" of photos related to Williams' journey to Australia and encounter with Aboriginal elder Lorraine Mafi-Williams.

Anne R. Williams, author of Unconventional Means, launches website featuring her artwork & book

Anne Richardson Williams, artist & author of the memoir Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under (published by Pearlsong Press in trade paperback & PDF ebook format) has launched a website featuring her artwork & book.

Click here to visit & browse www.annerwilliams-art.com.

The Pearlsong Press edition of Unconventional Means was published in 2005 as a revised, updated & expanded second edition of the memoir Williams initially published via her own In Circle Press several years before.

The Pearlsong Press trade paperback features black & white versions of illustrations by Williams. The PDF ebook contains color versions of Williams's illustrations, as well as as a bonus scrapbook section containing color photographs from and about Williams' surrealistic journey to Australia and connnection with the Aboriginal elder Lorraine Mafi-Williams.

Mafi-Williams was guided to give Richardson several Aboriginal teaching tales for eventual preservation in the book as the two women (unrelated in the physical realm despite the similarity of their last names) visted sacred sites in Australia.

Click on the Bookbuzzr graphic below to browse an excerpt from Unconventional Means online & share with friends.