“The pen is mightier than the sword.” It was an odd bit of Shakespeare for a farmer/reproductive physiologist to quote to his daughter. I’m not sure when I first heard those words from Dad. It may have been in kindergarten, when I clobbered a bully on the head with my lunch pale. Spoken words had a tendency to elude me back then. When I was in a bind, I just did what I learned from my brother.

Maybe Dad was proposing an alternative to violence. Or maybe he already understood my need to arrange my words on paper. He reminded me again in fourth grade, when I felt I needed to challenge the school’s sexist policy that girls be required to wear dresses and skirts to concerts. He reminded me repeatedly as I faced off with teachers and administrators when I thought something was unjust.

But as I stood in the barn in the Februaries of my childhood, softly talking to birthing ewes beside the glow of heat lamps as wind and ice pelted the walls; or walked the snow-crusted fields after evening chores and found myself forgetting my homework, too dazzled by the sparkles in the moonlight; or ran through the hayfields with my brother in summer, madly clustering square bales into stacks as a team of family and neighbors loaded them on trucks & wagons; I paid less attention to the maxim. I was in the moment. I only knew this was life as it should be, and thought of little else.

….Until I began to understand how threatened it all really was — That a way of life was dying, and my generation was moving on to a totally different world.

I think I was a teenager when this realization began to dawn on me. So I started listening and watching more intently when I was with my neighbors. The way of life I grew up knowing was a good one. I didn’t know how to fight for it, but one line of Shakespeare never left my head.

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

So I made my way through grad school with this maxim. I sat with lots of farmers and listened to their stories. I paid closer attention to my own neighbors. And I began to understand the importance of good food and community, and the history and current events at work to destroy them. Trusting in Dad’s advice, I picked up my pen. And I learned the power of stories. Stories show us our past in a way that stays with us. They teach us where we came from, what mattered most, when our pain was greatest, and what we did to overcome it. In their telling, they organize our attention about the future, reminding us of what’s worth fighting for, and what makes life worth while.

As I wrote more and more, I entered the world of publishing and media. And I learned that “making it” as a writer in the conventional sense was unlikely. I can’t write without balancing my contemplative time against family and farm. So I work slowly. Ripping myself away from my home, family and business for book touring and publicity tears my insides apart. So I publish even more slowly, carefully scheduling my book release years in advance, working to preserve the harmony of home.

In spite of this, my stories have crossed oceans, landed in college classrooms, and danced on the airwaves. They’ve coaxed young entrepreneurs back to the land, brought city folks out to farmers markets, and fueled farmers, butchers, homesteaders, homemakers and community organizers with the passion to continue their work: to rebuild a culture worth fighting for. Most recently, some of my work was selected by the University of Kentucky for inclusion in a 200 year anthology of Appalachian literature. Although obscure, these stories are making a difference and standing the test of time.

I have six self-published books, but my number one source of support for this work is you, my weekly blog readers, with your ongoing donations and patronage. I’m writing today to ask you to help me continue it.

As many of you know, starting in December, I “go dark.” My weekly cafe menus are posted on the website, and nothing more. Many folks assume it’s because I “take a break.” Quite the opposite.

During blog season, I write once per week. Once the blog goes dark for the winter, my writing schedule switches to daily, and I work on longer projects with the same spiritual and cultural intent. Without the year-round support that comes from my blog patrons, this wouldn’t be possible.

I’ve spent the last few winters working on a 600 page novel with the help of your contributions. I didn’t have to find a benefactor, take a position as a writer-in-residence someplace, or leave my family and business for a writing retreat. Your monthly donations (many in the amount of $1-2 per person) let me focus on what I love in the place that inspires me most: my home and community.

As always, contributions from readers ebb and flow. A few folks face new life circumstances that require them to reduce patronage. I’m asking today for a few more to step forward. For higher levels of donations, there are some thank you gifts in the offering (see my Patreon page, below), but lots of smaller contributions, in amounts that don’t cause pain to your purse, are just as effective.

As a thank you to all monthly patrons, I’m going to try an experiment this winter. Most days, I’ll be working on my newest manuscript. The working title is The Radical Entrepreneur: Lessons from a new economy (Where family, community & planet matter). It’s a short primer on where to break the conventional rules of work and business. But I also have a completed novel that your sponsorships have made possible. It’s still in the editing and revision process, but I think it’s time to share bits of it with you, allowing you a glimpse at the deeply imperfect writing process. So each week I’ll post a chapter, giving it to you in serial installments. These chapters will not be public, and I ask that you not share them. You’ll be able to follow them through your personal Patreon pages as patrons of my work. They will be flawed. I don’t know how long I will be at work on it before I am ready to publish. But you’ll have an opportunity to see raw writing, offer your ideas, and follow the story. The novel is called Angels & Stones, and it is a work of historical autobiographical fiction rife with ghosts, ouija boards, wars, shady realtors, lots of farming, and homemade pie.

That’s a lot of ink, and it is your patronage that keeps it flowing. I’m deeply thankful for it; because together, we’re creating stories and building a far mightier world than any sword ever could.

 

A few of you have come forward with extremely generous monthly patronage, helping to keep this blog in place for the thousands who enjoy it. Thank you. Please don’t stop!

But the work is not sustainable if it relies on the extreme generosity of only a few people.  It needs to be broadly supported.  So I’d like to continue the Itty Bitty campaign started last spring:  a (hopefully) painless  way for more people to lend their support and help me keep doing what I love.  As an expression of thanks for the writing, I’m hoping all of you will do two things for me:

1. If you aren’t a patron already, please consider offering a tiny ongoing monthly donation, in the amount of $1-5 per month.  If everyone came forward with small amounts that they wouldn’t feel in their monthly expenses, my costs would be covered.
2. Please help my readership to grow by forwarding the weekly emails to folks who’d enjoy them,  and please re-post to your social networks.  As you are all aware, I’m not-so-keen when it comes to major publicity.  I’ve turned down major television spots, refused a number of radio interviews, and select public speaking jobs with great care.  Publicity interferes greatly with my responsibilities to raise a family, educate my children, run a business and still find enough quiet time to reflect and write.  Your efforts to carry the work forward to new readers are extremely valuable.    

Thanks for all that you do to make this work possible. 

Ps:  Some of you prefer to avoid using your credit cards online.  I am more than happy to accept checks!  You can mail them, payable to Shannon Hayes,  to 832 West Fulton Rd, Suite 2, West Fulton, NY 12194.  I’ll send you a note to let you know I’ve received them.  THANK YOU!