Maurynne "Em" Maxwell

Em Maxwell (Rev M)
Green Valley, AZ 85614
ph: 520-889-7477
psalmbard@aol.com

More about me:

I blog books at Miss Em Recommends; I review books though netgalley, Riffle (over 2K listviews!) and goodreads, and each month the Sahuarita Book and Foodie Club, Omnivorous Readers book review appears in the Green Valley News & Sun. I provide freelance editing, writing, and proofreading services.

I write poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. In 1995 I won a Tucson/Pima Arts Council grant for Creative Nonfiction, for portions of my manuscript, Drinking Holy Water.

In 2000, my chapbook, Blessings, was published. In 2006, New Verse News published my poem(s) Democracy. The below mentioned Verse! published The Grumpy Stomp.

In addition to being a writer and minister, I am a Certified Laughter Yoga (Hasiya Yoga) Leader (what else could someone who made the Grumpy Stomp do?) I am ecumenical; I perform ceremonies and/or help you design your own ceremonies, rituals and celebrations for all of life's seasons--birth, death, and in-between.

I've been on the Arizona Artist's Roster, done residencies in elementary, kindergarten, & Pre-school classrooms, and I was the assistant editor for the University of Arizona Poetry Center's poetry curriculum for young children, Verse!. I was also the Education Coordinator for the Poetry Center. I worked in bookstores for many years. I also taught Pima Community College creative writing classes in Continuing Education, teaching poetry and my seminar Writing The Sacred (TM).

In 2008, both The Atomic Cocktail Party & Trivia Book and The Titan Missile Museum Coloring Book were published through Myti Press. The Atomic Cocktail Party and Trivia Book is available at the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita, AZ, and the National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, NM. I have a video on YouTube called No-Nukes Peacenik Nuclear Blues. (What can I say but that both paradise and apocalypse frame our existence?) :)

I want writing to be useful. To be used. Somehow through words we are brought to a place of wonder--it's a means to an end: communication with the world, with the Beloved, with the Divine, with the Other, with ourselves.

Writing and teaching are part of my spiritual practice.

I've worked with older adults using writing to help in their life transitions; I've worked with the lower grades, K-3 as a visiting poet. I've done poetry walks with Kinders, and coaxed from them both individual and group haiku. I've watched my students read their work aloud in front of their classmates and in front of a wider audience on the community stage. And I have had joy in the students and the work itself.

Whatever brings me to Truth, Beauty, and Bliss--that's Art and Love and Spirit. That's my life.