Category Archives: Alexandra Dane

Alexandra Dane, Be big., Believe in yourself, We need to talk.

“We were born with the power on.”

@lovestephaniegreene

When I am on this coast, writing by the Atlantic ocean, I live in a small historic town in a small 1864 house where historic is everything. This has it’s ups and downs as ever-changing committees impose rules that can cost a fortune (read: wooden gutters, single pane windows, permission needed for architectural changes seen from the street) and are never practical — but they are HISTORIC.

I attended a block party last weekend and found out fiberglass gutters and double-paned windows will now be allowed, exactly a year after we replaced both under the old historic guidelines. I am not complaining, just tired. Tired of current committees upending last years rules, being wrong-footed trying to find and use information and resources.

Oh. This sounds familiar.

The Big Beautiful Bill has just staggered through the Senate and lurches towards the House, fast and furiously putting us out of health care options, food programs desperately needed, and medical care. We barely had time to read the bill before it slammed through wreaking havoc. I am collecting voices and information, want to speak with me?

I spent a good portion of my life trying to be small: small voice, small body, small thoughts, small clothes. Look alike, don’t unsettle the norms, squeeze into the outfits that everyone else is wearing. Let me tell you that can only go on for so long before everything bursts and especially me: I am not small. My writing life has not busted anything apart but grown me up and out and beyond small — it feels good to fill a space with who I am and also just saying: loose linen. As my writing builds momentum I have found a community who loves my ‘on’ button and are not offended or threatened by it. You should also know that in the last ten years when I expand/explore/take risks I have both succeeded and spectacularly failed. The current in me just gets stronger. Do I really want written in my obit ‘she could have done so much more?”

What a waste of energy, tamping it all down.

So here we are. Have you thought about what you will do to help? On a community level, we are making prayer shawls at a furious rate. On a personal level I am gathering woman friends for afternoon time — sort of a ‘fika’ concept, once a week. We pool our resources — mental and emotional, no criticism, bipartisan, open and affirming. We sit. We heal. From the ground up. Recently, there have been root beer floats, too.

We need to talk. Bring yourself.

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Alexandra Dane, AWP 2025, Believe in others, Believe in yourself, Grandad, writing

Believe.

I am scooping oatmeal into a little bowl in the Delta Sky lounge and crying a few tears into the heap of brown sugar dolloped on top. My father loved oatmeal, the more brown sugar the better. I am here today because of him.

My flight leaves in a couple of hours for the AWP conference in LA, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs held each year in different literary cities across the US. In 2011, fourteen years ago, I boarded another plane for Seattle to take a six-week writing course with The Writer’s Workshop not because I could write but because I wanted to try. I was a mom of three fabulous young adults who had moved on; it was my turn.

Duck to water so they say: my first essay, The Bitter and The Sweet, was about helping my father through cancer while the echoes of my mother’s illness and death were still fresh in my bones. Sitting vigil next to my dad’s bed in what were to be his final days I heard a ‘ping’ on my computer informing me that this piece had been accepted for publication. I told him, not sure he could hear me. He opened his eyes and said “that is so great, I knew you could.” He did? We had never talked about it. But there it was, at the ninth hour, his appreciation, validation and nod towards my new career. I was fifty-two-years old.

Today, eight pieces published, hours and years of workshops, mentors, writing groups, butt-in-the-chair marathons, hundreds of submissions I am headed to what feels irreverently like the Disney Land of writing: hundreds of panels to choose from, readings, a book fair of your dreams, me and over 9,000 people will attend in-person and virtually for four days.

I dig into my breakfast which is swimming in cream and sprinkled with another of his other favorite cereals — Raisin Bran — and toast him. I miss him and appreciate him with each little success.

It matters what you say to people anytime, anywhere, whether you truly understand what they are doing or why they are doing it or whether you agree or not. Encouragement and faith from others means the world. Believe me.

Here’s to you, Grandad.

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