Steps, Lanes, & Personal Paths

There is an entire committee in my town dedicated to the preservation of its steps, lanes, and paths. They are passionate fighters against encroachment! Fierce trail advocates! For a while, the community was in a tizzy. There was anger, talk of lawsuits - the town simply wasn't preserving this unique transportation network.

In all honesty, I am thrilled by the concept of a "unique transportation network." Not a paved road for cars or a bike lane for the peloton but something with a little bit of magic. Steps, lanes and paths of physical and metaphorical wonder! Our own pebbled way to the secret garden, the rope swing to Terabithia, the dirt slide down the rabbit hole, where the sidewalk ends, the true path begins, right?

Steps-Lanes-&-Paths are not a stagnant pond with mosquitos buzzing on immobile algae: they are conduits of movement.

And although summer has its own magic, it is often frustratingly stagnant. Shocking, then, that I should co-found a business and plan for the first event to take place on June 17th! We said, "Hey, right before the longest day of the year and the longest season of togetherness with our children, let's take a step forward on our personal path."

Photo: Kim Thompson Steel

We collaborated with Hedgebrook, the celebrated women's writing residency, to offer a writing retreat called "Opening the Circle: A Day of Radical Hospitality & Radical Exploration." Held at the award-winning women's co-working space The Hivery, participants spent the day writing, came together to connect over dinner, and engaged in a panel discussion featuring powerhouse authors and poets, Nayomi Munaweera, Aya de Leon, and Julia Park Tracey. You can read all about it here.

(Janine Kovac, Aya de Leon, Julia Park Tracy, Nayomi Munaweera.) Photo: Kim Thompson Steel

My business partner, Janine, and I felt adamantly that our company needed movement, that events would lead to events which would lead to clients which would lead to a lot of fun. Sometimes you have to shrug off the urge for stasis and take that step forward.

When you do, your personal Step-Lane-Path reveals itself to you. A leap of faith, as it were.

Whether you form a committee to preserve and protect your path is up to you.

Moxie Road Productions: Answers To Burning Questions!

A couple of months ago, I got a new job. I wanted to work on projects that elevated and empowered the voices of girls and women. Projects that involved books and publishing and performing and anything else my little heart desired because I'm a woman and I wanted to empower my own voice too.

So I went and co-founded a company with Janine Kovac called Moxie Road Productions, and because we're smart ladies, we hired ourselves immediately. Janine, as some of you might recall, was my co-director of Listen To Your Mother San Francisco 2016 and 2017. We both enjoy olives, drinks with brandy, and we work really well together.  Starting your own company is hard work. You need things like mission statements, tax id numbers, a business bank account, a very special check book, and you need to be up for fun times at the County Clerks Office and to be able to enjoy the fictitious business name process.

Things got real when created a tag line and hired a pro (thanks Tina Wolfe!) to design a logo:

But a lot of people had a lot of questions! And I don't want people to be confused. Confusion is no way to operate. Here are some answers to what Moxie Road Productions is...and isn't.

WHAT IS MOXIE ROAD PRODUCTIONS?

MRP (as the cool kids on the block call it) is a create-produce company. We create stuff, we help YOU create stuff, and we produce stuff. Some people call us a "consulting firm." Like a slingshot of awesomeness, there are two branches to MRP:

* The Programming Branch: we produce events that you can attend! Events like salons and workshops and performances! Events like the one we're hosting on June 17th, in collaboration with Hedgebrook, the celebrated women's writing residency. This event is called "Opening the Circle: A Day of Radical Hospitality & Exploration" and will be amazing. Part writing retreat, part connection with other women over dinner, part digging deep with an award-winning panel of writers including Aya de Leon (Uptown Thief, The Boss), Nayomi Munaweera (Island of a Thousand Mirrors, What Lies Between Us) and Julia Park Tracey (Tongues of Angels). Click here for more info and tickets!

* The Consulting Branch: we help women publish and market their work! We have packages that take a writer from the beginning to the end of their project, or specialized packages that include only what a writer needs, be it query letters to agents, book proposals, or social media and marketing. In fact, our first project will be Janine's own memoir, SPINNING: CHOREOGRAPHY FOR COMING HOME, to be released in September! More, lots more, to come on this book.

WHAT MOXIE ROAD PRODUCTIONS IS NOT

* A writing group

* A community

* A craft brewing company

* A boutique in a Texas strip mall

* A construction company that builds roads with feminine badassery and pizazz (although, that is kind of what we do...hmmm)

In conclusion, MRP produces events. AND! We help writers get their work out into the world.

We also enjoy ice cream, collaborating with community partners and cultural centers, taking naps,  social justice, long walks on the beach, and bringing different groups of people together to talk about different things.

Have more questions about Moxie Road? Lemme know!

Does what we do interest you? Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

Peace, 

Tarja