Just Julie
50: Thorns & Blossoms
October 2019
Julie Marie Todd, educator, activist, journalizer, and theologian, shares 50 of her writings. Most pieces are in a poetic prose style – a predominantly long-form, stream-of-consciousness writing from journal entries and writing groups – alongside a few lengthier prose essays and previously published works. The author explores her own inner emotional terrain and spirituality and how life in both solitude and community generates creativity, vulnerability, and change. She shares much of her journey from life as an institutional church leader to a wider embrace of spiritual leadership beyond hierarchy and traditional religion. From sweet odes to plant life to encounters with ancestors, from confessions of addiction and abortion to body love and self-hatred, from ongoing self-examination of the author’s own complicity in white, Christian supremacy to rants against racism and heteropatriarchy, many readers will find Julie’s writing compelling, provocative, and relatable.
The Team that Made the Book Happen!
There were three people without whom 50 would have never happened, nor look as fine as it does as a self-published volume. Julie knows all of them from their shared work with Love Prevails, an activist group working for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer folx in the United Methodist Church.
Wesley White was the publisher and primary editor of 50. He is a retired United Methodist clergy person from Wisconsin. He has self-published a number of commentaries on Christian scriptural texts through his own publishing house, In Medias Res.
Brenda Smith White is retired from professional nursing. Her ongoing important roles include marriage partner for 48 years with Wesley, mother to Shai and Brandon, grandmother to Nathan and Nicholas, friend, and participant in vigils for peace with Women in Black. Brenda writes, “my aspirations for being kind toward all while being faithfully in solidarity with the oppressed are far from being lived out consistently. Yet the aspirations remain strong.”
Haven Herrin created the cover art and chapter graphics. Haven worked with Love Prevails during their tenure as the Executive Director of Soulforce, an organization that resists Christian supremacy through radical analysis and direct action. They are currently pursuing a dual degree at Yale Divinity School and Yale Business School. They supported this project because they believe culture work is what makes liberation feel possible.
In a very real way, this book would not be in existence if it were not for the existence of the El Taller Café & Bookstore, and the work of the Andover Bread Loaf Teacher Network in Lawrence. In her piece “The Foolishness of Love,” Julie notes: I moved to Lawrence, MA from Colorado in the fall of 2013. A local bookstore-café called El Taller had recently opened. El Taller was and is a gathering place for local creatives of all kinds, providing spaces for writing, conversation, education and performance. Many of the people I first met when I returned to Lawrence, I met at El Taller. Many had been participants in the Andover Bread Loaf (ABL) writing workshops and the Bread Loaf Teacher Network, extensions of the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont. The ABL method is primarily writing-prompt based free-writing. The writing prompts themselves can be almost anything: questions, ideas, art, performance, presentations, conversation. Both the Guerrilla Society and The Common Sage writing groups I was part of were descendants of ABL participants.
Book Launch
November 8, 2019
Reviews
50 Thorns & Blossoms is a must read for everyone searching for authentic living and honest spiritual journeying. From reflections on sex and power to liberation and healing experiences, the author will inspire you to explore and engage the humanness of your own story and its possibilities.
"I dare you, No, I dare me to embrace the horrible magic we call vulnerability..." Julie Todd's book is a brave, generous offering to embrace her vulnerability in public. What a gift to experience her wrestling with what it means to be white, what it means to be woman, what it means to have a body, what it means to live in systems of oppression, what it means to desire, what it means to be avena sativa, what it means to live in the messy magnificence of community. Her willingness to share with us what vulnerability can look like helps me to understand more fully what it means to be human, more freely human, as myself and a human in community. We need her book now more than ever.
Raw, Bold, Harsh, Gentle. How dare you, Julie! That is, how did you dare permit and gift the public with access to these 50 selections from your personal journals. What amazed me most is not how much Julie is made known in these writings but how much they nudge others to plunge into the depths of their own, as well as the world’s, well being. A must read for anyone who dares and is willing to be challenged by authentic truth telling. Thank you wild and wise one.
50: Thorns and Blossoms is a book of poems/short stories that you will not want to put down. I was particularly drawn to the honesty within the pages that covered a multitude of topics from racism to sexism to sexuality to religion. This book will make you really think about what you may currently believe, in a good way. It's very thought provoking! I would recommend this to anyone.
Bravo Julie Todd! If you are looking to be inspired in a social justice way, a spiritual way, an independence way, a solidarity way, a meaning-making way...fill in your own...this book will cover you. Julie is an adjunct Professor at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, and one of the most inspiring people I know. She lives in Massachusetts and she spent many years living, studying and working in Colorado, so lots of gems from these two places. But don’t get me wrong - you can be from anywhere and still love this book. This collection of 50 essays and poems (or what she calls "poetic prose") can be read from start to finish or in any order you pick and choose (my method). A few of my favorites include, "My Soul Is Tom Brady," "DUMB BITCH," "The Deer" and "When Spires Fall (Who Are We?"), which I saw her perform live before it was published. Thank you, Julie, for the inspiration!
This remarkable and unfiltered collection documents a decade in the life of the author through thoughtful and stimulating poetry and prose. With 50 distinct pieces mirroring the author's journey through her fifth decade of life, this collection touches on everything from sexuality to religion to Tom Brady and much more. Within these writings, the boundaries between inner life and outer life become delightfully blurred, giving voice to a contemplative activism striving for a fully-integrated life and witness. Highlights for me include "My Soul is Tom Brady" (even Pats-haters will appreciate this one), "Ordination Day (I Shit Myself)", "Still Can't Fucking Write", "I Will Not Join the What the Fuck Army of One", and "When Spires Fall (Who Are We?)" This book is a gift to anyone who is searching for their own voice in the midst of their own life and many readers and writers will find a humorous, alternately comforting and discomforting, fellow traveler in this volume.