The Artists

Get to know...Cheri

I'm Cheri Duckworth and I love to experience the arts in all it's forms. My first passion is the theatre and writing is but one of my creative outlets. My encouraging and brilliant husband, whom I married back in 2000, is excited that I'm pursuing writing in this season on my life. It has been a long time desire for him to see me utilize this particular artistic form. Being a mother of two talented and beautiful daughters is one of my most rewarding roles. Our home is full of dancing, singing, and of course multiple costume changes...anything from a ballerina princess to Darth Vader! I live in a musical! In addition to our creative arts time we attempt to squeeze in academics for homeschooling. This too is a new adventure.

I am currently attending college to complete an arts degree. On the side, I'm a television host for a local public affairs program, Joy In Our Town. I have the privilege to meet leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. All in all, I live a full life and I am so grateful I can hardly find the words. However, I look forward to trying to find a few as I write with Sacred Prose.

 

Introducing....Sunny Ya'll

Sunny here.  Great to meet ya'll!  Officially Sunny Cherme' (pronounced "sure may") Cooper.  The beginning of this year, I packed up my things and trucked me and my little man from Oklahoma to the East Coast to finish my last semester of school.  Together, we made it an adventure.  Now it is May and I'm a grad. Rose laurels and pistols firing at the end of this finish line.

If I were to be translucent, which I will, I would tell you that coming to Virginia was not about finishing school near as much as it was about breaking out of cocoons. About spitting up the last bit of fear.  About authentic prayer.  About letting Him rip self-made scarlet letters off my chest.  About learning to breathe again, to walk and then run . . . Getting my wings back.

What a world was waiting for me, once I dared the leap.  High mountains, horses and music to my heart's content.  This is where you'll find me these days - hiking theBlue Ridge, riding horses as often and as fast as I can, and songwriting.  My dreams as a young girl cloistered in her bedroom (add humongous headphones and red-painted walls to this scene) has always been to tell stories.  Over the years, my definition of what that looks like has taken on multi-colored layers - novels, poetry, editorials, blogs, photography, lyrics.  I'd like to think that somewhere between spurting my insides out onto blank pages and working as a newspaper editor, my feet have found the road to bona fide storytelling. 

Currently, I dip my pen into several inkwells, but mostly I stay up all hours  of the night over three writing endeavors: Anti-sex trafficking projects, Dark Horse Music lyrics, and a seven-year magnus opus novel.  Screech, seven years?  Yep, it's an epic and like my life, it has morphed and twisted through a lot of darkness and hope.  Many times the novel has become a mangled version of my own cocoons, sometimes dark and ugly, sometimes predictable, many times jagged pieces of confusion.  Wow, big breath, kind of surprised I shared that . . . translucence, Sunny, c'mon.

I'm looking toward the adventures ahead and excited about experiencing this journey as an artist with other scribes and dreamers here on Sacred Prose.  A journey I'm sure all of us will want to find some completion to on this side of Eden; but, oh, what a ride . . .  gonna take it all in.

 

 

Meet...Just Marilynn

Hi all! This is Marilynn, specifically Marilynn Lokelani Rose Kauhane Howe. That's somewhat translated "Living Fragrance-Rose of Heaven-The Spirit-In a High Place." Speaking of high places, this picture was taken in New Mexico. How I got there is a long story involving a servant's heart as well as feces...long story. Anyhow, along the way I discovered the Anasazi ruins also known as Bandelier. I love discovering and the telling of stories through the spoken and written word as well as photography (each of which I hope to excel at someday).

I am a Hawaiian wahine (woman) living in Texas of all places. The most common question I hear is "Why did you move to Texas?" I must admit that a kane (man) was involved and I'm happily married to a fantastic superhero named Shayne. Together we are raising our two babies...ok, they aren't real babies! This one is my favorite. His name is Nui and he's completely spoiled like his mommy. Speaking of being spoiled, a perfect day would include overalls, Dr. Pepper, and a good book. At least, that's what I feel like today.

On a serious note, I plan on being a university graduate as soon as I conquer one last semester at school. This goal has taken me fifteen years to accomplish. It's been a long journey but well worth the effort. It's been a road paved with many mistakes but mortared together and sanded smooth with much redemption, grace, mercy and love...I just had to throw in that metaphor for my brother the rock wall builder!

My hearts desire is to be a writer. As a little girl I sat at my homemade desk with pen and paper ready to capture my own novel just like Laura Ingalls Wilder and Lucy Maude Montgomery. In fact, my favorite books since childhood include The Story Girl and the Emily Novels. I've enjoyed blogging at Ladies By Design and on my personal blog Little Girl Dancing. In fact, the latter is the name of a novel I know is in me just waiting to...dance free. I also want to write a story about my dad (who lives with my mom in Hawaii). Other projects include a book about a waitress with a yellow mustang and a trilogy about Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz...don't steal my ideas!

Since my little girl days, I've been longing for a community filled with other creative people—a safe nucleus of writers and readers of all sorts that encouraged one another. I'm very excited about starting this new journey together and I look forward to a future full of Sacred Prose!