Vivian Lee Croft
Writer, Educator, Woo-Woo-er, Griever, Scorpio
Welcome
Vivian Lee Croft is a nonfiction writer concerned largely with home, memory, grief, and trauma. She founded Write Pittsburgh, a creative writing collaborative and member organization of Dave Eggers’ International Alliance of Youth Writing Centers. In 2018, she adapted the Creative Nonfiction Foundation’s workshop Writing Away the Stigma to support teen writers. Vivian was a Margaret L. Whitford Fellow at Chatham University where she received a Master's Degree in Creative Writing with a concentration in Pedagogy. She was awarded 2020 residencies at Tongue River Artist Residency and Pittsburgh's City Books. In 2021 she was a judge for the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. She edited the book, We Are All Related, a collection of portraits by photographer Andrea London. Her writing is featured in F(r)iction, Hippocampus, and Under The Gum Tree.Vivian has led creative writing classes in alternative spaces, high schools, universities, and community centered locations throughout the Pittsburgh region. Additionally, Vivian has taught yoga, meditation, and breathwork often incorporating writing into these modalities.Now, she's returned to her birthtown to write her childhood over again.
Read
Beach Hair (excerpt)
under the gum tree
Winter 2023I love the way my hair feels after it’s salt-dried of dripping ocean. Wavy. Crumply. Briny. Not as soft as the sand, though it holds sand in tiny clumps along the part. The bottom half blonde and beachy. The top half natural with springy silver strands urgent through thickly chunked bangs that I’ve been cutting myself. It’s been a year since I visited a salon, had a cut, indulged in color.
Read
Cloud Hands (excerpt)
Hippocampus Magazine
January 8, 2021She begins to count. Rhythmically. Softly. “One, two, three,” until she reaches thirty or so. Her eyes scan the room, trace ceiling edges. My eyes follow her sing-songy breaths. I wonder what she sees that needs counting. I cradle my mom’s bruised and blue-tinged hand and she taps a finger to mine in time with growing numbers, some skipped, some repeated. She smells salty and I’m sure she’s soiled her pants. When I’m given a gown for her overnight stay I ask the nurse for help changing her, cleaning her up.
Read
Ordinance (excerpt)
F(r)iction
Winter 2020Instead of showing up to my high school graduation, he closed down the corner bar, smoking, probably playing pool, maybe there’s another woman. Through his hangover the next day, my dad garbled: getting an education is the most important thing. At the dining room table, he furrows over paper, pencil in hand. If you’re mad, write a letter. His pencil, always a pencil deepens the page with carefully carved blocks for letters. I can’t put up my shed without the historic district’s approval. His letter to the newspaper about the historic district’s rules.
Currently teaching
Love Letters: In a Time of Love and Loss
February 2024
Femme Fire Books
Jacksonville, FLLove letters take many shapes and forms: the poem, the three-pager, the thank you, the eulogy, the goodbye. In this workshop, we will read love letters of various types and write our own. Maybe your letter is to your soulmate with whom you share your home, maybe your letter is to someone from whom you are currently separated. Let’s write our love letters to others, to ourselves, to our grief, to our joy, and share in our collective love in a global time of loss. At the end of this workshop, you are invited to join in a community letter writing activity. All genres of writing and all writers are welcomed, “letter” is merely a stylistic placeholder to get us started writing. Please bring your favorite writing materials: paper, notebook, writing utensils; some materials may be provided._________________________________________
The Second Sunday: Grief Circle
Sunday, December 10, 2023 from 10-11am
Virtual; Email for linkThe Second Sunday: Grief Circle provides a space focused on sharing support, where grief is held in community. This is not therapy nor is it a replacement for therapy or other support measures, rather, it is meant as a companion for brave conversation through our shared experience. Grievers have the opportunity to share, to listen, and to participate collectively in ways that are meaningful to them.________________________________________
Micro Memoir: Storytelling From Home
Sunday, November 5, 2023 from 4-6pm
Femme Fire Books
Jacksonville, FLA mirco workshop doesn't mean your memoir isn't a big deal! We'll spend our short time together focusing on impactful storytelling. Explore how this short form can stand alone or punctuate your long form with stunning imagery, spacious characters, and smart ways to get into and out of your writing. This is a creative writing workshop centering nonfiction writing but fiction writing is also welcomed. We also invite you to join us in a community storytelling activity to end our workshop.
Currently reading
H is for Hawk
by Helen MacDonaldFreshwater
by Akwaeke EmeziCrying in H Mart: A Memoir
by Michelle ZaunerTell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
by Zora Neale Hurston
What's the Griefiest Thing You've Done This Week?
01/04
Today I said to myself, I get to be who I want to be. I get to present the way I want. I can choose to be the me I want to be. It seems a radical declaration of permission as much as it seems a silly thing to say aloud to myself. Just to say it suggests I am somehow not or have not been myself. Today! I can be the myself I want—which may be the most control I can ever have—especially in a world that feels so out of control. What a great big deal.12/14
This week my mind has been on joy! It's such a beautiful space to find in between the pain, isn't it? I tend to overlook or even ignore joy because it always seems like it doesn't actually belong to me, it isn't for me. Joy is for someone else. Someone who has it better. Who had it easier. Someone who deserves it. I compare myself out of joy. I comparative suffering myself into a place that someone else established for me. To keep me from joy. Nevermind my right to joy. A defiant joy. A radiant joy.11/30
This week I've been thinking about my mom. I think about how the recent move in my life was directly influenced by her. It's so funny the things we may try to run from and no matter how far we run–and I've run many, many miles–we cannot outrun ourselves. I think one day I ought to take that to heart and stop trying to run. Maybe I can. Maybe I could. What if I stop running now. Can I try that?
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© Vivian Lee Croft. All rights reserved. 2023