Welcome to my blog..


"We struggle with dream figures and our blows fall on living faces." Maurice Merleau-Ponty

When I started this blog in 2011, I was in a time of transition in my life between many identities - that of Artistic Director of a company (Apocryphal Theatre) to independent writer/director/artist/teacher and also between family identity, as I discover a new family that my grandfather's name change at the request of his boss in WWII hid from view - a huge Hungarian-Slovak contingent I met in 2011. Please note in light of this the irony of the name of my recently-disbanded theatre company. This particular transition probably began in the one month period (Dec. 9, 2009-Jan. 7, 2010) in which I received a PhD, my 20 year old cat died on my father's birthday and then my father, who I barely knew, died too. I was with him when he died and nothing has been the same since. This blog is tracing the more conscious elements of this journey and attempt to fill in the blanks. I'm also writing a book about my grandmothers that features too. I'd be delighted if you joined me. (Please note if you are joining mid-route, that I assume knowledge of earlier posts in later posts, so it may be better to start at the beginning for the all singing, all dancing fun-fair ride.) In October 2011, I moved back NYC after living in London for 8 years and separated from my now ex-husband, which means unless you want your life upended entirely don't start a blog called Somewhere in Transition. In November 2011, I adopted a rescue cat named Ugo. He is lovely. As of January 2012, I began teaching an acting class at Hunter College, which is where one of my grandmothers received a scholarship to study acting, but her parents would not let her go. All things come round…I began to think it may be time to stop thinking of my life in transition when in June 2012 my stepfather Tom suddenly died. Now back in the U.S. for a bit, I notice, too, my writing is more overtly political, no longer concerned about being an expat opining about a country not my own. I moved to my own apartment in August 2012 and am a very happy resident of Inwood on the top tip of Manhattan where the skunks and the egrets roam in the last old growth forest on the island.

I am now transitioning into being married again with a new surname (Barclay-Morton). John is transitioning from Canada to NYC and as of June 2014 has a green card. So transition continues, but now from sad to happy, from loss to love...from a sense of alienation to a sense of being at home in the world.

As of September 2013 I started teaching writing as an adjunct professor at Fordham University, which I have discovered I love with an almost irrational passion. While was blessed for the opportunity, after four years of being an adjunct, the lack of pay combined with heavy work load stopped working, so have transferred this teaching passion to private workshops in NYC and working with writers one on one, which I adore. I will die a happy person if I never have to grade an assignment ever again. As of 2018, I also started leading writing retreats to my beloved Orkney Islands. If you ever want two weeks that will restore your soul and give you time and space to write, get in touch. I am leading two retreats this year in July and September.

I worked full time on the book thanks to a successful crowd-funding campaign in May 2014 and completed it at two residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Wisdom House in summer 2015. I have done some revisions and am shopping it around to agents and publishers now, along with a new book recently completed.

I now work full-time as a freelance writer, writing workshop leader, coach, editor and writing retreat leader. Contact me if you are interested in any of these services.

Not sure when transition ends, if it ever does. As the saying goes, the only difference between a sad ending and a happy ending is where you stop rolling the film.

For professional information, publications, etc., go to my linked in profile and website for Barclay Morton Editorial & Design. My Twitter account is @wilhelminapitfa. You can find me on Facebook under my full name Julia Lee Barclay-Morton. More about my grandmothers' book: The Amazing True Imaginary Autobiography of Dick & Jani

In 2017, I launched a website Our Grandmothers, Our Selves, which has stories about many people's grandmothers. Please check it out. You can also contact me through that site.

In May, I directed my newest play, On the edge of/a cure, and have finally updated my publications list, which now includes an award-winning chapbook of my short-story White shoe lady, which you can find on the sidebar. I also have become a certified yoga instructor in the Kripalu lineage. What a year!

And FINALLY, I have created a website, which I hope you will visit, The Unadapted Ones. I will keep this blog site up, since it is a record of over 8 years of my life, but will eventually be blogging more at the website, so if you want to know what I am up to with my writing, teaching, retreats and so on, the site is the place to check (and to subscribe for updates). After eight years I realized, no, I'm never turning into One Thing. So The Unadapted Ones embraces the multiplicity that comprises whomever I am, which seems to always be shifting. That may in fact be reality for everyone, but will speak for myself here. So, do visit there and thanks for coming here, too. Glad to meet you on the journey...

Thursday, September 1, 2011

scribbling away....

I did a lot of writing again today (by hand in the crappy notebook), so much so that I got very little practical work done, if any.

I went to a writer's meeting and told them my story, and had some interesting discussions afterward.  This made me grateful to be where I am today, healthy and with options.

One of the things I discussed was coming out from the bunker I had to hide myself within from a very young age.  The emergence of all of me has been not without growing pains, but damn it's good to be able to say to a room full of people that I own my whole self and know it's true.

Lovely hearing how happy some people are that I'm coming home to NYC.  Some friends have been warnings of financial issues here and such, which I know is because they believe they have my best interests at heart, but it's quite comforting to have others just be plain old happy I'm coming back, which is how I feel.  Still lots and lots of details to sort out, including where to live and how to make a living, you know the little things, but I do know in my heart of heart of hearts that this is the next right step.

I'm kind of delirious from all the writing and staring at screens, so gonna keep this one short.  This is my 101st post, I've been posting every day since May.  It's kind of hard to be honest, but it's been an interesting journey.  I hope to integrate this journey into some kind of book, already I can see places in the Dick and Jani book where excerpts may fit into it.  Real time documenting I think/hope has its own rhythm and interest - a 'common place' as my friend Sarah told me they called it back in the day - a place you wrote about everything going on from intellectual to prosaic.  So this is my 21st century common place.

Oh, and I watched some US Open Tennis today too.  Oh I do love tennis and baseball.  It's my version of heavy narcotics.  I can't take heavy narcotics and I can't drink, but I can stare at balls being bashed around.  So allow me my little pleasures, please.

And of course if you know of any writing, directing, teaching, etc. jobs out there, please tell me, not to mention good rent deals, sublets and the like.  Tomorrow I will begin the March of the CVs out to every college, university and educational establishment within range.  My friend Marietta and I are already plotting out the next moves with my latest play We live in financial times, Part 1: Blackberry Curve and I got re-excited about some theater stuff talking to my friend Alyssa at her place the other night.  So great to finally be in a place and space where I can just let it rip...

Plus, the writing!  It's going in so many directions I could never have predicted, which means usually it's going somewhere interesting.  The sense of vacuuming up huge amounts of information continues along with a continuous interrogation of the writing process itself, memory, family mythologies, history and so-called non-fiction.  Nice.

Sure to be a major motion picture, isn't it obvious?
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1 comment:

  1. BeaSeptember 1, 2011 at 6:47 AM

    Rock on with your bad self, Julia! I'm glad you've found the "next right step".

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