Brian Donohue

You can write for a lifetime and not find a harder story to tell than your own. If I were a teacher of creative writing, one of the fundamental exercises I'd offer writers is this one: answer the question, "Who are you?" in several varieties of context for that question. For instance: the accusative or condemning("Who ARE you?"); the dismissive or demeaning ("Who are YOU?"); the mechanical form-filler (gender, age, occupation, etc.); or the philosophical ("describe, in a single haiku poem or a book of 100,000 words or more, Who are you?").

The good news is that we attempt this impossible task today with these computing machines and devices; we answer such questions in binary and with electrons, thus approaching ever closer the great quantum reality in which we are created, nurtured, and supported. From that perspective, it is interesting to discover how long it takes you to arrive at your individual self in answering the W-a-Y question: I am a single form of compressed cosmic consciousness; I am a mammal of the homo sapiens genus; I am a human of planet Earth in the Milky Way galaxy; I am a male of that species; I am a citizen of the United States on the North American continent.... You really have to drill down quite a ways from the Origin to reveal the most ordinary hallmarks of personal identity.

But our minds are naturally adapted and partially trained to filter, assume, and orient. Thus, you arrive here knowing that I am of your species, writing in your language, and that I am an author, a wordsmith. So, what have I written?

"The Tao of Potter": a book written 7 years ago and updated since, exploring the psychological content and metaphorical messages of Rowling's Harry Potter novels, focusing on how they might work in a path of self-discovery and the enrichment of inner life.

"Drinking From the Darkness": a book about personal development and adaptation in a time of neo-feudalism, with an emphasis on overcoming the fears and petty oppressive means of common group or institutional ideologies.

"Poems of the Universe": a translation of Lao Tzu's famous "Tao Te Ching" with commentary and an introduction, intended for readers with no particular familiarity or connection with ancient Chinese/Taoist philosophy or Eastern thought in general.

Another question in the W-a-Y vein for a writer could be, "what distinguishes you as an author, that is, what is it about your writing that could attract readers?" This is perhaps the most difficult question for a writer to answer, because the actual answer is unique to each reader. One might tell me that my books help her to address specific personal issues in her own life; another may say that he finds social messages in my work that provide context and meaning about his nation or his culture; another could simply say something like, "it's fun to go back into that Hogwarts universe with a fresh perspective, now that the stories have been told and the outcome delivered..."

So I suppose my answer to the subliminal part of that question about what distinguishes me as a writer of books, a psychological counselor, and a teacher of sorts, is this: I have nothing to teach you that you don't already, deeply know. My writing's purpose is to remind you of that, to guide you back within to your personal wisdom, to inspire you toward that place in yourself where the answer to "Who are you?" can be clearly experienced and deeply felt.