Merie Benci

Welcome to my website which features my creative work and my blog.

I received my Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Writing/Poetry from Bowling Green State University, where I had earlier received my Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree also in Creative Writing.

During those years at BGSU, I additionally studied visual arts (drawing and painting).

After a teaching career, while in early semi-retirement, I attended Pacifica Graduate Institute where I received my Master of Arts (MA) degree in Depth Psychology in Jungian and Archetypal Studies.

My specialization within DP is as a mythopoetic analyst and writer in the arts which compliments my earlier experiences doing literary explication in the creative writng programs at BGSU,

While teaching, I "moonlighted" as a newspaper journalist primarily in A & E, and also wrote human and community interest stories along with a weekly A & E events column and a community events column.

In my youth and onward, I enjoyed studies in piano, classical through modern and pop. I played for the school choir and for voice soloists at Ohio Music Competitions and played a couple of piano solos there.

In my early youth and onward up to somewhere during my fifteenth year, I studied classical dance (ballet) and had tap lessons for a few years as a young child.

There was a big influence in my life (from my mother) of love of the theater, musicals, and films; there was a big influence in my life (from my father) of love of folklore and folk music Studying folklore, I found my fascination for ancient cultures and ancient mythologies; for instance, I like to think of myself as an amateur (armchair) Egyptologist.

I used to want to study film making and screenplay writing at the LA Film Institute, but there is only so much time one has in any 24 hours or in any whole life, so I never got around to it and so it went to the wayside where it still lives, but as a daydream only.

I have worked with music with children in preschools and developed music curriculum and music and movement sessions.

I have written music, both "world music" and pop music, some of which is copyrighted that I hope to get out there someday that has so far been on the back burner. If you can sing and are really good, contact me please!

I am a published poet, short fiction storyteller, children's book author and illustrator, author of academic papers, and newspaper writer. I am currently writing a novel and building a new arts and pop culture blog here in my website. I've won awards for my poetry and my flash fiction. I won four collegiate awards for my writing.

I am one of the happiest moms and grandmas on earth.

In addition to doing my own creative work, one of my biggest pleasures in life has been promoting the arts and arts education, especially with children and with young adults so that the joy of the arts stays with them throughout their lives. Working with older adults, I am always happy to remind them of the joy once experienced through literature and music and visual arts--in case they have forgotten.

Now I am mostly retired, but not completely. I still work with libraries doing creative program events in the literary, musical, and visual arts,

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Some people ask me about the connection between the arts and writing and depth psychology, as I also studied Jungian and Archetypal Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California. I find that a "text" can be a book or article or poem, a visual piece of art, a piece of music and/or a dance, and even a scene in nature or a landscape can be read as text. I had years of experience in creative writing workshops, poetics, literary (poetry and fiction) explication, and teaching literary analysis, and found that depth psychological mythopoetic analysis walks hand in hand with these things, holding with the free hands an added Jungian twist. In either case, whether as a writer or as a mythopoetic analyst, I read symbols, whether the symbols in a story, film, dance, piece of music, or the symbols in the dreams of one's psyche. I especially enjoy dream interpretation and daydreams--writing is a lot like daydreaming. Poetry, art, dreams, and myth all share a same language, as noted by Analytical pychologist C.J. Jung and world-reknowned mythologist Joseph Campbell

Thank you for visiting my site, 
Merie