Pamela Carter Joern is the author of four works of fiction: Toby’s Last Resort, In Reach, The Plain Sense of Things, and The Floor of the Sky, all published by the University of Nebraska Press. She has written six plays that have been produced in the Twin Cities of Minnesota and taught writing at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis for ten years. Her latest book, At the Corner of Past and Future: A Collection of Life Stories (Bison Books, 2025), was published this month.

Once I went to a psychic who reads past lives. I don’t believe in past lives. I was seeking direction, and a friend who does believe in past lives recommended her psychic. I do believe that some people have highly developed sensory abilities, and I told myself that reading past lives is the language this sensitive person would use. I was confident I could translate.  

The psychic’s office was located above a restaurant, approached by an enclosed staircase. I remember it being stark, two chairs facing, but there must have been other accoutrements. The psychic was a middle-aged woman, pleasant but unremarkable in appearance. She had curly brown hair. She wore glasses.

She asked me why I sought her help. At the time, I was a seminary student. I had written a couple plays that had been produced, and I was torn between pursuing ministry or writing. When I had mentioned this dilemma previously to a career counselor, he laughed out loud. ‘You’re telling me,’ he said, ‘that ministry is your back-up plan in case writing doesn’t work out?’ He laughed because, at the time, very few women were finding jobs as pastors. Plus, everybody knows that writing is a high-risk career. I explained all this to the psychic and asked what I should do.

Secretly, I hoped she would tell me that I was a gifted writer and that I shouldn’t give up on that dream. She didn’t. She blew out a cleansing breath, closed her eyes and began to speak of previous lifetimes. I remember something about working on pyramids in Egypt, homesteading on the western frontier, being a tenant farmer in Europe. She said my husband and I had been together in previous lives, although sometimes our roles were reversed.

Then she said, “Your gift is bringing disparate pieces together.”

“What does that mean?”

She looked deeper. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe bringing groups of people together.”

That sounded like ministry to me. So, I pressed.

“What about writing?”

She closed her eyes again. “I see you bringing disparate pieces together. Making connections where others don’t see them.”

No matter how many times I tried to get her to say I was meant to be a writer, she returned to this theme. Bringing disparate pieces together. I was disappointed and went home to look up the word disparate in a thesaurus: “contrasting, differing, dissimilar, unalike, diverse, heterogenous, unrelated, distinct, separate, divergent.”

I had not thought of this visit in years. Not once while working with an ecumenical organization focused on feminist and womanist theologies. Not while forming a small theater company and writing more plays. Not while seeking an MFA in creative writing. Not while writing four published works of fiction.

But now! My current book, At the Corner of Past and Future, is a collection of personal essays that have accumulated over a long period of time. And guess what? They are chock-full of disparate pieces brought together: my father’s life and the experiments of Isaac Newton; the Shaker colonies and butchering chickens; Salvador Dalí and considerations of time to a cancer patient; even the ancient art of alchemy and writing processes. It turns out that the psychic was right, all along.

I am drawn to creative nonfiction because the form allows the mind to drift. Delving into things the mind is curious about helps me figure out what I think and expands my heart. Focusing on small, ordinary moments teaches me to pay attention. And yes, I do like shining an observation from one aspect of life on something seemingly unrelated to see what I might learn.

I enjoyed writing these pieces, what my acquisitions editor at the press called “a wonderful collection of life stories.” I hope you will enjoy reading them.

One more not incidental thing. I was ordained, and my ordination certificate reads: “ordained to a ministry in writing.” There never was an either-or choice to make. It was not about what I should do, but instead how I approach my life and the world I live in. After all my analyzing, fretting, and stumbling, it’s as though I have been tricked into being myself.