I WENT TO my first autopsy, and here is what I learned: Human ribs can be clipped with the shears I use to prune my floribunda roses. The smell of a man dead for more than one week is far more fearsome than his look. Dust casting from the round blade of a saw uncapping a skull will empty a room of prosecutors. While a body may or may not have been someone’s temple, there is something divine inside it. [Read more...]
A Modest Addiction: A Radio Essay
January 12, 2012 By 6 Comments
MY NAME IS MARION and I am an obit addict. [Read more...]
Ashes to Ashes, A Holiday Memoir
December 22, 2011 By 4 Comments
EVERY TIME THE holidays come around I am reminded that one of these days I simply have to do something with my mother’s ashes. It’s been more than twenty years since she died. This length of stay out of the grave, or water or air, is not that startling. My father’s ashes have been in a closet at my sister’s house for more than 30 years, and though I tell myself that the right ritual will present itself, even the turn of the century came and went without inspiring an interment. [Read more...]
Your New Best Friend:
The Deadline Calendar
GO ON, TRY my interactive calendar of emotional high holy days, regular-version high holy days and more. Hover your cursor over a cinnamon-colored date to see what pops up. Use it to start personal essays, radio pieces and op-eds to submit on deadline. How? Look three months out for radio ideas; six to twelve for magazine pieces. Pick it, write it, submit it. You’re a writer. That’s what writers do.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Apr | Jun » | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5May, 5 2012Cinco de MayoIt is Cinco de Mayo, commemorating the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces in 1862. This is a great one for everything from a memoir about someone else’s cultural holidays, some food memoir perhaps, or a piece of memoir placed at celebration for the day. | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12May, 12 2012Hurricanes Finally Get Named for Men, As WellIt was on this day in 1978 that hurricanes also were named for men. Previously named only for women, this seems like justice, however late. What’s in a name? My sister has something to say about that, named as she is, for a racehorse. I told this story on NPR’s All Things Considered. Have a look. | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16May, 16 2012Fiddlehead TimeIt’s Fiddlehead time. Fiddlehead ferns that is, sold and eaten while they are still rolled up. Fiddleheads are the unfurled fronds of a young fern harvested for food consumption. Called a fiddlehead because it resembles the curled ornamentation (called a scroll) on the end of a stringed instrument, such as a fiddle, it is It is also called a crozier since it also resembles the curved staff used by bishops, which has its origins in the shepherd’s crook. Got some food memoir? I lap it up, and write it down here. | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23May, 23 2012The Father of Taxomony is BornOn this day in 1707 was the birth of Carl Linneaus, the man who created order out of chaos by creating a classification system for naming and identifying plants. I created one of those, though mine divides by people, asking if you are either a burger or a burrito. Check it out. | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27May, 27 2012Rachel Carson’s BirthdayOn this day in 1907 was the birth of Rachel Carson, one of the greatest advocates the earth will ever know. The New Yorker magazine took a chance on her, first publishing her in 1951 and in 1962 serializing Silent Spring, in which she took on the subject of the ravaging effects of pesticides. The book is still regarded as the cornerstone of the new environmentalism. She inspires me, and I might write a piece of memoir about reading that book or what she has meant to me. You? What creative inspiration does she provoke in you? |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
Spam Chop Suey Reveals Genetic Code!
November 9, 2011 By 4 Comments
SEVEN INHERITED RECIPE BOXES make up my collection. I’ve had them with me now for so many years that I can remember at least four different places they’ve resided in my office, each for long periods of time. Amulets, icons–call them what you may–I always work with them in view; they are that important. And then recently, I discovered that they contain the code to life itself. [Read more...]
A Havest Tale of Remembrance
October 1, 2011 By 6 Comments
IT IS OCTOBER, the harvest, that great time for taking stock. Me? I’m grateful for many things, particularly the friendship and love of Margaret, my only sibling. We didn’t always see things the way we do now, and in that we missed huge chunks of each other’s lives. The reason for our separation? Our mother. The coming together? I credit time and patience and adult wisdom. And thinking about what might make a good harvest tale, I’m taking a chance here, and offering one about our difficult topic. [Read more...]
A September 11th Remembrance
September 9, 2011 By 8 Comments
From time to time I’ll post the text of essays I’ve written and read for NPR’s All Things Considered, or published elsewhere. Here’s one read on All Things Considered just after 9/11. [Read more...]
