PASSOVER IS HERE, and we look forward to our yearly Seder, blended as we will be into another family’s gracious celebration. It’s easier these days since there are only three of us to accommodate at their Seder table. It wasn’t always like this. And when it wasn’t, I got my first best dose of just how accommodating a sister can be. [Read more...]
Memoir Without a Net: Telling a Tale on the Radio
March 16, 2012 By 3 Comments
I’VE NEVER BEFORE TOLD A PIECE of memoir without notes, or not reading from a manuscript. At least not in public. Of course, I’ve told stories at the dinner table, in the car, and over the phone, but it was something different and utterly new when I was asked to come to the WNYC studios and relate a piece of memoir for the great PRI show, Studio 360. Sitting across a table from a producer, I was asked to just tell it. So I did. The story is about how a piece of art changed my life. Please listen in. Enjoy.
Parenting Memoir: Were There Saturdays Before Children?
March 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
NO DOUBT ABOUT IT: Good parenting requires a healthy respect for forgetfulness and a working knowledge of when to use it. Women who give birth claim that after delivery they forget all about the pain. Since our daughter was adopted, what I’ve forgotten is all the pre-adoption paperwork. That, and what exactly we used to do on Saturday afternoons before our daughter came along. [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 | |||
Memoir Writing on the Air: Me, Studio 360 and an Aha Moment
March 8, 2012 By 2 Comments
THE RADIO IS my favorite medium, and so it is truly a thrill to tell you that I’ll be on the wonderful PRI show Studio 360 this weekend, telling a piece of memoir. Part of their ongoing series of Aha Moments, this is a tale of how a piece of art changed my life. In my case, it was a book. [Read more...]
In the Curriculum: Me! On the Syllabus
March 7, 2012 By 3 Comments
I’M IN THE CURRICULUM. It would be impossible to convey the sheer delight I experienced when seeing that I am required reading material in a college course syllabus. Well, not I, but something I wrote. And while it’s not my first time in the curriculum, the thrill is divine because of the piece that’s been chosen. [Read more...]
Marriage? It Looks Good From Here
February 28, 2012 By 14 Comments
MY BIRTHDAY IS COMING UP. Last year on this occasion, my husband just gave me thermal pajamas. You know, those waffle-print, one-size-covers-all-of-you sets, with ribbing at the ankles and wrists. I took them out of the box and held them up for inspection. [Read more...]
Writing Memoir? Include Transcendence
February 23, 2012 By 6 Comments
MEMOIR REQUIRES TRANSCENDENCE. Something has to happen. Or shift. Or merely move. Someone has to change a little. Or grow. It’s the bare hack minimum of memoir. But don’t confuse transcendence with spiritual awakening or conversion. We’re not asking that much of you, particularly in short memoir. We just want to see something happen. And we deserve it, we the reader. We do. [Read more...]
On the Road With The Memoir Project
February 15, 2012 By 1 Comment
I’VE HIT THE ROAD, if only in a cyber way. I’m teaching this week online at She Writes, a fine site where women get together and talk about writing. My topic? Memoir, of course. I’m the guest editor this week. It’s a real honor, and in honor of that honor I’m debuting what I call my Memoir Manifesto. But that’s not all. [Read more...]
Memoir: An Adoption Tale
February 6, 2012 By 10 Comments
THE CHINESE CONSIDER the owl to be a cateagle: Part cat, part eagle, it is a bird believed to possess vast and enviable qualities. I remember learning about its Chinese heritage sixteen years ago in this season as I awaited the adoption of our daughter. [Read more...]
Two Sides to the Same Story? At Least. What to Do? Write Your Version.
February 5, 2012 By 8 Comments
A YOUNG WOMAN is breezing through the kitchen on the way to the refrigerator. Wearing tennis shorts, a T-shirt, her long red hair in a ponytail, she’s bare-foot, 22 years old, and the phone rings. I can do this with this scene—make it third-person—the way we can at any of those moments just before life takes a tilt; that old where were you when thing. [Read more...]
