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...]
Parenting Memoir: Birthday Party Hell
March 14, 2012 By 2 Comments
My dictionary defines hell as “any place or state of torment or misery.” Well, then, I’ve been to hell on earth and it’s other people’s children’s birthday parties. [Read more...]
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 | |||
Writing Memoir: Learning Your Limits
January 3, 2012 By 2 Comments
WHO ARE YOU? If you are writing memoir, it’s important to know the answer to that question. Memoir is about territory, and you have to walk its borders. What are those borders? Your areas of expertise. And what are those? Here’s a hint: There are many more than you might imagine. [Read more...]
Writing Parenting Memoir? Get With the Humilty — and Humor
December 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
LIFE’S BIG REALIZATIONS happen in life’s small moments. I’ve said it before, I’m saying it again, in all, I say it a lot. Here’s the proof: My daughter has a low-grade cold. We’re just done buying cough drops. This is not the huge moment, and neither is the next one, which is that as the traffic light changes from red to green, and she shows me the cough drops she has purchased, I state that at least they are not the “gakky” kind. And it happens. The big one. [Read more...]
Parenting Memoir: Imaginary Friends
December 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
LIKE MOST PARENTS of a teen, I worry about our daughter’s future romantic relationships. So far, she’s done quite well. Her first love who was not her Daddy was someone who would make the heart of any mother just soar: Tall, Jewish, part of a large family, he doted on the needs of my child and encouraged her to eat her vegetables. But there were problems, not the least of which was that he was imaginary. [Read more...]
