Last week I participated in a workshop titled “Writing Vertically.” The facilitators are both dream analysts, one a non-fiction writer and the other a poet. Each workshop participant was asked to bring a scene from a current work and/or a dream. I am four years out from completing the rough draft of my teen…
Category: Memoir
A Story of Her Own
Today is a special day. My Aunt Liesa, a woman wise and endlessly supportive, is embarking on her own memoir-writing adventure. A faculty member of the MFA program at Fairfield University is running an eight-week memoir-writing course. My aunt wrote me, “…You inspired me. Will take good notes with you in mind. …” I am tickled…
Summer Horizon
School’s out and I’m excited! Granted, I’ll have some responsibilities over the summer, and prep for the fall semester cannot be left untended, but in general I have two months in front of me and the creative possibilities feel thrilling. As if she could read my mind, one of my favorite entrepreneurial people, Barbara Winter,…
Leaving Paradise
I loved it there. Loved. It: temperate climate. Exotic architecture. No spoken English. I don’t speak Arabic and only the most pitiable self-taught survival French, but that didn’t matter. It all began one Sunday afternoon while walking through Harvard Square. A pair of pointy-toed boots was keeping pace with me, whether I sped up or…
Color Magic
I finished John Kralik’s memoir, 365 Thank You’s, shortly before Valentine’s Day, that holiday extravaganza during which visions of treats and surprises burrow in the imagination of yours truly, a girl raised on fairy tales. Especially after reading about Kralik’s quest to recognize opportunities for gratitude and express appreciation, I made a conscious effort to…
Celebrations
Remember my grand-pup, Penny Lane? I call her the neighborhood Miss Marple. This is her favorite perch, where she stays on top of all of the comings and goings streetside. There is just something about the tilt of her head that feels regal, and that chubby paw pad — irresistible. I hadn’t been in the apartment…
Joy Comes in All Sizes
Am I clothespin obsessed? Or is it just miniatures that launch my inner clock into reverse at a helter-skelter pace? It occurs to me that I should have given you a photo that shows their scale. They are about 1″ long. Just perfect for hanging doll clothes or Joy Cards. What if I glued one to a thumb tack…
The Pink Dress and a Black Robe
It’s been a wild and woolly few weeks, culminating in my graduation last Saturday evening. Final academic requirement for the MFA was a 20-minute public reading from the body of work produced over the past two years. Seeing as my project title is Homemade Heart, it seemed absolutely necessary that I make my outfit for the…
Recovered Details
“They date back to the Austrian empire,” she said. “Where my mother’s family came from.” Standing on tip-toe, I retrieved these treasures from the top shelf of a cabinet. The hand-painted cups and saucers were swathed in cobwebs and layered with grime. When we were little, my mother would let us drink cocoa out of…
Post-thesis Celebration
There it is, in the right-hand corner of the photo: the project that kidnapped me for two years. Words cannot describe the relief I feel now that I’m on the other side of 59,000 words and the emotional archaeological dig required to write Handmade Heart – On the run and looking for love. What better…