It’s August. Summer vacations are drawing to a close. Did you ever see the ocean when you were little? The closest I came was a postcard from Cape Cod. From my godmother. She and her family had rented a cottage not far from the beach. I stared and stared at that postcard. It was the […]
Yesterday, Janet brought me a freshly-picked bouquet of August blooms accented with curly-topped white phlox. They were just like the phlox that were as tall as I in the days when I ran barefoot in dewy cool green grass. I was 3 or 4 years old in that memory and my grandmother’s phlox border must […]
Three days ago, I posted about the fear of tap dancing. Well, there was a little more to it than that, but fear and hesitation pretty much sum it up. Received an email newsletter this morning from Holstee, with its editorial written by one of Holstee’s two brother founders. He referenced the psychologist Abraham Maslow […]
This summer, I’m taking a series of twelve tap dancing classes for adults at our local arts center. It was a last minute decision. I saw an ad in the local newspaper that triggered one my childhood desires. Remember Shirley Temple and Bojangles tap dancing up and down that steep flight of stairs? Shirley’s banana […]
Meet Linda. She came to us with a BFA and MFA, but sadly, these degrees were not in Creative Writing. Her shame for advanced degrees in a field outside of writing has left her cowering in self-doubt but she no longer piddles when addressed in a loud voice and rarely bites back—providing she is given […]
Clearly, for me, May has been a month of false starts and unfinished business, crossroads, and decision-making. Let’s try this blog post again. 🙂 Every Friday morning, I park my vehicle under a large Kwanzan cherry tree in a parking lot a couple blocks away from the Senior Center. With its fragrant double blossoms, it’s […]
Today is opening day at The American Writers Museum in Chicago IL. Actually I didn’t even know that it was being assembled until page A13 in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. According to the review by Edward Rothstein (Critic At Large), the AWM has been created at a “sensible” cost of under $10 million: its […]
Today is International Women’s Day. International Women’s Day was originally International Women’s Work Day. So I mused about whether I should write about feminism in the workplace, or the role of women in the world, or simply, as smart and outspoken writer #MaryKarr posted this morning: “hope folks wind up grateful for unpaid butt wiping […]
Writing, breathing, thinking—emphasis on “thinking”, and not necessarily in that order—are the essential elements of a writer’s waking hours. Lately I’ve been filling out Writer Residency applications, and this especially leads me to a lot of thinking about writing and why I write. I look at the notes—my notes, my opinions—that I’ve written in the […]
Rolling Stone magazine has just revised its list of The Best Stand-Up Comics (top 50) and Richard Pryor has risen to #1. Quote: “As is the case with all great artists, Richard Pryor went through an evolution in his life and work: He survived a disturbing childhood whose scary and colorful personalities shaped the basis […]
