I realize I haven’t posted on my blog for over a month and I have the best reason in the world – I’ve been writing. And reading. I suddenly got very sick of the sound of my own voice talking or writing about writing. Or saying anything about me me me via social media.(Though…
Carolyn See’s memorial was held at the Broad Theater in Santa Monica Thursday and it truly was a celebration of her life. Lisa See opened the memorial by saying if her mother were here she’d look at the long list of speakers on the program and say, “What the fuck?” The speakers included Carolyn’s other…
Tomorrow, Sunday 7/17/16, I’m part of the WriteTeachers Workshop (with Victoria Zackheim and Anne Perry) at Flintridge Bookstore in La Canada. My first workshop is ‘Writing Your Life Into Story’ and I decided to make a post out of my notes for it (below). If any of you haven’t started writing yet, or are stuck,…
Next Sunday, 7/17/16. Victoria Zackheim, Anne Perry and I are conducting writing workshops at Flintridge Bookstore in La Canada from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. Whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, come join us. I’ll be doing a session for those of you with work-in-progress – so if you have a partial manuscript bring…
If you watched the Tony awards last night you saw in action what Mary McNamara wrote in this morning’s L.A.Times: “From tragedy can come art and from art can come wisdom.” Frank Langella in his acceptance speech for lead actor in a play said, “When something bad happens we have three choices: We let it…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this memoir I’m working on. Thinking about a new structure for it, how the current one isn’t working, where it begins and where it should end, what flashbacks are needed and where they should go. I think about it before I go to sleep and at 3:00 am…
I used to be a little la-de-dah with my students about keeping journals. I’d tell them it was a really good idea, an easy way to write something every day, a way of collecting observations and memories, keeping track of their own emotions etc. And yes, all of the above and more, but I’ve now turned…
It’s overcast in L.A. today – May Gray soon to become June Gloom – the sky feels like it’s pressing down on my head, pushing any creative inclination out of my cranky brain. So I thought I’d do something really lazy and just post an article I wrote a few years ago about doing five…
Last summer, the first summer without R.and trying to keep my balance, I had a brilliant idea. I would start a literary salon. I’d invite writer friends/students who lived near me to come over one night a month to hang out, bring wine and snacks, and have about half of them read whatever they were…
I had lunch today with one of my favorite people – a woman who with her husband has created what I think is the top literary publishing company in Los Angeles, and is herself a fantastic writer and poet. We talked about memoirs – we’re each writing one. We talked about the fact that there’s…
There really are no cast-in-stone answers for literary problems. I wish there were, it would make life so much easier and calmer. My students ask: What should be the structure of this memoir? How do I end this essay? What’s the right voice for it? Each is a mystery to solve – whether it’s my…
I just typed that as a title because I didn’t have a topic for a new post and didn’t think. That’s what popped out. (One of my mantras when I teach is to get out of your own way.) So what do I believe? That my dog Nelson is divine – in the true sense…
