Memoirous

Time for an update on the bootcamp I joined in January 2018 through the Chicago Park District. I’ve trudged through snow, ice, and bitter cold to reach the doors of bootcamp. February has been no exception. While changing out of snow boots and snow pants I watch the instructor set decorating the room with mats, weights, various contraptions of torture. Seriously, I never have any idea of what’s ahead as so far he has not repeated a routine twice. It’s probably part of the strategy to throw us off our game; no room for complacency. I’m always the last one to get what he’s trying to say. So you want us to do what? And once I do understand, I’m pretty sure my body can’t do that. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the instructor cues us or shouts out, sort of like a kapo, stuff like: Challengers take it up a rep or grab the heavier weight. Sometimes he calls them tough mudders (after the race where you steeplechase over mud-covered walls, slipping and sliding, and through obs...

I have a book coming out FALL 2018, Cloud of Witnesses (Golden Alley Press) about a 14 year-old boy growing up in a bookless home in the foothills of the Appalachians in southeastern Ohio. This isn’t exactly an autobiographical novel—though I tried to write what I knew. I was in teacher training at Ohio University in Athens and was sent out into the county for student teaching assignments. Working on edits and promo for the book has reminded me of books in our home. My parents had a weird collection. There were show books with elaborate illustrations probably produced and sold as a subscription. I remember being intrigued by a title and the surreal illustrations: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what the book was about. My father had a basket by his chair stacked with a couple random mass paperbacks, popular back then: The Moviegoer, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Slaughter House-Five, The Naked Ape??? I never saw my father read...

Here’s a link to Ink &Letters , the magazine that nominated me for a Pushcart. Order a copy and read my short short: Arriving at Night.  http://www.inkandletters.com/shop/transition As an aside, a few friends hearing my good news were worried—if we knew you needed a cart we’d have loaned you ours. It’s in the closet. I gently told them not that kind of pushcart. Also check out by clicking on the link to my latest piece online at Yea, Tenderness : The Seven Stages of Replacing Things.  https://www.tendernessyea.com/work/#/by-jane-hertenstein/

Taking my own bike especially overseas is quite a commitment. I’d packed a bike a couple times for a bus and each time it felt stressful. The first time I forgot my front wheel and had to have it shipped. The second time I nearly forgot my pedals. Add to all this that my first bike as over 30 years old. Most of the parts had seized and you needed different size wrenches, etc. Once I got the Torker things got easier. You have to remove your pedals, take off your front wheel, and turn your handlebars. This can mean loosening and turning, but for me to make everything fit I had to totally detach them and strap them to my crossbar. The only thing that held them to the bike were the cables. I also worried about the rear derailleur getting smashed. In addition I have to remove the seat.   Ask for the biggest bike box the bike shop has. Once I got a smallish one. Usually a mountain bike box will do. I lay the bike down and watching YouTube remove the pedals. Laying it down he...

My experience has been cycle touring with the intent to camp. I’ve utilized Warmshowers and Couchsurfing, but love the ability to camp gypsy-style whenever I get tired or see a great opportunity. It gives me more flexibility. Plus cheaper. Thus, I pack a lot of stuff. Ultra-light, but still it adds up. I have 2 Ortleib Back-Roller classics. Into each I put my squished (into a compression sack) sleeping bag, my cat-food can stove, pot, spork, drinking cup. Various candles, matches, etc. A sack where I’ve stuffed clothing. Fuel and basic food items. A microfiber travel towel, toiletries. Minimal first aid kit. Straddling the top is a SealLine Baja Dry 10L Bag which contains tent and sleeping pad. Wedged in between are some clogs in a plastic bread bag. Extraneous stuff goes in the front handlebar bag, not the least my thermos of hot tea and snacks. Snapped to the bars also is pouch which holds my phone and Swiss Army knife. In case I have to defend myself. Just kidding....

  Rethinking Incarceration Dominique DuBois Gilliard Intervarsity Press, 2018 I think a majority of us are familiar with Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow where she laid out the argument that the US penal system is in place to enslave and criminalize an underclass of the black population. She was very persuasive. The facts underscored her conclusions. Since the publication of that book we’ve seen the birth of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Issues of not just social justice but literally justice are/were starting to be addressed. If anything the current administration and Attorney General have put unequal sentencing back into focus. This is not an easy read. And, I read a lot. I reckoned I could whip through the book in plenty of time to review it before Dominique’s book launch this Friday, February 16 at 7:30 pm at Wilson Abbey, 935 W. Wilson, Chicago, IL 60640. FREE admission. But as I read certain questions began to sit with me. How much money are ...

If you’re like me, the idea of traveling with a bike and all your stuff seems overwhelming. In my armchair, in front of a computer there is no simple way to figure it out. Maybe a crystal ball. . . . I first looked into the idea of an international bike trip when considering meeting up with friends/family in France. They weren’t going to be available the whole time and I may as well think about doing my own thing for a week. I knew I wanted to see Mount St. Michel, so spun an itinerary off of that. I found 2 or 3 places that offered bike hire for a week. The trip ended up not taking place, but planted the idea in my head. Then when going to Sweden in September 2015 I Googled the top 10 sights to see while in Sweden and up popped the Göta Canal. I then referenced places to hire a bike and, voila!, it seemed do-able. I never once considered early September to be out-of-season. The whole town of Sjötorp was closed down or so it seemed. I eventually found a small grocery t...

These days with a numbskull obtuse racist president in the White House it’s hard to find a silver lining. Maybe this will help, or not. But the US has made a lot of mistakes—and somehow we’ve kept going. So I’ll let that sink in as good news. Our Supreme Court has made lousy decisions, Congress has passed some unjust laws that impinge on the rights of certain demographics, the citizens of these United States have collectively made unwise choices. It’s one reason to be afraid of but also believe in democracy. Or maybe it’s about having faith. Faith that the universe will somehow right itself. That people will at some point in history go, My bad! And turn the ship around. You might think I’m alluding to Dreamers and the end of DACA, to that stupid wall. But, no, I’m referring to the Dread Scott Decision. Sorry, Dred Scott. Also known as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Summarily: this meant that a runaway slave who had resettled in the North, perhaps for as long as 30 years, ...

Order Today: 365 Affirmations for the Writer https://www.amazon.com/dp/1983773425

  On weekends I have more time to read. Good thing because I began a doorstopper of a biography about Henry David Thoreau by Laura Dassow Walls. It might be more Thoreau than I bargained for. There has always been something compelling about Walden and “On Civil Disobedience” that reminds me of my 20s. It was a good time to drop out or become a rebel. I’ve come back to Walden again and again and each time I feel anxious—there’s got to be more to this story. But, there isn’t. He lived by himself for a few years “off the grid” and then that was it. I guess I wanted it to be about something other than simplicity. Anyway, the opening chapters of the biography explains that Thoreau’s parents, though modestly middleclass, made their money from—wait!: pencils. I know, random. In today’s economy I cannot imagine someone making a fortune from the humble pencil. But that’s the beauty of it! It isn’t humble—the manufacturing of pencils revolutionized the worker, the intel...

Ready! Freeze Frame: How to Write Flash Memoir is out in paperback https://www.amazon.com/dp/1974670597

This blog is about Memoir, about turning memories into words, building a portfolio of writing that can be used for a novel or non-fiction. All experience is fodder for literature. That’s why the crazy comp 101 English teachers told us: Write what you know. That can be intimidating when you realize you don’t know much of anything. That’s okay, take a deep breath, and let your mind go. Flash. That insignificant moment might just be the thing. The springboard that launches a thousand words. So how did LH come to write her groundbreaking Raisin in the Sun ? A native of the southside of Chicago her father moved the family into an all-white neighborhood called Woodlawn—and all-hell broke out. Eventually after firebombing and rocks through the windows the family moved out to one of her father’s other real estate ventures. But the memory never faded. And, after her father passed away, she surmised that the stress of that situation played a part in his death. His heart was broken. Lorr...

On a stress factor scale this week I’ve topped out. I’ve joined a gym doing boot camp plus I’ve been converting files to CreateSpace in order to make the titles that I have rights for over into physical paperbacks. It’s hard, but for my own good. Who could’ve guessed that formatting and working out would feel the same? Yet each new exercise comes with a steep learning curve. Both the boot camp and CreateSpace were something I’d had planned and knew I needed to get to. They were hanging over my head and just needed me to get into the head space for. And both are leaving me quite exhausted. Until I scream, No more! I joined boot camp because I’m getting as big as a house and not getting any younger. I need to be able to walk down the hallway and climb the ladder to my loft bed. Also I’m planning a 1,000 mile bike ride early summer. CreateSpace is necessary because I’ve had people asking for physical copies of my books and I also need copies for conferences and workshops I’m ...