Memoirous

I’ve been so busy with my Cloud of Witnesses book launch that I’ve had very little time to create. As the day draws nigh I’ve been working on a book trailer which I will preview here in a bit. What’s truly wonderful is finding someone else’s work that resonates. While working on the book trailer (okay, I’m not a videographer or film editor, my friend Juan Carlos Garcon is the one working the magic) I felt like we needed some images that represented the region. It’s hard enough for kids to imagine life in the 1979/1980, let alone what things looked like in Athens County. Anyway, I stumbled onto a group of photographers and a project called “ Looking at Appalachia ” https://lookingatappalachia.org/ There were many pics that worked well with the book and the scenes I wanted to highlight, but had no idea of how to contact the photographers. We wanted to have the project done in time for the book launch. Alan Pittman’s photographs of West Virginia were just great. He had images...

2018 Events: Book Launch Party Friday, Sept. 28 7 PM --Chicago, IL Book Releases Sunday, Sept. 30 Illinois Reading Council Friday, Oct. 5, 2:30 – 3:30 PM --Peoria, IL 2018 Kentucky Book Festival Saturday, November 17, 9 am to 4 pm --Alltech Arena at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky OCWW, Off Campus Writers Workshop Thursday, Dec. 20, 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM --Winnetka, IL

NEXT WEEK!

I've launched an author website in support of my new book CLOUD OF WITNESSES https://janehertenstein.com/

You are a slightly graying slightly paunchy poet on a bicycle in the hours before dawn, riding the city streets under arc lights, steering around potholes, in varying weather. Sometimes coyotes run beside you until they weary or veer off. This isn’t a dream. You began out of an existential desperation to find meaning, or maybe to lose weight, or to vie for fame in the treacherous academic world: publish or perish. It’s hard to stand out. So you drop out and climb aboard an ’85 bicycle with a frame size too big for you. Everything, and I mean everything, you might possibly need for the next 30 days goes into a pair of panniers and a seal line bag. You cannot escape your depression or pedal fast enough to leave yourself behind. But once in a new town you set up shop. For ten hours a day you compose dreams—an annoying woman at the Poetry Foundation called you out, saying they were in fact poems—you cycle out dreams as if they were miles and then in the early h...

Memoirous is about memories and using memories to tell stories. Memories are also unreliable. We unintentionally leave things out or embellish. Sometimes the more accurate memories have the ring of truth to them. What seems to resonate the most are universal experiences where readers can exclaim: Hey! The same thing happened to me! Sometimes we end up just giving life and words to the mundane and everyday. A few years back I picked up a small “poetry” book by Kyle White. It isn’t exactly poetry but more a hybrid of observations, comments, essays, criticisms, and poetry. There is line variation. This book is monumental in its scope: Wisconsin. I know, that line made me laugh too. It is about bundling up in snowsuits. Walking home with your cheeks stinging. Snot crusting inside your muffler. It is about the horror of returning to a normal schedule after Christmas break. Kyle White employs everyday memories in crafting Wisconsin: river of grace . Coming from the ...

An example of how to craft a simple, mundane flash, make a list Little-Known Facts about People BY  JOE BRAINARD           Did you know that Kenneth Koch's wife Janice used to be an airplane pilot? Once she had to make an emergency landing on a highway.           When Kenward Elmslie was a kid he wanted to be a tap dancer. Did you know that Kenward's grandfather was Joseph Pulitzer?          Kenward once told me that Jane Russell is a dyke.          Andy Warhol wanted to be a tap dancer when he was a kid too.          D. D. Ryan wanted to be a ballerina.                     Did you know that Pat Padgett was Ted Berrigan's girlfriend for years before she married Ron?          Ron Padgett and I were in the same 1st grade class together...

“The stars and black sky closed over me. I was not Pip with the hope of great expectations, just an eighth grader looking for a lucky break.” Roland Tanner is looking for a benefactor, someone to rescue him from his family, the sorriest characters he’s ever met: a sister who works at the Curl Up and Dye salon, a brother who takes motors apart in their front yard, a grandmother who flashes him the evil eye from her ragged vinyl armchair, and a father who keeps him at arm’s length. Tested as gifted, Roland gets bused from his poor, rural home to the middle school in town, where his new classmates only see him as a hillbilly. He is desperate to reach out beyond the power lines that crisscross the hills surrounding the family’s trailer in southeastern Ohio. Yet he’s afraid to step outside of himself to ask Patty to the dance, to stand up for his Muslim friend Hassan, to see that his father loves him. It’s only when he realizes he’s in charge of his destiny that Roland accepts the...

What I remember most about my Scanlandia bike ride from earlier this summer: Crossing the mountains Crossing fjords on ferries Impossibly high bridges Moose meat stroganoff Long, slanty light The sun Wishing for the sun to come out Wishing for the sun to go down Winding down on switchbacks, thinking       this could be the last day of my life Mostly what I remember is the fear             a knife-edge, precipice-inducing fear             the awful feeling you get                         when lost                         when there are no maps         ...

Holiday @ Home Parade It’s that time of year—back to school—when I recall the Holiday @ Home Parade in Kettering, Ohio. Here is a flashback post: from an earlier post:  http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/search?q=holiday+at+home Holiday at Home Parade Labor Day weekend. School was right around the corner. Which meant autumn was coming, falling leaves, and change. But things would never be different. Freshman year I was a nerd. As a sophomore I was a more experienced nerd. Junior year I entered school thinking halfway done, only 2 more years of being an ostracized nerd. Finally as a senior, I knew it was my last year. I'd never be popular but forever a nerd. But at least a nerd on her way out. The only good thing about Labor Day weekend was the Holiday at Home Parade. I looked forward to getting there early and finding a seat along the curb. Friends of my parents lived close to the parade route, so I rode up to their house and parked my bike in their garage. The Centervil...