Memoirous

We went to a Community Conversation last night at Uplift High School where the neighborhood of Uptown were invited to attend an area-wide conversation about race and faith. It wasn’t very well attended. But the folks that were there were engaged. The panel consisted of staff from Kuumba Lynx a performance hiphop education group operating within Uplift High School, Dr. David Stovall of University of Illinois/Chicago, Daniel Hill, pastor of New Community Church in Bornzeville, and Tuyvet Ngo of the Illinois Vietnamese Association. They brought their deep background and experience in the community to the table. As they were talking about crossing cultural boundaries I was reminded of a time many years ago now. I’m sure my daughter won’t mind me telling this story. (Hahaha, she’ll totally mind.) We told her if she met a certain goal for summer reading we’d reward her with a visit to a special restaurant. As one might guess, she totally blew away that goal plus. We took her to Macarth...

As a writing discipline Flash can be very useful. In this day and age of web content, many designers are looking for people for can write small and effectively. I’ve been writing flash now for at least ten years. More and more of the pieces accepted for publication are 3,000 words or less—some as short as 50 words. I believe all writers need to be trained in the art of flash. Much like in archery—you aim for the bull’s eye and then move a degree to the left or right of it, leaving the final analysis to the reader to hit the target. My job is to get you close, bring the context into view. All writing is about perspective and a small piece can offer in a minimum amount of words something completely out of the box. One thing I try to do with my writing is to take for instance something that just happened, actually happened to me that I’m thinking about. Then I add something else, and something else, and combine them into a story salad. I’m not sure where this thing ...

Does this sound like progress: Someday our brains will be able to upload. So that new manuscript or novel you’ve been thinking about will finally get written. Advances in technology are moving toward just this. Already there is BrainNet which allows brain-to-brain communication for collaboration purposes. And, at this point in time, it is not a far step to imagine a device for the physically challenged where they can think a command and their chair steers them along. Perhaps in the future what we think can immediately be transmitted/translated onto a screen then sent via email or even telepathically. Except I can envision a few small glitches. Who of us hasn’t gotten into trouble for inadvertently sending something out that goes viral in a bad way, that badly worded email to reply-all? Not everything we thing needs to be said, least of all put out there. I imagine many YouTube vloggers will one day cringe when they revisit earlier posts. Just like how political candidate\s ...

This story recently appeared in Spitfire Literary: https://spitfirelitmag.com/issues/december-2018/missed-connections/ Missed Connections by Jane Hertenstein You were ahead of me in line at the Corner Bakery on State and Wabash, getting a salad, and you had on black pants and a very flattering white sweater. I was a few spots back, wearing a black coat, and I’m pretty sure we made eye contact numerous times. I wanted to say hello, but you were with a group of friends and I thought it might be awkward. Yesterday I was riding my bike down Glenview and someone yelled my name, hey Sonja! Who was it? Hey there, saw you at the pop machine just 30 minutes ago. You had on a tie-dyed T-shirt and I was sitting at the table next to the window checking you out. You looked and smiled. Wanna chat? Tim, I said I needed a little time, but it’s been three weeks. Please call. To the guy I made out with last night at the Fireside Bar—I lost your number. You wrote it on a tiny piece of paper I must’ve ...

I'm bringing back a flash I wrote inspired by traveling. A flash is like a postcard, written to remember our trip and let others know: Wish you were here!  OSTROG MONASTERY “Now we climb.” My husband and I were on a day excursion to Ostrog Monastery. Our tour guide had just announced that the last part of the journey was about to commence. The bus pulled into a broad parking lot. It was with great relief we disembarked into a thick cloud of diesel exhaust and pilgrim cigarette smoke. “Now we climb,” our tour guide informed us. I tilted my head. The monastery and cave church blended into the white bluffs above us. Centuries ago, hermit monks had excavated a chapel and living space much like how pigeons or doves build nests in insurmountable crevices impossibly high. Steps cut into the mountainside, zigzagged across the rock face. I hadn’t brought the right shoes. “On the knees,” our guide continued in broken English. click to finish reading https://aboutplacejournal.org/is...

Bright Invisible: Word Sketches from Great Spruce Head Island a PDF chapbook, This chapbook will appeal to readers of the New York School—particularly fans of James Schuyler and John Ashbery. Great Spruce Head Island has been a source of inspiration for generations of artists and writers. I was invited to GSHI to spend a week walking where Frank O’Hara, Ashbery, and Schuyler walked. Through essays, journal entries, persona letters where I channel James Schuyler, I attempt to experience the island through their eyes. CLICK on image to the right of the page to request *FREE PDF

For the next couple of weeks I'd like to post some old stories from my OTHER WRITING archive. Here's a throw-back to The Write Room and a piece called Bitter Fruit . Last summer I worked at a fruit stall at a Chicago green market located at State and Division. I started at the bottom of the ladder, assistant to the assistant peach purveyor; Katie knew her fruit. She always let me know when I was doing something wrong. In terms better suited for the job than myself, I was green. The Russian ladies shopped for Old Golds, a variety of apples good for cooking. “It reminds them of home,” Paul often repeated. My boss Paul never liked how I stacked, “put up,” the apples. He had a system riddled with contradictions. First he warned me not to over handle the fruit, yet I was required to touch every piece. Once he instructed me to find the small ones and put two in the bottom of a quart size basket, then four more on top of them (that way they won’t roll off, he explained) and then a l...

Jean Vanier died May 7, 2019. The way he lived his life and the words he wrote have had a profound affect upon me—and my life choices. On Tuesday as accolades piled up at Facebook and social media, I was struck with how much this gentle man impacted others. You see, he dwelled with the least of these: people with intellectual disabilities. For someone destined for greatness and titles, he gave it up to live modestly, sincerely, and without pretense. To give dignity to others. Jean Vanier came from privilege as a son of the British monarchy’s representative in Canada. After stints in the British and Canadian navies, he considered becoming a Catholic priest. He attended seminary getting a PhD in Philosophy with a dissertation on Aristotle in regards to happiness. In the early 1960s, when he traveled to France to see his spiritual mentor, a member of the Dominican order then serving as a chaplain at a home for people with intellectual disabilities. He found what he described a...

For the next couple of weeks I'd like to post some old stories from my OTHER WRITING archive. Here's a throw-back to Liars' League NYC The fact that she was a cat lady was the least of her issues The spokes of her wheelchair were clogged with fur. The big wheels looked like they were sheathed in brown and grey shag carpeting. Georgina was a cat lady.--click for the rest https://www.liarsleaguenyc.com/fungus-among-us-by-jane-hertenstein