Memoirous

I’m having a bad day. I’m feeling invisible. I’m feeling like my voice is not heard. What to do? a) Shoot people b) Shot women c) Shoot women that appear like they are from Asia You get my point. Despite what the young white gunman said, despite what the bald white police spokesperson said: This is a hate crime. And, yes, there is a pattern. It started when the gunman who blames his porn addiction, began to see/unsee Asian women as a means to an end. Women in general have been the victims of this kind of unseeing for --- too long. Immigrant women have been the victim of this kind of transactional behavior for—ever. Ocean Vuong’s book On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous has been on my reading to-do list for a while and I was able to place a hold on the book and finally read it. It is a small book, to be read almost like poetry, line by line. Indeed, he is a poet, winner of the Eliot Prize and a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. The poet writes a novel that feels like memoir. W...

I watched via YouTube a behind-the-scenes of the movie Nomadland (see my review, https://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2021/02 /nomadland-review.html). Readers of this blog, both of you, are aware that I like to explore the fuzzy edges of meta fiction. Nomadland is a perfect example of this genre. https://youtu.be/a6g-PA78yd8   Ahh-ha, of course, Fran and Fern, just a casual rearrangement of a name. In this short clip Frances McDormand pointed out instances where she blended real-life details with her character. Such as when she is explaining to Linda May the significance of her plates, the pattern Autumn Leaf, This is all real stuff—which is why the movie resonates so much with all of us, even if we don’t live in a van. We realize we are one degree away from slipping sideways. Fern/Fran describes how her father gifted her with the tableware, collecting them randomly at yard sales. It references a hard-scrabble background, yet one filled with love and attention. There were pe...

 then consider buying/downloading (whatever you prefer both a book and an e-version) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q5KBNNC/ref a review at Amazon 5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiration Galore Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2015 Verified Purchase This book is a miracle of inspiration for writers. I highly recommend it to anyone who even dabbles with the thought of getting stories down on paper. It may be the only encouragement you need to begin. A good book for writers Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2015 This is a lovely and helpful book. Sometimes just the right quote is all it takes to remind me that we writers are in this together--that it's hard for all of us, but that a writing life is a considered life and a terrific life. I came across a number of quotes in this book that I had never read before, almost all of them provocative and useful. I recommend this book to other writers to dip in and out of, for that little bit of inspiration and affirmation wh...

 learn how to write flash memoir and buy https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Memoir-Writing-Prompts-Flashing-ebook/dp/B0714K6B41/ a review at Amazon 5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Create Without It! Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2017 While Jane Hertenstein’s book Flash Memoir is ostensibly geared toward writers, this book is a must-have for anyone who is creating art of any kind. Filled with amazing historical factoids (check out Hemingway’s lost valise or Wordsworth’s almost-permanent houseguest, Samuel Coleridge) as well as the writer’s personal examples of following her own advice, the main thrust of the book is to get the reader’s creativity flowing, and boy howdy, the author succeeds at that. Each little chapter or section describes something that can be used as a prompt for creativity, be it old postcards, newspaper headlines, websites filled with breathtaking photos, or basic, evocative stimuli such as certain smells or sudden memories. The author then gives an example o...

 learn to do what I do and buy  https://www.amazon.com/Freeze-Frame-Write-Flash-Memoir/dp/1974670597 a review at Amazon 5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Fantastic Resource!Reviewed in Australia on November 21, 2018 Verified Purchase I am a huge fan of flash fiction and lurking in my writing interests has been the desire to document my personal history - but it is a daunting process, coming that close to hurts and pains, without just documenting all the good stuff and making a one-sided biog. Jane Hertenstein has made this process soooo much easier by teaching the writer in me to touch into my history in small flashes. That single 'freedom' has made this book so valuable that I have read it twice in the 9 days I have owned a copy! And the second time around I found I was - for the first time - drawn to a style of poetry I feel I could tackle! So two victories in this book for me! (Can't wait to see what I get when I read it third time around!) I read a LOT of writing books as I ...

In this time of no live music, no concerts, I am entertained daily by the sound of a train whistle, woo-wooing, a slow serenade, adagio, growing in intensity, a blaring horn, the rise and fall of a contra-alto, a bass beat trilling inside of me, reaching a crescendo, that sudden place both empty and full, blowing out all the stops the sound riding on the wind, full of melancholy, regret so sorry, so sorry, so sorry The last note of the orchestra, echoing like a memory A thread pulling me along, my heart in its grip Hush, a lullaby, falling, falling I fix dinner, the train radio left on to keep me company Moonrise, the whistle fades, leaving with the last light Now time for the crickets in the cracks of the patio, starting to tune up

I’ve tried to describe Eugene, this small part of the Pacific Northwest, to my Midwest friends as snow falling on cedar. This term evokes one) the title of fiction, Snow Falling on Cedars is a 1994 novel by David Guterson, a film was also made based on the book, very atmospheric, which led to my use of the term, two) a sense of hush. Yes, there is a lot of rain, fog, and tall, tall pines or evergreens, likely cedar. But it is this hush, that surrounds me. Even in traffic, there is a quiet that settles on me as I ride to the bike shop. Then, this week I discovered snow falling on cedars. Not literally as we’ve had a spat of dry, warmer weather (before the damp cold returned). It is the snow-white blossoms appearing on the trees. In yards, down by amazon Creek, as I climb into the southern hills. In the cool morning hush what I first encountered as snow, was in fact flowering. All around me settles this feeling=ancient, enduring. Peace.   In a few weeks a gentle breeze will s...

 Have you been seeing on PBS the advance trailers for the new Ken Burns film on Hemingway? I’m getting excited. Now, to be honest, I haven’t always been a Hemingway fan. In college I had a knee-jerk reaction to the macho, big-game hunter misogynist image. I say image, because I had a change of heart after reading A Moveable Feast—after which I turned to his earlier works, the novels etc. It is the style, not the man, I most admire. I’ve tried to adopt his use of the declarative sentence. In flash there is a need to pare down words into a paragraph essence. A squirt or a dab will hopefully evoke, jusgt enough to bring the reader into the equation. I still tend to overwrite, throw the whole thesaurus at an idea. Hemingway was a complicated man and I’m interested in what Burns and Novik have uncovered in their documentary. One of the trailers hinted at one of the obstacles I had with the man/writer: his focus on gender and how it might not be as boxed in as critics once thought....

I write my grocery list Taxes Scribble down recipes   Writing what I know: not knowing, of abject terror, of emptiness.   I got off a plane with absolutely no idea of                                                                                     What next.   The airport parking lot at night, grey beneath arc lights Pacific Time Zone, already midnight in Chicago Time passed, past, no going back   My son-in-law picks me up, the only car in the lot As we roil out I try to pick out something familiar, something I know   We...

The reasons are long gone, but not the memory or the feeling. I needed that ceramic soup tureen I saw in a shop in Orvieto. Orvieto is in the Umbria region about a half hour train ride north of Florence, but no less a step-sister. There are phenomenal frescoed ceilings in the main cathedral that can blow the renaissance socks off the Baptistry of San Giovanni. Anyway, I was introduced to Deruta pottery, typical of the region. A kind of Maiolica or tin-glazed pottery that is not really suitable for travelers such as myself and my husband who hopped on and off trains with small backpacks. In Orvieto I fell in love with a feeling, a desire, call it homesickness. I longed for Soup Club. Back home in Chicago our fourth floor in the building where we lived had loosely established a once weekly soup club. Much like a potluck one person volunteered to make soup for the whole floor, roughly 40 people. Someone else might bring homemade bread and someone else a left over—we stretched the food t...

I was a childhood insomniac—now I can barely make it past 8 o’clock, but back in my tweens I’d stay up all night reading, afraid to close my eyes against the dark night. I shared a room with my sister and when she had turned out the light—or, most likely, made ME turn off the light (she had a way of jumping into bed and pulling the covers over her head and demanding I get out of bed and do the duty). I’d then instead of returning to my bed, I’d head to the closet, close the door, turn on the light and live another life. There was a summer there where I discovered the works of Jules Verne, what might now be considered “soft” science fiction.” I was continually amazed at how he had predicted technical and scientific advancements that came after him. Maybe it was the time period: the thrill of industrialization, that modern man could build whatever they needed. The power of the steam engine. The only thing man couldn’t fix was himself, the turning of all that industrial know-how into ki...

 I’m beginning to see a glimmer in the distance, a light on the horizon. Literally. As I come out of work now at 6 o’clock in the evening there is now a soft glow of light hanging over the sky. Which means the days are getting longer. Slowly the mornings of waking in darkness and leaving work and riding home in the dark are gradually receding. A suffused gray layered with clouds hovers overhead, dusky rose-pink, a lavender before purpling. A sun slipping behind hills sending out a shield of blue-green. A sheen, if only for a second. Then street lamps and a lowering. Soon, soon, soon my soul seems to be saying: a shift, a titling of the earth towards the sun.

As a writer we are always looking for inspiration—be it nature or Netflix. I’m always amazed by writers who say when they are in the midst of a project refuse to read other’s work that might affect their own. I readily admit I steal. Poetry causes me to slip sideways. Words or phrasing ignites a memory of something softly hidden. Perhaps so ordinary it fell beneath the midden of everyday life. The attitude of who cares. Well, obviously this crazy brain of mine because it will suddenly offer up what was already there, wanting to be revisited. When I moved out to Eugene it was with a bicycle and a suitcase. Word. And, that suitcase could not exceed 50 pounds. I obsessively packed, unpacked, reconfigured items until I reached a number I thought could win me the Alaska Airlines lottery. At the airport I came in 2 ounces short of the maximum!!!!! More than clothes, more than Christmas gifts (though there were those, the lighter ones) I brought with me James Schuyler. His selected po...