Memoirous

  we had Christmas we had wrapping paper and a thirteen-pound turkey we had tissue paper, tree skirts and a hullabaloo we had all the trimmings joy, tears, mid-afternoon naps and a drink or two we ran out of double As and patience we had too much but it was fun and special a thing to behold lo, a star in the sky

 A piece that was accepted ages ago and is out now. Hoot Literary Review is a postcard, Sea of Lingerie is their November postcard , which you can order--this from their website: The idea is: -to have stories and poems on a postcard, so that they can be displayed and shared easily. Stick it on the fridge! Tuck it in your husband’s/wife’s briefcase or nephew’s book bag! -for people to have a literary magazine that they can both afford to subscribe to and have time to read. Never again will you be able to claim that you don’t have time to read current literature! Each post card will have fewer than two “Tweets.” Except it’s not digital! The idea is: -to have a literary magazine that is excellent in a pure way. artwork by Janet Cameron –want to read more?  Well, you can check out  HOOT  online — which is equally good work, but without the postcard…because let’s face it, we can’t avoid digitalness completely. HOOT online follows the same standard...

I have a new series underway at https://janehertenstein.substack.com/ What’s the difference between Freeze Frame (Substack) and Memoirous (the blog you’re reading)? I’m trying to build up the professional side of my writing and promote my Flash Memoir Workshops. Right now my Substack articles are FREE but would eventually like to use Substack commercially, a bit like Patreon. The plan is for Substack and the workshops to supplement my writing career.   I know, a bit too late when you’re past 65—but, hey, never give up! The biggest difference between content on the two sites: Memoirous acts as my everyday platform. Here you’ll read ubiquitous observations, Zen-like meditations, rants, and insights into writing and life and the writing life. It’s a bit more nimble than my Substack, as I post more frequently. Freeze Frame on Substack consists of articles geared toward those who are intentionally seeking to write—either memoir, novel, flash—or blurred genre. I put a lot of...

A repost from December 25, 2019   Nearly 50 years ago I went to visit my sister who was spending her Christmas break at Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian conference center outside of Taos, New Mexico. She had spent time working there as part of the college staff the summer before. Soon after arriving we grabbed snowshoes off some pegs and trudged back into Box Canyon where our voices echoed off the icy walls. During the long twilight, we slowly made our way back to the house following a trail of twinkling lights, like sparkling crystals in the haloed atmosphere. After a quick cup of hot chocolate we bounded into the back of a pickup truck and set out over gravel and blacktop roads. I had no idea where. It was Christmas Eve. We arrived in pitch darkness at a monastery lit by candlelight. The small chapel was packed. I can still recall the smell of wet wool coats and candlewax. The monks began to chant Noël in Latin. A drowsiness descended upon me. Suddenly I was awakened when th...

Repost from https://www.skylarb.com/post/waiting-for-christmas?fbclid=IwAR32vdhIrqhKqIK9NNC2t0JCdqU_ynNSm7C_PgK3hbiF7LNjgCHIp2j-zrg From Ancient Paths Waiting for Christmas by Jane Hertenstein At Christmas every light comes on, in the basement where my daughter home from college retrieves ice cream, in the dining room a lamp illuminates the abandoned puzzle, the laundry nook dazzles, while the back porch radiates a smoky incandescence, the TV flickers a blue twilight, in the middle of the night my heart pulses as I reflect. Soon the house will be silent, the only light the bulb above my reading chair.

  A repost from December 10, 2024 During the 1960s and '70s, the Goodyear and Firestone tire companies peddled annual Christmas albums in their stores, usually for a dollar each, to customers who waited to get their tires changed or wheels aligned. I remember going with my mother to pick up the Firestone Christmas Album. We might have also stopped by the S & H store to redeem stamped books—but that’s another blog post. My mother was a sucker for all deals and promotions. The fill up the tank and get whatever the gas station was offering or buying heavy boxes of soap detergent that contained--yes! for real!—water glasses. We also went for the prize in the cereal box—again, worthy of another blog post, another flash memory. I’m trying to think of why I was always my mother’s buddy for these errands and the only thing I can think of is that I didn’t object. I was the youngest and couldn’t be left alone at home, but also the other kids could have watched me. But, I would tag ...

A repost from December 05, 2014 Do you remember these?   Every Christmas all four of us kids would find a Book of candy Life Savers in our stocking. Right away I’d eat my favorites—what were they?—most likely wintOgreen and cherry. Then I’d move onto secondary ones. Until all that were left in the “book” were butterscotch and rum-flavored rolls. They might stay bookmarked well into February or March. Sometimes my sister and I would make trades. Swap one of hers for one of mine. The boys most likely gobbled theirs down before New Years. We came to expect the Book of Life Savers. Even the year Mom was in the hospital, we recognized that familiar oblong box sticking out of the cuff of our knit stockings. Even after we left home for college and one or two of us might return home for the holiday there would be a Book of Life Savers waiting for us. For my parents it might have been a throw-away gift, an easy pick, something t...

Yes, it’s cold outside. Bone-chilling. Sometimes all I want to do is crawl into my loft and sit under blankets and read a book while sipping a hot drink. The cozy quotient. As a kid on school break during the holidays I’d read first the books I got for Christmas, then I’d read the ones my mother bought for my father: current paperbacks, then I’d reread stuff off my brother Steve’s shelf. If I could get someone to drive me to the library, I’d be set for a while. Anyway, my mother might find me sitting on top of the heat register in the bathroom—if she bothered to look for me. It was the warmest place n the house and a place utterly private. No one wanted to barge into the bathroom and out of respect usually didn’t knock on the door. They’d go to one of the other bathrooms. This week with the relentless cold, where not even a hot drink or thick socks helped—I found myself remembering: this young girl seeking solace in books, a warm refuge in the midst of a family where I felt like ...

I’ve been nominated!  My piece Circa 1984 has been nominated by Switch for the Best Microfiction 2026 . Best Microfiction 2026  will be published by  Pelekinesis  in the summer of 2026. The  Best Microfiction  anthology series considers stories of only 400 words or fewer. Co-edited by award-winning microfiction writer/editor  Meg Pokrass , and Flannery O’Connor Prize-winning author  Gary Fincke , the anthology will have Pulitzer Prize winning poet  Diane Seuss  serve as final judge. To read Circa 1984 go to: https://www.switchonline.org/ then search Microfiction 2025 for Hertenstein—sorry can’t find an easier way, more direct link Meanwhile: all my ebooks are half off   

Flash Memoir: Writing Prompts to Get You Flashing We begin with a sudden memory, follow it to see where it leads. Yet so many of us tend to ignore these flashes. We think later yet later on we might have forgotten or lost the relevance of the moment, the urgency that led us there. I recommend a process I call write right now. In the amount of time it takes you to brush your teeth, you can jot down the memory and an outline which can be filled in later. The prompts in this book are designed to spur memories, to get you writing. I’ll also direct you to resources, authors to read and study, and places to submit. What reviewers are saying: StalkyReader 5.0 Stars 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 ...

Baby It’s Cold Outside* Talk about Christmas lyrics —hahaha.  Anyway, here is a repost from December 23, 2019 O Holy Night is a well-known Christmas carol composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the French poem "Minuit, chrétiens" (Midnight, Christians). I remember it as the finale to the Christmas Eve program at the Presbyterian church we attended in Kettering. It can be a long night until the next morning to hold off on opening presents. At least the car ride and time at church filled those tense, anxious hours. O Holy Night seems to be the perfect vehicle for a soloist, and, indeed, the woman who sang it annually was a trained professional, the daughter of one of the congregants, who came down from New York City. I remember one snowy Christmas in particular when there was speculation whether she would make it in time. Yet, always, in the end she rose up from the robed choir to take her place at the podium. The lights in the church were dimmed, lit mainly by the Adven...

“Sleigh Ride” 1948 Composer Leroy Anderson Lyricist Mitchell Parish Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy and cozy are we We’re snuggled up together like two birds of a feather would be Let’s take the road before us and sing a chorus or two Come on, it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you I thought about this song a few days ago while out on a walk with my grandson. You see, he was just having his first realization of “Snow Day.” Meaning, no school. A heavy snow had fallen and then a light rain, then a temperature drop. All this meant that the school district cancelled classes—thus, his nursery school followed suit. His sense of time and what it means has been getting more and more honed. The other day he said you know what today is? I said Wednesday. And he said, Winter. He’s beginning to understand the seasons, the divisions of time, how the day and seasons break down, what these sections are called. Out on a walk to do errands we went to ...

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/chicagojane   All my books are currently 50% off—a great chance to pick up my two how-to books on writing flash memoir, plus 365 Affirmations for the Writer (bonus material with prompts). This is a book to take the writer into the new year with inspiration for EVERY day. Quotes from published “name” writers and tips I’ve found to keep going (for over 50 years! I started writing as a baby). Review: “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 whenever you need it.” 

  Many of us are looking to write memories—either in the form of literary memoir or simply to record family history. This how-to book looks at memoir in small, bite-size pieces, helping the writer to isolate or freeze-frame a moment and then distill it onto paper. Flash is generally anywhere between 1,500 words to as few as 66 (I've seen 6-word memoirs!). Since I began exploring the genre I've had over 30 flashes published. Lately I've also been teaching Flash Memoir. so this how-to book is a summation of my process, the approach I take to flush out a flash. Even if you are only interested in flash, or only in memoir, or only in fiction--I believe there is something in this small book that you can take away. Order  Freeze Frame: How To Write Flash Memoir  TODAY!

All eBooks 50% Off at Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/chicagojane All my books are currently 50% off—a great chance to pick up my two how-to books on writing flash memoir, plus my latest: Woman of a Certain Age, the hybrid story collection just published!

  Writing is a journey. Every time we sit down to begin a piece or write the first chapter or the first line we are venturing into uncharted territory. We never know how it is going to turn out. Oh, we have a certain idea, like most pioneers or explorers. But, these journeys can take detours; we have to react to circumstances and often go with our gut. 365 Affirmations for the Writer  is about listening to those who have gone before us and letting them guide us with their insight, their own trials. They know the terrain, how harsh it can be; they know where we can find water, shade, and rest along the way. By reading what others have said, we can survey the path before us, count the cost, and plunge ahead. My motivation for compiling  365 Affirmations for the Writer  is to offer light along the way. From day to day, week to week, we are getting further inside our writing, further down the path. The book is 365 days of inspiration—quotes from writers and writing...

  Christmas Song Lyrics December 14, 2020  Lately, while listening to Christmas music—yes, I begin listening way before Thanksgiving—I’ve been struck by the relevance or how certain lyrics have taken on new significance. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, written in 1943 during war-time is just as relevant today under a pandemic where we cannot travel, must stay socially distanced, and DO NOT eat figgy pudding together! Have yourself a merry little Christmas Let your heart be light From now on Our troubles will be out of sight *** Through the years We all will be together If the fates allow So hang a shining star Upon the highest bough A merry little Christmas now O, Holy Night is another one. I’ve blogged about this before—here is a  link ,  https://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2019/12/o-holy-night.html Some bright (not really, maybe a little) examples:  Long lay the world in sin and error pining Till he appeared and the soul felt it's worth The thrill of h...

as always this time of year--a repost “December” by James Schuyler December 06, 2012 The giant Norway spruce from Podunk, its lower branches bound, this morning was reared into place at Rockefeller Center. I thought I saw a cold blue dusty light sough in its boughs the way other years the wind thrashing at the giant ornaments recalled other years and Christmas trees more homey. Each December! I always think I hate “the over-commercialized event” and then bells ring, or tiny light bulbs wink above the entrance to Bonwit Teller or Katherine going on five wants to look at all the empty sample gift-wrapped boxes up Fifth Avenue in swank shops and how can I help falling in love? A calm secret exultation of the spirit that tastes like Sealtest eggnog, made from milk solids, Vanillin, artificial rum flavoring; a milky impulse to kiss and be friends It’s like what George and I were talking about, the East West Coast divide: Californians need to do a thing to enjoy it. A smile in the street may...

  Here is a Christmas Day excerpt from  Beyond Paradise  my book ready now for a download. Louise and her mother and several members of the mission are in an internment camp in the Philippines. Christmas Day arrived—my second in the Philippines, my first in captivity. It came without store-bought presents, without Papa, Julie, or mother. Mother mostly lay in bed except for when I took her by the hand and led her to the shower, the toilet, or to meals. She had hardly spoken a word since her outburst about the wedding album. As I looked into her vacant face, I often wondered what she thought about. Was she thinking of Papa? Without Papa she was missing her other half, the part of her that said she fixed good meals, thanked her for being a good wife, held her hand, and smoothed her hair at the dinner table. It was hard watching her crumble a little bit more each day. *** I thought long and hard about what to give Mother. She didn’t need a new cup or bowl. I knew what she wan...

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We greet each other like an echo: Hi Jane! Hi Jane! We’ve known each other for over 50 years. Fifty! Through milestones we’ve stayed connected—if even miles apart. Now separated by a lake. I went through a pile of papers this a.m.—in an attempt to organize, but keep stopping to remember and think. Birthday cards from years past—many of them from Jane. Here’s to fifty more!  

Another Year Of writing. Of shoveling snow. Planting a garden. Inch by inch. One word after another. I’m like those old ladies I used to make fun of. Who keep trying to be relevant. Who think they still have something to say. I’ve been reading literary criticism of Ernest Hemingway—literary and criticism, the author spends the first 30 pages not necessarily defending Hemingway but acknowledging the criticism of the man, the Hemingway myth. Today’s culture wraps the persona into the writing—the two cannot be separated—making it difficult to really examine the literature. Hemingway embraced flash and hybrid before they became a thing. He was king of the declarative sentence. Especially if it focused on an aside. His sparse, naturalistic dialogue was famous for talking around the subject. He approached writing as if it were a job. He called it his “work.” Once he got his work done, he’d drink or box or loaf, go to horse races. As he got older, the process got harder and ha...

Snow Tires   I deliberate . . . Now? Yes, there’s been snowfall already and icy patches camouflaged by piles of leaves. But, now? Murphy’s Law dictates that as soon as I put on the studded tires the temperatures warm up and I’m made a fool, jumping the gun. It also means summer is over. Autumn too. Did I do enough? Maybe there’s one more ride out there where I won’t freeze but can stop and enjoy the herons belly-high in the wetlands or the cranes screeching in the tall grass or the geese pooping next to the robot lawnmower at the Meridian Historic Village. More time is what I wish for, one more week, a squeak, smidgen. There’s no reasoning with weather. It comes on it’s on schedule. I leave the bike at the shop with my snow tires necklaced around the handlebars. Moving on, is what I tell myself.

  Winter Comes Early   Is it the light, seeping through the bare tree branches, early—or slipping below the western horizon, late afternoon? Is it the crisp mornings, the deck white with frost, treacherous to walk? Is it the piles of brown leaves suddenly whooshed off the trees? Is it the piped Christmas/Xmas music in the stores right after Halloween? The scurry hurry of frantic squirrels feasting upon the sodden porch pumpkins. Maybe the 4 inches of snow that fell overnight and frosted the porch, the pumpkins, made the deck a blanket, blanketed the piles of dead leaves, and gave the music context, a sense of cozy familiarity, as we lit candles and warmed our hands around mugs of hot mulled cider. Wintery. It came.

  Foligno, Italy 2004 As anyone who has ever traveled abroad knows, all it takes is a few days of rain to turn the mood, flip the trip into an endeavor of survival. In 2004 the family went to Italy right after the November election. The first greeting at passport control after landing was: Your country has just re-elected George Bush. My husband apologized. Stamp. Out into the chaotic public transportation system that is the Rome airport. The weather was perfect, as was our spirits the first couple days. We had energy for the ruins, the underlit dim churches, for the long lines to see David. We ate pizza on the steps. We ate Nutella-filled pastries called cornetto because they resembled little horns. We ate cheap, saving our euros for the price of admission, the next experience, the funicular. In retrospect, we were slightly on the verge of protein deficiency, always a bit hungry. In a foreign land, it is sometimes hard to interpret what one is feeling. There is always this min...