Memoirous

  So to start this new year . . . 2021.   I applied for a grant from the City of Chicago, deadline Dec. 1—but, first, in order to get the money I needed a project, which propelled me into researching possibilities. Since there was/is a pandemic, I couldn’t apply for residencies or conferences. As a mid-level (at best) writer/author I didn’t want to do seminars, especially of basics. I’ve been a part of OCWW, SCBWI for the past ten to fifteen years—and wanted to go beyond what those organizations offered. The grant was specific: monies couldn’t go to a graduate program. As a Chicago resident I’ve been aware of and actually visited Story Studio  (coincidentally up the street from where I lived). Lived. I was also contemplating some left turns. Story Studio Novel-in-a-Year class for YA/MG with James Klise  seemed perfect. The class was selective; I had to apply at once and still not know if I made it in by the deadline for the grant. Well, I got into the cla...

EMPATHY AND NEW YEAR James Schuyler A notion like that of empathy  inspires great distrust in us, because it connotes  a further dose of irrationalism and  mysticism. Lévi-Strauss Whitman took the cars all the way from Camden and when he got here or rather there, said, “Quit quoting,” and took the next back, through the Jersey meadows which were that then. But what if it is all, “Maya, illusion?” I doubt it, though. Men are not so inventive. Or few are. Not knowing a name for something proves nothing. Right now it isn’t raining, snowing, sleeting, slushing, yet it is doing something. As a matter of fact it is raining snow. Snow from cold clouds that melts as it strikes. To look out a window is to sense wet feet. Now to infuse the garage with a subjective state and can’t make it seem to even if it is a little like What the Dentist Saw a dark gullet with gleams and red. “You come to me at midnight” and say, “I can smell that after Christmas letdown coming like a h...