Memoirous

I am still stumbling across critiques of the movie Little Women.  This one I found randomly on Twitter. I say randomly because 1) I don't have the app on my phone and 2) I follow maybe a total of three people, about the same number who follow me. And, it so happens one of those people I follow linked to Alison Stine's essay in the Village Witch about the movie Little Women . What if Amy was the Better Artist? It is an essay about women in the arts--about what part of ourselves we have to give up, allow to be nibbled away, sacrificed in order to achieve recognition. This is especially pertinent right now during the Harvey Weinstein trial.  I think we all know by now that there isn't a level playing field.  I wish our work could speak for us, but instead it is about the pitch, the MFA, the professor or mentor who stands behind us. And, I've been to enough writer's conferences--sometimes it's about who we hook up with for the week that determines vis...

In 2002 I was invited to the Breadloaf Writer's Conference where I attended on a scholarship because I served on the waitstaff. at the time I didn't understand how selective this invitation was and how prestigious the conference was. The history of Breadloaf goes back to Willa Cather and Robert Frost to name a few. Through the years it diversified. Several years before me a wonderful poet Agha Shahid Ali was on faculty (an honor for any writer). In December 2001 he died too young of brain cancer. Agha Shahid Ali came to the US as a student from the Kashmir region. He became enamored of the poetry form called ghazal. At Breadloaf the waitstaff was each presented with The Country Without a Post Office, a book of his poetry. I always loved the lonely little line from the book: "The world is full of paper. Write to me." The book refers to a point in time and a place. Kashmir is a disputed territory belonging to India but more aligned with Pakistan. It is here that wo...

The Friend By Sigrid Nunez Riverhead Books, 2018 Let me start this review on a completely random note: I’ve been thinking a lot lately about lament. Lament is such a brilliant expression for the times we live in. It beats giving up. Yet there are so many who have done just that—giving up. Giving up also takes many different forms. Such as turning off your Smartphone and living in a cabin off the grid. I know people who are doing just that: isolating. I can no longer reach them and when I do they do not want to engage. It feels like a death. Then there are those who have chosen death. Every day we hear of someone who has taken their life. News media tells us it is an epidemic. A current of hopelessness permeates the air, to the point that sometimes I have to escape. Disengage. What a vicious cycle. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. One way I choose to escape is through long-distance cycling trips. In fact, I’m planning one right now. Even just the planning...