A rusty paper clip held them together. Typed letters, faded from the dark-inked punch of typewriter keys filled lines on discolored pages rimmed in muted brown. Stories told here were pulled from a brown envelope written over forty years ago by my then college self. The pages took me back in time to settings and places where words were heavy [...]
As the fall mornings evolve and daylight diminishes, I find myself waking in the dark. It feels like just yesterday when the early morning sun lifted quickly over the horizon, rousing me from sleep, and the bedroom would take on a lighted glow. Now, I struggle to see any hint of light through the trees; the room remains dark. I [...]
She handed to me a shoe box patterned in stamps from around the world, only the box wasn’t for shoes but was for photographs, and it wasn’t to hold memories of global travels but to house snapshots of the journeys in years of my family. I had placed it among similar boxes in a narrow closet among unused coffee table [...]
If you’ve read my memoir, Under The Birch Tree, you’ll learn that as a young girl, I was a walker, circumnavigating the yards that surrounded my home as if to plot memories with every footprint. And to this day, I walk, traversing the woods along curvy earth trails marked by bumps and dips, or meander through the neighborhood, pivoting on [...]
This morning I ripped the month’s page away from the year. March, defined by thirty-one small white boxes, was filled with ink, a few arrows, and many cross outs. The month was a busy one for me as scheduling dominated my weeks. From an electrician called to my home to replace a switch, but needed to reschedule for a day [...]
Last month I posted “truth didn’t set me free.” It was about my experience one early January morning in a courtroom. I read the post a week later and then took it down. As a memoir writer, I didn’t like how I wrote it; there should be more meaning to the experience than what I had written. But I wondered [...]
In November, a traditional month for homecoming, I gave thanks. And now in December as the year ends and calls for holiday parties, tree lighting ceremonies, and Hanukkah preparations, some may recount their year in specifics. Maybe you know what I’m talking about—the letter—tucked inside a holiday card you received. You read a script font printed on holiday paper catching [...]
Have you ever liked an author’s second book more than, let’s say, their first? It’s not that an author’s latest book is better; it may be because the writing was different. You may have enjoyed their work of fiction over their first nonfiction book. I’ve always been a writer. I journaled through my anxious teens and in college, I recorded [...]
Since I’ve been a memoir writer and a defender of the genre, I’ve been righting what I believe is an inaccuracy. By definition, memoir focuses on one segment, an event or experience of a writer’s life. But I would argue to widen the lens and say a book can still be called a memoir even if told with multiple events [...]
Connection. That word is well-known and well-used thanks to social media. Our electronic conversations never lack the words “get connected” or “connect with me.” The social media applications—Facebook, Instagram and Twitter —are the top contenders that keep us connected with others. Through our connecting posts, we learn of others’ daily lives, who they meet, places they go, even the foods [...]