Dirda in Threes
RULE TWO: General duties of a student — pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students. —Sister Corita Kent Michael Dirda, Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments Indiana University Press, 2000…
Category: Gratitude
Dear Teacher by Yael DiPlacido-Eastman
I once asked Jean Abbott what made her choose the path that she chose in life. Her answer became a guiding principle in my life. She said that she was raised to believe (I believe…
Share the Wealth: With Gratitude for Jean Abbott
I invite you to join us for an evening of sharing stories about Sister Jean Abbott (1943-2021), who was the founder of the Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma here in Saint Louis….
Share the Wealth with Natalie Long/Gratitude and Grace: Lessons from a Summer Garden
In late 2019, my partner and I conceived a garden. Rooted in dusty recollections of summer gardening with grandparents, our memories animated a vision that inevitably turned out differently than imagined; as reality eventually supplanted…
Accompaniment/2
Alive beyond Alive My friend Loyola worked at Mount Saint Joseph and knew Pete Mosher. She and I reminisced before Pete’s funeral. Cab Yau picked me up at Loyola’s that morning and we went to…
Mentshes/5
Sign Up by Lindsey Trout Hughes Hi, Mark! I hope this note finds you well. I saw your post last week about the spring writing course. I asked Katie Consamus over coffee if she’d like…
Huzzah!/2
Make Lists Not War Dear Cami, One index of a profitable reading experience may very well be in the marginalia we make. For instance, I read Ed Sanders’ collection of poetry Let’s Not Keep Fighting…
Share the Wealth on Sunday 22 November: The Practice of “Disponibilidade”
I first learned this Portuguese word when Mev Puleo was working on translating her interviews with radical Brazilian Christians in the early 90s. A one-word English synonym she gave me was “availability.” In her book …
A Public Reflection on Tonight and on Hope’s Beautiful Daughters (as Shared on Social Media) by Rachel Sacks
For six months I’ve gotten to read and learn and grow with a real sweet group of folks. Mark Chmiel is such a generous teacher, and the communities he builds, so loving and expansive. An…
An Actor
Sealing the Deal A couple of months after The Book of Mev came out, I did a reading and signing at at Left Bank Books in Saint Louis’s Central West End. I asked one of…