Culled from a Journal: Summer in Salvador
A friend lived in El Salvador for several weeks one summer. Recently, she went to Art Hill and reread through the journal she kept those months, culled the following lines, and told me I could…
Category: Writing
White Gods by Zenique Gardner
Zenique was in the summer Writing Rejuvenation class, and she contributed to our rejuvenation in several ways. She gave me permission to share the following. I was in Africa for less than a week when I encountered their…
Epistolary Ecstasy (Love Letters, Notes of Gratitude, Postcards with Brio): An Autumn Writing Class
“Dear God, I am fourteen years old. I am I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me.” Alice Walker, The Color…
Thank You, Dear Layla Writing Class, Spring 2016
Dear Friends Thank you for coming to Tower Grove Place Thank you for listening week after week Thank you for becoming acquainted with each other Thank you for meeting up with me, like at Kaldi’s…
Five Thousand Years of Jewish Creativity
I learned Hebrew by dint of much effort. It is a difficult language, severe and ascetic. Its ancient basis is the proverb from the Mishna: “Silence is a fence for wisdom.”…If it weren’t for Hebrew,…
Some Things Take Time
I read the following in 2005; Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine came out in 2015: Ironic essay, novelistic narrative, autobiographical fragment, historical fact. Flight of fantasy—the synthetic power of the novel is capable of combining…
Our Father
In the constellation of geniuses, he is a blinding light and father of us all. (I exclude Shakespeare because for Shakespeare no human epithet is enough.)… I think Ulysses is the most diverting, brilliant, intricate,…
This Is It/493
Lindsay Sihilling shared this with me this morning, and I am happy to pass it on… This is your conscience, artists and writers. You know that your conscience has tried in every possible subtle way…
Good Advice
“One of these times I’ll write my autobiography, which will certainly be fiction.” Glenn Gould