A Writer and His Readers
And nothing would make me happier than having made it possible for some of my readers to recognize their own experiences, difficulties, questionings, sufferings, and so on, in mine, and to draw from that realistic…
Category: Writing
From a Brand New Notebook by Katie Consamus
The magnificent Katie Consamus sent me this a while back, and I am happy to share it here. January 12, 2011 at 10:43pm From page one of a brand new notebook. Written first with a…
Writing Practice in Haiti, 2010
Occasionally, Sara Rendell asks me for some writing topics for her to take off on. Thus, the following email… Tuesday 3 August 2010 Dear Sara, Try these! Looking at the moon at night in Haiti…
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…
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…